Revenge of the Giants plot question

[Dedekind]

While most of the positives/negatives of Revenge of the Giants were thoroughly hashed out here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...edition-against-giants-vs-revenge-giants.html

I am a little bit stumped about something.

MILD SPOILERS BELOW







My PCs have just went through the astral giants encounter and got all the information on pg 83 regarding the current location of all five pieces of the divine engine. The part that has me confused is where Kaseem the djinn has a piece and there is one on Frost Spire. When I go to the frost giant section (pg. 90) the "Getting Involved" paragraph doesn't even discuss the pieces. In fact, the text from Obanar doesn't discuss it at all, just worries that Breven Foss is up to no good.

The only part in the Frost Giant section on Kaseem's piece is a throw away comment in the very last sentence of pg 95 (he gives it to them for helping rebuilding).

The only mention of the piece on Frost Spire is that Jarl Hargaad tried to recover it. The description of Hargaad, however, on pg 101 doesn't mention it and neither does any of the Hargaad encounter (F8, pg 112).

What is meant to happen here? How did you play it?

*******
BTW, I will almost certainly deviate from what is supposed to happen. I just want to know where the book is starting from!

 

[danir]

Hi
Just finished the frost spire last session.

You are correct... Kasseem piece is not really mentioned and it is not interesting.

In my game i kept the five pieces, but gave each an element (earth, water, fire, air and
void) which matches the giants.
anyway, I re-distribute the pieces, and added a timeline - some of the pieces are going auto to the bad guys, some are contested as function of the timeline.
Kaseem piece was given to a powerful magic-users organizations that the characters need to negotiate with.
The piece on frost spire itself was at the final battle.
Since the final battle was a bit boring as is, I have modified it to have the titan appearing in the seconds round, with brevan - whose goal is to grab the engine piece and get away.
So the characters have both to battle the giants, and stop brevan before he escapes. It was a much better fight.
(overall, RotG encouter design is pretty boring...)

And just another tip (hope it is interesting)
As the last battle is currently vs. solo and elite, and since my players kick the asses of solo's and piranoth doesn't have any special protections - I'm going to change it and "split" piranoth into a number of "normal" creatures, each of being an aspect of piranoth. The number of aspects depends on the number of engine pieces the bad guys have.
This way, the encounter doesn't have a solo (which can be a major letdown) and actually changes according to the player's success in achieving the pieces.

 

[Dedekind]

Hi
Just finished the frost spire last session.

You are correct... Kasseem piece is not really mentioned and it is not interesting.

In my game i kept the five pieces, but gave each an element (earth, water, fire, air and
void) which matches the giants.
anyway, I re-distribute the pieces, and added a timeline - some of the pieces are going auto to the bad guys, some are contested as function of the timeline.
Kaseem piece was given to a powerful magic-users organizations that the characters need to negotiate with.
The piece on frost spire itself was at the final battle.
Since the final battle was a bit boring as is, I have modified it to have the titan appearing in the seconds round, with brevan - whose goal is to grab the engine piece and get away.
So the characters have both to battle the giants, and stop brevan before he escapes. It was a much better fight.
(overall, RotG encouter design is pretty boring...)

And just another tip (hope it is interesting)
As the last battle is currently vs. solo and elite, and since my players kick the asses of solo's and piranoth doesn't have any special protections - I'm going to change it and "split" piranoth into a number of "normal" creatures, each of being an aspect of piranoth. The number of aspects depends on the number of engine pieces the bad guys have.
This way, the encounter doesn't have a solo (which can be a major letdown) and actually changes according to the player's success in achieving the pieces.

This sounds really good. Consider most of this stolen.

I really like the idea of Brevan sneaking in and trying to get the Frost Spire piece while they battle with the boss. It adds more urgency. Kaseem will give them his piece conditional on removing the frost giant menace to Flotsam.

However, I am fasttracking the campaign arc (half the encounters, double the xp and treasure). I've got the pieces split up mostly according to the book, so they really need the next piece that is at the Mayor's house. But the next part depends entirely on what they choose to do after Frost Spire. I'm setting up three nodes (retrieve the third piece, gather allies, or research more on Piranoth) and all three will be heavy on SC and roleplaying.*



* The problem with fasttracking is I tend to cut skill challenges. My players like them, however, so this is meant to fix it.