0-20 King Xeros of Old Azlant [Spoilers]


GM Discussion


So, I ran this mod last night, and it ended up being impossible for my group to complete. It seemed far too difficult for the ELs listed, at least for Act 1, and had it not been for a very lucky few rolls, the party would have died. My major complaints with it, however, are Act 1 and Act 4

Movie plot spoiler:

Act 1: 1 Clay golem and 2 Fire Projectors. For EL 4 that was listed for the turrets, 6d6+1 seems far too high, especially for a touch attack and no limit on how many times they can use it (once per round, sure, but its not a spell, and there isn't a limit for times per day, and has a 30 foot range, far enough to hit everyone that is in the combat unless the run away and corner themselves. As for the clay golem, the Cursed wounds were very hard to deal with, especially only having a 7th caster level healer available. This dropped one characters effective max hit points to 11 for the remainder of the session. I did end up rolling a failed berserk check (round 8 of combat for the golem, rolled a 4 on the percentile) which caused it to attack the turret, being the closest thing that was smaller than him (nothing living was in reach) and spared the characters for 2 rounds. The PCs defeated him by throwing alchemist fires and running away, taking no more than 1 hit per round, killing him JUST as they were cornered on the other end of the ship.

Act 2: It was interesting, but coming out of act 1 with one PC with effective max of 11, and taking 1 con damage from the horrific gaze, it almost ended in a PC death, had it not been for the cleric's turn attempt that had it flee and return, provoking AoO's from 2 of the party members 2 times.

Act 3: Since there were no tactics written for the Xill, I originally had them planewalk into 2 flanks, attack the PCs and try to subdue them this way. Eventually I had them think that grappling would be quicker, so they can get a bite off and hopefully paralyze so that they could be taken prisoner, but this ended up helping the PCs in the end, as they were only attacking in the grapple at a +1 for all of the attacks in the grapple, and the PCs were succeeding the fort saves. Not a bad combat, and for having something in store should they fail this act, I was pretty happy with it.

Act 4: This puzzle stopped the party, they ended up leaving with no way to solve the puzzle, leaving them with no way to move on. The DC 20 Knowledge(Arcana) or DC 25 Int check was BARELY possible by the party, by way of the int check, and that was only if the rogue rolled a 18+ and the rest of the party succeeded on assisting him. With this failure, they only suffered the vortex, which they had a close call with, and had determined that they would not be able to succeed without major risk of death or other hazard. The disintegrate ray was especially worrying for me, as it would take out 2 of the party members, save or not, due to reduced hit points from the clay golem, and 2 of them would be hard pressed to live through it.

Overall, it seemed to be a mod that was far too difficult as written, and they did not finish the scenario.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

When this gets converted, the difficulty will be reassessed. Until such time as 3.5-native scenarios are updated to PFRPG rules, these types of issues may still arrise. We'll look at this and other feedback threads for all of them when we get to the conversion of this and the rest of the season 0 scenarios.

Liberty's Edge 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau

Has the

monster:
Etheral Maruader
been updated to PF rules yet or is it WotC IP? I can't seem to locate it in either Bestiary.

Frog God Games

It has not been officially updated yet by Paizo, but it is OGL so it's possible to do so. There is one in the Slumbering Tsar Saga by Frog God Games, so attached is the update from the adventure for you to use if you want.

Spoiler:

ETHEREAL MARAUDER CR 3
XP 800
N Medium magical beast (extraplanar)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +7
<RULE>
AC 14, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +3 natural)
hp 11 (2d10)
Fort +3; Ref +4; Will +1
Defensive Abilities ethereal jaunt
<RULE>
Spd 40 ft.
Melee bite +4 (1d6+3)
<RULE>
Str 14, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 10
Base Atk +2; CMB +4; CMD 15
Feats Improved Initiative
Skills Perception +7, Stealth +7
<RULE>
Ethereal Jaunt (Su) An ethereal marauder can shift from the Ethereal Plane to the Material Plane as a free action, and shift back again as a move action (or as part of a move action). The ability is otherwise identical to ethereal jaunt (CL 15th).

Shadow Lodge 4/5 ****

When I played this @ 7-8

Spoiler:
The first encounter was very difficult for us. Our party was ill equipped to handle the golem and took a huge amount of damage and had to retreat to Absalom proper to deal with the Clay Golem cursed wounds. After that the rest of the mod was fairly trivial for us, although we did set off traps in the puzzle room a few times before we finished.

