Ragnar_Deerslayer
First Post
I recently finished reading the main campaign, and decided to post my notes and questions, both to help other DMs, and to get help from them.
Ranger Wickett, I'd appreciate your comments, but I would ESPECIALLY like for you to post the stats missing from Appendix A: the stats for the earring of the whispering winds, the stats for the weakened Torch, and the stats for the Ragesian grand standards.
I've only run the first two adventures with my players, so these shouldn't be considered "playtest notes" or anything similar.
My players and I are LOVING this campaign. Any negative statements below should be taken as constructive criticism and nitpicking - like a car enthusiast who just can't keep himself from continually polishing the bumper of his beloved 57 Chevy.
Thanks,
Ragnar
Adventure 1
21: "The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar" is a mouthful, and cheesy to boot. "Innenotdar" sounds too much like "in-and-out door," which is what my character would call it if I were playing in the campaign. Rearrange the syllables to make it Darinnen Forest, or the "Fire Forest" as most will call it. I mean, nobody feels the need to come up with some over-the-top name for the Grand Canyon.
26: Peppin was killed by Shahalesti agents, but Larion is apparently unaware of this. Shealis, as the spymaster, would be aware of it, however. (That is, if the murder happened in Gate Pass, and that's the only logical way the Resistance could have found out about it and used speak with dead on the body.) Perhaps she even ordered the killing herself.
26: If the players aren't paying attention, the fountain depicting the four elemental spirits is a good time for Torrent to remind the players of the famous myths of Gate Pass: "The Wavering Maiden," "The Trilling Stone," "The Aquiline Heart" (Player's Guide, page 4)
28: You might replace Flaganus Mortus with a normal Ragesian Wyvern Knight. If so, change "murdered by someone wielding an axe" to "killed by crossbow bolts and sword slashes."
28: The unconscious boy has 4hp and has taken 5hp of subdual damage. If a standoff occurs, assume the Ragesian has readied a standard action to attack the boy if anyone makes any threatening gestures (including moving closer). Remember that a coup de grace requires a full-round action, and so cannot be readied. Being unconscious, the boy has a Dex of 0 and so an AC of 5. In addition, "melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus" (SRD).
29: Why would using magic or violence anger the crowd if they're not already bothered by teens beating a helpless woman? If the PCs do anything short of killing or torturing the teens, the crowd should be okay with it. At the very least, remind the PCs that the residents are wary of magic.
29-30: How does the party identify Shealis as the contact, since Rivereye never heard the name? They might mention the lantern archon to Diogenes, but if they're paranoid, they might not want to take the chance that Diogenes is the contact.
1) Rivereye heard the name.
2) Shealis is the only elf left in the school.
3) They make a DC15 Gather Information check to dig up that Shealis is frequently accompanied by a lantern archon.
4) They spot the lantern archon leaving her apartment through the window.
30: Substitute flaming sphere for detect thoughts in Shealis's spell list. (Also page 591.)
31: Don't have Shealis offer a contact to discuss the case. This is entirely too reasonable a solution, and any level-headed player will accept it. If the Shahalesti killed Peppin Tallman to obtain the case, they're not going to want to share the knowledge of the contents (especially before they know exactly what that knowledge is).
37: The HC book doesn't contain stats for the dream shroud. Fortunately, ENWorld Publishing released the first adventure in PDF format for free (see page 38):
DREAM SHROUD
This silk sheet displays faded images of old myths of the city of Gate Pass. When worn as a belt sash or a cloak, this item functions as a phylactery of faithfulness, with the extra ability to cast align weapon once per day if the wearer whispers, “Please don’t let my death be in vain,” during which the shroud briefly is as vivid and beautiful as when it was first created. It cannot align a weapon to evil.
Faint divination and transmutation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, align weapon, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law; Price 3,000 gp.
If there isn't a cleric in the party, a rust-colored bag of tricks would be useful to a ranger or druid, and would be worth the same amount.
Adventure 2
45: Torrent warns the party not to abandon their winter clothes, even though the Fire Forest is extremely hot, because it's still January and there'll be snow when they emerge in Dassen.
48: The first line of the message on the femur should be changed to read, "Leave the case and its contents."
53: The description at the top of the third column should read, "wears the robes of a priest of the god of sunsets, though he carries no holy symbol." This will hint a little more heavily that it's the body of Bhurisrava.
53: The "read-aloud" text says, "a warhammer lies inches from one of his [Bhurisrava's] hands," but on the next page, it says his weapon is a +1 heavy mace. Which one is it?
