Hi folks. The time is finally upon us, my group is up to the last chapter of The Gathering Storm, so I thought I'd put the call out to you GMs who have played through this last part and get your tips and advice.

If anyone has any hard-won experience on handling this last chapter, please add it here! It strikes me that it's the kind of sequence that could easily be ruined by one well-placed arrow or bad/good die roll ... and personally, I have a real problem justifying the fact that Schulmann can call down a comet just by fingering an amulet around his neck, but there you go ...

I'm also curious how closely GMs followed the usual Channelling/Spellcasting sequence for Schulmann. For example, one failed roll for the Swiftwing spell at the beginning and it could all be over before it starts!

Any help much appreciated.

I haven't played it yet, but there is another thread where people discussed the chapter. Maybe it helps a bit already:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Some good tips, though I could never successfully justify Schulmann getting one turn after every player, they would turn on me like a pack of rabid wolves!

Any new experience or tips since that post?

I guess not ...

Sorry still tryinh to kill the troll here!!

But yes It seems the last chapter will be difficult. I have two ideas

1st is the wizard gets a big head start and the players dont get near him intill on the river. im not sure ow this will work out yet as my players are abit far away from that. But so far they dont seem to suspect the wizard of any foul doings.

second is give im some henchmen to either hold up the pcs or give them more of a challenge once on the river.

Anyway will be great to know how you get on with it.

Badger

Having some kind of henchmen to hold up the players a bit is a great idea - because my players took and instant, inexplicable dislike to Schulmann as soon as they met him, and have suspected him of being the 'big bad' ever since!

one thing i've noticed from the posts other people have made is that there is a very real chance that the mage is killed by longbow shots from a far.

to mitigate this i would use the rules to model the environment. they are even listed in your out of print rules summary. don't forget the storm tracking sheets included in the TGS.

this is all happening in a storm of biblical proportions so adding extra difficulty dice and misfortune dice is entirely plausible.

i don't have TGS in front of me now so i can't recall the exact details of the finale, but firing from a boat in a tempest would justify misfortune and or additional difficulty. slogging up the hill would be fatiguing.

certainly the advice to add henchmen is a great one.

if the players blitz (sorry couldn't resist the pun) the celestial mage, then perhaps throw in Foaldeath and some beasti boys, Foaldeath could be seeking revenge for the executions of the Holtz clan, wind Grudge up by playing on his guilt that his inaction to prevent the Holtz trial/execution is just as damning as killing them himself. throw in repremands that they were protecting Stromdorf, that he (Foaldeath) would have served them better to allow Izka to kill them rather than have them vilified by the ingrates of Stromdorf.

(see i did read your session reports)

later.

Wow, advice specifically tailored to my gaming group. Nice work sir!

Hi UniversalHead

When I ran this I had the usual problem of the archer in the group nailing poor Ulrich from long range as soon as they caught up with him.

If I were to run it again possible fixes...

1) Ulrich has a premonition while meditating on the adventuring partys prospects, a foreshadowing of doom attatched to his future regarding a bow/crossbow. He then attempts to subtly sabotage the offending weapon when the party return with the final stone.

2) I use an additional challenge die for long range shooting. Should a chaos star be generated, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to have the bow/crossbow break due to all the exposure to damp?

3) As a last resort have Ulrich target the best archer with his best offensive magic. Have said archer forced to hide in the boat nursing criticals as lightning bolts rain down. Originally I spread the Celestial pain around the boat, with hindsight I may have sold the wizard short.

Hope that helps, have fun

So my players are off hunting the greenskins, and I’m looking towards the end of the campaign too. I’ve got a couple questions/thoughts here…

First off, how is Schulman’s boat not floating away from the nexus at a quick rate? (This may just bother me, but I’ll put money down one of my players asks.)

My players don’t like Schulman at all. They’re planning on bringing the completed disk to the Celestial Colleges themselves and let his “masters” take it over. So they’ve been hiding the pieces they’ve collected in the temple (since it can withstand the lightning strikes). I’m still not sure just what Schulman’s going to do to get them all, especially since I don’t know what the players will do once they get the last pieces.

I also have a problem with the finale—it seems like major deus ex machina to me. Has anyone done anything to mix up the “and then the comet solves the problem for you” thing?

Yes, the comet is a real worry, especially since it seems to have nothing to do with the nexus, it's just some 'call down a frickin' comet' amulet that Schulmann happens to have. Crazy.

