Potential Abomination Vault Spoilers Below
My group primarily plays homebrewed DnD 5e campaigns but we have enjoyed playing the beginner box so much that we have decided to play another Paizo adventure using Foundry VTT. So we have chosen Abomination Vaults which I will be GMing. I figured I would make posts about our shenanigans in the Vaults both as a way to provide some content to this community and to encourage me to take detailed (read: useful) notes to document our misadventures. Our group has 3 primary GMs that trade off each week, GMing our respective campaigns and sometimes special 2 or 3 shots ( We are running a 5e converted Tomb of Horrors module in a couple weeks for our most Masochistic DMs birthday, which should be... Fun?). Which is to say that updates on our shenanigans will be few and far between.
All that said Id like to introduce y'all to the cats I'll be wrangling. Hopefully their characters can serve as inspiration and/or be good for a laugh.
Meet the Chucklefucks
The Enigmatic Dave, Human Psychic
Dave is a down on his luck middle aged man. Who wears a greasy Cheeto stained robe. He has always peddled as a psychic giving sham tarot readings for little money. He has never really felt a purpose in life and as such has retreated into himself and fell into the bottle. Recently his wife, Susan, and “their” 2 kids left. She found another man who is 1000x’s better than Dave. I mean. He’s very rich and lives in Absalom if you’re into that kind of thing. He’s into real estate and has a ton of time to take Daves family on vacation. One time they took a vacation to Otari. Dave spotted them traipsing through the street in their fancy clothes. Susan still wanted him though. Dave could tell.
Through her leaving Dave’s psyche was irreparably fractured however. He found latent abilities within himself. He rebranded, The Enigmatic Dave, and started giving true readings in Otari's local market. He’s made a bit of a name for himself locally. Dave hasn’t fixed any of his habits though. He instead hired a “manager” to keep him in line so he is sober and coherent enough to perform at his shows and readings. One day he will be known the world around. One day Susan will take him back.
Stove, Lizardfolk Beastkin (Were-goat) Kineticist
Stove grew up as a feral were-goat child in the Otari Hinterlands with nothing but a small scrap of flesh (birth certificate?) with the name “Steve” poorly tattooed on it, so poorly in fact that when Stove had someone literate read it to him for the first time they misread it as Stove. Stove has been curious about proper living for a while now though and has lurked on the outskirts of the town creeping and learning. One day he found Dave and started going to his shows. Finally started talking to him and learned that Susan had left Dave and now he was going to have to live with his mom again. Stove excitedly jumped at the opportunity and said he'd live with Dave and be his manager! Dave, desperate to not live with his bitchy mother again, begrudgingly accepted. Now Stove has a room at the very back of Dave's place that's very poorly lit, smells terrible, and has bones of small animals littered about the place. More like a barn at this point than a guest room. It goes fairly well with the rest of the house which has takeout boxes and empty liquor boxes littered everywhere. Dave never visits Stove in his room... he always just waits for him to come out if he needs something.
GM note: Without any prompting from me, The Enigmatic Dave (T.E.D. as we now call him in the discord) took the Market Runner background and decided to tie his backstory in with Stove who is a weird looking lizard goat dude who manipulates elements. Keeleno Lathenar is going to be incredibly distrustful of Stove since he is a druid adjacent animal person. So naturally I decided that Keeleno will be T.E.D.’s landlord of a small flat adjacent to the Otari Market and I'm going to let them decide if they try to hide the fact that Stove lives there or not. Shenanigans will surely ensure.
Kolbold, Goblin Warpriest/Cultist of Zarongel
Kolbold is a cultist dedicated to Zarongel the hero god of dog killing, arson, and travel. Moving around otari mounted atop his goblindog and generally being a menace setting fire to adventure camps and killing stray dogs when he isn't scavenging the city.
Kolbold was sent by the tribe Oracle to go join a group and raid a dungeon for shineies.
Edicts are Dog killing, arson, and beast riding.
Anathemas spare the dog, not burning your enemies buildings, not having/seeking a mount or riding a horse or dog.
GM note: I'm going to try and make this PCs tribe the same former tribe of “The Scribbles” from the AV expanded document. How that plays out, however, is anyone's guess. This player is a bit of a wildcard.