53: How do the heroes get the knowledge of the Shahalesti betrayal? Timbre knows, and might tell them if the topic comes up, but she doesn't appear to have concrete evidence. Diashan, the elf in temporal stasis, knows, and can give firsthand testimony, but the PCs may not realize this. The Ghaele might give the PCs a hint, since he is guarding Diashan, and he was summoned in response to Bhurisrava's final prayer: "that some god would protect what he [Bhurisrava] had failed to - the evidence that would bring to justice those who destroyed his homeland" (page 53).
The god that placed the spell on Diashan might remove it when Indomitability leaves. (Diashan's stats aren't included; use the stats for a Shahalesti Scout, page 585.) Alternatively, I imagine that if the PCs manage to get Diashan to the Lyceum, someone there would be able to break the temporal stasis spell just in time for the elf's testimony to make things interesting in Seaquen's relationship with Shahalesti. (Thanks to Nebten for this idea!)
54: "Nelle" should be pronounced as "Nell," not "Nelly." (Or even changed to something else entirely.) That is, unless you want players making a lot of "Whoa, Nelly!" jokes during what is written as a serious encounter.
56: Kazyk's dialogue: "The Ragesians, whatever their abilities, are not lawyers, as you discovered with the little trick you pulled with the case in Gate Pass. They've patched that hole in their contract, but they left a different one. I am to prevent you from leaving the Fire Forest - but if the Fire Forest left you, then I will have fulfilled my contract. I propose to free the spirit Indomitability by killing the wicked, twisted fey who live here. Once Indomitability is free, the forest fire will burn out in a day or so, and you will be free to travel wherever you please."
58: Character Goals:
PCs: get through the Fire Forest and reach Seaquen
Indomitability: get the PCs to free him by "silencing" the seela. He will become incorporeal, leave, and the forest fires will consume the forest. The seela will die within minutes
Kazyk:
a. retrieve the case & contents
b. keep the PCs from escaping the fire forest (by destroying fire forest)
(1) by freeing Indomitability
(2) by killing Indomitability (which he's not strong enough to do)
c. gather intelligence about the forest
Nelle: save forest by killing (or, possibly, freeing) Indomitability
Vuhl (Deception): free Indomitability by killing Timbre
Tiljann: figure out a way to save the seela even if the forest burned down (sword?)
58: “Around Lake Seela, the temperature dips to a modest” – what? The sentence ends incomplete.
64: Kazyk chooses to attack when the PCs are diving into the lake. This makes no sense at all. One of Kazyk’s goals is to free (or kill) Indomitability, and the PCs are obviously about to do that. Granted, Kazyk only has Int 6, but you’d expect him to wait until the PCs are at their weakest – when the fight with Indomitability is over – to attack and try to recover the case. In fact, this is stated as his strategy on page 56. Solution: Delay his attack until immediately after the fight with Indomitability is over. Don’t let the PCs roll for a new initiative; keep the same initiative – it’s the same fight, only with a new combatant. Remember that Indomitability will revoke his Boon once they attack him, but it’ll be renewed when they kill him.
65: Why does the text assume the PCs pull the sword from Indomitability? If he's trapped by the sword, it seems a lot easier to kill him first, then pull the sword out. Timbre does say that the sword doesn't bond with a PC unless it is "pulled out" of Indomitability, but it seems likely that the PCs could kill Indomitability, then remove the sword (and bond with it) before the First Tree totally burns down (the "Saving the First Tree" boxed text on page 64 implies that the tree lasts at least as long as it takes to run the mile from the lake to Timbre's glade). It may not be practical trying to attack Indomitability when he's beneath 20 feet of water, but enterprising PCs could drain the lake - or, if they killed Gwenvere, the lake will drain away within two days anyway (62).
65: Indomitability's "Rejuvenation" ability (page 516) indicates that if the PCs kill him, he is "truly slain," except that he comes back in Adventure 9. This isn't really a game problem, since the PCs shouldn't have access to Indomitability's stats, but is an inconsistency. Solution: Delete the second paragraph under "Rejuvenation." (Thanks to OnlineDM for pointing this out!)
66: "The forest fire roars, then the flames sputter and die" - Why? What stops it? Certainly not the wind, which only makes forest fires stronger. Kazyk thinks it'll take a day for the fires to die (page 54); elsewhere (page 64) it implies that it certainly wouldn't stop within a few minutes. It can't be the Song of Forms - they've been singing that continuously since before the fire started without it putting out the flames. "Though injured and weak, none [of the treees] fall" - Once again, why? And does this include the First Tree in Timbre's glade? Does this mean Timbre didn't die, and it doesn't matter that a PC bonded with the Living Blade, because the Seela would have survived anyway? That would be a cheesy ending.
