Demon's Heresy (GM Reference)


Wrath of the Righteous

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Scarab Sages

I tried, I really did. We went through the day by day plodding along with scheduling builds and things they were doing to generate resources.

The party never fully explored the worldwound, just letting things happen to themselves while they played Sim-Pathfinder.

Once they got the RP to rebuild Drezen, I shut down that mini-game. A horrible amount of paperwork for me for them to just build a high amount of magic points and dump it into the mythic crafter to build s~%! for free.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

And that is all I need to completely drop any further idea of expanding the concept. <shudder> I really don't need the party crafting stuff for free, especially with the hyperinflated loot drops the party gets throughout the AP.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I don't have the rules in front of me, but the city produces 1 magic point a day that I think could be sold for 50 or 100 gp. PCs can generate more income by adventuring.

Scarab Sages

The city only produces one magic point to start.

If you build things that generate magic points, their buildings start producing multiple magic points a day.

Not to mention, you can choose to do skill checks to produce Resources. Every 10 you hit on certain skill checks generates a point of magic as well. When your PCs can hit DC 20s or 30s by taking 10, then each player generates 2-3 points of magic a day as well.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I know that you're right and in a 'real world' that would be a lot of money. But a mythic character staying at home, working their skills can generate 3-400 gp a day. Oh no! That is the least of my worries about cities and mythic rules. And that's a day they may not be crafting, so GM win.
I gave my PCs set days off which gave them each about 5 days for their crafting needs. Time is a bigger resource then gold, unless you slow down book 3 which is the easiest book to do that in.

EDIT: extra thought. And for RP purposes I would consider taking resources from the city to not be very lawful or good, which could conflict with others there who may be in charge.

Scarab Sages

Honestly Sean, going by the book Xanthir doesn't even start bothering the PCs until 3-4 weeks. So if your PCs ignore exploration to rebuild the city(reasonable, especially if they lost their armies), that's 25-30 days of crafting my Mythic crafter was getting, and between their current cash plus 3 PCs doing 3-4 Magic Points each because Heal, Diplomacy and several Knowledge checks are the skills that generate them.

So when I've got 3 people generating 900 GP a day, not even counting other buildings, it kinda breaks.

Adventures in 'hey, there's a dragon attacking the supply route' turned into three days out and back and I had to cheat to actually hit one player before they whacked the Woundwyrm.

And they were not taking resources from the city. Downtime activities explicitly calls generating resources as doing things for to generate income, marked as Resources instead of gp.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

My party is completely skipping Downtime. I had them donate the Goods back to the city to bump it up to the 10k purchase limit.


Knowing my players, they'll have lots of fun building up Drezen; at least, given that's what a couple of the players are doing with Sandpoint (building a bank and an orphanage, and planning to expand into Turtleback Ferry). So really, it depends on the players and their style. :)


So how long does it take for 2000 troops and civilians along with supplies to arrive in Drezden after PC capture it? The book states Drezden is unmolested for 3-4 weeks. Is that enough time for the troops to arrive?


Presumably the army is going to move along the same lines the PC's did, and now the way is clear. An army of 2000 can move about the same speed as an army of 100, but the followers may be slower. Even still I imagine it would not take much more than a couple of weeks for them to show up, and that's if they don't force march.

Grand Lodge

Doesn't it take a few days for the PC's and their forces to get there? If so, maybe a week for a full army?


I was assuming the troops would be coming from a city further to south. There really isn't much mention on what kind of forces arrived in Kenebras at start of the Sword of Valor other than the 100 Paladins. I'd assume more came to re-enforce Kenbras but they would stay there to protect and rebuild the city.

If they were comming from Kenebras a week to 10 days makes sense. Further though might takes weeks.

Silver Crusade

I have a question regarding Skulgrym.

His "During Combat" tactics states that he opens by casting Silence on his axe. Then he casts hold person... deeper darkness... summons reinforcements, teleports, casts regenerate, vampiric touch... rinse and repeat as necessary.

All of these are spell-like abilities... how is he casting them in silence?

Is this an error in the tactics or am I missing something?

Edit: Also, where does his 2d6 sneak attack come from? ;)


Tempestorm wrote:

I have a question regarding Skulgrym.

His "During Combat" tactics states that he opens by casting Silence on his axe. Then he casts hold person... deeper darkness... summons reinforcements, teleports, casts regenerate, vampiric touch... rinse and repeat as necessary.