Kenji Ito, Human Magus/ Time Traveling DnD 2e character
Kenji Ito: The Stray Fox
After Rengar the Demon Core was once again sealed by the Blitz Brigade and the Pensive Protectors (DnD 2e Campaign he plays in), Kenji sailed back home to Shidekima to reconnect with family. His plan was to take a few dozen years of his new extended life as a vampire to live and protect the ones he cared about most before turning back to his mission. Life had other plans.
While out for an afternoon ride with his grandfather a shrill sound started to fill his ears. His horse made no indication it could hear it too, so he glanced over at Ojisan and suddenly he felt a familiar sensation of his body being ripped from the time stream. He went hurtling through the void; silver threads extending far in the distance each one the lifeline of a person he had saved mere months ago. Kenji realized he was falling, his control slipping from his mind as his connection to Faerun was fading. What felt like hours passed before he could see anything: the bright light. First a pin prick, then it grew to surround him until he was out of the void. He looked back and saw the hole quickly closing as he fell further away, toward a strange new place. His instincts kicked in as he reached out to the weave to arrest his fall, but he found something else. New magic, just as ancient as the one's he studied before but new to him connecting the essence of the world. With the ground quickly meeting him a sudden gust of wind changed his course, sending him sideways and landing him in a large haystack.
Curious and thankful, he crawled out and realized he was stark naked, and hungry for the first time in years. The farm he was on had a large barn, so he went there first to try and make himself decent. Opening the barn door, he was met with an old figure that was made out of vine and plant material, Alder Twig. After their initial embarrassing encounter Twig and his partner Magnolia (plant Leshies) took him in and helped acclimate Kenji to his new surroundings. He worked for the Twig's, and they paid him in room, food, and a silver here and there. Kenji would travel to the nearby town of Absalom to buy books and study the new Arcane connection he felt, finally learning to wield some of the simpler cantrips. After a few months, he could afford a sword and some decent travelling supplies, so he said his farewell to the Twig's and went forward to follow the only lead to get back home he could think of, this strange new magic and the mystics that control it.
Rogath Treesplitter, Orc Barbarian
An orc that immigrated to Otari with his mom's and pops when he was young. Turns our that even at a young age, orcs are still pretty useful at felling and moving trees so that's where he has made his money. He likes to explore the surrounding areas and every now and again go to the city to see what kinda weird shit they have out there.
Wrin is a friend of the Treesplitter family.
Robin Thorne, Human Nephilim Ranger
Robin Thorne, monster hunter. Her dad Murdoc was more involved in her life than Thalomin (Player’s character in another 5e campaign we play in) was in his. Thalomin was a good dad, but he stayed busy with the whole "saving the world every time it's asked" thing. Murdoc later goes on to live a similar life, but had a daughter and wanted to be more present for her. But she would hear stories about Thal and the Untamed, and his helping the Flaming Rose crusade (Avernus reference), and she wanted to be like her grandpa. Old grandpa Thal is a grumpy old man but a teddy bear to his grand daughter.
Preparing for the Adventure
Ive decided to add several elements from the AV expanded document, including: Starting the campaign at level 2 with a festival celebrating killing the dragon from the beginner box, The Scribbles, Rajani’s daughter, as well as the ritual to release the original Roseguard heros from the gem lenses. But most of these things will come later. Right now I am trying to decide how best to balance encounters for a party of 6 experienced and creative ttrpgers. Right now ive decided to use the Elite versiom for encounters against mostly one creature and just increasing mobs by about 50%. But I would love any advice in this regard!
Be careful with slapping the elite template on single creatures, particularly at lower levels. Fights can be very swingy starting out with low HP pools relative to damage output. For a single creature higher level encounter, I’d recommend adding a couple of low level adds as it’ll make the fight a challenge and more dynamic. For fights that already have several monsters, making one of them elite can work as a sort of squad leader. Or you can try and replace one or two creatures with another that’s a level higher. The XP budgeting and encounter builder rules are pretty spot on I find.
Thank you for the advice! I hadn't considered making individual lesser mobs elite "squad leaders" as you suggest but I really like the idea. I have heard that the math is very tight in this system. I just hope this system is ready for how bad I am at math lol. I will certainly be looking into XP budgeting and encounter building rules more in depth now. Thanks again!