Adventure 3
74: Naizelasa seems to act out of character for a green dragon. She's got SR 21, so the mages of the Lyceum aren't all *that* scary (the faculty are only levels 9-11), and Seaquen (and *especially* the refugees) are a good source of food. To top it off, someone has stolen her eggs - she's not going to pout, she's going to tear Seaquen apart until she finds them.
If she gets the person back who stole her eggs, she's going to eat him, not hold him hostage. Once her eggs are back, she's going to need to reassert her dominance - the way the adventure is written, Naizelasa doesn't even try to take revenge or extract justice. In fact, NOTHING in this suggests that she is evil.
Solution One: Make Naizelasa a LN dragon of a different color. (Brown, puce, whatever. Use the same stats; just reskin it.) Seaquen needs to borrow the lyre of building, and maybe lay the groundwork for a mutual-protection pact, and definitely avoid making an enemy. Naizelasa will want Nathan Lowduke turned over to her for revenge, but will accept (with a good diplomacy roll) him being tried under Seaquen law as a kidnapper. Once this has been resolved, she'll be open to lending the lyre of building, but asks a tribute in cattle for as long as they use it. Naizelasa is actually kind of lazy, and gets used to receiving the cattle. Moreover, receiving human tribute boosts her ego. Once Seaquen is done with the lyre, she suggests that she be appointed Winged Guardian of Seaquen, and continue to receive tribute for a mutual-protection pact. (This would be pretty one-sided if Seaquen didn't have powerful enemies marching on them.) Naizelasa gets a little carried away, and wants her image on the livery of the Seaquen militia, etc. If you choose this route, remember to work Naizelasa into the assault on the Tempest in Adventure 11, and change Phaaughsmat to the same type of dragon (page 351) to be Naizelasa's father.
Solution Two: By the end of Adventure 3, the PCs should be about level 7. Make Naizelasa a juvenile green dragon (CR 8; 10.64 adjusted) from Draconomicon p.249 (lair p.253). Ignore the plot about stolen eggs; she's been a danger for some time, and now she's started attacking refugees. In addition, they know her hoard has a lyre of building, which Seaquen absolutely needs now that the hurricane destroyed half the city.
Adventure 4
128: It's really a letdown (at least for the GM) to have (basically) the same ending for success as for failure. It makes the whole extended battle narrative tedious, because you know it won't have any material outcome on the ending. What to do about this? Maybe have Gallo come up with some investigating the PCs need to do in Bresk that could turn things around before his execution?
129: Why does the poison have to be magically madness-inducing? Why can't it just be regular poison? The end result is the same: all the nobles are dead. The answer is a metagame reason: so that if the PCs successfully retrieve the B8L, the adventure doesn't end in the vault, but they still have to get to the banquet hall to stop the minor nobility and the King from killing the nobles, and defeat Madness in a showdown. From Madness's point of view, though, this plan is just complicated for the sake of being complicated. Moreover, in a land with a recent history of civil war and assassinations, why isn't it standard operating procedure for the leaders to have a neutralize poison spell cast on them before every meal? It'd last 80 minutes minimum, more than enough time for a leisurely meal. Even if they had been lax in the last few years since Steppengard took the throne, they should be much more diligent since Steppengard's family was killed.
To make Madness's plan more practical, allow the Book of Eight Lands to grant immunity to poison as part of its boon, which would explain both the lack of diligence towards poison and the need to squirrel the book away in an extradimensional space. In fact, make it a Dasseni tradition that any nobleman of knight level or higher can demand a ruler prove he is not an imposter by ingesting Greenblood Oil or some other poison. (Dopplegangers, for instance, have no natural poison immunity.) Introduce the tradition by having someone demand that Steppengard eat some during the audience in Act One. (Maybe it's even the sacred duty of the Captain of the Guard to confront the ruler several times a year with this task.)
Make sure the PCs are told that the vault has wards and not the B8L itself.
"Are you kidding? The Book of Eight Lands is a minor artifact. Anyone with enough power to destroy it could just destroy any of the people it protects. The vault it's in has ancient wards woven through it - if anyone tried to walk out of the vault with it, they'd be shredded like cheese through a grater."
Adventure 5
152: Use pasteboard with an eyeslit cut out for the conversation with Caela. Bonus points if it has a sliding cover for the viewport.
Adventure 6
167: What is the "earring of the whispering winds"? It's not in Appendix A.
