Converting RETURN to the tomb of horrors. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

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#1 Senevri Jun 23, 2009 11:17:16	edit Okay, seeing as how I've been blabbing here, and the fact that I'm also running this game, I guess I should call this a CO Diary - Dungeonmastering Return to the Tomb of Horrors or something. Related Threads: CR 11-15 encounters Statting the Black Academy original Okay, semi-appropriate place, seeing as how 3.5 parts of the forums are mostly barred, smoking craters or sunken into the sea here. Since my PCs have already beaten the tomb once, I'm reworking it quite a bit towards more modern meatgrinder-deathtrap while keeping it fair. I'm currently looking at the 4e conversion someone did, for inspiration. I'll probably use the Demilich Construct from the original 3e conversion. QUESTIONS: - What is The Vestige? - Negative Energy Elementals? - Negative Fundamentals? I'm starting the PCs out at lv 10, since they seem to be facing CR 10 encounters in the beginning of the adventure. I'm willing to give the players as much help as they want... ... outside of the game. In-game, it depends on how the dice fall. We're using at least Fighter and Rogue from pathfinder, since they're just plain better. I've done most stuff upto the city and some stuff in there, TBD before Tomb includes Mistress Ferranifer and other Academy teachers, and the idiot trio -- er, the Dim Triad. The Dim Triad is my current woe -- I think all three of them together should be around CR 15 as a challenge, but I'm not at all sure how to build them. No primary casters, at least, so... Rogue, Swordsage, Bard? Maybe? After I have them, I can run the module up until the PCs enter Skull City. Sort of vacillating between Dread Necros and Focused Specialist Necros for academy folk and Mistress Ferranifer. I think I'll use Dreads for lower-level ones, but FS for Ferranifer. In any case, she'll be a Vampire Lord. ...Er, lady, in this case, I guess. Anyway, there's scaling levels up and down, and reworking various things and whatnot. - Stone Giants instead of MM2 Mountain Giants. Drd2 for the Shaman. - Dark Nagas from MM - Bone Naga template from a Serpent Kingdoms excerpt - Flameskull from Lost Empires of Faérun - Moilian Zombies were in Libris Mortis under the name... Bleakborn, I think. - Greater Bone Golem = Greater Stone Golem with /bludgeoning DR, shatter vulnerability and... Weird SLA. O_o; I'll probably have to make a toned-down Winterwight instead of using the epic one. I'm currently looking at quick level scaling, with PCs being close to 20th near the end. Stuff:: Grunther is a BSF NPC who may accompany the PCs. Frankly, I was surprised how good an attack bonus he has for his elite-array ftr-13 unoptimized build. Ninjas, zombies... Need moar pirates and dinosaurs. We get Robots in the City that Sleeps. edit Hey everybody! Editing old posts kills formatting! Isnt' that just dandy! Grunther Grunther (CR 14) Male Human PF Fighter 13 NG M Humanoid Init +2; Senses Perception +1 Languages Common AC 15 touch 12 flat-footed 13 HP 118 (13 HD) Fort 10, Ref 6, Will 7 (10 vs. Fear), reroll fear, charm Speed 30 (6 sqr) Melee +30, Elsie, +3 greataxe 1d8+19(x3) +1d6 acid vs. undead: +32, 1d8+21(x3) +1d6 acid, +2d6 untyped Atk Options Robilar's Gambit, Power Attack, Great Cleave Base Atk 13; Grp 20 CMB 20 Combat Gear Elsie, +3 undead bane greataxe, studded leather armor, eversmoking bottle, Lesser Acid Assault Augment Crystal (adds +1d6 acid damage on a weapon of at least +1 actual enchantment) Abilities Str 24, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 11 Feats WF, GWF, WS, GWS: Axes, Blind-Fight, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes , Improved Toughness, Endurance, Cleave, Iron Will, Melee WM(Slashing), Indomitable Soul, Great Cleave, Robilar's Gambit Skills Survival +17, Knowledge:Dungeoneering +10, Handle Animal +6 Possessions combat gear plus Belt of Giant Strength +4 Hook One-armed BSF
#2 BloodDragon Jun 23, 2009 14:53:13	QUESTIONS: - What is The Vestige? - Negative Energy Elementals? - Negative Fundamentals The Vestige as in Acererak's Vestige for the Binder Class? It is more or less a class feature for Binder that allows them to bind the fallen soul Acererak to their own soul to gain some measure of power. Located in the Tome of Magic Source book. If you are reffering to Vestige in some other fashion then I do not know. Negative Energy Elemetals: Would be "Shadow Elemental" I believe also from the same book Tome of Magic under the Shadowcaster's Section. Ofcouse there are so many "evil" elementals out there, you can take your pick. Taint Elementals (Heros of Horror) for example would fit the bill just nicely and your players would hardly know the difference between the two. Negative Fundamentals? Do you mean Shadow Fundamentals? Just following the theme here... Edit: Oh some form of 2nd Ed Swarm Creature. There is a converted version of it here.
#3 Senevri Jun 23, 2009 15:42:26	The Vestige is some sort of wandering critter in The City That Sleeps that even Acererak didn't want to mess with - he still managed to bind it to use as a guardian of sorts. I considered using something like a Hunefer, but I'm not sure.... I'll check Tome of Magic's critters, they might work. Thanks. edit: Focused Specialist Necromancer /Tainted Scholar/Dread Witch for M.Ferranifer? Hmm.
#4 Senevri Jun 24, 2009 15:53:10	Got players! Went with 5d6 drop 2 lowest and 1 free LA for non-pathfinder races. 45 point buy, effectively. We have thus far, at L 10 1 PF Dwarven Fighter, with very basic line of feats - focuses, specialization, mastery, power attack, cleave 1 Drow Wiz5/WB1/JPM3, although his gear and feats are still in flux. 1 Aasimar Archivist 8/Combat Medic 2 of Saint Cuthbert. I tested their combat abilities vs. a cave troll and a mountain troll in a pretty straightforward melee, and the result was that fighter and gish can, thanks to rather spiffy boosts from the archivist, deal 40+ damage on a hit... but the Gish is bit of a glass cannon right now (as he went in the encounter unfinished, with an AC of 14). Died once but was revivified. I want to avoid giving hints, as the module is also about testing the PLAYERS, but maybe I should suggest the Gish looks at immunity to melee spell -- that is, mirror image. Amusingly enough, the difference in base to-hit chances between the fighter and the gish is a rather staggering 12 points - Fighter has 4 more STR, +4 from various foci, 4 more BAB and +2 from the PF fighter fix thing.
#5 Senevri Jun 26, 2009 19:04:21	The Vestige is a Dream Vestige, or rather THE dream vestige, from Libris Mortis. It seems every critter in RtToH is in Libris Mortis... except the epic ones. Fourth player: Half-fiend Paladin 5/Dread Commando 3. Rolled low stats so got two LA for free. Rolled good HP. Got a bit of a too good a deal with LA, but he's a non-optimizer so it should be okay. Ran him, the BSF and the medic vs. some Worg, then 4 Ogres - both pretty trivial. Then had them ambushed in a narrow pass, by 2 Ogres, 1 Ogre Barb and one Ogre Mage straight from SRD. Ogre Barb was an actual thread, and Ogre Mage, while alone isn't much, is quite fun otherwise... even if I traded Polymorph for Haste - forgot Haste was third, while Polymorph is at fourth. Ogre Mage needs a revamp, since it's a bit of a mess, IMO. All it can do is drop SLAs and run away. Half-fiend gets use out of Darkness SLA, thanks to Archivist casting Ebon Eyes on him. He gets to hide, to activate Sudden Strike.... Frankly, it'd probably be better to just continue with pure Paladin, but I'm not helping them to optimize this time. ...I probably should point him towards Telling Blow. In any case, the final encounter actually worked well enough - few of them took some damage, and were actually threatened by the situation. I completely ad hoc'd flying, though - the Half-fiend only has 20ft. fly speed usually, which isn't much of a problem. I had no idea how to use fly skill, I basically ad hoc'd something balance/climb-like DCs. Need to read up on that. The first encounter should be interesting - wights are smart enough to flank, and visibility is merely 5 ft... and they level drain on hit! Scary!
#6 Senevri Jun 27, 2009 19:21:45	Return to Tomb of Horrors START! Okay, PF Turn Undead is SO much simpler... but half of the wights didn't make their save, so even with the miss chance, there weren't enough for decent flanking action, so the fight was pretty trivial... So I dropped a single Drowned there, from MM3. Those things are nasty. They have a lot of HP for their CR, and use Drowning mechanism as their attack. It didn't hit anything in melee, though. Wandering wights speeded up communication with the guards, albeit at the cost of a poor NPC's life. Alas, poor Geaorg No-name, we... really didn't know ye. After hearing the Sage's wages, they decided to go dragon-hunting -- Something I had hinted at, as they had been under-WBL'd, in fact they're still missing about 20K, but they also haven't gained 11th level yet -- so I set them up against a single Sskvalor. Trivial challenge, but did the job of giving them some treasure. Oh, by the way -- the Gish picked Death Mark, for a strike --- and promptly caused some rather unfortunate NPC commoner deaths with it, oops. He's using most of his spells on Arcane Wrath. His spell choices do often suck quite a bit. Oh well. Anyway, they headed for Desatysso's stronghold, and lucked out on survival and k:geography, and didn't even face any random encounters -- it was getting late, so I was fast-forwarding a bit, so I skipped a couple rolls, admittedly. The two hill giants and the two after them, did quite a bit of damage on them - Even though the Medic activated Mass Sanctuary, I made the will saves about half of time. They're currently just outside the stronghold, with three wounded giants inside, Giants are probably the best melee smashers for their CR, a Hill Giant is CR 7, but has +16 to hit with a greatclub, Vs best AC on the bunch, which is 28, or 12 to hit. That being said, the damage is slow enough, but a dedicated healer/buffer is quite useful. The actual power of the party varies quite a bit - with buff time, they trample appropriate encounters, without they still manage, but spend a lot more of, especially of the healing resources. The thing that makes this campaign deadly is really the combination of favorable environment + appropriate critter. The Swamp should be interesting, I think. That being said, I did sort of expect to them have hit L 11 before the stronghold, due to random encounters, at least, but they're still missing a few thousand points. Free LA is wonderful. It makes people use more exotic races, which I like. The power level difference is most of the time pretty trivial, too. Admittedly, you'll notice things like SR and ability to fly... Interestingly, the Fighter is the damage king, by far, with ability to hit most of the time with 10-point 2-h power attack. The Gish isn't far behind and the situation may change, if he snatches up Power Attack. Admittedly, the only one who knows anything of optimization is playing the archivist-combat medic... and all three frontliners do rather decent damage with Righteous Wrath + Dark Knowledge activated.
#7 Senevri Jun 29, 2009 4:19:06	Desatysso's Stronghold Complete. Summary: - Fought with almost everything they could, showed decent prowess with the 16HD fire elemental, two remaining hill giants and four stone giants. Sprung every trap by basically walking into them. The CR10 auto-hit crushing wall was fun, but not as fun as the Can't-Stop-The-Rock moment, even if the Dwarven Fighter's keen detection allowed everyone else to climb to the roof (Two have spider climb and one has wings.) - They didn't really even try to look at things. When I mentioned you could rotate the handle on the tower doors, they just went for directly disabling the trap instead of looking at the handle. The battle at the terrace went almost okay. I should have tried throwing the Combat Medic overboard, and I'm sure I could have used the shaman better - Get him in combat faster, entangle them and throw rocks from the other edge. Even with bad hit chance, I've managed to hit - even with the hill giants - several time with rocks. Rolling Boulder: Instead of an attack roll, I made this a CR 10, ref dc 15 halves, 20d6 bludgeoning effect, due to the fact the PCs get 1 round and a chance to completely negate the effect if they're clever. Observations: Party can sometimes take up to 20d6 damage. Well, some of them, anyway. High crit weapon + Dolorous Blow + Blood in the Water = works. The Jade Phoenix Gish definitely started working. I had some serious trouble hitting him due to Greater Invisibility, too. A Dedicated healer makes playing significantly safer, although it's hard to say, as he's not doing BFC... but, definitely, the ability to get the melee tank back from single-digit HP when there's a giant ready to full-attack next to them, is very valuable. Taking the giant out would'a worked too. CR 7 accurate hitters definitely make for suitable encounters vs. ECL 10 party. Without a lot of healing, there would have been several deaths, already, and the rather decent attack of +16 of hill giants or +17 of stone giants is enough to hit even AC 30 for DM's purposes. Hit points are a bit on the light side for MM1 critters, admittedly. The easy part is officially now over. As the party had some serious chargen advantages in high stats and free LA, I would recommend using a ECL 12 or even ECL 13 non-optimizer party if running this adventure - at least if your conversion is similar to mine. For an optimized party, I think ECL 10 would still be about right, but without the freebies. My decision to track WBL I've given is a good one, I think. It gives me confidence I'm not giving too much or too little loot. Decisions: I'm going to avoid random encounters and random treasure as much as possible - figuring them out on the spot just takes too much time. So, at worst, I shall pre-roll and prepare few pseudo-randoms before next session. I'm also going to take a look at pre-swamp encounter spots, and pregenerate a few swamp encounters