My players instantly took a dislike to him as well, and have buried the first piece out near the Oberslecht. I have a feling they're going to bloody knock Schulmann out or tie him up or something before they put all the pieces together!

does the buried piece still attract lightning?

if your players do gazump schulman before he can become effective i would have a back up nemesis.

either the foaldeath idea i mentioned earlier or perhaps the lies that schulman has been spouting about working for the celestial order are not complete fabrication. perhaps he has a sinister mentor within the order that has been keeping an eye on proceedings. i would be cautious with the latter option without any foreshadowing it may seem a bit contrived.

Well, at the time I ruled that it'd didn't attract lightning if it was buried. I could have it still 'attract' Foaldeath though, and have him there when they return to get it - but that would just really be an extra combat.

Yes, certainly one of the problems with the campaign, the 'big bad' is pretty obvious; I really should have developed some other candidates earlier on.

Of course they're still carrying around the necromancer's necklace, maybe I can do something with that ...

Yep.

The players didn't trust Schulman one bit, so they left the Dwarf guarding the mapstone in Sigmar's temple, but he comes by and allows himself to bribe the dwarf to get a look at the completed thing. But things go poorly... (he uses Cantrip to steal his gold coin back, Dwarf notices, Dwarf takes issue). But Schulman gets to go first and... completely whiffs his lightning bolt spell. Dice right there in the open. Nothing to do with it. The Dwarf kills him on his next action.

I try to throw in a little challenge for the ending by putting a banshee and some spirits in the ancient temple at Tempest Knox or whatever it is. But they have the magic sword at this point and the Dwarf and the Sigmarite Priest make short work of the spirits. So they cap the tempest even though they don't really know why or what's happening (they're definitely a shoot first and... why would we ask questions? kind of group). The storm breaks, they're heroes and the campaign is over.

I think it was more anticlimatic for me than it was for them. I forget as a player how cool it is to just solve a problem and be right, without the GM throwing surprises into the mix just 'cause.

But the real lesson is... look for creatures with a threat rating higher than 5 and put more then one of them together. With some henchmen. Because I was able to get some hurt on the characters in the early and mid part of the game, and they were more worried about the goblins than they needed to be. But three (just0 Rank 2 combat-oriented characters are fairly formidible.

May be time for some demons. Just small ones to start, but still...

Oh, while I'm thinking of it... are there stats for the troll in the set? Or does it just assume the troll is mad scary? Cause the one I put them up against wasn't.

For me Schulman is just a pawn and if he dies, things have been set in motion and I'll plan for that possibility. I haven't completely finished my TGS campaign yet, but the idea is to have someone else pull the strings. Since Dr. Festus is the grey eminence in my Liber Infectus scenario (that I tie together with EoN, TGS and the other scenarios in the campaign), he'll be pulling the strings and may have other puppets working with schulman.

Schulmann isn't really a "big bad", he's more of a comic twist, a final pain in the a---se for the players.

What if they do kill him before the final scene ? Is it that problematic ? Now the PCs get stuck with these stones and with finding a way to end the Storm, could be interesting, could it not ?

I think Schulmann is much more interesting as a puffed up apprentice (which is his description), a loser that thinks he's some great wizard or something.

I'm not saying you should make him easy to beat, just that it isn't that bad if he fails.

Now some ideas to make him "stronger".

I would say as a Celestial Wizard and having stayed in Stromdorf so long, he is "one" with the Storm. Winds seem to swirl and protect him, rain always lashes at the PCs, never at him. Any ranged attack should suffer 2 Misfortune for each range increment over point blank. (Close, 2 misfortune, Medium, 4 etc)

Also, the spells he needs to cast to make the scene fun, he succeeds automatically.

Lastly, the Storm causes the PCs to lose their Free Manœuvres, but not Schulmann (master of the storm).

Oh, yes, one last idea to counter overly suspicious PCs. If the PCs suspect Schulmann, he probably knows they don't like him and will organise the final coup to make sure he wins. That would probably mean hiring spies and bodyguards, and thieves to get the pieces of the mapstone he doesn't have. This renewed difficulty may even call from reinforcements from the College (if you play that Schulmann's mentor is on the case).

Schulmann is a wicked loser, and probably one with good monetary resources... He is far from resourceless. Make him clever !