Calthropstu
2018-04-23, 06:52 AM
This post contains numerous spoilers to the Jade regent Pathfinder adventure path.
The monster that caused this horrifying scenario was this (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/rokurokubi/)
In the previous session, this creature conned the party into thinking she was the caretaker of the island where the spirit island empire of Minkai buried its emporers.
During a combat with a bunch of shadows, she decided to "help" the party by casting obscuring mist into the middle of the fray explaining it would help because the shadows can't see through it. This is true, but it also hindered the party... far more so. Here is where things first got wierd.
Without awaiting an order from the supposed liege lord, the true neutral magus says (supposedly jokingly) "someone behead her." He had no reason to suspect real malice behind the mist, it is a legitimate strategy albeit not the smartest one.
The group's newly recruited barbarian goes full attack on her... while she was (apparently) unarmed dealing a whopping 156 damage. The player argues that his character was told to behead her so that's what he did... or tried anyways because she was still standing after all that. She casts invisibility (defensively), and moves away... letting her blood drop on one path and going another moving behind a tomb. She then uses hide to escape unnoticed.
She goes back to her stash and drinks her one healing potion and comes back, hides outside the building she knows they are in and waits. Other stuff happens and they come out. They need to heal after the shrine which gives her plenty of time to set up.
She's way out of their ability to see her with a stealth roll of 33 and over 180 feet away and plenty of cover. They needed to hit a 55 and no one could. She cast invisibility and flew up 150 feet. She then used permanent image to mimic the sky around her in a bubble. Of course no one can perfectly do so, but it was a high dc spot check... or at least so I ruled. You couldn't spot it from the ground. She then cast all her buff spells.
She finished prepping just as the party finished healing and attacked. She cast confusion into the midst of 10 collected people... to disasterous result. 2 npcs, a cohort and a major npc (shalelu) failed their saves.
That was the surprise round. They had no way to detect where this was coming from, and the only thing that seemed wrong was an odd feeling. Both npcs rolled "act normally" so the party launched a bunch of defensive spells and kept their formation.
And promptly got hit by a SECOND confusion spell causing another cohort to fall victim. At this point one of the cohorts launches an inexplicable attack (prompting spellcraft checks) and they finally break formation.
The person who attacked, a magus cohort, hit the newly recruited pc barbarian. The barbarian... moves away. The npc rogue cohort attacks the npc cohort barbarian, who promptly grapples the rogue. Meanwhile, the baddie's hideout is finally spotted by the wizard's flying homonculus who notes an odd disturbance in how the clouds move against each other (37 perception) and the pc wizard goes to investigate.
The baddie failed to feeblemind the wizard, but succeeded in getting the oracle who was trying to dispel all the confusion effects so she's now a blithering idiot.
Here is where things go south. The pc barbarian decides full rage and charges the npc barbarian grappling the rogue hitting for 65 points of lethal damage because "I didn't see her attack him. It's what my character would do."
It made no sense to me. The guy was obviously trying to subdue her, not kill. The npc barbarian, who is the oracle's cohort and the father of her unborn child, disarms the pc barbarian and tries to reason with him. Unfortunately the oracle herself, who is now a complete idiot, swings her mace at the pc barbarian who attacked her cohort.
Arial mage combat initiates as the sorceress is finally discovered. The pc barbarian however attacks the pregnant oracle.
The npc barbarian full attacks, the pc barb responds in kind putting the npc barbarian at negative 130 hp... he's not getting back up.
At this point the lord they all follow decides the pc barbarian is out of control and too dangerous... orders everyone to drop him. He takes several arrows and spells and goes into negatives... but is still standing. The party wizard flies back down and walls off the barbarian with a wall of force...
Who goes off and when he comes out of rage kills himself. Meanwhile, the now feebleminded magus is taken over by Suishen (the artifact sword he is wielding) who finally drops the bad guy.
End result: 2 feebleminded pc types, 1 dead pc, 1 dead cohort.
Do you guys think I was harsh on the party? I hate killing pcs and cohorts, but I end up doing it a LOT with this AP. The dead pc has lost 4 characters now.