#8 Senevri Jun 30, 2009 4:39:36	Encounter building I recently remembered the re-built Ogre Mage after having used it myself, so I tuned it up to be more like the Ogre-mage of old: OGRE MAGE CR 9 (custom) Large Giant Init +6; Senses darkvision 90 ft., low-light vision; Listen +11, Spot +11 Languages Giant, Common AC 22, touch 11, flat-footed 20 hp 61 (10 HD); Regen 5(fire, acid) Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +6 Speed 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 40 ft. (good) Melee greatsword +11/+6 (3d6+7/19–20); or Ranged longbow +7 (2d6/x3) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Base Atk +6; CMB +12 Atk Options sneak attack 2d6 Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th): 3/day— invisibility; darkness 1/day—lightning bolt (DC 18), cone of cold, gaseous form, swift invisibility (Spell Compendium page 125). Abilities Str 21, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 17 SQ deceptive veil Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (greatsword) Skills Concentration +11, Disguise +10 , Intimidate +10, Listen +11, Spot +11 Possessions greatsword, composite longbow, +4 chain shirt Deceptive Veil (Su): As per the spell disguise self, save that the ogre mage can appear to be up to one size smaller. (+20 vs. spot, will save DC 16 if interacted with) Flight (Su): An ogre mage can cease or resume flight as a free action. While using gaseous form it can fly at its normal speed and has perfect maneuverability. Sneak Attack: As the rogue ability from the Player's Handbook. Now, this + Skullcrusher Sergeant + two Skullcrusher Ogres, too much? I had already used darkness and Cone in a previous encounter, and the k:check revealed Regeneration, so I put them back in. SLA invisibility is actually quite useful for leader-role: Turn all your companions invisible for ambushes. With limited SLAs, you can't do that quite as well. So, tuned up, looks okay for CR? I'm thinking that it'll approach the players disguised, and lead them into a trap.
#9 Senevri Jul 05, 2009 11:11:24	The Dwarf Fighter dropped the Ogre Mage in a single round. The ogres wern't even really a challenge. What I did was have the Ogre Mage spend it's Invisibility SLAs to turn the ogres invisible, after which he lured PCs next to a crevasse, and the Ogres tried to bullrush them down there, after which it would have been cones, bolts and rocks fall. Except that CMBs for the Ogres wern' all that impressive, after all. I ran an XP-giving subquest for them, with two relatively straight-forward Iron Golem encounters and a single Dread Wraith. Golems were "Easy", although near the top of what meleers could hit, and the gish needed to use touch attacks, but the wraith with it's 25 touch and incorporeality, and especially it's 1d8 con drain, was particularily deadly. The Combat Medic is definitely of neutral-type alignment, and the JPM Gish has some cruel traits.... Well, he's a drow. shrug The Paladin/Dread Commando is definitely a bit behind right now. Any suggestions on a level 12 item or lower to drop for him? He's St. Cuthbert - sponsored, which has it's own limitations. I was thinking of a Sun Blade drop, even... but that's probably overkill.
#10 Senevri Jul 15, 2009 9:15:04	Okay, so after a bit of shopping, Grunther managed to recall where Sather lived, they had a curb-stomp battle with Shadow Mastiffs in the False Prince's tomb. I used Shadow Mastiffs instead of Hellhounds, but now I wonder if that was actually sub-optimal - even lower-cr opponents work, if they have any sort of an attack which auto-hits an opponent. The players hit L 12 - or 10, 11, 12 respectively, with remaining LA in. No level up for the Dwarven Fighter yet, as the player was away, so his character was a yes-man, together with the rather delightful Grunther. I momentarily lost my encounter notes, so they managed to pass the mountains without encounters, towards Pitchfield. They rested in an inn a bit past the mountain range, and I gave them an option between elves and orcs. Elves took a road toll for allowing safe passage through their lands, so they went for the Orcs. The Orc Barb 4s and their leader I statted up were a credible threat - Orc4s had +16 to hit on charge, and d12+18 or so on damage, and around 60 HP while raging. Enough to hit the best AC on a roll of 12, and taking anything from one fifth to one third of a character's HP. The leader had +22 or so to hit, and with Battle Leader's Charge and Bard Song going, did about +23 damage on hit, although his main point was boosting the others. So, what happened was, I had a lousy init, the PCs had Grunther open up Eversmoking Bottle, which more or less ruined the charge. The next round, Grunther and the dwarven fighter ganged up on the leader, and both managed a single crit. With axes. While power attacking. sigh The situation deteriorated from there. Anyway, they went through Molnar to Pitchfield, where they rebuked some of the Wights away, and killed the rest, and Progressed the Plot. Some fun RP happened, but man, Desatysso's journal entries are a pain to read. Next time, they'll be assaulted by wights. Individually, in their rooms. Inn ambushes are fun. I'll probably drop the swashbuckling highwayman on them on the way to the swamp. For the swamp I have the following planned, roughly. - Bog Imps - Chuul - Will 'o Wisps (potentially nasty) - Blackscale Lizardfolk. I've caused a TPK with those things before, though... but back then, they didn't really have strong frontliners. - If they really push it, a CR 14 black dragon. - A fey (grig) tribe for non-combat. A friendly nixie has been kidnapped by the Bog Imps (who owe servitude to the black dragon, probably.) And then, of course, the Dim Triad. Any ideas for non-combat, or on how to modify the tactical situation for these critters, using swamp/marsh/bog type areas?
#11 Senevri Jul 17, 2009 17:23:04	I can't believe they're all still alive! Okay, the wisps are nasty, but the half-fiend was guarding, and has electricity resistance of 10. Otherwise, went about as good as expected. They have high HP damage dealing potential, which helps a lot. I dropped a 12-headed hydra on them. The thing got one round in, and was decent, except that I chose to aim at different characters with each head. First night, vs. the dim triad - The vampire went for the Archivist (scent + blindsight give a decent detection ability even in a fog cloud.), who made his save vs. CdG. Hindsight, I should've gone for the grapple+blood drain thing. Ability to hide as a move action is nifty, but it's effectively visible 'til it's next turn. I also forgot many of the abilities i'd put into the build (like the 3 dice sneak attack - that would have made a much more difficult CdG save.) Oh well. Still, the party gained quite a few negative levels... And chose to hustle through the night, progressing hardly at all, but at least all were awake and armored. So, after a nighttime "random" encounter, they were assaulted by all three. However, three corporeal vampires, despite being rather nasty stealth attackers, didn't have that good a chance, as they were in full attack range of three full BAB meleers.... The archivist used Daylight, and I ruled that it gave a larger visible area in the natural fog, and then the drow dropped faerie fire on the three. Come round three, they'll be taking the slow approach - hit someone with a strength - and level draining strike from stealth, then return to stealth, attacking about once every two rounds. As long as the players run out restorations and heals.... Heh. The grig tribe requested their help, to rescue their leader from the Bog Imps (who served a mature black dragon, who demanded sacrifices from them.) Some very fun roleplaying was had there, as this Bog Imp had a tribal rule that they would drown anyone whose favorite color wasn't green. So, they had an arrangement, where the sacrifice would hang from a tree for five hours (bare minimum), then go inside the big skull. Rest of the group volunteered the dwarven fighter. Anyway, I ran the encounter as "easy" more or less, although nobody escaped unscathed - The dragon arrived in plain sight before nightfall, and didn't suspect much, until the PCs attacked, after which it did some biting and used it's breath weapon, and dropped a 70ft. darkness on the area... which got promptly negated by the Daylight racial ability of the Archivist. First time it's been useful, really. DRAGON: "I c wot u did thar!" Anyway, it could have gone much worse, but I made the "mistake" of wanting to get just one round of full attack in, instead of flying away (with the archivist snatch'd in it's mouth ) and waiting for it's breath weapon to recharge - probably could've managed a TPK that way, but, y'know, dragon. Arrogant. And thus, it fell underneath.... the half-fiend Paladin's Rapier, actually. As he could fly, he was the only one who could hit the hovering dragon reliably. Admittedly, it was only 15ft. from the ground, which was enough for it's bite... but even that effectively negated full attacks, and the Pally had had trouble hitting it before. So... To summarize, there could have been deaths, but partly due to luck, partly due to my - both intentional and unintentional - mistakes, everyone is still alive. Even if the Archivist is casting 5+ restorations practically every day.
#12 meth0dical Jul 18, 2009 15:00:44	I can't offer any suggestions on converting the rest but I thought I would let you know this CO diary is very fun to read. Keep at it. ... I may have to run a converted Tomb of Horrors sometimes soon.
#13 Senevri Jul 19, 2009 6:59:14	In comparison to many other diaries, this one is barely readable. Here's the dragon I used. As you can see, the fight could have been a lot tougher. In any case, they spent some time in the Grig village crafting, and to speed things up, I didn't have much happen there... On the way, there was a semi-trivial Gray Render zombie encounter. As an observation, though, those guys are pretty good at hitting, so a bunch of them may actually be a decent challenge ( if a totally contrived and unlikely one. ) Grunther told that they could reach the Tomb just around nightfall, or they could spend the night and arrive before midday. I am regretting giving Grunther max ranks on survival, at this point. There's been very few chances of giving them marshland terrain challenges. So, they finally arrive where the Tomb is supposedly located: GRUNTHER: "Okay, let's turn around. We're lost." After all, twenty years ago, there wasn't a freakin' CITY there. So, over the quaking bog; CR 3 Ghasts vs. ECL 13+ PCs.... well, there was a minor chance of nat 20s, but, no. Especially after the Archivist cast Mass Draconic Might (custom 7th spell ) They first tried going over the wall, but went for the main gate after the Nagas warned them off. So, the gate did it's thing, and asked, "What is the sign?" Now, Waaaay back, Ahrens the sage TOLD the PCS the only thing he could discover was "The Sign of the Devourer". I guess I could have hammered it in a bit more at Molnar... and they could have huddled and considered the question a bit, and so forth. However, the Archivist confidently replied, "The Skull" as the necromancer they had encountered previously had had one tattooed into his forehead. ( a very simple and easy encounter in the swamp, which I seeded to give them an opportunity to learn about safe entry procedures to the city, which the PCs almost completely wasted. ) In any case, all the Golem could do was laugh at such a reply. Bone Golem, Greater Bone Golem, Greater (CR 17) N Huge Construct Init -2; Senses Perception +0, True Seeing, Low-light, Darkvision Languages Common AC 27 touch 6 flat-footed 27 (-2 size, -2 dex, +21 natural) HP 271 (42 HD) DR 15/bludgeoning Immune Magic Immune, Construct: Saves Fort +14, Ref +12, Will +14 Speed 30 Melee 2 slams, +42, 4d8+13/x2 Atk Options dread laugh (as spell Weird DC 19 every 3 rounds, sonic-based) Space/Reach 15/15 Base Atk 31; Grp 52, CMB: 46 Abilities Str 37, Dex 7, Con -, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 1 SQ Dread Laugh(Su): As the spell Weird, but sonic-based, useable after a 3 round delay. A Silence spell thus blocks the effect. Immunity To magic(ex): A Bone golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below. A Shatter spell removes the DR and makes it take double damage from bludgeoning weapons. A Mending spell or a repair spell removes the effects of the Shatter spell.