186: The sky palanquin is in Area 36, not Area 26.
186: Use the sky palanquin as a test of your players' moral compass. If they balk at using the soul gems, they'll definitely balk at using the empyreal fire ability of the Torch. Technically, they don't need to use it - with stealth, they can get aboard the Tempest in Adventure 11 and do what they need to do without an army at their backs, and in Adventure 12, the armies can just march on the Opaline Wastes without teleporting. The Torch's requirement of consuming the soul of a sentient being can just be removed, but it ties in thematically to the nature of the Torch and the Aquiline Heart, and besides, moral dilemmas are a large part of the campaign and can make for memorable roleplaying. On the other hand, teleporting armies are so amazingly cool that you might not want to have the moral scruples of the PCs prevent it from happening.
Adventure 7
223: What are the powers of the weakened Torch? The Torch in Appendix A only lists a single state, and it appears to be the "strong" state.
Adventure 8
230: "Strange how rarely Ragesians tend to look up." This strains credibility. The airship either needs to be invisible, or largely shielded by cloud cover (which would prevent it from seeing down, as well). At the least, it has to be sure never to cast a shadow. Much more believable is the description of the airship in Adventure 11 as flying "atop a persistent bank of angry storm clouds that . . . . part only to reveal the convex disc of silver that is the creature-ship's lone eye" (317).
232: The Obelisk blocks "incoming divination (but not outgoing)," so "Simeon will not be able to hear the heroes' thoughts." One should not imagine the thoughts going out, but the reading coming in.
Adventure 9
280: The Torch is either fully restored by destroying the Colossus (end of Adv 9) or by repairing the Torch with a piece of Trilla's soul. In the latter event, the text implies that the Resistance tells the PCs that this is necessary, but they aren't ever told how. The mechanism to repair the Torch is detailed on page 300; make sure the PCs are told this before they start Adv 10.
Adventure 10
283: Play up the summoning of the Worldshaper Worm and Tidereaver Kraken. Put some hints in earlier in the campaign; let them find a book of the summoning ritual, but it requires the True Names, which are only known by someone in Gate Pass (or one of the Trillith?). At any rate, they don't have the rituals (that the PCs have!). See page 329 for the names of the elemental spirits.
286: The players might approach the Cloud Mural before Thundercloud Keep. Put the keep between the players and the Cloud Mural.
288: Under "Passing Through the Mural," there appears to be some words missing from the first sentence. A logical reading is "The cloud mural is behind the edge of a bank of burning clouds and intense storms a mile thick."
290: The boxed text reads "Stalker is trying to convince Stalker." One of these names should be changed to "Slicer."
295: How do the PCs know the white key that will release Trilla is in Trilla's dream? Are they just supposed to guess? Use some divination spell?
298: How do the PCs know that if Trilla dies, Annihilation will be born into the real world? For that matter, how do they know what Annihilation is?
Adventure 11
304-305: No mention is made of it, but the PCs will have to sacrifice two sentient beings (of 5 HD or greater); one to teleport their army to Seaquen, and another to teleport it to the top of the Tempest. Adventure 12 makes a big deal about needing to sacrifice three captives for the assault on Leska (see page 336); those issues may need to be dealt with here instead.
305: "Shalosta" should be "Shalosha"
309: If the PCs are teleporting in without an army, skip the second paragraph of the boxed text.
311: +20 to dispel magic check makes it extremely powerful (and extremely likely to succeed) - a PC caster can only have a +10 to the check, max.
317: The Tempest is the size of 5 Nimitz-class supercarriers placed end-to-end.
Adventure 12
332: A vomitorium is not a place where people vomit. It is an opening (as from a stadium) designed to allow large groups of people to enter or exit at once.
339: Appendix A does not contain any detail on the Ragesian Grand Standards. What do I need to know?
340: The top lines of the columns are cut off by the picture. By cleverly using the "select text" tool on the PDF, I recovered the lines that are missing. The top line of the leftmost column should read "continues into the next day, while unnatural". The top line of the center column should read "Just before the final thrust, Cavala’s second in" and the top line of the rightmost column should read "attention on these greatest threats."
347: An iron flask can only trap a creature of another plane, and Shalosha is from the Prime Material Plane. Even if she was from another plane, she has to fail a DC 19 Will save, and her Will save is +14. Furthermore, the attempt to entrap in the flask can only be made once per day.
353: It will take a man approximately 25.63 seconds to fall two miles (without factoring in drag).
353: If the Heart only provides immortality in conjunction with Time's aging power, then how did Coaltongue become immortal? He drank the blood Leska brought back in a vial. Or did the author mean "time" rather than "Time"?