All of these are spell-like abilities... how is he casting them in silence?

Is this an error in the tactics or am I missing something?

Edit: Also, where does his 2d6 sneak attack come from? ;)

SLAs work in silence since they have no components; basically they concentrate and it happens.

PRD wrote:
Spell-like abilities are magical and work just like spells (though they are not spells and so have no verbal, somatic, focus, or material components).


The sneak attack is one of the standard nabasu's special attacks. Check the statblock at Bestiary 1

Silver Crusade

Thank you both...

Completely spaced on the spell-like abilities working in silence.

As for the sneak attack bit I can only blame temporary lack of reading comprehension as I had reviewed the base Nabasu stat block and completely missed it.

Grand Lodge

Ok, I've skimmed over this and didn't see my topic so I figured I'd ask here. My players are jumping into Demon's Heresy now and my cleric is musing over using her heal skill, Profession (Surgeon) skill, and healing class abilities to earn capital AND gain RP for the rebuilding of Drezen.

I felt that my PC's wouldn't know what they should do if I didn't provide light details on gaining RP and that RP would be used. I didn't give them values or a target number to reach but yeah, could someone feasibly gain capital for later constructions AND gain 1 RP per day by using their healing skills/powers?

Scarab Sages

Gaining RP is the free devotion of time/money/effort put into rebuilding the town.

Gaining capital is antithetical to that, as it's doing something to extract later effort from the system, which would slow down the town's recovery.

One or the other.

Grand Lodge

the only reason I'm on the fence about it at all is my player's thought process and sound logic. By using the healing to create RP why would the townsfolk not compensate the PC for their effort in some way? I strongly feel it should be one or the other, but in questionable situations such as this I like to gather as much information as I can about it. I don't want to slight a player if I can make the game workable and still make it enjoyable.

Grand Lodge

I'd say no. First, they're trying to game the system, and I'm not big on rewarding that, even if they have some explanation. Second, I think they're missing the point in that this is a city in ruins. It should be all the PC's can do to keep it from collapsing in upon itself in those first few months. While people will be grateful for the assistance, everyone should be pretty focused on rebuilding Drezzen. If they insist, all the capital they gain should be drained right out of the RP for the city. The resources that could be going into rebuilding, they're rerouted into their own coffers.

You already are able to get "free" capital from their friendly NPC's. If they want to earn capital to do their own thing, cool. If they want to earn capital to spend on projects that will rebuild the town, (so change capital into RP), that's fine. Getting both capital and RP out of the same actions? No. That should not be allowed.

I think it really goes against the spirit of that part of the AP, there the characters are being asked to selflessly give of their resources to rebuild this city. Profiting from that is not the sort of thing that the Heroes of the Fifth Crusade should be doing.

Grand Lodge

Sprain Ogre wrote:

I'd say no. First, they're trying to game the system, and I'm not big on rewarding that, even if they have some explanation. Second, I think they're missing the point in that this is a city in ruins. It should be all the PC's can do to keep it from collapsing in upon itself in those first few months. While people will be grateful for the assistance, everyone should be pretty focused on rebuilding Drezzen. If they insist, all the capital they gain should be drained right out of the RP for the city. The resources that could be going into rebuilding, they're rerouted into their own coffers.

You already are able to get "free" capital from their friendly NPC's. If they want to earn capital to do their own thing, cool. If they want to earn capital to spend on projects that will rebuild the town, (so change capital into RP), that's fine. Getting both capital and RP out of the same actions? No. That should not be allowed.

I think it really goes against the spirit of that part of the AP, there the characters are being asked to selflessly give of their resources to rebuild this city. Profiting from that is not the sort of thing that the Heroes of the Fifth Crusade should be doing.

Alrighty, thats just the same sort of thinking with good reasons I was honestly hoping to see. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't the only one thinking like this.

However that post did remind me of one more question, the capital gained by the NPC's. Is that just picked up and kept or is that just like a number that they have for a day, if it's not used in that day then it goes away? My first thought was the latter, those numbers seemed kind of high. My party has the unfortunate side effect of having a dead Irabeth as a result of entering drezen kinda backwards and running into several forces at once.

Spoiler:
Their fight with Vhane also had Joran and his babaus, and the three minotaurs from that front area partially due to Nurah's betrayal.