#14 Senevri Dec 29, 2009 7:00:07	I haven't had the time or the enthusiasm to crunch most of Black Academy, but I've actually played two sessions. One's DMing muscles atrophy FAST if one doesn't play. Specifically, my habit of going way easy on the players kicked in again. T_T Events: Bought a scroll of raise dead + a bunch of diamonds from the black market at double cost, Rez'd Grunther. Checked Black Academy, didn't want to become a member OR fight their way through, so they went in through the roof, entering at auditorium. Search check in the fourties discovered the hidden path to Ferranifer's chamber. Side note: Maximized Retributive Blackfire is CRAZY AWESOME! They now possess Ferri's half of the Amulet of the Void. The trapped hallway of sarcofagi: Nothing special, I didn't have it prepared, lots and lots of improvised rulings. They broke through the western end of the hallway to the dungeon where the Live Ones were kept, and freed them. However, as the PCs weren't inclined to guide them back to safety, they opted to staying put for at least a while, until a couple of the braver ones could scout the place a bit. Then, the PCs activated the Flesh-to-Stone huge-cloud-of-gas trap on the other end of the hallway. At least the former captives are relatively safe now. The Dwarf BSF was hit by an Imprisonment trap, so I allowed the archivist to research a seventh-level "Free Known Ally From Imprisonment" spell, since Freedom is 9th level and such... Jokingly it's now called "Free Dwarven Fighter From Imprisonment" spell.
#15 Senevri Jan 05, 2010 9:45:16	They've entered the tomb. Using both 1e, the 4e conversion and pathfinder, as well as various sources, I'm in the process of converting the dungeon - I've played through the wizards conversion, which is probably too faithful. Using the 4e maps as a base.
#16 Senevri Jan 05, 2010 17:13:34	WoTC's mutant 4-armed gargoyle upgraded: Show MUTANT FOUR-ARMED GARGOYLE CR 16 CE Large humanoid (earth) War 6
#17 Senevri Jan 06, 2010 10:05:27	Out of steam: I'm up to the bit with the siren and the stone juggernaut, but I'm not sure what to do there. I guess I could use a Slaughterstone construct in the stone juggernaut's place... Not sure what to do about the siren business.
#18 Senevri Jan 08, 2010 17:55:19	I made a couple of mistakes. Slaughterstone Behemoth was a GREAT replacement for the stone juggernaut, I highly recommend it. I used a Lilitu instead of the Siren - it detects as good, can Raise Dead and could easily be bound as a "Help" there. However, I made it disappear the moment the PCs touched the money bag, instead of having it try to plead with them and triggering with removal of the bag from the pedestal. If I had done it that way, there'd been more RP, and I could've bait-and-switched the treasure from several tens of thousands worth to a few thousand's worth once the PCs spurned the lilitu for the treasure. I didn't have any other effect in the 'lair', which... was probably okay, all in all. Then, I ad-hoc'd the sleep mist to daze mist. I should've gone with a waves of exhaustion effect, which would have been equally debilitating, but left the PCs still able to fight. I added a weapon storage storing all types of swords, three of each. I should have probably just put in three swords. I already ad-hocced the slots in the adamantine door to be of a more generic shape, since due to not having any gear, the PCs only owned one sword. Now it seems highly probable they won't figure out they're supposed to put a sword into each slot. I am wary of dropping too many hints, since I'm a monty-haul sort of DM by nature, still, and while I've killed most of them a few times in this campaign, since it hasn't stuck, they're still proceeding in a very kick-in-the-door fashion. I dropped an arrow of construct slaying for them, but they didn't identify it. I would like to hammer in the place's nature as something that is being maintained by a demonic horde a bit more, and I think I need to drop a couple of more hints for them. The person who does the 'leading' most of the time is basically trying to rush the people through, since they lost all of their gear, in an attempt to find it. This is a bad choice in many ways, since they are all running around NAKED in the dungeon, and the only thing they've eaten in the last twenty hours is some roasted slime mold. If it hasn't been noted yet, I've replaced all the fake door spear traps with the black lotus one from Pathfinder, and I'm using the 50-ft CR 10 pit traps from DMG. I've allowed them to find most doors with a succesful perception check - if they've been searching, specifically. They missed the golden key, by the way.
#19 Senevri Jan 10, 2010 5:27:49	Stat blocks False Acererak: Show Human lich necromancer 11/monk 4 NE Medium undead (augmented humanoid) Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., life sight; Perception +24 Aura* fear (60-ft. radius, DC 18) Defense AC 26, touch 17, flat-footed 24 (+4 armor, +2 deflection, +2 Dex, +5 natural, +2 wis) hp 137 (11d6+55 plus 15 false life) Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +14 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +4, evasion; DR 15/bludgeoning and magic; Immune cold, electricity, undead, traits Offense Speed 40 ft. Melee touch +7/+7 (1d8+5 plus paralyzing touch plus stun) ki: +7/+7/+7 ki pool 4 Special Attacks grave touch* (9/day), paralyzing touch (DC 19), stunning fist 3/day, power over undead* (9/day, DC 18) Spells Prepared (CL 11th) 6th—circle of death (DC 22), globe of invulnerability, maximized fireball (DC 19) 5th—cloudkill (DC 21), cone of cold (DC 21), quickened magic missile, waves of fatigue 4th—dimension door, enervation, fire shield, wall of ice (2) 3rd—dispel magic (2), fireball (DC 19), suggestion (DC 19), vampiric touch (2) 2nd—darkness, extended mage armor (already cast), false life (already cast), scorching ray (2), see invisibility, spectral hand 1st—magic missile (3), ray of enfeeblement (2), shield (2) 0—bleed (DC 16), detect magic, ray of frost, read magic Prohibited Schools illusion, transmutation Statistics Str 10, Dex 14, Con —, Int 22, Wis 14, Cha 16 Base Atk +8; CMB +8; CMD 28 Feats Craft Wondrous Item, Defensive Combat Training, Extend Spell, Improved Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Scribe Scroll, Toughness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge Skills Craft (alchemy) +20, Intimidate +17, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (planes) +20, Linguistics +20, Perception +24, Sense Motive +24, Spellcraft +20, Stealth +24; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception, +8 Sense Motive, +8 Stealth
#20 Senevri Jan 30, 2010 17:34:00	Back in Black Academy, that is. Previously, the players had gotten stuck in front of the Adamantite Door, which had three vertical slots. I provided a simplified map for them of the tomb. There's a bit of fatigue situation, right now. In any case, the Archivist's player quickly figured out that SOMEthing needed to be inserted into the slots, but doesn't know what. They've been given one hint, in that after defeating the Slaughterstone Behemoth, they discovered a hidden compartment, holding several types of swords. Three of each. Outside that, there doesn't seem to be any hint available in the dungeon itself. Academician Drake knows how to pass the door, and it's possible Mistress Ferranifer does too (although she's residing in the amulet half in the final crypt, right now.) It's likely she can also communicate psychically with the three vampires (Who were dust, but more on that later) They fought the False Acererak, and thus gained a Spellbook (there's probably a second where the hidden phylactery resides). It was okay-ish, although the Paladin Fiend Commando got paralyzed - I allowed the paralysis to end when the lich's body was destroyed. In the meantime, Academician Drake had become aware that something was going on in the tomb, thanks to the property damage in the hallway of the Sarcofagi and the prisoners-turned statues in the Live One holding cell. He'd set a permanent Alarm spell, as well a Cadaver Golem to guard here. I made a mistake here, I had intended to throw in some Moilian Zombies (Bleakborn) here, but I forgot and just used regular ones. Despite the level being 15ish, the Fighter is still the major damage dealer. The Paladin is falling way behind. In the Hallway of the Sarcofagi, they encountered Drake and the three stooges - er, vampires. Drake set an ultimatum - surrender and be spared, or die - the Archivist cast Mass Sanctuary and tried to walk past. Six negative levels later, combat was joined. Which was interesting as I still didn't have stats for Drake. Right now I'm tempted to make him an Archivist, but I dunno... How are the vampires walking around as they were dusted? Revive Undead or just lot of blood sacrificed, perhaps. Mass Sanctuary has been quite effective - it works about half the time, and often means that meleers charge right next to the PCs, then completely fail to do damage, leaving them at full attack range. I played the vampires idiotically, and they were wasted by the Fighter, leaving Drake alone. We ended with Drake's line of "Er, perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial agreement?" Notes: Long Dungeon is Long. I'm worried about the City That Sleeps. I think Exemplars of Evil had some stuff about it there. Fighters are good at dealing damage vs. monsters in actual gameplay, unlike conventional optimization wisdom assumes. That being said, none of my players are that optimized. Re: Healing. Combat Vigor heals 48 points for the fighter per combat, the Paladin can Channel Energy 3d6, some 6-8 times per day, the JPM Gish has a 3 die healing strike. All this is necessary as the Archivist is effectively out of spells as well as naked. Pathfinder's "Advanced" template is fun, fun, fun!
#21 genuine Feb 01, 2010 20:39:57	This is a fun diary to read - keep it up.
#22 Senevri Feb 02, 2010 6:47:21	Thank you for your kind words. Incidentally I found a rather nifty conversion of Tomb of Horrors from Thealexandrian.net Unfortunately I'm so far along that I probably won't be able to use any of it myself. well, maybe NEXT time... although I'll probably be wanting to step out of the DM chair a bit after this one's done. Trying out Alexandrian's Statblock (or my perversion of it) on an advanced HoH bloodrot: Show BLOODROT CR 10 Large Undead Initiative: –5 Senses: Perception -5; Blindsight 60 ft. AC: 5 (–5 Dex), touch 5, flat-footed 5 HP: 130; Hit Dice: 20d8 +40 damage reduction 10/—, Saves: Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +5 Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 20 ft. Melee: Slam +8 melee (1d8+7 plus blood fever) + grab and constrict 1d8+7 Space: 10 ft. Reach:15 ft. Base Atk: +10; CMB +16; CMD 21 Abilities: Str 20, Dex 1, Con —, Int —, Wis 1, Cha 14 Special Attacks: Blood fever, constrict 1d8+7, improved grab, sanguineous mount Special Qualities: Blindsight 60 ft., damage reduction 10/—, immunities, split, track infected, undead traits Skills: Climb +21 Feats: — Environment: Underground or urban Blood Fever: Contact SU disease Fort DC 23 incubation 1min damage 1d6 Con 1d4 Cha; Break Enchantment/Remove Curse. Sanguineous Mount: Touch infected to hide in body up to 24 H. DC 20 fort, Remove disease or heal + dc20 caster check expels. Split: if 10+ hp, slasing/piercing hit splits to two, half HP round down. Track Infested: 10 miles, not in AMF.
#23 Senevri Feb 06, 2010 16:05:46	R.I.P, Healbot Okay, what happened today: The Archivist went all "Dude, where's our gear?" and Drake, who has effectively completed the Tomb, told it's in the very last chamber. Now, He was relatively confident, seeing as he had a contingent harm, he'd explode if he'd die and had a couple of nice swifts, but also ethereal jaunt and invisibility. Still, the group contains a dark elf and a fiend, so he's not all 'zomg goodie-two-shoes'. Let the record show the Gish and the Paladin weren't actually present today. He asks about mistress ferranifer, and The Archivist fails a bluff... So, now he's thinking either they don't know, or they killed her. Drake's not that fond of Ferranifer concerning the whole blackfire IP issues, and these guys are going to loot the treasure in the final chamber - and Drake knows that'll arouse the Demilich's remains. So, he agrees (at axe-point) to guide them to the last chamber. It should be mentioned, "when you don't know, it's 50-50 chance" is a great DM's tool. The part where the PCs are idiots They don't rest. Archivist has Touch of Healing, but chooses not to use it, or Restoration - while he's at -6 negative levels. They just trounce to the Embalming Chamber. This is where I'm an idiot - Drake's lacking in utility spells, so he digs out the key from the acid at axe-point and warns them of the bloodrots in the last vat. He can't disintegrate, since that might destroy the key, and it'll take weeks for the demons to get to repairing it. So the Archivist casts mass lesser vigor excluding Drake, which aggravates the Bloodrots. Now Drake casts a Disintegrate, and takes out 120 out of 170HP for one of them. The Archivist activates the Rod of the Python - python's a decent PF grappler, and did okay against one of the three bloodrots. Then, the Archivist, the Python and the Dwarf get engulfed. I completely forgot PF Necromancers get Rebuke equivalent ability. The whole CMB thing is very useful, even when calculating CMBs and CMDs on the fly from MMI The Dwarf gets away from the pudding, but the Archivist can't and just starts healing the thing - he still has few cure serious and a few cure moderates remaining. The Archivist yells at the dwarf I'm completely unsure what Drake'll do since he's a bit insane, but there's this whole allied victory vibe going. I roll D20 for reaction for 1-10 being bad and above that being good - and roll a natural 20. So, Drake's clearly caught up in the moment, charges almost into the bloodrot, and tries to Greater Dim.Door them out of there - despite the fact that'll almost certainly cause some demonic retribution. The Archivist resists, and makes his will save, so now Drake's out of the Tomb along some demons, but he has good spells for getting away. The Python is constricting the Bloodrot successfully. The Archivist does manage to destroy the bloodrot, but then remembers he's down 30 HP from the six negative levels and promptly drops dead. The Dwarf manages to get to the spiked pit and climb 10ft, at which point we end, and agree that the Fiend Paladin flies the survivors out of the place. Now, if you still recall, the PCS are part of a "prevent-end-of-the-world" guild who uses magical talismans for communication, keeping everyone up to date where which danger is rising, so a new guild member has been on the way a couple of days now, probably. In other words, the Archivist player is rolling a Gnome Sorcerer (Dragon Bloodline). I think there may have been some fatigue playing the character, so it _might_ have been something of a suicide, and having someone who has gear will be helpful. The Fiend Paladin has spells despite lack of books, The Gish can get some books in this Necromantic Academy, plus he's an initiator and the Dwarf... power attacks. In other news, PF can actually play 0-level characters easy enough. you get Racial feats, 6+Con HP, and.. either int or 2+int skill points, up to a maximum of 2 ranks (Cross-class doesn't cost extra points in PF).