Ranger Wickett, I'd appreciate your comments, but I would ESPECIALLY like for you to post the stats missing from Appendix A: the stats for the earring of the whispering winds, the stats for the weakened Torch, and the stats for the Ragesian grand standards.
I've only run the first two adventures with my players, so these shouldn't be considered "playtest notes" or anything similar.
My players and I are LOVING this campaign. Any negative statements below should be taken as constructive criticism and nitpicking - like a car enthusiast who just can't keep himself from continually polishing the bumper of his beloved 57 Chevy.
Thanks,
Ragnar
Adventure 1
21: "The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar" is a mouthful, and cheesy to boot. "Innenotdar" sounds too much like "in-and-out door," which is what my character would call it if I were playing in the campaign. Rearrange the syllables to make it Darinnen Forest, or the "Fire Forest" as most will call it. I mean, nobody feels the need to come up with some over-the-top name for the Grand Canyon.
26: Peppin was killed by Shahalesti agents, but Larion is apparently unaware of this. Shealis, as the spymaster, would be aware of it, however. (That is, if the murder happened in Gate Pass, and that's the only logical way the Resistance could have found out about it and used speak with dead on the body.) Perhaps she even ordered the killing herself.
26: If the players aren't paying attention, the fountain depicting the four elemental spirits is a good time for Torrent to remind the players of the famous myths of Gate Pass: "The Wavering Maiden," "The Trilling Stone," "The Aquiline Heart" (Player's Guide, page 4)
28: You might replace Flaganus Mortus with a normal Ragesian Wyvern Knight. If so, change "murdered by someone wielding an axe" to "killed by crossbow bolts and sword slashes."
28: The unconscious boy has 4hp and has taken 5hp of subdual damage. If a standoff occurs, assume the Ragesian has readied a standard action to attack the boy if anyone makes any threatening gestures (including moving closer). Remember that a coup de grace requires a full-round action, and so cannot be readied. Being unconscious, the boy has a Dex of 0 and so an AC of 5. In addition, "melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus" (SRD).
29: Why would using magic or violence anger the crowd if they're not already bothered by teens beating a helpless woman? If the PCs do anything short of killing or torturing the teens, the crowd should be okay with it. At the very least, remind the PCs that the residents are wary of magic.
29-30: How does the party identify Shealis as the contact, since Rivereye never heard the name? They might mention the lantern archon to Diogenes, but if they're paranoid, they might not want to take the chance that Diogenes is the contact.
1) Rivereye heard the name.
2) Shealis is the only elf left in the school.
3) They make a DC15 Gather Information check to dig up that Shealis is frequently accompanied by a lantern archon.
4) They spot the lantern archon leaving her apartment through the window.
30: Substitute flaming sphere for detect thoughts in Shealis's spell list. (Also page 591.)
31: Don't have Shealis offer a contact to discuss the case. This is entirely too reasonable a solution, and any level-headed player will accept it. If the Shahalesti killed Peppin Tallman to obtain the case, they're not going to want to share the knowledge of the contents (especially before they know exactly what that knowledge is).
37: The HC book doesn't contain stats for the dream shroud. Fortunately, ENWorld Publishing released the first adventure in PDF format for free (see page 38):
DREAM SHROUD
This silk sheet displays faded images of old myths of the city of Gate Pass. When worn as a belt sash or a cloak, this item functions as a phylactery of faithfulness, with the extra ability to cast align weapon once per day if the wearer whispers, “Please don’t let my death be in vain,” during which the shroud briefly is as vivid and beautiful as when it was first created. It cannot align a weapon to evil.
Faint divination and transmutation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, align weapon, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law; Price 3,000 gp.
If there isn't a cleric in the party, a rust-colored bag of tricks would be useful to a ranger or druid, and would be worth the same amount.
Adventure 2
45: Torrent warns the party not to abandon their winter clothes, even though the Fire Forest is extremely hot, because it's still January and there'll be snow when they emerge in Dassen.
48: The first line of the message on the femur should be changed to read, "Leave the case and its contents."
53: The description at the top of the third column should read, "wears the robes of a priest of the god of sunsets, though he carries no holy symbol." This will hint a little more heavily that it's the body of Bhurisrava.
53: The "read-aloud" text says, "a warhammer lies inches from one of his [Bhurisrava's] hands," but on the next page, it says his weapon is a +1 heavy mace. Which one is it?
