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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaisoku" data-source="post: 5194703" data-attributes="member: 58447">Re: Reasons to go to the Forbidden ValleyIn adventure 5, you start everything off with a meeting with Simeon talking about how they've lost contact with people who were sent to the monastery.Granted, their mission is to prevent ragesia from laying waste to the monastery, however it shouldn't be a surprise that Seaquen people went missing from there.Once you get there, there's a lot of info given. After trying to get to the monastery once, Balance should be able to give them some hard to understand info, but what Bechus tells them about what they discovered about the "wind magic" being similar to that which caused the hurricane at Seaquen should be a massive tip-off.Over and above "the last Seaquen people thought there was something up over there, and then never came back".The scene where someone gets kidnapped to provoke them into going is really a last resort. The notes say to not use it if the party is motivated enough.Personally, having played through it as a player, I think it was the "magic similar to what caused the hurricane at Seaquen" that made us want to head over there asap.I don't recall anyone getting kidnapped at all, so our DM at the time must have felt we were motivated enough.Re: RagesiansI guess it depends on the group you are playing with. Seeing people of normally opposing forces working together should be a giant tip-off that "something just ain't right here".The DC 25 Will save to perform hostile actions should be a massive hindrance to actually causing a scene until it's a good time.Which means your players would have to be fairly lucky (roll high on their Will save) and be bound and determined to kill Ragesians before finding out why they are acting so strange.A short meeting with Balance gave our group a sense of "don't disturb anything, we might set off a bloodbath here".I guess, yeah, if your players are jerks, or just have this massive hate-on for Ragesians that they can't hold back a little to find out what's up first, then you might have to accelerate things a little bit.No need to play the Ragesians as stupid though. Once they get attacked, they'll fight back. And then you get to describe as every Ragesian within sight of your actions suddenly breaks free and starts beating up the innocent people around them. Way to go PCs.Re: Madness as Nina GlibglammerHow freakin' paranoid are your players? Seriously!There's really no hint at all that this character is a trillith. At worst you could assume that she's a caster trying to get that guy to confess while on a witch hunt. Probably behind the stuff going on... but a trillith? Why?The last time anything to do with trilliths was around was Indomitability. There's a whole adventure between the two trilliths. A long one at that.My first time around (playing, not DMing), the group had forgotten to even use the song when we were facing the creature and knew what it was. What... do your players start singing the song at every suspicious new NPC they see?Plus.. .the first time you see her, she's in the middle of an interrogation for the court, with a pile of people around you. Start singing anything and people are going to shush you and guards might come to ask you to leave.Since it's a bardic performance, you pretty much have to sing it "out loud" so the trillith can hear it.Just think what it would look like if you went into a courtroom today and started singing loudly while they are in the middle of a cross examination.People around you would try to interrupt you to get you to stop making a scene so they can see what happens next, and "the bailiff" (guards) would come to forcibly remove you.Finally, the Song of Forms, when sung at a trillith possessing a body, simply locks it into that body. It doesn't hurt them or reveal them.... so.. I'm not sure how singing the song in the first encounter with Nina would do anything except cut the scenario short and simply piss off Steppengard even more, before you get the chance to try your diplomacy.Madness is a tough cookie all on her own, and would give a party of lvl  7s a run for their money (CR 11 vs four lvl 7s is getting into TPK  territory).Finally, getting away from the PCs is as simple as a Mislead spell. The song doesn't prevent magical abilities, it just keeps her form corporeal.Even then... "corporeal" for Madness is still a bit off, what with non-euclidean shape and all. 20% automatic miss chance even when corporeal.It's too late now... obviously, but you might want to curb back a little on what the song can do to them. It's not some kryptonite that makes them easy to kill... it simply allows you to get it's boon and allows you to prevent them from just going incorporeal and leaving.</blockquote>

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