When I ran this @ 10-11

Spoiler:
A player made a knowledge arcane check on the turrets and wanted to know their range. The party then proceeded to fight the Iron Golem (which is probably less of a threat then the clay golem although all its stats are a bit better). The Monk pulled out adamantine Brass Knuckles, the Rogue pulled out an adamantine rapier, the Bard Buffed, the Druid ineffectively shot lightning at things, and provided flanks on the Golem with summons, the sorcerer and second rogue did basically nothing, the Golem did a bit of damage but mostly just got the crap beaten out of it.

After seeing 2 mods with Golems in a row I did make sure my characters playing in 7-11 have an answer for them. It was amazing the difference in difficulty due to players being prepared.

The Xill encounter was surprisingly difficult and time consuming for this party. The Sorcerer was paralyzed in the second round and the Monk spent most of the rest of the combat playing tug-of-war with him to keep him from disappearing.

The puzzle room wasn't too bad although I think I did get to blast them with the trap once. The last fight was pretty trivial as the Monk ran up to the BBEG who has way less HP then everything else and kicked his ass. I did get to shoot Painlord with 8 dual bow wielding xill in the same round. That was possibly the highlight of the run that night

Liberty's Edge 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:
PF Converted Stat Block

At that CR, it hardly seems a challenge to a party of the Tier range. I will probably skip this creature if it "randomly" pops up.

Liberty's Edge 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau

Ran this tonight and it resulted in a TPK in the third encounter... I agree with you, Mark; some of these challenges are in need of some adjustment! the party was fairly balanced with three characters of level 10 and the other three either 8 or 9! You would think they would have stood a better chance.

To be fair though, two fireballs by a level 10 wizard in close quarters will take out the bad guys... and do a fair amount of damage to your own party. Especially if they are paralyzed in the blast radius!


Arnim Thayer wrote:

Ran this tonight and it resulted in a TPK in the third encounter... I agree with you, Mark; some of these challenges are in need of some adjustment! the party was fairly balanced with three characters of level 10 and the other three either 8 or 9! You would think they would have stood a better chance.

To be fair though, two fireballs by a level 10 wizard in close quarters will take out the bad guys... and do a fair amount of damage to your own party. Especially if they are paralyzed in the blast radius!

Spoiler:

Although it is mean, the xill should be phase shifting when they have a paralyzed party member, as they wish to use them for powering the ship.

Liberty's Edge 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau

They did... to avoid the caster with the second fireball. Didn't take the paralyzed Pathfinders with them, focusing on surviving to take out the remaining members.


Arnim Thayer wrote:
They did... to avoid the caster with the second fireball. Didn't take the paralyzed Pathfinders with them, focusing on surviving to take out the remaining members.

I meant that with a paralyzed pathfinder (which can be done since they are helpless) Also, don't forget the 20%/50% damage reduction, this affects the PC that is being taken as well

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Okay, I feel a bit stupid, but where, exactly, is the door in Act 2? I'm running this game and need to know ASAP.

The Exchange 5/5

On the map provided, area 1 provides ingress (the wide staircase in the middle mistakenly labeled 'up') down to area 3 (Act 2). The opaque door in Act 2 is between area 3 and area 4.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Also note that the map is done with 10' squares (which can be easy to miss if you aren't paying attention).

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, I ran the first encounter thinking they were 5' squares, and noticed the scale halfway in. I hate the idea of having to draw a new map for my PBP game. ("Okay, guys, this game will resume in two weeks when I have time to draw up a map.")

Thanks for the tips.

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

How are the players supposed to learn about the puzzle-box aspect of the helm? The text doesn't say. There are skills that can be used to defeat the challenge, but not to discover its existence.

5/5 ** RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

Tarondor wrote:
How are the players supposed to learn about the puzzle-box aspect of the helm? The text doesn't say. There are skills that can be used to defeat the challenge, but not to discover its existence.

I don't have the scenario handy, but couldn't the hag advise the party? That could become part of her effort to get them to free her.

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

We negotiated with the Hag who told us about the Helm/Puzzle.

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Releasing the hag -is- part of the puzzle-box nature of the helm.

After several PC attempts (with bad rolls0 to understand what the object did, I told my players that they simply did not know what it was, but had figured out enough to know they might try to release the hag or open the secret door they'd found. They skipped the hag and went for the door.

5/5

I am prepping this for later this month. What do we use for the monster stats for Xill? Do I use the current stats from the Piazo online bestiary? I just want to make sure I am using the correct stats for the monsters.

4/5

Use either the Pathfinder stats from Bestiary or D&D 3.5 stats from Monster Manual. The PRD stats are fine.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

When I ran through this my Gm almost called it due to my character, a Oath against fiends Paladin. Made the Xill encounter almost stop dead in the tracks. If I was one level higher it would have been worse,painful anchor.

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