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Sorry, the site went down most of last week and I couldn't get to games, and then Wednesday-Friday I was teaching a class and wasn't really able to get online much. I'm not sure exactly when the site came back on.
I'll update shortly.
Just to incase it's confusing, there are two separate encounters going on right here. One is a Haunt with a very long onset and the other is three ghosts that where essentially using the Haunt to get set up around the room to strike out against the living. While they where still invisible, they had originally mean tot attack certain foes, but, once they started to see different folks breaking free of the Haunt, they began to swap targets, but all of the sudden a wave of Positive Energy washed over them from Risa's Channel and they manifested and sprung into attacking right then.
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Just a heads up. I will be leaving Thursday morning for a 4-day retreat at the beach that lasts til Sunday afternoon, then I have a Sunday night concert to attend. I will take my computer with me, but I may not be able to post much til after I get home. Please feel free to bot me if I delay the game at all.
On Monday, my dog goes into surgery and when he returns home on Tuesday, I will be on a full-time home care regimen with him. He needs to be walked with a belly band whenever he needs to relieve himself or get up to get a drink or eat, so it will be a busy time. (He's an almost 100 lb st. bernard puppy, so he can't be carried for these things).
I'll be able to post regularly again starting Monday, but perhaps not as frequently as usual for a while.... Anyway, sorry in advance for any lack of posting on my part. I will do the best I can.
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I had started a thread to try to garner discussion on the Rougarou and the Naiad for next season's race options, but I think I did it a little too early on the weekend and it's dropped off a bit. (Or maybe no one cares. :P )
Anyone interested in discussing, offering their opinions, or likes/dislikes?
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Had several OOC things to talk about, so decided to put it all here.
@Pit duration, I believe it will disappear right before my action in Round 5, which is not my next turn, but the one after that. It has a duration of 1 round + 1 round per level, and I am level 3, so 4 rounds total duration, and I cast it in Round 1.
@Range of scroll, my scroll of Command Undead would need to have a minimum CL of 3, since it is a level 2 spell, giving it a range of 30ft (25ft +5ft/2CL). From the first marked area on the map, that would put me 20ft from the zombie queen; even counting 10ft depth, that is still 30ft, which would put it just barely in range. So I should be able to fire it from there, hit the queen, and not have to worry about falling into the pit, yeah?
@all, just to explain my thoughts here: we know that Jaohd is not acting of his own will - there is some sort of possession or weird thing going on. If I can use Command Undead to cause the zombie queen to act as Friendly toward us, I might be able to get her to e'splain what is going on with him, and potentially work out a way to save him. Even if not, the spell lasts for 3 days, giving us plenty of time to figure out how to deal with her. Only a DC13 will save to resist, so it may be a moot point, but I thought it worth the try. I will explain in character as well, when given time, but wanted to put my thoughts out there.
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So, since we are at the end, can I have everyone REpost the following information for reporting and Chronicle Sheets.
Player Name:
Character Name:
PFS ID:
Faction:
A Day Job Roll, (or other Downtime), or please say None:
Please also include if you are playing Slow Track, wanted to see about any Faction Card Goals, and include any purchases you might have made.
Secondarily, if anyone had any questions, now that the game is concluded, I have no problem answering them.
And finally, something I like to try to do is ask everyone what they thought of the how I ran the game, about the scenario, ways I might improve, what they liked, etc. . . It's not going to hurt my feelings, and it is not required, but I would like to hear what you have to say.
Once I have everyone's information, I'll go ahead and post Chronicle Sheets and Report the Game.
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recopying from page 1:
Player Name: JAFO
Character Name: Night Hunter
PFS ID: 52335-14
Faction: Grand Lodge
A Day Job Roll: profession, brewer: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26
Normal track
I thought you did fine for what you had to work with - I'm sure describing the hauntings must not be easy... I had a little trouble understanding what was going on in a few spots... but it's all okay and we got through it, so thanks.. I did enjoy the dancing and whatnot.. just got confused a little. I am not terribly familiar with haunts and such, so unfamiliar with the mechanics, so to speak. I had fun and that's all that really matters... thank you for the game! and thanks to all my fellow players!