I've thought about just ruling it as permanent gain, but I kinda wanna hear other's opinions first.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I would also agree about not being able to do both, or possibly so if they are spending 16 hours a day to do so... ie: 2 blocks of time.

I believe the resources last until used. If you have access to ultimate campaign you'll notice that some buildings require 100s of resources to build. I would also try to have an NPC guide them to bringing Irabeth back.

Grand Lodge

As far as Irabeth's death, they also lost 2 PCs and kinda "cheat resourced" a divine intervention from me as far as reviving them. Due to it being a forced resource (Basically my "Touched by Divinity" character prayed lots and lots to her deity for the help even though she didn't have the power to cast life restoring spells) I didn't feel bringing Irabeth back to life was a worthy thing. She denied the resurrection from the CG creature who's name she didn't recognize from a deity that wasn't her own. They basically need to do it themselves or find a cleirc of Imoedae to cast it for her to accept it. They know where she is interred as they did it themselves, so they can always get a part of her provided they are in the time limit for the spell and think about the action. They don't know she refused resurrection, only that she wasn't revived by the angel that revived both of her allies.

Grand Lodge

You might want to bring in a new NPC to replace Irabeth as governor of Drezen, and through the new NPC issue the capital. Or, you know, not. They already got the benefits of some free raises, and sometimes it's the set backs that make a good story. Even without her stream of resources, it's not impossible to rebuild the city. And if they really want extra capital they don't need to spend GP on, make them go on raids of some last remaining cultist strongholds or something similar.

Grand Lodge

Yeah, I'm finally coming into the element. The downtime rules confused me for quite a long time and through the help of my players, particularly my wife, we've started figuring things out. The party in general is talking about dumping thousands of gold into the efforts as opposed to gaining capital through the hard work. I think they want the main story to continue quickly, even at the expense of better gear. They've also seen the rewards of gear in general that are being handed to them, such as the Armor of the Pious. If only I had a paladin for Radiance! It's odd that none of my players took that route.

Thank you guys for your advice and help though!


We're clearly not ever going to get another mythic 1-20 AP but that was never the point of mythic.
Mythic was an idea that many players were asking for. Sure it has its problems and could have benefitted from a lot more testing but it's here for us to use.

I've already run a mythic adventure - Red Hand of Doom and it was awesome.


So I'm looking for gift ideas for a Riftwarden Orphan sorceress.

The player is already pretty frustrated at the uber-love the cleric and fighter are getting, and Delemere's Tomb really drove the point home for her (Celestial Armor for the bard, a +2 Composite Longbow for the fighter, a Talisman of Pure Good for the cleric, aaaaand... diddly for the sorceress).

Having her find one of her parent's spellbooks would be beyond frustrating for her, to say the least.

My thought was a simple custom Staff of the Riftwarden, maybe:
Dismissal x 2
Dimensional Anchor x 2
Summon Monster V x 2

Doesn't seem all that uber-powerful, but if I'm doing my math correctly that's a ridiculously-priced 78,300 g.p. staff; a WEE bit more than the suggested 9000 g.p.

Has anyone else come up with some cool ideas for sorcerers/sorceresses?

(I'm still inclined to give the staff because we completely ignore WBL, but I'm wondering whether that staff is going to break my game in ways I can't predict.)

EDIT: And in case someone wants to help me with crafting costs:
First Dismissal (uses 2 charges): 400 x 5 x 9/2 = 9000
Second Dismissal (uses 2 charges): 300 x 5 x 9/2 = 6750
First Summon Monster (uses 2 charges): 200 x 5 x 9/2 = 4500
Second Summon Monster (ditto): 4500
Each Dimensional Anchor: 200 x 4 x 9 = 7200
===========================================
Crafting Cost: 39,150
Retail Price: 78,300


I don't use staffs much but I can think of no reason why you need 2 of each spell in the staff.
With Dismissal, Summon Monster V and Dimensional Anchor each using 2 charges you can use 5 powers from the staff before recharging it, and having the same power twice does not help at all.
Still more expensive than the 9000gp limit but not really gamebreaking


Does Arushalae know what her penances are?

Some of them are so obvious I let her know them (accept a Mark of Justice or get an Atonement). Others are kind of odd (give away your stuff or fall in love).

How have other people played through her penances?