#24 Senevri Feb 16, 2010 9:06:59	New NPC, to ease the lack of healbot: Show Ghelbot (CR 13) Grig (heroic) Adept 12 CG Tiny Fey Init +5; Senses Perception +21 (Low-light vision) Languages Sylvan, Common Defenses: AC 24, touch 20, flat-footed 18 (+2 size +2 natural, +2 natench, +2 deflection +5 dex +1 dodge) HP 78 HD (12D6+6+15feat+12con) DR 5/Cold Iron Immune Any immunities (energy, poison, sleep effects etc) Resist and SR SR 17 Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +12 Weakness Light sensitivity, vulnerability to damage type Actions: Speed 20ft (4sq), fly 40ft (8sq) poor Melee +14/+9, mwk short sword 1d3-2, 19-20/x2 Ranged +16/+11, +3 longbow (1d4+1/x3) (+1 atk, damage within 30ft) rapid shot +14/+14/+9, +3 longbow 1d4+1/x3 Atk Options Point Blank Shot Space: 2 1/2 ft Base Atk +6; Grp +2 CMB +2; CMD +17 Special Actions Touch of healing: Heal 3x highest cure spell in memory in damage up to half max hp Combat Gear efficient quiver 1800gp, 60 arrows Spells Prepared (CL 12th, base DC 14, CL 13 conjuration[healing]) 1 4th: Cure Critical Wounds 3 3rd:2x Cure Serious Wounds, Remove Disease 4 2nd: 2xCure Moderate Wounds, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Web 4 1st: Protection from Evil, 2xCure Light Wounds, Obscuring Mist 3 0th: purify food and drink, stabilize, create water Spell-like abilities (CL 9) 3/day—disguise self, entangle (DC 12), invisibility (self only), pyrotechnics (DC 13), ventriloquism (DC 12). The save DCs are Charisma-based. Statistics: Abilities Str 6, Dex 20, Con 14 , Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 12 SQ Spellcasting, Summon Familiar Feats Dodge(b), Weapon Finesse(b) Improved Initiative, Toughness, Scribe Scroll, Point blank shot, Rapid shot, Touch of Healing[reserve] Skills Craft (Woodworking) +4, Escape Artist +8, Stealth +31, Acrobatics +22, Perception +21 , Perform (string instruments) +6, Heal +21, Fly +5 Possessions Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Ring of Recall* Spellbook Adept Spell List Adepts choose their spells from the following list. 0 Level: create water, detect magic, ghost sound, guidance, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic, stabilize, touch of fatigue. 1st Level: bless, burning hands, cause fear, command, comprehend languages, cure light wounds, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law, endure elements, obscuring mist, protection from chaos, protection from evil, protection from good, protection from law, sleep. 2nd Level: aid, animal trance, bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, cure moderate wounds, darkness, delay poison, invisibility, mirror image, resist energy, scorching ray, see invisibility, web. 3rd Level: animate dead, bestow curse, contagion, continual flame, cure serious wounds, daylight, deeper darkness, lightning bolt, neutralize poison, remove curse, remove disease, tongues. 4th Level: cure critical wounds, minor creation, polymorph, restoration, stoneskin, wall of fire. 5th Level: baleful polymorph, break enchantment, commune, heal, major creation, raise dead, true seeing, wall of stone. Hook Grigs can leap great distances. They have light blue skin, forest-green hair, and brown hairy legs, and usually wear tunics or brightly colored vests with buttons made from tiny gems. A grig stands 1½ feet tall and weighs about 1 pound.
#25 Senevri Feb 17, 2010 2:16:30	I say, Hello! So, looking at it, I immediately noticed that it's actually more like CR 11, and in the interest of having Raise Dead available, I pushed it to 17th level adept. Meaning, There's two, three feats available. Also, I gave it Scribe Scroll, thinking of the Archivist... who's dead, so that can go. What would be good feats for a support character? Also, has anyone thought of using a Merciful bow with Spell-storing arrows for healing?
#26 Senevri Feb 21, 2010 5:47:08	Guest star: Big Stupid Minotaur Barbarian. We had some extra time, and the visiting player didn't want to play the blue beetle. Maul of the Titans, Levitation Boots, Haste Armor. The Sorcerer is... mostly stupid. Fiery burst, ray of flame, scorching ray etc. A ray specialist. Lots of debuffs, including antimagic ray, though. I ran a CR-appropriate test vs. War Trolls. The PCs ended up running away. War Trolls seem a bit under-CR'd. Okay, so, worried, our new characters travel to the Skull City, picking up a Grig Adept from the fey village, and make it safely to the city, under the protecting hand of the DM. There, they quickly discover a naked dwarf shopping for clothes in the market. I forced the survivors to exit the tomb and the academy, to get the group back together, and to get the PCS to put some clothes on. The paladin chooses not to. The Drow JPM Gish convinces our new arrivals that he's very cleverly disguised as a drow to avoid suspicion in this evil city. He also takes the time to read the lich's spellbook. I'm not sure, but I think the paladin is... not happy with how the game works for him. His most useful ability has been his ability to channel, thus far. So, as they walk in to the academy - since only Ngise remains of the named characters, the access has gotten quite loose - as they pass the side door to the auditorium, the paladin peeks in and... What follows is actual dialogue. Paladin: "Detect evil" "You detect evil." "Smite Evil" ... So, he charges the podium where Ngise is speaking, in front of thirty or so necromancers and smites him. It doesn't sound much, but at the time it was HILARIOUS. What follows was a short, bloody encounter leaving twenty or so dead. The Minotaur discovered they joys of getting hit by a maximized ray of enfeeblement, evil was smitten and some magic was thrown. I completely and utterly forgot to use the BONE NAGAS here. They should have rushed in, as the combat began. Oh, well... The PCs did not, in fact, loot anything, just gathered the surrendered and herded them onwards. They were dismayed to find out, the students weren't allowed anywhere near the actual tomb. To get some fighting in, I allowed for the Gargoyle to have been reset in the meantime. Beyond that, it was embarrasingly clear that outside the Archivist - now Sorcerer - player, others had little idea what all the tricks of the tomb were. And the Sorcerer had naturally never been there before. So, anyway, they now have a heavily-damaging maul-wielder with them, so the Bloodrots aren't a problem and they get the Golden Key. They still haven't figured a way through the adamantine door, so I'm going to give them a lot of opportunity - I'll have a clumsy Demon appear, whom they can try to apprehend and question, as the caretaker Demons know all there is to know about the tomb. If that fails, I'll probably allow academician Drake to return. Observations: The PCS have been stuck with the tomb for a long while now... but it's starting to get so familiar, instead of becoming weary, I think there's starting to be a sense of... being at home, around now. the Pathfinder Barbarian is hardly different from the old Barbarian. Rage powers are mostly neat, and Rage as rounds/day is a good idea, although requires bookkeeping and trusting the player not to cheat. Our new sorcerer.. doesn't know sorcerers. In the end, he took Fey line - and the biggest bloodline choice is in fact, which one gives the feats you want. Outside that, bloodlines are practically trivial. I hate Beer. Specifically, I hate my players drinking beer. It's not an issue in a 3-4 hour game, but this time, the session ran for six hours, and in the last two hours... well, As you may recall, I ended up using shadesteel golems instead of scimitar slashers for the snake room. These have the Golem magic immunity. The Sorcerer started out with a Orb of Fire, dealing decent damage. I congratulated him on a good pick. We went over the whole magic immunity thing. Next round, he tried a Scorching Ray. T_T THEN he used an Acid Arrow, which, at least, would have worked. But whatever happened to the ORB OF FIRE? sigh
#27 Senevri May 15, 2010 17:08:31	New session! I ruled Grunther un-rezzable, since he's been dead for more than a few rounds, and there's the demilich construct there. (I've been lenient on the whole die-and-lose-soul issue in the tomb, generally). I dropped in a nalfeshnee next to the adamantite door, who was somewhat upset what with the PCs extended demolition of the tomb, and the fact they keep on breaking the stuff the demons repair. Surprisingly, they went for diplomacy, and suggested that if the demon told them how to get past the adamantite door, they wouldn't need to go through rest of the dungeon again. Since the door's been a problem for a while, I went with it. Forgot an actual diplomacy roll, though. Shame. So, the throne room: a giant ruby (actually a transformed, but cognizant Balor), strong wind effects, two teleporters, three doors and the throne, two crowns and a two-headed scepter. They figured they'd use a rope to anchor themselves to each other to keep from getting blown away, which... I thought would probably work, so I went with it. This meant they brute-forced themselves to all the three rooms - there was very little loot to be found, although I did drop in Strongarm Bracers, just because. The twelve reth dekala I replaced the swords and shields with, weren't much more than a speedbump, although they did deal about 100 points of damage around everyone, and I did intend them to be an easy encounter. In the end, they had the minotaur (now an NPC) use the Gem of Cursed Wishing to "Gain the knowledge on how to reach the next room". I couldn't really figure out on-the-spot ruling for how to twist that wish horribly (how it originally went, instead of just exploding), so I gave the correct information... after which the minotaur promptly died, the twist being that while the minotaur knew the answer, none of the PCs did. Nice. Unfortunately, really, in order to prevent another game-halting problem, I wussed out and allowed the NPC healbot to use one of the three Raise Deads he can manage (enough diamond dust for three raises) to get the Minotaur back onto it's feet. So I guess there's a 28-hour limit 'til the soul is lost in my Tomb. They could figure out the crown and touching part, but for some reason they missed - and kept on missing after repeated hints - the sitting-on-the-throne part. Puzzles are problematic. Next, it's AMF, an Efreet, and the bleeding door, I guess.
#28 Senevri Nov 07, 2010 2:52:06	They beat a hole to the bleeding door by using antimagic to temporarily negate the blood. It was clever, so I ruled 'fair enough'. They were remarkably uninterested at looting in the false crypt. Acererak's earthly remains (dust of the lich body) Undead Humanoid 20 LE M humanoid Init X; Senses perception +18 (darkvision 60) Aura dc 28 Fear aura vs. Frightened 20 rounds Languages AC x, touch x, flat-footed x (5 deflection, +6 charisma + HP 138 (20 HD) 20d8 + 48 Immune immunity to poison; acid, cold, electricity, undead immunities Resist and SR darkvision 60 feet; fire resistance 10; DR 15/bludgeoning and magic, SR 31 Fort 6, Ref 8, Will 10 Speed flight 30ft perfect Melee corrupting touch 20d6 aging(fort DC 28 halves) +1d8+10 negative Base Atk 10; CMB 11, CMD 22 Special Actions Any special attacks that the creature can use on its turn in place of making attacks Abilities Str 13, Dex 13 , Con -, Int -, Wis 17, Cha 26 SQ DC 26 fear aura So, yeah. They did manage to beat it, although it wasn't exactly too easy. I set up so that the skull and the ghost-with-numbers-filed-off were in separate locations. Now, I'm having some trouble how to oomph the final battle, yet keep it from become 'fail-a-save-and-die'
#29 Jimjams Oct 27, 2014 8:20:05	How did your gqme finish? i'm about to run this campaign as a 5th ed conversion which looks alot easier than the 3.5/pathfinder one you had to do(thank god!!) I'm starting the pc's at level 13 as, like you, the Dim Triad are giving me alot of concearn. If you have any ideas or advice then feel free. cheers

