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Message: <blockquote data-quote="!DWolf" data-source="post: 8629831" data-attributes="member: 7026314">Some updates:In Legacy of Fire the characters got the scroll they were looking for in the tomb (and a one-shot item, the rod of resurrection, for a PCs personal quest to resurrect his wife, they also found a glass dagger that when used breaks and gives the effect of finger of death in addition to normal damage) and came back up. Since they had skipped effectively half the content of the dungeon, I had a gnoll civil war break out with the death of the Carrion King and a vicious three way fight going on that blocked off certain areas and forced the PCs to either fight never-ending waves of opponents (moving encounters from nearby areas) or sneak through exploring the parts of the dungeon they skipped to look for another exit (and to get to the dead body of the wife, who was a goblin follower of Lamashtu). They choose the waves and fought through three waves (giant hyenas, carrion guards, and unchosen) to get to the wife’s body to use the rod of resurrection. The wife then had them go down and take care of the Madfang the Holy Ascentioner: which they did in less than a round as he rolled low on initiative and the barbarian and rogue rolled high. The barbarian strode in, raged, and crit for triple damage with a magic flaming axe. Then the rogue walk up and sneak attacked with the glass dagger and that was the end of Mad Fang. Which was a shame because I was planning on him throwing alchemist items to delay the party while leading them on a chase through the unexplored portions of the third level. However, they then asked the wife which way to escape since the route they took through the gatehouse was blocked by (now hostile) troglodytes and she is leading them through the spider’s route as they are mostly to big to use the routes the goblins took. And while they were debating the route, the sorcerer split from the party, headed through the gnoll wives, and reached the prison to rescue Yuseifah (who had information on his family that was sold into slavery), he then had to race to catch up with the party who had moved on without him. All in all it was a fantastic game.In Abomination Vaults we had a plot and roleplay heavy session with the entire first two hours taken up with introducing two new surprise PCs (well a surprise to me) and dealing with the immediate aftermath of the deadtide. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The townsfolk were ready to form a mob to lynch Wrin (the party’s employer/friend who asked them to check out the Gauntlight) as they had decided she was behind the deadtide (she’s an eccentric tiefling who hired adventurer’s to break into the Gauntlight and immediately after that was the deadtide – she obviously needed access to it to start the deadtide. Logic). The four original players tried to stop this but rolled poorly while the two new ones (and one of the original players that rolled a nat 1 to request) got swept up in the mob. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The mayor (who everyone despises) turned out to be despicable. He did however manage to stop the mob. He then employed the players to go back to the Gauntlight and a) get evidence that Wrin was behind it so that he could have her lynched legally and/or b) stop this from happening again. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The players then went around and roleplayed with the various players in town (including Carmin who is the only one in town more despised than the mayor). The Champion of Milani is now going to run for mayor, so I get to have fun with small town politics in the future and, because of the structure of Otari, I can use this to hook them into the plots of the lumber companies and the second part of Troubles in Otari. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Otari is extremely well designed with lots of good schisms/sources of conflict and personalities to draw from and a lot of side/quests mysteries that lead to the dungeon. It also has evocative but not too fantastical locations (the giants wheel and flume, Wrin’s Wonders, the Crooks Nook) and I had a blast running it. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I got player buy in for the downtime rules (1 day in game/1 week real time) to get them more involved with the town. I wish though that I had implemented this from the start as what I was trying to emphasis in this portion of the adventure, from a theme/hero’s journey point of view, is contrasting the mundane world of Otari filled with petty people and cutthroat small-town politics with the fanatical and dangerous world of the dungeon. The hour walk through the swamp is the transition between the two. The deadtide was the intrusion of the fanatical on the mundane and the actual inciting incident of the story (which is why I like starting at the entrance of the Gauntlight, Wrin asking them to check out the gauntlight is not the inciting incident of the adventure and shouldn’t have a lot of time devoted to it). And I think this would have worked better with downtime spent in Otari at the beginning of the adventure so the players could know the town better. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I like there is no proper inn in Otari. This forces the players to interact with the town people to find a place to stay and gives me options to hook them into scenarios. Currently two PCs (cleric and champion) are staying in monk cells at the Dawnflower library, one PC is crashing on the floor/common room of the Crook’s Nook for 5 cp a night and not happy about it (wizard), one was staying at the jail but had to spend the night with the champion in the library as the jail was full after the deadtide (thief rogue, he got caught stealing and he’s waiting for his trial but his old friend the champion has vouched for him so he gets out of jail for adventuring), one is staying at a worker camp outside the lumberyard (lumberjack fighter), and one is slumming with the druids at the Stone Ring (ranger). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I am of the opinion that hooks are the lifeblood of large dungeons as they give the players focus and reasons to venture ever deeper, and Abomination Vaults is delivering both the quality and quantity of hooks to keep the players engaged. One problem I have though, since I am running Troubles in Otari alongside Abomination Vaults, is while Abomination Vaults has a lot of good hooks to Otari, and Troubles has some not so great hooks to Otari, there are no hooks to or from Abomination Vaults to Troubles in Otari. I am inserting hooks between the two (the fish camp is near the sea caves Jaul uses and he sometimes crashes there, the necromancer in part 2 is intrigued with the legend of Belcorra and Volluk or even in league with Volluk and is going to supply him with more dwarves in exchange for his patronage, the cult in part three is at the entrance to the tunnel from C2, morlock surface activity is conflated with the work of the Leadbusters, etc.) but am considering using another module like N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God (replacing Explicita with Mwibah) to stitch things together more tightly – what’s stopping me is that I kind of want to keep Otari firmly centered in the mundane world.</li> </ul>During the second half of the game, the PCs finally got back to the dungeon. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> After reading about overloaded encounter dice I decided to give it a try. The party explored a little and then opened up a secret door. I rolled the encounter die and got a 1-Wandering Monster which I figured would be the devil cleaning the place (I made it elite to compensate for the extra players). Combat ensued and I was fully intending to have it surrender once the PCs got it’s hp down a little… then the champion grabbed it and the fighter used the opportunity to crit with a power attack from a greataxe and just annihilated it. Just like poor Boss Scrawng. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The encounter die decided they didn’t like that and when resetting the scene after combat it rolled a 1 again and the party heard morlocks approaching. They turned out the lights so as to better be diplomatic with the light sensitive morlocks. The morlock who knew the PCs had already murdered two of them. So the PCs were in the dark where half of them couldn’t see, and injured from fighting the devil, when four morlock scavengers burst in with a repaired autocrossbow from the hall (it had been mounted and pointed up the other corridor where the morlocks had assumed the PCs came from because they didn’t know about the secret doors so it took a couple of rounds to get there) and proceeded to wreck them, downing multiple PCs with their first action. A vicious fight ensued as the PCs tried to get a light going (one of the downed PCs was the only one with a light spell). Fortunately, the fighter power attacked the autocrossbow and destroyed it before it could fire again and wipe out the rest of the party and the party managed to rally. They even took the last morlock alive (the fighter crit yet again). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Resetting the scene, I rolled a 1 yet again on the encounter die. They heard more morlocks in the halls. Realizing they couldn’t get through another combat they retreated through the secret door to heal up and talk to the captured morlock, arranging an audience with his boss. They showed the morlock the secret doors they were using to get around and the morlock was very excited to tell the other morlocks. The rogue briefly considers murdering him before he can tell but decides not to. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> They open the secret door and I rolled the encounter die – another 1. The morlock boss and three morlocks were waiting for them. They were very excited to learn about the secret doors (as that gave them a route to the surface not guarded by a dragon). One of the PCs spoke undercommon so they came to a deal: the morlocks would give them free passage in return for killing a dangerous water monster (the aforementioned dragon) and bowing before the ghost queen. The morlock boss was going to lead them through the morlocks traps to the dragon when the party decided that he needed to die. There was a vicious fight where morlocks fell like wheat before the reaper and the morlock king bravely ran away (his occult attack ability btw is extremely potent allowing him incredible mobility while still slinging spells). The party almost TPKed themselves chasing after an enemy through unknown ground, spreading themselves out and leaving several members blind in the dark, before the wizard yelled at everyone to come to their senses. They retreated to the surface. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Since it was now night time (because of the late start and long time healing themselves after being wrecked in the first two encounters), they decided to rest in the gauntlight cupola (a highly defensible position) rather than trudge back through the swamp and I finally got to run the Blood of Belcorra haunt encounter that only happens at night. After it was exorcised, the blood shot up and flowed into the cupola and the party decided that they would rather head back through the swamp. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> For the next session, with access to the surface, the morlocks (the four who survive at least) are going to become a major threat as they fortify the entrance to the underground and begin construction of their ultimate clockwork weapon: metal gear. Obviously rumors of Morlock activities will reach town and I intend to have them conflated with part 2 of Troubles in Otari and to have the lumberjack fighter get some hooks through the Otari lumber company/Giant’s wheel as well. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The dungeon continues to run extremely well, even though I kept rolling 1’s on the encounter dice. Everything has a good amount of thought put behind it and things flow together so well that the place practically runs itself. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I am going to try a couple more sessions with the overloaded encounter dice to see how they work when they roll something other than ones.</li> </ul>All and all two fantastic sessions. Contrasting the two dungeons I think that while the House of the Beast is good, as a dungeon, Abomination Vaults is far superior. James Jacobs did a fantastic job and it is easy to see, even after a handful of sessions, why this is considered one of PF2E’s top modules.</blockquote>

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