The monster that caused this horrifying scenario was this (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/rokurokubi/)
In the previous session, this creature conned the party into thinking she was the caretaker of the island where the spirit island empire of Minkai buried its emporers.
During a combat with a bunch of shadows, she decided to "help" the party by casting obscuring mist into the middle of the fray explaining it would help because the shadows can't see through it. This is true, but it also hindered the party... far more so. Here is where things first got wierd.
Without awaiting an order from the supposed liege lord, the true neutral magus says (supposedly jokingly) "someone behead her." He had no reason to suspect real malice behind the mist, it is a legitimate strategy albeit not the smartest one.
The group's newly recruited barbarian goes full attack on her... while she was (apparently) unarmed dealing a whopping 156 damage. The player argues that his character was told to behead her so that's what he did... or tried anyways because she was still standing after all that. She casts invisibility (defensively), and moves away... letting her blood drop on one path and going another moving behind a tomb. She then uses hide to escape unnoticed.
She goes back to her stash and drinks her one healing potion and comes back, hides outside the building she knows they are in and waits. Other stuff happens and they come out. They need to heal after the shrine which gives her plenty of time to set up.
She's way out of their ability to see her with a stealth roll of 33 and over 180 feet away and plenty of cover. They needed to hit a 55 and no one could. She cast invisibility and flew up 150 feet. She then used permanent image to mimic the sky around her in a bubble. Of course no one can perfectly do so, but it was a high dc spot check... or at least so I ruled. You couldn't spot it from the ground. She then cast all her buff spells.
She finished prepping just as the party finished healing and attacked. She cast confusion into the midst of 10 collected people... to disasterous result. 2 npcs, a cohort and a major npc (shalelu) failed their saves.
That was the surprise round. They had no way to detect where this was coming from, and the only thing that seemed wrong was an odd feeling. Both npcs rolled "act normally" so the party launched a bunch of defensive spells and kept their formation.
And promptly got hit by a SECOND confusion spell causing another cohort to fall victim. At this point one of the cohorts launches an inexplicable attack (prompting spellcraft checks) and they finally break formation.
The person who attacked, a magus cohort, hit the newly recruited pc barbarian. The barbarian... moves away. The npc rogue cohort attacks the npc cohort barbarian, who promptly grapples the rogue. Meanwhile, the baddie's hideout is finally spotted by the wizard's flying homonculus who notes an odd disturbance in how the clouds move against each other (37 perception) and the pc wizard goes to investigate.
The baddie failed to feeblemind the wizard, but succeeded in getting the oracle who was trying to dispel all the confusion effects so she's now a blithering idiot.
Here is where things go south. The pc barbarian decides full rage and charges the npc barbarian grappling the rogue hitting for 65 points of lethal damage because "I didn't see her attack him. It's what my character would do."
It made no sense to me. The guy was obviously trying to subdue her, not kill. The npc barbarian, who is the oracle's cohort and the father of her unborn child, disarms the pc barbarian and tries to reason with him. Unfortunately the oracle herself, who is now a complete idiot, swings her mace at the pc barbarian who attacked her cohort.
Arial mage combat initiates as the sorceress is finally discovered. The pc barbarian however attacks the pregnant oracle.
The npc barbarian full attacks, the pc barb responds in kind putting the npc barbarian at negative 130 hp... he's not getting back up.
At this point the lord they all follow decides the pc barbarian is out of control and too dangerous... orders everyone to drop him. He takes several arrows and spells and goes into negatives... but is still standing. The party wizard flies back down and walls off the barbarian with a wall of force...
Who goes off and when he comes out of rage kills himself. Meanwhile, the now feebleminded magus is taken over by Suishen (the artifact sword he is wielding) who finally drops the bad guy.
End result: 2 feebleminded pc types, 1 dead pc, 1 dead cohort.
Do you guys think I was harsh on the party? I hate killing pcs and cohorts, but I end up doing it a LOT with this AP. The dead pc has lost 4 characters now.