53: How do the heroes get the knowledge of the Shahalesti betrayal? Timbre knows, and might tell them if the topic comes up, but she doesn't appear to have concrete evidence. Diashan, the elf in temporal stasis, knows, and can give firsthand testimony, but the PCs may not realize this. The Ghaele might give the PCs a hint, since he is guarding Diashan, and he was summoned in response to Bhurisrava's final prayer: "that some god would protect what he [Bhurisrava] had failed to - the evidence that would bring to justice those who destroyed his homeland" (page 53).
The god that placed the spell on Diashan might remove it when Indomitability leaves. (Diashan's stats aren't included; use the stats for a Shahalesti Scout, page 585.) Alternatively, I imagine that if the PCs manage to get Diashan to the Lyceum, someone there would be able to break the temporal stasis spell just in time for the elf's testimony to make things interesting in Seaquen's relationship with Shahalesti. (Thanks to Nebten for this idea!)
54: "Nelle" should be pronounced as "Nell," not "Nelly." (Or even changed to something else entirely.) That is, unless you want players making a lot of "Whoa, Nelly!" jokes during what is written as a serious encounter.
56: Kazyk's dialogue: "The Ragesians, whatever their abilities, are not lawyers, as you discovered with the little trick you pulled with the case in Gate Pass. They've patched that hole in their contract, but they left a different one. I am to prevent you from leaving the Fire Forest - but if the Fire Forest left you, then I will have fulfilled my contract. I propose to free the spirit Indomitability by killing the wicked, twisted fey who live here. Once Indomitability is free, the forest fire will burn out in a day or so, and you will be free to travel wherever you please."
58: Character Goals:
PCs: get through the Fire Forest and reach Seaquen
Indomitability: get the PCs to free him by "silencing" the seela. He will become incorporeal, leave, and the forest fires will consume the forest. The seela will die within minutes
Kazyk:
a. retrieve the case & contents
b. keep the PCs from escaping the fire forest (by destroying fire forest)
(1) by freeing Indomitability
(2) by killing Indomitability (which he's not strong enough to do)
c. gather intelligence about the forest
Nelle: save forest by killing (or, possibly, freeing) Indomitability
Vuhl (Deception): free Indomitability by killing Timbre
Tiljann: figure out a way to save the seela even if the forest burned down (sword?)
58: “Around Lake Seela, the temperature dips to a modest” – what? The sentence ends incomplete.
64: Kazyk chooses to attack when the PCs are diving into the lake. This makes no sense at all. One of Kazyk’s goals is to free (or kill) Indomitability, and the PCs are obviously about to do that. Granted, Kazyk only has Int 6, but you’d expect him to wait until the PCs are at their weakest – when the fight with Indomitability is over – to attack and try to recover the case. In fact, this is stated as his strategy on page 56. Solution: Delay his attack until immediately after the fight with Indomitability is over. Don’t let the PCs roll for a new initiative; keep the same initiative – it’s the same fight, only with a new combatant. Remember that Indomitability will revoke his Boon once they attack him, but it’ll be renewed when they kill him.
65: Why does the text assume the PCs pull the sword from Indomitability? If he's trapped by the sword, it seems a lot easier to kill him first, then pull the sword out. Timbre does say that the sword doesn't bond with a PC unless it is "pulled out" of Indomitability, but it seems likely that the PCs could kill Indomitability, then remove the sword (and bond with it) before the First Tree totally burns down (the "Saving the First Tree" boxed text on page 64 implies that the tree lasts at least as long as it takes to run the mile from the lake to Timbre's glade). It may not be practical trying to attack Indomitability when he's beneath 20 feet of water, but enterprising PCs could drain the lake - or, if they killed Gwenvere, the lake will drain away within two days anyway (62).
65: Indomitability's "Rejuvenation" ability (page 516) indicates that if the PCs kill him, he is "truly slain," except that he comes back in Adventure 9. This isn't really a game problem, since the PCs shouldn't have access to Indomitability's stats, but is an inconsistency. Solution: Delete the second paragraph under "Rejuvenation." (Thanks to OnlineDM for pointing this out!)
66: "The forest fire roars, then the flames sputter and die" - Why? What stops it? Certainly not the wind, which only makes forest fires stronger. Kazyk thinks it'll take a day for the fires to die (page 54); elsewhere (page 64) it implies that it certainly wouldn't stop within a few minutes. It can't be the Song of Forms - they've been singing that continuously since before the fire started without it putting out the flames. "Though injured and weak, none [of the treees] fall" - Once again, why? And does this include the First Tree in Timbre's glade? Does this mean Timbre didn't die, and it doesn't matter that a PC bonded with the Living Blade, because the Seela would have survived anyway? That would be a cheesy ending.