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HERE is a link to the Chronicle Sheets. If there are any errors, please let me know and I can edit them. Otherwise the link will remain active indefinitely in case you need to redownload them.
From the DM side of the screen, I rather enjoyed this Scenario, although there are a few aspects of it I'm not comfortable with, personally. I really dislike when a Scenario utilizes tactics that can put players out of the action for extended periods of time for a poor roll, and this one had multiple versions of it.
One of the tactics that the final boss was able to do was a Color Spray ability, for instance, as well as the ability to possess targets at will, and with a really good chance of simply ignoring protective measures like Protection from Evil.
I do not like that, as it seems like a very "gotcha" ort of build that's really just there to rob classes of their toys. I also didn't like that some of the suggestions where to give Joahd (while possessed) a free +5 or higher on Bluff because his story was very believable, which is true, but also seemed kind of there to make sure no one really got a good feel for what was really going on. I felt like the author just went out of their way to stack the deck against the group too much for the sake of their story, which was the same complaint I had for Scars of the Third Crusade.
On the other hand, I did think the overall story was pretty good, and I really enjoyed this being a second part of an overall story, and I'm a fan of horror settings.
I did find it very interesting how both of the groups I ran this for, in many ways acted very similarly, but at the same time did so many things very differently, and it seemed every time I tried to make things a bit easier for the group, unknowingly made it very difficult on themselves with their tactics, which kept it very interesting for me. At the same time, though, both groups also seemed very poorly built for this scenario, :P
I would really like to hear everyone else's thoughts on things, both on how I ran it and the scenario itself.
As soon as I get an answer from everyone about reposting their info, I'll go ahead and Report the game.
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Player Name: dwilhelmi
Character Name: Henrikuaxian
PFS ID: #183198-1
Faction: Scarab Sages
Day Job Roll: None
Normal track
Thanks for running the game DM Beckett! Had a good time. I've decided I don't really like Haunt Siphons - bought a couple in case we ran into haunts, but the timing on when you can and can't use it seems difficult. You can only use it in a surprise round I think? but it is a move action to pull out, and a standard action to use? I may be missing something about them, dunno, but we didn't end up needing them anyway as the haunt we ran into was fairly manageable. Plus, there is no way a gnome wouldn't take an opportunity to dance with a ghost, haunt or no :D.
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That is generally true for most things that can affect Haunts, which really undercuts, in my opinion, the cool factor of a Haunt.
So, generally speaking, you make a "Notice" Check for a Haunt. If you make the Notice Check, you can then Act in the Surprize Round, and you roll Init. So, you basically have to do all three of three things to even be able to interact with a Haunt, Notice it, understand that the very brief description you get is actually a Haunt, and lastly also roll high enough to be able to act in the Surprise Round before the Haunt goes (on Init 10).
BUT, because it is a Surprise Round, you get only a single Move or Standard Action. That's it. So, if you do not actually have out a given item you need, you are basically out of luck.
In practice, the absolute best way to deal with a Haunt is to take your Move Action and just move back as far as you can, completely ignoring the effects of the Haunt, because it's such a small area. That's pretty dumb, (again, in my opinion). Similarly, unless you are specifically walking around with a drawn Wand of CLW, holy water, haunt siphon, etc. . . there is actually very little you can actually do unless you can cast specific spells (at the right place without moving) or Channel Energy.
The Dancing Haunt in this scenario basically ignores some of the rules for how Haunts actually work, specifically the size of the Haunt's area it can affect, which realistically should have added at +10 or higher to it's CR, and it was really weird how long it worked as well, which should have been more like immediately.
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@DM: I have no complaints. It was a cool scenario that I definitely felt suited Nectanebo well, and with the arguable exception of trying to figure out what was going on when Jaohd and we were interacting with Sevenfingers's mistress, I didn't notice anything being harder than it should have been.
On to more important things: I'm level 4 now!