I ask because she's already succeeded on one (Mark of Justice), and the party's planning on teleporting out of the Worldwound to find a cleric of Desna willing to give her an Atonement (now THAT should be some fun roleplay). Trouble is, then she just drops her Anarchic Gift on that cleric (extremely unlikely to stray, since it's an NPC hundreds of miles from the conflict) and helps beat up Xanthir Vang and BOOM! She's redeemed by the end of Book 3.

Seems a little easy if she knows what she's doing...


Bump, since I'm running this tomorrow night...


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I used some of them as RP potential, like the atonement. Also she ended up giving her gift to a PC that disliked her do to extreme circumstances.

There is a non-automatic will save to go with all of these too, which was a major stumbling block for Nurah.


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Seannoss wrote:

I used some of them as RP potential, like the atonement. Also she ended up giving her gift to a PC that disliked her do to extreme circumstances.

There is a non-automatic will save to go with all of these too, which was a major stumbling block for Nurah.

Yeah, you'd expect a DC 26 Will save to be hard in Book 3, but with a +14 base and a +1d6 mythic surge, her chances are better than 50/50 each time. And the minute the fighter realizes she needs to make saves to redeem herself, you can darned well bet she's going to be wearing his +5 Cloak of Resistance 24/7.

I was fortunate that I had Xanthir kidnap Anevia and put a hard time limit on the PCs or Arushelae'd be redeemed before she ever fights him. As-is, I'm ecstatic at the way the party reacted to her (the fighter insisted the cleric Death Ward everyone so they could give her a big group hug, and wouldn't let her out of the hug 'til the 10 minutes were up). I'm just hoping to see at least a bit of roleplayed redemption, rather than just, "Did that. Made the Will save. What's next?"

Well, tomorrow night's nothing but RP'ing her out, so we'll see how things go.

VERY fun NPC so far...


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I guess part of that is along what I mean. She may not know what redeems her but those things listed may make her feel better/ more good so she would do them. Since she wants to help out she may loan out her equipment (I had her give her staff away, which assists PC travels anyways) And she gave her gift to a fighter type in case he got separated then she could help in the Abyss.


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NobodysHome wrote:
Seannoss wrote:

I used some of them as RP potential, like the atonement. Also she ended up giving her gift to a PC that disliked her do to extreme circumstances.

There is a non-automatic will save to go with all of these too, which was a major stumbling block for Nurah.

I was fortunate that I had Xanthir kidnap Anevia and put a hard time limit on the PCs or Arushelae'd be redeemed before she ever fights him. As-is, I'm ecstatic at the way the party reacted to her (the fighter insisted the cleric Death Ward everyone so they could give her a big group hug, and wouldn't let her out of the hug 'til the 10 minutes were up). I'm just hoping to see at least a bit of roleplayed redemption, rather than just, "Did that. Made the Will save. What's next?"

That just gave me the warm fuzzies. ^^;; Seriously. ^^


Does anything in this book return the river to flowing through the cracked banks of Drezen? If not, what encounter might be placed on the Hex Grid to justify it? I'm just finding it hard to imagine the city / large town can be supported by land-based merchant trains considering you can't grow any crops there. If the river works again, they can at least ferry all their food and fresh water supplies up the river.


NobodysHome wrote:
So I'm looking for gift ideas for a Riftwarden Orphan sorceress.

I know it is a bit late, but still valid, I think. I gave my magus the Pauper's Thighbone mentioned in the back of Sword of Valor. He is making great use of it casting his favorite spell that he has dubbed 'Quad M' (Maximized Mythic Magic Missile). I should mention that everyone in the party now has an artifact. Paladin = Radiance, Cleric = Starbow (from Demon's Heresy), Shadow Dancer = talkative intelligent armor I made up, Druid = Sarkoran Magic Warpaint that I made up. Most of these will improve as they go through the books.

If you are going to go epic, go epic. :-)

laraqua wrote:
Does anything in this book return the river to flowing through the cracked banks of Drezen?

I have only read through Demon's Heresy, but there is nothing about reclaiming demon tainted land. My players really want to know where their mythic power came from. In case any of them read this:

Spoiler:
They will soon discover that the most powerful casters that Sarkoris could offer got together to corrupt powers they stole from the demons (Nyhandrian Crystals) to create heros that could drive the demons back. The ritual 'failed' and killed or severely weakened the participants. It has taken a couple hundred years, but fate has finally completed the ritual. Each of my PC's is related somehow to one of the participants in the ritual. They will find the sole survivor and he will provide them with a ritual that was developed to reclaim tainted land. The ritual never worked due to lack of 'something' (mythic power). So they will be able to spend time and mythic power to actually reclaim land and make it fertile again.