Adventure 3
74: Naizelasa seems to act out of character for a green dragon. She's got SR 21, so the mages of the Lyceum aren't all *that* scary (the faculty are only levels 9-11), and Seaquen (and *especially* the refugees) are a good source of food. To top it off, someone has stolen her eggs - she's not going to pout, she's going to tear Seaquen apart until she finds them.
If she gets the person back who stole her eggs, she's going to eat him, not hold him hostage. Once her eggs are back, she's going to need to reassert her dominance - the way the adventure is written, Naizelasa doesn't even try to take revenge or extract justice. In fact, NOTHING in this suggests that she is evil.
Solution One: Make Naizelasa a LN dragon of a different color. (Brown, puce, whatever. Use the same stats; just reskin it.) Seaquen needs to borrow the lyre of building, and maybe lay the groundwork for a mutual-protection pact, and definitely avoid making an enemy. Naizelasa will want Nathan Lowduke turned over to her for revenge, but will accept (with a good diplomacy roll) him being tried under Seaquen law as a kidnapper. Once this has been resolved, she'll be open to lending the lyre of building, but asks a tribute in cattle for as long as they use it. Naizelasa is actually kind of lazy, and gets used to receiving the cattle. Moreover, receiving human tribute boosts her ego. Once Seaquen is done with the lyre, she suggests that she be appointed Winged Guardian of Seaquen, and continue to receive tribute for a mutual-protection pact. (This would be pretty one-sided if Seaquen didn't have powerful enemies marching on them.) Naizelasa gets a little carried away, and wants her image on the livery of the Seaquen militia, etc. If you choose this route, remember to work Naizelasa into the assault on the Tempest in Adventure 11, and change Phaaughsmat to the same type of dragon (page 351) to be Naizelasa's father.
Solution Two: By the end of Adventure 3, the PCs should be about level 7. Make Naizelasa a juvenile green dragon (CR 8; 10.64 adjusted) from Draconomicon p.249 (lair p.253). Ignore the plot about stolen eggs; she's been a danger for some time, and now she's started attacking refugees. In addition, they know her hoard has a lyre of building, which Seaquen absolutely needs now that the hurricane destroyed half the city.
Adventure 4
128: It's really a letdown (at least for the GM) to have (basically) the same ending for success as for failure. It makes the whole extended battle narrative tedious, because you know it won't have any material outcome on the ending. What to do about this? Maybe have Gallo come up with some investigating the PCs need to do in Bresk that could turn things around before his execution?
129: Why does the poison have to be magically madness-inducing? Why can't it just be regular poison? The end result is the same: all the nobles are dead. The answer is a metagame reason: so that if the PCs successfully retrieve the B8L, the adventure doesn't end in the vault, but they still have to get to the banquet hall to stop the minor nobility and the King from killing the nobles, and defeat Madness in a showdown. From Madness's point of view, though, this plan is just complicated for the sake of being complicated. Moreover, in a land with a recent history of civil war and assassinations, why isn't it standard operating procedure for the leaders to have a neutralize poison spell cast on them before every meal? It'd last 80 minutes minimum, more than enough time for a leisurely meal. Even if they had been lax in the last few years since Steppengard took the throne, they should be much more diligent since Steppengard's family was killed.
To make Madness's plan more practical, allow the Book of Eight Lands to grant immunity to poison as part of its boon, which would explain both the lack of diligence towards poison and the need to squirrel the book away in an extradimensional space. In fact, make it a Dasseni tradition that any nobleman of knight level or higher can demand a ruler prove he is not an imposter by ingesting Greenblood Oil or some other poison. (Dopplegangers, for instance, have no natural poison immunity.) Introduce the tradition by having someone demand that Steppengard eat some during the audience in Act One. (Maybe it's even the sacred duty of the Captain of the Guard to confront the ruler several times a year with this task.)
Make sure the PCs are told that the vault has wards and not the B8L itself.
"Are you kidding? The Book of Eight Lands is a minor artifact. Anyone with enough power to destroy it could just destroy any of the people it protects. The vault it's in has ancient wards woven through it - if anyone tried to walk out of the vault with it, they'd be shredded like cheese through a grater."
Adventure 5
152: Use pasteboard with an eyeslit cut out for the conversation with Caela. Bonus points if it has a sliding cover for the viewport.
Adventure 6
167: What is the "earring of the whispering winds"? It's not in Appendix A.
186: The sky palanquin is in Area 36, not Area 26.