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Senevri

Jun 23, 2009 11:17:16

*edit*
Okay, seeing as how I've been blabbing here, and the fact that I'm also running this game, I guess I should call this a
CO Diary - Dungeonmastering Return to the Tomb of Horrors
or something.
Related Threads:
CR 11-15 encounters
Statting the Black Academy

*original* Okay, semi-appropriate place, seeing as how 3.5 parts of the forums are mostly barred, smoking craters or sunken into the sea here. Since my PCs have already beaten the tomb once, I'm reworking it quite a bit towards more modern meatgrinder-deathtrap while keeping it fair.
I'm currently looking at the 4e conversion someone did, for inspiration. I'll probably use the Demilich Construct from the original 3e conversion.

QUESTIONS: - What is The Vestige?
- Negative Energy Elementals?
- Negative Fundamentals?
I'm starting the PCs out at lv 10, since they seem to be facing CR 10 encounters in the beginning of the adventure. I'm willing to give the players as much help as they want... ... outside of the game.
In-game, it depends on how the dice fall. We're using at least Fighter and Rogue from pathfinder, since they're just plain better. I've done most stuff upto the city and some stuff in there, TBD before Tomb includes Mistress Ferranifer and other Academy teachers, and the idiot trio -- er, the Dim Triad.

The Dim Triad is my current woe -- I think all three of them together should be around CR 15 as a challenge, but I'm not at all sure how to build them. No primary casters, at least, so... Rogue, Swordsage, Bard? Maybe? After I have them, I can run the module up until the PCs enter Skull City.
Sort of vacillating between Dread Necros and Focused Specialist Necros for academy folk and Mistress Ferranifer. I think I'll use Dreads for lower-level ones, but FS for Ferranifer.

In any case, she'll be a Vampire Lord. ...Er, lady, in this case, I guess. Anyway, there's scaling levels up and down, and reworking various things and whatnot.
- Stone Giants instead of MM2 Mountain Giants. Drd2 for the Shaman.
- Dark Nagas from MM
- Bone Naga template from a Serpent Kingdoms excerpt
- Flameskull from Lost Empires of Faérun
- Moilian Zombies were in Libris Mortis under the name... Bleakborn, I think.
- Greater Bone Golem = Greater Stone Golem with /bludgeoning DR, shatter vulnerability and... Weird SLA. O_o;

I'll probably have to make a toned-down Winterwight instead of using the epic one. I'm currently looking at quick level scaling, with PCs being close to 20th near the end.

Stuff:: Grunther is a BSF NPC who may accompany the PCs. Frankly, I was surprised how good an attack bonus he has for his elite-array ftr-13 unoptimized build. Ninjas, zombies... Need moar pirates and dinosaurs. We get Robots in the City that Sleeps.

*edit* Hey everybody! Editing old posts kills formatting! Isnt' that just dandy!

Grunther

Grunther (CR 14)

Male Human PF Fighter 13

NG M Humanoid
Init +2; Senses Perception +1 

Languages Common

AC 15 touch 12 flat-footed 13 
HP 118 (13 HD)
Fort 10, Ref 6, Will 7 (10 vs. Fear), reroll fear, charm 


Speed 30 (6 sqr) 
Melee +30, Elsie, +3 greataxe 1d8+19(x3) +1d6 acid 

	vs. undead: +32, 1d8+21(x3) +1d6 acid, +2d6 untyped 


Atk Options Robilar's Gambit, Power Attack, Great Cleave

Base Atk 13; Grp 20 CMB 20 
Combat Gear Elsie, +3 undead bane greataxe, studded leather armor, eversmoking 

bottle, Lesser Acid Assault Augment Crystal (adds +1d6 acid damage on a weapon of at least +1 

actual enchantment)

Abilities Str 24, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 11 
Feats WF, GWF, WS, GWS: Axes, Blind-Fight, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes , 

Improved Toughness, Endurance, Cleave, Iron Will, Melee WM(Slashing), Indomitable Soul, Great 

Cleave, Robilar's Gambit
Skills Survival +17, Knowledge:Dungeoneering +10, Handle Animal +6
Possessions combat gear plus Belt of Giant Strength +4

Hook One-armed BSF

BloodDragon

Jun 23, 2009 14:53:13

QUESTIONS:
- What is The Vestige?
- Negative Energy Elementals?
- Negative Fundamentals

The Vestige as in Acererak's Vestige for the Binder Class?
It is more or less a class feature for Binder that allows them to bind the fallen soul Acererak to their own soul to gain some measure of power. Located in the Tome of Magic Source book.
If you are reffering to Vestige in some other fashion then I do not know.

Negative Energy Elemetals: Would be "Shadow Elemental" I believe also from the same book Tome of Magic under the Shadowcaster's Section.
Ofcouse there are so many "evil" elementals out there, you can take your pick. Taint Elementals (Heros of Horror) for example would fit the bill just nicely and your players would hardly know the difference between the two.

Negative Fundamentals? Do you mean Shadow Fundamentals? Just following the theme here...
Edit: Oh some form of 2nd Ed Swarm Creature. There is a converted version of it here.

Senevri

Jun 23, 2009 15:42:26

The Vestige is some sort of wandering critter in The City That Sleeps that even Acererak didn't want to mess with - he still managed to bind it to use as a guardian of sorts.

I considered using something like a Hunefer, but I'm not sure....

I'll check Tome of Magic's critters, they might work. Thanks.

*edit*:
Focused Specialist Necromancer /Tainted Scholar/Dread Witch for M.Ferranifer? Hmm.

Senevri

Jun 24, 2009 15:53:10

Got players!

Went with 5d6 drop 2 lowest and 1 free LA for non-pathfinder races.

45 point buy, effectively.

We have thus far,

at L 10

1 PF Dwarven Fighter, with very basic line of feats - focuses, specialization, mastery, power attack, cleave

1 Drow Wiz5/WB1/JPM3, although his gear and feats are still in flux.

1 Aasimar Archivist 8/Combat Medic 2 of Saint Cuthbert.

I tested their combat abilities vs. a cave troll and a mountain troll in a pretty straightforward melee, and the result was that fighter and gish can, thanks to rather spiffy boosts from the archivist, deal 40+ damage on a hit... but the Gish is bit of a glass cannon right now (as he went in the encounter unfinished, with an AC of 14).
Died once but was revivified.

I want to avoid giving hints, as the module is also about testing the PLAYERS, but maybe I should suggest the Gish looks at immunity to melee spell -- that is, mirror image.

Amusingly enough, the difference in base to-hit chances between the fighter and the gish is a rather staggering 12 points - Fighter has 4 more STR, +4 from various foci, 4 more BAB and +2 from the PF fighter fix thing.

Senevri

Jun 26, 2009 19:04:21

The Vestige is a Dream Vestige, or rather THE dream vestige, from Libris Mortis. It seems every critter in RtToH is in Libris Mortis... except the epic ones.

Fourth player: Half-fiend Paladin 5/Dread Commando 3.
Rolled low stats so got two LA for free. Rolled good HP.

Got a bit of a too good a deal with LA, but he's a non-optimizer so it should be okay.

Ran him, the BSF and the medic vs. some Worg, then 4 Ogres - both pretty trivial. Then had them ambushed in a narrow pass, by 2 Ogres, 1 Ogre Barb and one Ogre Mage straight from SRD. Ogre Barb was an actual thread, and Ogre Mage, while alone isn't much, is quite fun otherwise... even if I traded Polymorph for Haste - forgot Haste was third, while Polymorph is at fourth.

Ogre Mage needs a revamp, since it's a bit of a mess, IMO. All it can do is drop SLAs and run away.

Half-fiend gets use out of Darkness SLA, thanks to Archivist casting Ebon Eyes on him. He gets to hide, to activate Sudden Strike.... Frankly, it'd probably be better to just continue with pure Paladin, but I'm not helping them to optimize this time.

...I probably should point him towards Telling Blow.

In any case, the final encounter actually worked well enough - few of them took some damage, and were actually threatened by the situation.

I completely ad hoc'd flying, though - the Half-fiend only has 20ft. fly speed usually, which isn't much of a problem. I had no idea how to use fly skill, I basically ad hoc'd something balance/climb-like DCs. Need to read up on that.

The first encounter should be interesting - wights are smart enough to flank, and visibility is merely 5 ft... and they level drain on hit! Scary!

Senevri

Jun 27, 2009 19:21:45

Return to Tomb of Horrors START!
Okay, PF Turn Undead is SO much simpler... but half of the wights didn't make their save, so even with the miss chance, there weren't enough for decent flanking action, so the fight was pretty trivial...

So I dropped a single Drowned there, from MM3. Those things are nasty. They have a lot of HP for their CR, and use Drowning mechanism as their attack. It didn't hit anything in melee, though.

Wandering wights speeded up communication with the guards, albeit at the cost of a poor NPC's life. Alas, poor Geaorg No-name, we... really didn't know ye.

After hearing the Sage's wages, they decided to go dragon-hunting -- Something I had hinted at, as they had been under-WBL'd, in fact they're still missing about 20K, but they also haven't gained 11th level yet -- so I set them up against a single Sskvalor. Trivial challenge, but did the job of giving them some treasure.

Oh, by the way -- the Gish picked Death Mark, for a strike --- and promptly caused some rather unfortunate NPC commoner deaths with it, oops. He's using most of his spells on Arcane Wrath. His spell choices do often suck quite a bit. Oh well.

Anyway, they headed for Desatysso's stronghold, and lucked out on survival and k:geography, and didn't even face any random encounters -- it was getting late, so I was fast-forwarding a bit, so I skipped a couple rolls, admittedly. The two hill giants and the two after them, did quite a bit of damage on them - Even though the Medic activated Mass Sanctuary, I made the will saves about half of time. They're currently just outside the stronghold, with three wounded giants inside,

Giants are probably the best melee smashers for their CR, a Hill Giant is CR 7, but has +16 to hit with a greatclub, Vs best AC on the bunch, which is 28, or 12 to hit. That being said, the damage is slow enough, but a dedicated healer/buffer is quite useful.

The actual power of the party varies quite a bit - with buff time, they trample appropriate encounters, without they still manage, but spend a lot more of, especially of the healing resources.

The thing that makes this campaign deadly is really the combination of favorable environment + appropriate critter. The Swamp should be interesting, I think.

That being said, I did sort of expect to them have hit L 11 before the stronghold, due to random encounters, at least, but they're still missing a few thousand points.

Free LA is wonderful. It makes people use more exotic races, which I like. The power level difference is most of the time pretty trivial, too. Admittedly, you'll notice things like SR and ability to fly...

Interestingly, the Fighter is the damage king, by far, with ability to hit most of the time with 10-point 2-h power attack. The Gish isn't far behind and the situation may change, if he snatches up Power Attack. Admittedly, the only one who knows anything of optimization is playing the archivist-combat medic... and all three frontliners do rather decent damage with Righteous Wrath + Dark Knowledge activated.

Senevri

Jun 29, 2009 4:19:06

Desatysso's Stronghold Complete.
Summary:
- Fought with almost everything they could, showed decent prowess with the 16HD fire elemental, two remaining hill giants and four stone giants. Sprung every trap by basically walking into them. The CR10 auto-hit crushing wall was fun, but not as fun as the Can't-Stop-The-Rock moment, even if the Dwarven Fighter's keen detection allowed everyone else to climb to the roof (Two have spider climb and one has wings.)

- They didn't really even try to look at things. When I mentioned you could rotate the handle on the tower doors, they just went for directly disabling the trap instead of looking at the handle.

The battle at the terrace went almost okay. I should have tried throwing the Combat Medic overboard, and I'm sure I could have used the shaman better - Get him in combat faster, entangle them and throw rocks from the other edge. Even with bad hit chance, I've managed to hit - even with the hill giants - several time with rocks.

Rolling Boulder:
Instead of an attack roll, I made this a CR 10, ref dc 15 halves, 20d6 bludgeoning effect, due to the fact the PCs get 1 round and a chance to completely negate the effect if they're clever.

Observations:
Party can sometimes take up to 20d6 damage. Well, some of them, anyway.

High crit weapon + Dolorous Blow + Blood in the Water = works.
The Jade Phoenix Gish definitely started working. I had some serious trouble hitting him due to Greater Invisibility, too.

A Dedicated healer makes playing significantly safer, although it's hard to say, as he's not doing BFC... but, definitely, the ability to get the melee tank back from single-digit HP when there's a giant ready to full-attack next to them, is very valuable. Taking the giant out would'a worked too.

CR 7 accurate hitters definitely make for suitable encounters vs. ECL 10 party. Without a lot of healing, there would have been several deaths, already, and the rather decent attack of +16 of hill giants or +17 of stone giants is enough to hit even AC 30 for DM's purposes. Hit points are a bit on the light side for MM1 critters, admittedly.

The easy part is officially now over. As the party had some serious chargen advantages in high stats and free LA, I would recommend using a ECL 12 or even ECL 13 non-optimizer party if running this adventure - at least if your conversion is similar to mine.

For an optimized party, I think ECL 10 would still be about right, but without the freebies.

My decision to track WBL I've given is a good one, I think. It gives me confidence I'm not giving too much or too little loot.