Keianna wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:
So I'm looking for gift ideas for a Riftwarden Orphan sorceress.

I know it is a bit late, but still valid, I think. I gave my magus the Pauper's Thighbone mentioned in the back of Sword of Valor. He is making great use of it casting his favorite spell that he has dubbed 'Quad M' (Maximized Mythic Magic Missile). I should mention that everyone in the party now has an artifact. Paladin = Radiance, Cleric = Starbow (from Demon's Heresy), Shadow Dancer = talkative intelligent armor I made up, Druid = Sarkoran Magic Warpaint that I made up. Most of these will improve as they go through the books.

If you are going to go epic, go epic. :-)

No worries; I appreciate the response. She already had the Pauper's Thighbone and Whatshisname's jaw (I was spreading those like candy in Book 2), so I went with the "Staff of the Riftwarden", and even though she never uses it, the player is really pleased (as a roleplayer) that she now carries her mother's staff...


So, Woundwyrms... I kind of need bit of help to understand their Maw of the Abyss ability. It sounds cool and all, but in the end it is just a drag combat manuver that deals 1d12 damage in 15ft cone and it takes full round action? I mean is there some rule about what happens if he manages to suck in some pc character in to the vortex? As far as I can see is that nothing at all happens, he has no swallow whole nor does he get free bite attack...


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Ironlemon wrote:
So, Woundwyrms... I kind of need bit of help to understand their Maw of the Abyss ability. It sounds cool and all, but in the end it is just a drag combat manuver that deals 1d12 damage in 15ft cone and it takes full round action? I mean is there some rule about what happens if he manages to suck in some pc character in to the vortex? As far as I can see is that nothing at all happens, he has no swallow whole nor does he get free bite attack...

I asked once too. From the answers then, reading and re-reading the ability... it seems like you have it right and its a big waste of time.


Well, that is just sad... It seems so cool, yet as it is it could maybe work on CR 3 monster not on big mythic challenge monster at this point in AP.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Especially in mythic. Any full round action needs to followed with a description similar to 'I win.'


I will be having them fall unconscious and then inflict a side encounter with a psychic demon (see Hall of Drunken Heroes Pathfinder Society Adventure). That way it feels like something exciting without adding any extra abilities to it. It's more of a conduit to something bad.

Liberty's Edge

I looked through it and had a question. Why can't arushale cast greater teleport like other succubi? Maybe I am missing the entry but I didn't see it


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Because she's not like other succubi? Would also have to rewrite the story/scene if she could teleport. Maybe this means that teleport is an ability granted to demons by the Abyss.


Because if she can teleport at will , it is very difficult to have her cornered and need rescuing.

She is in the process of transforming from a Demon to something else, this means her teleportation has stopped working, note that once redeemed she recovers the ability.
Possibly Desna wants to test her resolve to reform, and so has removed her teleportation to make things more difficult for her . hardship redeems.

Sovereign Court

Ironlemon wrote:
So, Woundwyrms... I kind of need bit of help to understand their Maw of the Abyss ability. It sounds cool and all, but in the end it is just a drag combat manuver that deals 1d12 damage in 15ft cone and it takes full round action? I mean is there some rule about what happens if he manages to suck in some pc character in to the vortex? As far as I can see is that nothing at all happens, he has no swallow whole nor does he get free bite attack...

I'm making the effect the same as the maw of chaos spell from sword of valor's back matter.


The reward for completing the Desecration of the father quest; XP and platinum? It says for 400pp or 700pp. Is this platinum, or does it stand for something else? Forgive me for not seeing the obvious answer

Silver Crusade Contributor

Candide wrote:
The reward for completing the Desecration of the father quest; XP and platinum? It says for 400pp or 700pp. Is this platinum, or does it stand for something else? Forgive me for not seeing the obvious answer

Can you give me a page number? I'm having trouble finding it...


It is on page 15. In a small sidebar..

Silver Crusade Contributor

Ah! I see it now. Yes, pp stands for platinum pieces. I assume all the other mechanics involved are obvious enough. ^_^

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