186: Use the sky palanquin as a test of your players' moral compass. If they balk at using the soul gems, they'll definitely balk at using the empyreal fire ability of the Torch. Technically, they don't need to use it - with stealth, they can get aboard the Tempest in Adventure 11 and do what they need to do without an army at their backs, and in Adventure 12, the armies can just march on the Opaline Wastes without teleporting. The Torch's requirement of consuming the soul of a sentient being can just be removed, but it ties in thematically to the nature of the Torch and the Aquiline Heart, and besides, moral dilemmas are a large part of the campaign and can make for memorable roleplaying. On the other hand, teleporting armies are so amazingly cool that you might not want to have the moral scruples of the PCs prevent it from happening.
Adventure 7
223: What are the powers of the weakened Torch? The Torch in Appendix A only lists a single state, and it appears to be the "strong" state.
Adventure 8
230: "Strange how rarely Ragesians tend to look up." This strains credibility. The airship either needs to be invisible, or largely shielded by cloud cover (which would prevent it from seeing down, as well). At the least, it has to be sure never to cast a shadow. Much more believable is the description of the airship in Adventure 11 as flying "atop a persistent bank of angry storm clouds that . . . . part only to reveal the convex disc of silver that is the creature-ship's lone eye" (317).
232: The Obelisk blocks "incoming divination (but not outgoing)," so "Simeon will not be able to hear the heroes' thoughts." One should not imagine the thoughts going out, but the reading coming in.
Adventure 9
280: The Torch is either fully restored by destroying the Colossus (end of Adv 9) or by repairing the Torch with a piece of Trilla's soul. In the latter event, the text implies that the Resistance tells the PCs that this is necessary, but they aren't ever told how. The mechanism to repair the Torch is detailed on page 300; make sure the PCs are told this before they start Adv 10.
Adventure 10
283: Play up the summoning of the Worldshaper Worm and Tidereaver Kraken. Put some hints in earlier in the campaign; let them find a book of the summoning ritual, but it requires the True Names, which are only known by someone in Gate Pass (or one of the Trillith?). At any rate, they don't have the rituals (that the PCs have!). See page 329 for the names of the elemental spirits.
286: The players might approach the Cloud Mural before Thundercloud Keep. Put the keep between the players and the Cloud Mural.
288: Under "Passing Through the Mural," there appears to be some words missing from the first sentence. A logical reading is "The cloud mural is behind the edge of a bank of burning clouds and intense storms a mile thick."
290: The boxed text reads "Stalker is trying to convince Stalker." One of these names should be changed to "Slicer."
295: How do the PCs know the white key that will release Trilla is in Trilla's dream? Are they just supposed to guess? Use some divination spell?
298: How do the PCs know that if Trilla dies, Annihilation will be born into the real world? For that matter, how do they know what Annihilation is?
Adventure 11
304-305: No mention is made of it, but the PCs will have to sacrifice two sentient beings (of 5 HD or greater); one to teleport their army to Seaquen, and another to teleport it to the top of the Tempest. Adventure 12 makes a big deal about needing to sacrifice three captives for the assault on Leska (see page 336); those issues may need to be dealt with here instead.
305: "Shalosta" should be "Shalosha"
309: If the PCs are teleporting in without an army, skip the second paragraph of the boxed text.
311: +20 to dispel magic check makes it extremely powerful (and extremely likely to succeed) - a PC caster can only have a +10 to the check, max.
317: The Tempest is the size of 5 Nimitz-class supercarriers placed end-to-end.
Adventure 12
332: A vomitorium is not a place where people vomit. It is an opening (as from a stadium) designed to allow large groups of people to enter or exit at once.
339: Appendix A does not contain any detail on the Ragesian Grand Standards. What do I need to know?
340: The top lines of the columns are cut off by the picture. By cleverly using the "select text" tool on the PDF, I recovered the lines that are missing. The top line of the leftmost column should read "continues into the next day, while unnatural". The top line of the center column should read "Just before the final thrust, Cavala’s second in" and the top line of the rightmost column should read "attention on these greatest threats."
347: An iron flask can only trap a creature of another plane, and Shalosha is from the Prime Material Plane. Even if she was from another plane, she has to fail a DC 19 Will save, and her Will save is +14. Furthermore, the attempt to entrap in the flask can only be made once per day.
353: It will take a man approximately 25.63 seconds to fall two miles (without factoring in drag).
353: If the Heart only provides immortality in conjunction with Time's aging power, then how did Coaltongue become immortal? He drank the blood Leska brought back in a vial. Or did the author mean "time" rather than "Time"?