Decisions:
I'm going to avoid random encounters and random treasure as much as possible - figuring them out on the spot just takes too much time. So, at worst, I shall pre-roll and prepare few pseudo-randoms before next session.

I'm also going to take a look at pre-swamp encounter spots, and pregenerate a few swamp encounters

Senevri

Jun 30, 2009 4:39:36

Encounter building
I recently remembered the re-built Ogre Mage after having used it myself, so I tuned it up to be more like the Ogre-mage of old:

OGRE MAGE CR 9 (custom)
Large Giant
Init +6; Senses darkvision 90 ft., low-light vision; Listen +11, Spot +11
Languages Giant, Common

AC 22, touch 11, flat-footed 20
hp 61 (10 HD); Regen 5(fire, acid)
Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +6

Speed 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 40 ft. (good)
Melee greatsword +11/+6 (3d6+7/19–20); or
Ranged longbow +7 (2d6/x3)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +6; CMB +12
Atk Options sneak attack 2d6
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th):
3/day— invisibility; darkness
1/day—lightning bolt (DC 18), cone of cold, gaseous form, swift invisibility (Spell Compendium page 125).

Abilities Str 21, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 17
SQ deceptive veil
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (greatsword)
Skills Concentration +11, Disguise +10 , Intimidate +10, Listen +11, Spot +11
Possessions greatsword, composite longbow, +4 chain shirt

Deceptive Veil (Su): As per the spell disguise self, save that the ogre mage can appear to be up to one size smaller.
(+20 vs. spot, will save DC 16 if interacted with)
Flight (Su): An ogre mage can cease or resume flight as a free action. While using gaseous form it can fly at its normal speed and has perfect maneuverability.
Sneak Attack: As the rogue ability from the Player's Handbook.

Now, this + Skullcrusher Sergeant + two Skullcrusher Ogres, too much?

I had already used darkness and Cone in a previous encounter, and the k:check revealed Regeneration, so I put them back in. SLA invisibility is actually quite useful for leader-role: Turn all your companions invisible for ambushes. With limited SLAs, you can't do that quite as well. So, tuned up, looks okay for CR?

I'm thinking that it'll approach the players disguised, and lead them into a trap.

Senevri

Jul 05, 2009 11:11:24

The Dwarf Fighter dropped the Ogre Mage in a single round. The ogres wern't even really a challenge.
What I did was have the Ogre Mage spend it's Invisibility SLAs to turn the ogres invisible, after which he lured PCs next to a crevasse, and the Ogres tried to bullrush them down there, after which it would have been cones, bolts and rocks fall. Except that CMBs for the Ogres wern' all that impressive, after all.

I ran an XP-giving subquest for them, with two relatively straight-forward Iron Golem encounters and a single Dread Wraith.

Golems were "Easy", although near the top of what meleers could hit, and the gish needed to use touch attacks, but the wraith with it's 25 touch and incorporeality, and especially it's 1d8 con drain, was particularily deadly.

The Combat Medic is definitely of neutral-type alignment, and the JPM Gish has some cruel traits.... Well, he's a drow. *shrug*

The Paladin/Dread Commando is definitely a bit behind right now. Any suggestions on a level 12 item or lower to drop for him? He's St. Cuthbert - sponsored, which has it's own limitations. I was thinking of a Sun Blade drop, even... but that's probably overkill.

#10

Senevri

Jul 15, 2009 9:15:04

Okay, so after a bit of shopping, Grunther managed to recall where Sather lived, they had a curb-stomp battle with Shadow Mastiffs in the False Prince's tomb. I used Shadow Mastiffs instead of Hellhounds, but now I wonder if that was actually sub-optimal - even lower-cr opponents work, if they have any sort of an attack which auto-hits an opponent.

The players hit L 12 - or 10, 11, 12 respectively, with remaining LA in. No level up for the Dwarven Fighter yet, as the player was away, so his character was a yes-man, together with the rather delightful Grunther.

I momentarily lost my encounter notes, so they managed to pass the mountains without encounters, towards Pitchfield. They rested in an inn a bit past the mountain range, and I gave them an option between elves and orcs. Elves took a road toll for allowing safe passage through their lands, so they went for the Orcs.
The Orc Barb 4s and their leader I statted up were a credible threat - Orc4s had +16 to hit on charge, and d12+18 or so on damage, and around 60 HP while raging. Enough to hit the best AC on a roll of 12, and taking anything from one fifth to one third of a character's HP. The leader had +22 or so to hit, and with Battle Leader's Charge and Bard Song going, did about +23 damage on hit, although his main point was boosting the others.

So, what happened was, I had a lousy init, the PCs had Grunther open up Eversmoking Bottle, which more or less ruined the charge. The next round, Grunther and the dwarven fighter ganged up on the leader, and both managed a single crit. With axes. While power attacking.

*sigh*

The situation deteriorated from there.

Anyway, they went through Molnar to Pitchfield, where they rebuked some of the Wights away, and killed the rest, and Progressed the Plot.
Some fun RP happened, but man, Desatysso's journal entries are a pain to read.

Next time, they'll be assaulted by wights. Individually, in their rooms. Inn ambushes are fun.

I'll probably drop the swashbuckling highwayman on them on the way to the swamp. For the swamp I have the following planned, roughly.

- Bog Imps
- Chuul
- Will 'o Wisps (potentially nasty)
- Blackscale Lizardfolk. I've caused a TPK with those things before, though... but back then, they didn't really have strong frontliners.
- If they really push it, a CR 14 black dragon.
- A fey (grig) tribe for non-combat. A friendly nixie has been kidnapped by the Bog Imps (who owe servitude to the black dragon, probably.)
And then, of course, the Dim Triad.

Any ideas for non-combat, or on how to modify the tactical situation for these critters, using swamp/marsh/bog type areas?

#11

Senevri

Jul 17, 2009 17:23:04

I can't believe they're all still alive!
Okay, the wisps are nasty, but the half-fiend was guarding, and has electricity resistance of 10. Otherwise, went about as good as expected.

They have high HP damage dealing potential, which helps a lot. I dropped a 12-headed hydra on them. The thing got one round in, and was decent, except that I chose to aim at different characters with each head.

First night, vs. the dim triad - The vampire went for the Archivist (scent + blindsight give a decent detection ability even in a fog cloud.), who made his save vs. CdG. Hindsight, I should've gone for the grapple+blood drain thing. Ability to hide as a move action is nifty, but it's effectively visible 'til it's next turn. I also forgot many of the abilities i'd put into the build (like the 3 dice sneak attack - that would have made a much more difficult CdG save.)

Oh well. Still, the party gained quite a few negative levels...

And chose to hustle through the night, progressing hardly at all, but at least all were awake and armored. So, after a nighttime "random" encounter, they were assaulted by all three. However, three corporeal vampires, despite being rather nasty stealth attackers, didn't have that good a chance, as they were in full attack range of three full BAB meleers.... The archivist used Daylight, and I ruled that it gave a larger visible area in the natural fog, and then the drow dropped faerie fire on the three.

Come round three, they'll be taking the slow approach - hit someone with a strength - and level draining strike from stealth, then return to stealth, attacking about once every two rounds. As long as the players run out restorations and heals.... Heh.

The grig tribe requested their help, to rescue their leader from the Bog Imps (who served a mature black dragon, who demanded sacrifices from them.) Some very fun roleplaying was had there, as this Bog Imp had a tribal rule that they would drown anyone whose favorite color wasn't green.

So, they had an arrangement, where the sacrifice would hang from a tree for five hours (bare minimum), then go inside the big skull. Rest of the group volunteered the dwarven fighter.

Anyway, I ran the encounter as "easy" more or less, although nobody escaped unscathed - The dragon arrived in plain sight before nightfall, and didn't suspect much, until the PCs attacked, after which it did some biting and used it's breath weapon, and dropped a 70ft. darkness on the area... which got promptly negated by the Daylight racial ability of the Archivist. First time it's been useful, really.

DRAGON: "I c wot u did thar!"

Anyway, it could have gone much worse, but I made the "mistake" of wanting to get just one round of full attack in, instead of flying away (with the archivist snatch'd in it's mouth ) and waiting for it's breath weapon to recharge - probably could've managed a TPK that way, but, y'know, dragon. Arrogant.

And thus, it fell underneath.... the half-fiend Paladin's Rapier, actually. As he could fly, he was the only one who could hit the hovering dragon reliably. Admittedly, it was only 15ft. from the ground, which was enough for it's bite... but even that effectively negated full attacks, and the Pally had had trouble hitting it before.

So...

To summarize, there could have been deaths, but partly due to luck, partly due to my - both intentional and unintentional - mistakes, everyone is still alive. Even if the Archivist is casting 5+ restorations practically every day.

#12

meth0dical

Jul 18, 2009 15:00:44

I can't offer any suggestions on converting the rest but I thought I would let you know this CO diary is very fun to read. Keep at it.

...

I may have to run a converted Tomb of Horrors sometimes soon.

#13

Senevri

Jul 19, 2009 6:59:14

In comparison to many other diaries, this one is barely readable.

Here's the dragon I used.
As you can see, the fight could have been a lot tougher.

In any case, they spent some time in the Grig village crafting, and to speed things up, I didn't have much happen there...

On the way, there was a semi-trivial Gray Render zombie encounter. As an observation, though, those guys are pretty good at hitting, so a bunch of them may actually be a decent challenge ( if a totally contrived and unlikely one. )

Grunther told that they could reach the Tomb just around nightfall, or they could spend the night and arrive before midday.

I am regretting giving Grunther max ranks on survival, at this point. There's been very few chances of giving them marshland terrain challenges.

So, they finally arrive where the Tomb is supposedly located:

GRUNTHER: "Okay, let's turn around. We're lost."

After all, twenty years ago, there wasn't a freakin' CITY there.

So, over the quaking bog;

CR 3 Ghasts vs. ECL 13+ PCs.... well, there was a minor chance of nat 20s, but, no. Especially after the Archivist cast Mass Draconic Might (custom 7th spell )

They first tried going over the wall, but went for the main gate after the Nagas warned them off.

So, the gate did it's thing, and asked, "What is the sign?"

Now, Waaaay back, Ahrens the sage TOLD the PCS the only thing he could discover was "The Sign of the Devourer". I guess I could have hammered it in a bit more at Molnar... and they could have huddled and considered the question a bit, and so forth.

However, the Archivist confidently replied, "The Skull" as the necromancer they had encountered previously had had one tattooed into his forehead. ( a very simple and easy encounter in the swamp, which I seeded to give them an opportunity to learn about safe entry procedures to the city, which the PCs almost completely wasted. )

In any case, all the Golem could do was laugh at such a reply.

Bone Golem, Greater

Bone Golem, Greater (CR 17)
N Huge Construct
Init -2; Senses Perception +0, True Seeing, Low-light, Darkvision
Languages Common

AC 27 touch 6 flat-footed 27 (-2 size, -2 dex, +21 natural)
HP 271 (42 HD) DR 15/bludgeoning
Immune Magic Immune, Construct:
Saves Fort +14, Ref +12, Will +14

Speed 30
Melee 2 slams, +42, 4d8+13/x2

Atk Options dread laugh (as spell Weird DC 19 every 3 rounds, sonic-based)
Space/Reach 15/15
Base Atk 31; Grp 52, CMB: 46

Abilities Str 37, Dex 7, Con -, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 1
SQ
Dread Laugh(Su): As the spell Weird, but sonic-based, useable after a 3 round delay. A Silence spell thus blocks the effect.
Immunity To magic(ex): A Bone golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
A Shatter spell removes the DR and makes it take double damage from bludgeoning weapons.
A Mending spell or a repair spell removes the effects of the Shatter spell.

#14

Senevri

Dec 29, 2009 7:00:07

I haven't had the time or the enthusiasm to crunch most of Black Academy, but I've actually played two sessions. One's DMing muscles atrophy FAST if one doesn't play.

Specifically, my habit of going way easy on the players kicked in again. T_T

Events:

Bought a scroll of raise dead + a bunch of diamonds from the black market at double cost, Rez'd Grunther.

Checked Black Academy, didn't want to become a member OR fight their way through, so they went in through the roof, entering at auditorium. Search check in the fourties discovered the hidden path to Ferranifer's chamber.

Side note: Maximized Retributive Blackfire is CRAZY AWESOME!

They now possess Ferri's half of the Amulet of the Void.

The trapped hallway of sarcofagi: Nothing special, I didn't have it prepared, lots and lots of improvised rulings.

They broke through the western end of the hallway to the dungeon where the Live Ones were kept, and freed them. However, as the PCs weren't inclined to guide them back to safety, they opted to staying put for at least a while, until a couple of the braver ones could scout the place a bit.

