Question on Haunts


Carrion Crown


I know positive energy via channeling and cure spells damages haunts, but what about holy water? Nothing has been specified but given the aforementioned I'm inclined to say yes.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16

Not by RAW. But you're the GM. Do what thou whilt.

If you already have Clerics/etc, then don't do it, it'll make things too easy. If the party makeup needs some help, rule in holy water: that's their help.


Erik Freund wrote:

Not by RAW. But you're the GM. Do what thou whilt.

If you already have Clerics/etc, then don't do it, it'll make things too easy. If the party makeup needs some help, rule in holy water: that's their help.

That sounds about right, the thing that threw me for a loop was once of the haunts is specifically destroyed by means of Holy Water. That in conjunction with its known affects on undead and evil outsiders was enough to push it into a gray area.

Grand Lodge

haunts MAY be damaged by other things than just positive energy. It will say so in the Weakness section of the Haunt.

PRD wrote:
Weakness: Any weaknesses the haunt might have, such as for haunts that can be tricked by effects like hide from undead or can be damaged by effects other than positive energy, are listed here.

So, if you want to modify the haunt's weaknesses then do so. If you want to create a new haunt with a weakness to flaming oil do so.

In the case of Carrion Crown I noticed that melee characters do not have a lot to do. The really cool fights tend to be haunts. So, as an example:

Spoiler:
I modified the encounter with Father Charlatan. His body was lying in the cell, so I allowed the barbarian to attack it. I applied 1/5 of the damage to FC's haunt.

The result was that the fight became more inclusive and more players had fun.

Also, based upon the "boss" haunts it is my opinion that basic haunts follow the guidelines as listed in the Gamemastery Guidebook, while "boss" haunts do not have to follow the rule that a haunt uses a spell as its effect. If the "boss" haunts use spell effects then I have no idea what they are supposed to be.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

If you don't mind me extending the thread a little bit, I have a question I figure is bound to come up.

What happens if you have a haunt that haunts an object like Slamming Portals, or a grandfather clock that goes crazy and tries people mad with its endless doling of the time... and the players try to destroy the object associated with the haunt?

Seriously, I figure this is given. The first Slamming Portal that slams in the players' faces is going to get smashed until it is no longer a door to be slammed.

Contributor

Drakli, I answered your last inquiry about inhabited objects in the main haunts thread here.

As for holy water, the answer for it is much the same as the call a GM has to make for holy weapons, as I discussed in the first DMs ONLY: Haunts thread. I have a lot of good explanatory posts over there.

Anywho...holy water, and indeed the holy property of weapons, doesn't technically do positive energy damage. Therefore, RAW, neither will harm haunts. BUT, holy water actually has a strong case for dealing the damage, since it specifies that it "damages undead creatures," so I don't think a GM would be at all out of bounds ruling that it does harm haunts, but they'll need to carefully gauge their group's resources to make sure they don't tip the balance. At low levels, 25 gp for 2d4 damage is pretty expensive, in any case, but worth it if you don't have other options like the haunt siphons.

And, if you went that route and need to keep the scales balanced, I'd explore the other option I discussed on the other thread, and that's making haunt AC equal to 10+CR, and giving them an incorporeal miss chance. If I could change any one haunt rule personally, that would be the one.

Hope that helps!


Brandon Hodge wrote:

Drakli, I answered your last inquiry about inhabited objects in the main haunts thread here.

As for holy water, the answer for it is much the same as the call a GM has to make for holy weapons, as I discussed in the first DMs ONLY: Haunts thread. I have a lot of good explanatory posts over there.

Anywho...holy water, and indeed the holy property of weapons, doesn't technically do positive energy damage. Therefore, RAW, neither will harm haunts. BUT, holy water actually has a strong case for dealing the damage, since it specifies that it "damages undead creatures," so I don't think a GM would be at all out of bounds ruling that it does harm haunts, but they'll need to carefully gauge their group's resources to make sure they don't tip the balance. At low levels, 25 gp for 2d4 damage is pretty expensive, in any case, but worth it if you don't have other options like the haunt siphons.

And, if you went that route and need to keep the scales balanced, I'd explore the other option I discussed on the other thread, and that's making haunt AC equal to 10+CR, and giving them an incorporeal miss chance. If I could change any one haunt rule personally, that would be the one.

Hope that helps!

You pretty well read my mind there. I prefer the AC 10+CR+incorporeal as opposed to just AC 10, but I was thinking of allowing holy water to balance this change for the reasons you've mentioned.

Silver Crusade

What knowledge skill do you use to identify the weaknesses of the haunts?

Contributor

brent norton wrote:
What knowledge skill do you use to identify the weaknesses of the haunts?

From the other thread:

Knowledge (local) or Knowledge (religion) are the two most appropriate skills for discovering a haunt's destruction, because they are pseudo-undead and their destruction methods are tied up in local folklore, stories of murder, and superstition. Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) aren't appropriate because they aren't magical effect. Knowledge (history) might be a third alternative, but I wouldn't go that far myself, because most haunts have a story tied into the local region.

Grand Lodge

Drakli wrote:

If you don't mind me extending the thread a little bit, I have a question I figure is bound to come up.

What happens if you have a haunt that haunts an object like Slamming Portals, or a grandfather clock that goes crazy and tries people mad with its endless doling of the time... and the players try to destroy the object associated with the haunt?

Seriously, I figure this is given. The first Slamming Portal that slams in the players' faces is going to get smashed until it is no longer a door to be slammed.

Spoiler:
In my CC game they enter the prison and the doors all get locked by a haunt for a couple of rounds. The players quickly bashed a door to bits and went on through rather than waiting it out.

Next time the players came in to the prison I had the door looking as if nothing had ever happened. I simply decided the smashing it to bits was part of the haunt's manifestation and would reset with the haunt.

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