Then, the PCs activated the Flesh-to-Stone huge-cloud-of-gas trap on the other end of the hallway. At least the former captives are relatively safe now.

The Dwarf BSF was hit by an Imprisonment trap, so I allowed the archivist to research a seventh-level "Free Known Ally From Imprisonment" spell, since Freedom is 9th level and such... Jokingly it's now called "Free Dwarven Fighter From Imprisonment" spell.

#15

Senevri

Jan 05, 2010 9:45:16

They've entered the tomb. Using both 1e, the 4e conversion and pathfinder, as well as various sources, I'm in the process of converting the dungeon - I've played through the wizards conversion, which is probably too faithful. Using the 4e maps as a base.

#16

Senevri

Jan 05, 2010 17:13:34

WoTC's mutant 4-armed gargoyle upgraded:

Show

MUTANT FOUR-ARMED GARGOYLE CR 16

CE Large humanoid (earth) War 6

#17

Senevri

Jan 06, 2010 10:05:27

Out of steam:

I'm up to the bit with the siren and the stone juggernaut, but I'm not sure what to do there. I guess I could use a Slaughterstone construct in the stone juggernaut's place... Not sure what to do about the siren business.

#18

Senevri

Jan 08, 2010 17:55:19

I made a couple of mistakes.

Slaughterstone Behemoth was a GREAT replacement for the stone juggernaut, I highly recommend it.
I used a Lilitu instead of the Siren - it detects as good, can Raise Dead and could easily be bound as a "Help" there. However, I made it disappear the moment the PCs touched the money bag, instead of having it try to plead with them and triggering with removal of the bag from the pedestal. If I had done it that way, there'd been more RP, and I could've bait-and-switched the treasure from several tens of thousands worth to a few thousand's worth once the PCs spurned the lilitu for the treasure. I didn't have any other effect in the 'lair', which... was probably okay, all in all.

Then,

I ad-hoc'd the sleep mist to daze mist. I should've gone with a waves of exhaustion effect, which would have been equally debilitating, but left the PCs still able to fight. I added a weapon storage storing all types of swords, three of each. I should have probably just put in three swords.

I already ad-hocced the slots in the adamantine door to be of a more generic shape, since due to not having any gear, the PCs only owned one sword. Now it seems highly probable they won't figure out they're supposed to put a sword into each slot. I am wary of dropping too many hints, since I'm a monty-haul sort of DM by nature, still, and while I've killed most of them a few times in this campaign, since it hasn't stuck, they're still proceeding in a very kick-in-the-door fashion.

I dropped an arrow of construct slaying for them, but they didn't identify it.

I would like to hammer in the place's nature as something that is being maintained by a demonic horde a bit more, and I think I need to drop a couple of more hints for them.

The person who does the 'leading' most of the time is basically trying to rush the people through, since they lost all of their gear, in an attempt to find it. This is a bad choice in many ways, since they are all running around NAKED in the dungeon, and the only thing they've eaten in the last twenty hours is some roasted slime mold.

If it hasn't been noted yet, I've replaced all the fake door spear traps with the black lotus one from Pathfinder, and I'm using the 50-ft CR 10 pit traps from DMG. I've allowed them to find most doors with a succesful perception check - if they've been searching, specifically.

They missed the golden key, by the way.

#19

Senevri

Jan 10, 2010 5:27:49

Stat blocks
False Acererak:

Show

Human lich necromancer 11/monk 4
NE Medium undead (augmented humanoid)
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., life sight*; Perception +24
Aura fear (60-ft. radius, DC 18)
Defense AC 26, touch 17, flat-footed 24 (+4 armor, +2 deflection, +2 Dex, +5 natural, +2 wis)
hp 137 (11d6+55 plus 15 false life)
Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +14
Defensive Abilities channel resistance +4, evasion; DR 15/bludgeoning and magic;
Immune cold, electricity, undead, traits
Offense
Speed 40 ft.
Melee touch +7/+7 (1d8+5 plus paralyzing touch plus stun) ki: +7/+7/+7
ki pool 4
Special Attacks grave touch* (9/day), paralyzing touch (DC 19), stunning fist 3/day, power over undead* (9/day, DC 18)
Spells Prepared (CL 11th) 6th—circle of death (DC 22), globe of invulnerability, maximized fireball (DC 19)
5th—cloudkill (DC 21), cone of cold (DC 21), quickened magic missile, waves of fatigue
4th—dimension door, enervation, fire shield, wall of ice (2)
3rd—dispel magic (2), fireball (DC 19), suggestion (DC 19), vampiric touch (2)
2nd—darkness, extended mage armor (already cast), false life (already cast), scorching ray (2), see invisibility, spectral hand
1st—magic missile (3), ray of enfeeblement (2), shield (2)
0—bleed (DC 16), detect magic, ray of frost, read magic Prohibited Schools illusion, transmutation Statistics
Str 10, Dex 14, Con —, Int 22, Wis 14, Cha 16
Base Atk +8; CMB +8; CMD 28
Feats Craft Wondrous Item, Defensive Combat Training, Extend Spell, Improved Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Scribe Scroll, Toughness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge
Skills Craft (alchemy) +20, Intimidate +17, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (planes) +20, Linguistics +20, Perception +24, Sense Motive +24, Spellcraft +20, Stealth +24; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception, +8 Sense Motive, +8 Stealth

#20

Senevri

Jan 30, 2010 17:34:00

Back in Black
Academy, that is.

Previously, the players had gotten stuck in front of the Adamantite Door, which had three vertical slots.

I provided a simplified map for them of the tomb. There's a bit of fatigue situation, right now.
In any case, the Archivist's player quickly figured out that SOMEthing needed to be inserted into the slots, but doesn't know what. They've been given one hint, in that after defeating the Slaughterstone Behemoth, they discovered a hidden compartment, holding several types of swords. Three of each.

Outside that, there doesn't seem to be any hint available in the dungeon itself. Academician Drake knows how to pass the door, and it's possible Mistress Ferranifer does too (although she's residing in the amulet half in the final crypt, right now.)
It's likely she can also communicate psychically with the three vampires (Who were dust, but more on that later)

They fought the False Acererak, and thus gained a Spellbook (there's probably a second where the hidden phylactery resides). It was okay-ish, although the Paladin Fiend Commando got paralyzed - I allowed the paralysis to end when the lich's body was destroyed.

In the meantime, Academician Drake had become aware that something was going on in the tomb, thanks to the property damage in the hallway of the Sarcofagi and the prisoners-turned statues in the Live One holding cell. He'd set a permanent Alarm spell, as well a Cadaver Golem to guard here.

I made a mistake here, I had intended to throw in some Moilian Zombies (Bleakborn) here, but I forgot and just used regular ones.

Despite the level being 15ish, the Fighter is still the major damage dealer. The Paladin is falling way behind.

In the Hallway of the Sarcofagi, they encountered Drake and the three stooges - er, vampires. Drake set an ultimatum - surrender and be spared, or die - the Archivist cast Mass Sanctuary and tried to walk past. Six negative levels later, combat was joined.
Which was interesting as I still didn't have stats for Drake. Right now I'm tempted to make him an Archivist, but I dunno...

How are the vampires walking around as they were dusted? Revive Undead or just lot of blood sacrificed, perhaps.

Mass Sanctuary has been quite effective - it works about half the time, and often means that meleers charge right next to the PCs, then completely fail to do damage, leaving them at full attack range.

I played the vampires idiotically, and they were wasted by the Fighter, leaving Drake alone. We ended with Drake's line of "Er, perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial agreement?"

Notes:
Long Dungeon is Long. I'm worried about the City That Sleeps. I think Exemplars of Evil had some stuff about it there.
Fighters are good at dealing damage vs. monsters in actual gameplay, unlike conventional optimization wisdom assumes. That being said, none of my players are that optimized.
Re: Healing. Combat Vigor heals 48 points for the fighter per combat, the Paladin can Channel Energy 3d6, some 6-8 times per day, the JPM Gish has a 3 die healing strike. All this is necessary as the Archivist is effectively out of spells as well as naked.
Pathfinder's "Advanced" template is fun, fun, fun!

#21

genuine

Feb 01, 2010 20:39:57

This is a fun diary to read - keep it up.

#22

Senevri

Feb 02, 2010 6:47:21

Thank you for your kind words.
Incidentally I found a rather nifty conversion of Tomb of Horrors from Thealexandrian.net
Unfortunately I'm so far along that I probably won't be able to use any of it myself.
well, maybe NEXT time... although I'll probably be wanting to step out of the DM chair a bit after this one's done.
Trying out Alexandrian's Statblock (or my perversion of it) on an advanced HoH bloodrot:

Show

BLOODROT   CR 10
Large Undead
Initiative: –5   Senses: Perception -5; Blindsight 60 ft.

AC: 5 (–5 Dex), touch 5, flat-footed 5
HP: 130;   Hit Dice: 20d8 +40 damage reduction 10/—,
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +5

Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 20 ft.
Melee: Slam +8 melee (1d8+7 plus blood fever) + grab and constrict 1d8+7
Space: 10 ft.   Reach:15 ft.
Base Atk: +10;   CMB +16;   CMD 21

Abilities: Str 20, Dex 1, Con —, Int —, Wis 1, Cha 14
Special Attacks: Blood fever, constrict 1d8+7, improved
grab, sanguineous mount
Special Qualities: Blindsight 60 ft., damage reduction 10/—,
immunities, split, track infected, undead traits
Skills: Climb +21
Feats: —
Environment: Underground or urban
Blood Fever: Contact SU disease Fort DC 23 incubation 1min damage 1d6 Con 1d4 Cha; Break Enchantment/Remove    Curse.
Sanguineous Mount: Touch infected to hide in body up to 24 H. DC 20 fort, Remove disease or heal + dc20 caster check    expels.
Split: if 10+ hp, slasing/piercing hit splits to two, half HP round down.
Track Infested: 10 miles, not in AMF.

#23

Senevri

Feb 06, 2010 16:05:46

R.I.P, Healbot
Okay, what happened today: The Archivist went all "Dude, where's our gear?" and Drake, who has effectively completed the Tomb, told it's in the very last chamber. Now, He was relatively confident, seeing as he had a contingent harm, he'd explode if he'd die and had a couple of nice swifts, but also ethereal jaunt and invisibility. Still, the group contains a dark elf and a fiend, so he's not all 'zomg goodie-two-shoes'.

Let the record show the Gish and the Paladin weren't actually present today.

He asks about mistress ferranifer, and The Archivist fails a bluff... So, now he's thinking either they don't know, or they killed her.

Drake's not that fond of Ferranifer concerning the whole blackfire IP issues, and these guys are going to loot the treasure in the final chamber - and Drake knows that'll arouse the Demilich's remains. So, he agrees (at axe-point) to guide them to the last chamber.
It should be mentioned, "when you don't know, it's 50-50 chance" is a great DM's tool.

The part where the PCs are idiots
They don't rest. Archivist has Touch of Healing, but chooses not to use it, or Restoration - while he's at -6 negative levels. They just trounce to the Embalming Chamber.
This is where I'm an idiot - Drake's lacking in utility spells, so he digs out the key from the acid at axe-point and warns them of the bloodrots in the last vat. He can't disintegrate, since that might destroy the key, and it'll take weeks for the demons to get to repairing it.
So the Archivist casts mass lesser vigor excluding Drake, which aggravates the Bloodrots.
Now Drake casts a Disintegrate, and takes out 120 out of 170HP for one of them.
The Archivist activates the Rod of the Python - python's a decent PF grappler, and did okay against one of the three bloodrots. Then, the Archivist, the Python and the Dwarf get engulfed.

I completely forgot PF Necromancers get Rebuke equivalent ability.

The whole CMB thing is very useful, even when calculating CMBs and CMDs on the fly from MMI

The Dwarf gets away from the pudding, but the Archivist can't and just starts healing the thing - he still has few cure serious and a few cure moderates remaining.

The Archivist yells at the dwarf

I'm completely unsure what Drake'll do since he's a bit insane, but there's this whole allied victory vibe going. I roll D20 for reaction for 1-10 being bad and above that being good - and roll a natural 20. So, Drake's clearly caught up in the moment, charges almost into the bloodrot, and tries to Greater Dim.Door them out of there - despite the fact that'll almost certainly cause some demonic retribution.

The Archivist resists, and makes his will save, so now Drake's out of the Tomb along some demons, but he has good spells for getting away. The Python is constricting the Bloodrot successfully.

The Archivist does manage to destroy the bloodrot, but then remembers he's down 30 HP from the six negative levels and promptly drops dead.

The Dwarf manages to get to the spiked pit and climb 10ft, at which point we end, and agree that the Fiend Paladin flies the survivors out of the place.

Now, if you still recall, the PCS are part of a "prevent-end-of-the-world" guild who uses magical talismans for communication, keeping everyone up to date where which danger is rising, so a new guild member has been on the way a couple of days now, probably.

In other words, the Archivist player is rolling a Gnome Sorcerer (Dragon Bloodline). I think there may have been some fatigue playing the character, so it _might_ have been something of a suicide, and having someone who has gear will be helpful. The Fiend Paladin has spells despite lack of books, The Gish can get some books in this Necromantic Academy, plus he's an initiator and the Dwarf... power attacks.

In other news, PF can actually play 0-level characters easy enough.
you get Racial feats, 6+Con HP, and.. either int or 2+int skill points, up to a maximum of 2 ranks (Cross-class doesn't cost extra points in PF).

#24

Senevri

Feb 16, 2010 9:06:59

New NPC, to ease the lack of healbot:

Show

Ghelbot (CR 13)
Grig (heroic) Adept  12 

CG Tiny Fey

Init +5; Senses Perception +21 (Low-light vision)

Languages Sylvan, Common

Defenses:

AC 24, touch 20, flat-footed 18 (+2 size +2 natural, +2 natench, +2 deflection +5 dex +1 dodge) 

HP 78						HD (12D6+6+15feat+12con) DR 5/Cold Iron

Immune Any immunities (energy, poison, sleep effects etc) 

Resist and SR SR 17

Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +12  

Weakness Light sensitivity, vulnerability to damage type 

Actions:

Speed 20ft (4sq), fly 40ft (8sq) poor

Melee +14/+9, mwk short sword 1d3-2, 19-20/x2

Ranged +16/+11, +3 longbow (1d4+1/x3) (+1 atk, damage within 30ft)

	rapid shot +14/+14/+9, +3 longbow 1d4+1/x3

Atk Options Point Blank Shot

Space: 2 1/2 ft

Base Atk +6; Grp +2  CMB +2; CMD +17

Special Actions Touch of healing: Heal 3x highest cure spell in memory in damage up to half max hp

Combat Gear efficient quiver 1800gp, 60 arrows


Spells Prepared (CL 12th, base DC 14, CL 13 conjuration[healing])

1 4th: Cure Critical Wounds

3 3rd:2x Cure Serious Wounds, Remove Disease

4 2nd: 2xCure Moderate Wounds, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Web

4 1st: Protection from Evil, 2xCure Light Wounds, Obscuring Mist

3 0th: purify food and drink, stabilize, create water

Spell-like abilities  (CL 9) 3/day—disguise self, entangle (DC 12), invisibility 

(self only), pyrotechnics (DC 13), ventriloquism (DC 12). The save DCs are Charisma-based. 

Statistics:

Abilities Str 6, Dex 20, Con 14 , Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 12 


SQ Spellcasting, Summon Familiar

Feats Dodge(b), Weapon Finesse(b) Improved Initiative, Toughness, Scribe Scroll, Point blank 

shot, Rapid shot, Touch of Healing[reserve]

Skills Craft (Woodworking) +4, Escape Artist +8, Stealth +31, Acrobatics +22, Perception +21 ,  

Perform (string instruments) +6, Heal +21, Fly +5

Possessions Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Ring of Recall*


Spellbook Adept Spell List

Adepts choose their spells from the following list.

0 Level: create water, detect magic, ghost sound, guidance, light, mending, 

    purify food and drink, read magic, stabilize, touch of fatigue.

1st Level: bless, burning hands, cause fear, command, comprehend languages, cure light wounds, 

    detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law, endure elements, obscuring mist, 

    protection from chaos, protection from evil, protection from good, protection from law, 

    sleep.

2nd Level: aid, animal trance, bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, cure moderate 

    wounds, darkness, delay poison, invisibility, mirror image, resist energy, scorching ray, see 

    invisibility, web.

3rd Level: animate dead, bestow curse, contagion, continual flame, cure serious wounds, daylight, 

    deeper darkness, lightning bolt, neutralize poison, remove curse, remove disease, tongues.

4th Level: cure critical wounds, minor creation, polymorph, restoration, stoneskin, wall of fire.

5th Level: baleful polymorph, break enchantment, commune, heal, major creation, raise dead, true   

    seeing, wall of stone.


Hook 

Grigs can leap great distances. They have light blue skin, forest-green hair, and brown hairy 

legs, and usually wear tunics or brightly colored vests with buttons made from tiny gems. A grig 

stands 1½ feet tall and weighs about 1 pound.

#25

Senevri

Feb 17, 2010 2:16:30

I say, Hello!
So, looking at it, I immediately noticed that it's actually more like CR 11, and in the interest of having Raise Dead available, I pushed it to 17th level adept. Meaning, There's two, three feats available. Also, I gave it Scribe Scroll, thinking of the Archivist... who's dead, so that can go.

What would be good feats for a support character?

Also, has anyone thought of using a Merciful bow with Spell-storing arrows for healing?

#26

Senevri

Feb 21, 2010 5:47:08

Guest star: Big Stupid Minotaur Barbarian. We had some extra time, and the visiting player didn't want to play the blue beetle. Maul of the Titans, Levitation Boots, Haste Armor.

The Sorcerer is... mostly stupid. Fiery burst, ray of flame, scorching ray etc. A ray specialist. Lots of debuffs, including antimagic ray, though.

I ran a CR-appropriate test vs. War Trolls. The PCs ended up running away. War Trolls seem a bit under-CR'd.

Okay, so, worried, our new characters travel to the Skull City, picking up a Grig Adept from the fey village, and make it safely to the city, under the protecting hand of the DM. There, they quickly discover a naked dwarf shopping for clothes in the market.

I forced the survivors to exit the tomb and the academy, to get the group back together, and to get the PCS to put some clothes on. The paladin chooses not to.

The Drow JPM Gish convinces our new arrivals that he's very cleverly disguised as a drow to avoid suspicion in this evil city. He also takes the time to read the lich's spellbook.

I'm not sure, but I think the paladin is... not happy with how the game works for him. His most useful ability has been his ability to channel, thus far.

So, as they walk in to the academy - since only Ngise remains of the named characters, the access has gotten quite loose - as they pass the side door to the auditorium, the paladin peeks in and...
What follows is actual dialogue.

Paladin: "Detect evil"

"You detect evil."

"Smite Evil"
...

So, he charges the podium where Ngise is speaking, in front of thirty or so necromancers and smites him. It doesn't sound much, but at the time it was HILARIOUS.

What follows was a short, bloody encounter leaving twenty or so dead. The Minotaur discovered they joys of getting hit by a maximized ray of enfeeblement, evil was smitten and some magic was thrown.

I completely and utterly forgot to use the BONE NAGAS here. They should have rushed in, as the combat began. Oh, well...

The PCs did not, in fact, loot anything, just gathered the surrendered and herded them onwards. They were dismayed to find out, the students weren't allowed anywhere near the actual tomb.

To get some fighting in, I allowed for the Gargoyle to have been reset in the meantime. Beyond that, it was embarrasingly clear that outside the Archivist - now Sorcerer - player, others had little idea what all the tricks of the tomb were. And the Sorcerer had naturally never been there before.

So, anyway, they now have a heavily-damaging maul-wielder with them, so the Bloodrots aren't a problem and they get the Golden Key.

They still haven't figured a way through the adamantine door, so I'm going to give them a lot of opportunity - I'll have a clumsy Demon appear, whom they can try to apprehend and question, as the caretaker Demons know all there is to know about the tomb. If that fails, I'll probably allow academician Drake to return.

Observations:

The PCS have been stuck with the tomb for a long while now... but it's starting to get so familiar, instead of becoming weary, I think there's starting to be a sense of... being at home, around now.

the Pathfinder Barbarian is hardly different from the old Barbarian. Rage powers are mostly neat, and Rage as rounds/day is a good idea, although requires bookkeeping and trusting the player not to cheat.

Our new sorcerer.. doesn't know sorcerers. In the end, he took Fey line - and the biggest bloodline choice is in fact, which one gives the feats you want. Outside that, bloodlines are practically trivial.

I hate Beer. Specifically, I hate my players drinking beer. It's not an issue in a 3-4 hour game, but this time, the session ran for six hours, and in the last two hours... well,

As you may recall, I ended up using shadesteel golems instead of scimitar slashers for the snake room. These have the Golem magic immunity.

The Sorcerer started out with a Orb of Fire, dealing decent damage. I congratulated him on a good pick. We went over the whole magic immunity thing.
Next round, he tried a Scorching Ray. T_T

THEN he used an Acid Arrow, which, at least, would have worked. But whatever happened to the ORB OF FIRE?

*sigh*

#27

Senevri

May 15, 2010 17:08:31

New session!
I ruled Grunther un-rezzable, since he's been dead for more than a few rounds, and there's the demilich construct there. (I've been lenient on the whole die-and-lose-soul issue in the tomb, generally).

I dropped in a nalfeshnee next to the adamantite door, who was somewhat upset what with the PCs extended demolition of the tomb, and the fact they keep on breaking the stuff the demons repair.

Surprisingly, they went for diplomacy, and suggested that if the demon told them how to get past the adamantite door, they wouldn't need to go through rest of the dungeon again. Since the door's been a problem for a while, I went with it. Forgot an actual diplomacy roll, though. Shame.

So, the throne room: a giant ruby (actually a transformed, but cognizant Balor), strong wind effects, two teleporters, three doors and the throne, two crowns and a two-headed scepter.

They figured they'd use a rope to anchor themselves to each other to keep from getting blown away, which... I thought would probably work, so I went with it. This meant they brute-forced themselves to all the three rooms - there was very little loot to be found, although I did drop in Strongarm Bracers, just because.

The twelve reth dekala I replaced the swords and shields with, weren't much more than a speedbump, although they did deal about 100 points of damage around everyone, and I did intend them to be an easy encounter.

In the end, they had the minotaur (now an NPC) use the Gem of Cursed Wishing to "Gain the knowledge on how to reach the next room". I couldn't really figure out on-the-spot ruling for how to twist that wish horribly (how it originally went, instead of just exploding), so I gave the correct information... after which the minotaur promptly died, the twist being that while the minotaur knew the answer, none of the PCs did.

Nice.

Unfortunately, really, in order to prevent another game-halting problem, I wussed out and allowed the NPC healbot to use one of the three Raise Deads he can manage (enough diamond dust for three raises) to get the Minotaur back onto it's feet. So I guess there's a 28-hour limit 'til the soul is lost in my Tomb.

They could figure out the crown and touching part, but for some reason they missed - and kept on missing after repeated hints - the sitting-on-the-throne part.

Puzzles are problematic.

Next, it's AMF, an Efreet, and the bleeding door, I guess.

#28

Senevri

Nov 07, 2010 2:52:06

They beat a hole to the bleeding door by using antimagic to temporarily negate the blood. It was clever, so I ruled 'fair enough'. They were remarkably uninterested at looting in the false crypt. Acererak's earthly remains (dust of the lich body)

Undead Humanoid 20 

LE M humanoid 

Init X; Senses perception +18 (darkvision 60)  

Aura dc 28 Fear aura vs. Frightened 20 rounds  

Languages  


AC x, touch x, flat-footed x (5 deflection, +6 charisma +  

HP 138 (20 HD) 20d8 + 48  

Immune immunity to poison; acid, cold, electricity, undead immunities  

Resist and SR darkvision 60 feet; fire resistance 10; DR 15/bludgeoning and magic, SR 31  

Fort 6, Ref 8, Will 10  


Speed flight 30ft perfect  

Melee corrupting touch 20d6 aging(fort DC 28 halves) +1d8+10 negative  

Base Atk 10; CMB 11, CMD 22  

Special Actions Any special attacks that the creature can use on its turn in place of making attacks  


Abilities Str 13, Dex 13 , Con -, Int -, Wis 17, Cha 26  

SQ DC 26 fear aura

So, yeah. They did manage to beat it, although it wasn't exactly too easy. I set up so that the skull and the ghost-with-numbers-filed-off were in separate locations. Now, I'm having some trouble how to oomph the final battle, yet keep it from become 'fail-a-save-and-die'

#29

Jimjams

Oct 27, 2014 8:20:05

How did your gqme finish? i'm about to run this campaign as a 5th ed conversion which looks alot easier than the 3.5/pathfinder one you had to do(thank god!!) I'm starting the pc's at level 13 as, like you, the Dim Triad are giving me alot of concearn. If you have any ideas or advice then feel free. cheers