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As i have been saying many a time my dear ladies and friends of late Lorrimore, the whole concept we stand infront of here is a testament to utter stupidity. A golem standing trial for murder. Quite frankly, it stands more sense to charge a horse for breaking legs and then breaking its leg as punishment.
You see, a golem is MINDLESS. It has no plans of its own and never will have. Thus IF one intends to charge a golem, then do so and charge the golems maker while at it. One can hope they charge the next cutpurse and his razor separately the next time a pair of those are caught!
unless it had its berserking rage, smasehd some innocent... and became sentinent by accident. and such rages can occur in the future aswell.
Our society has a rule for such tho, criminals being responsible for damages and deaths caused by the attacked. atleast in some cases.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/golem/flesh-go lem this is a pretty scary pic.. a golem reading a book.. :p
hmm.. player picking up the flesh golem /class 1 as a replacement character? :D Sure would be a character few have done before... and would have to start with getting decent clothes, deciding on a class and such. In principle all options being open... but..
Hehhe... atleast one in the party being immune to the lycantropy to come..
Fascinating!
Otoh He/it would be equiv to a 10th level character as such. A bit OP for a 7th level party.
As i have been saying many a time my dear ladies and friends of late Lorrimore, the whole concept we stand infront of here is a testament to utter stupidity. A golem standing trial for murder. Quite frankly, it stands more sense to charge a horse for breaking legs and then breaking its leg as punishment.
You see, a golem is MINDLESS. It has no plans of its own and never will have. Thus IF one intends to charge a golem, then do so and charge the golems maker while at it. One can hope they charge the next cutpurse and his razor separately the next time a pair of those are caught!
I think the Beast of Lepidstadt would be pretty mad if you called him mindless.
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I think the Beast of Lepidstadt would be pretty mad if you called him mindless.
Indeed. As discussed in Classic Horrors Revisited, the Beast is a pretty uncommon (and angry) flesh golem.
Also, the Beast has levels of barbarian - which explains the anger issues.
so the picture still isnt correct. The fleshgolem reading.. as barbars are illiterate :p Wonder if someone manages to argue community service to the Beast, all in the name of acclimitation to society.
Such as by accompaning a party of well known dogooders?
Oh yes. and that manual of flesh golem. It would appear to be a pretty good investment as such for a bunhc of 7th or 8th level adventurers. Each setting 3-4k aside, and they get a new friend. And here comes the real horror... a wife for the beast... (or for a lonely mage) :D
And serves for amny levels as a viable bodyguard, longer still for other purposes ;) Such as carrying treasure, im sure.
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so the picture still isnt correct. The fleshgolem reading.. as barbars are illiterate :p Wonder if someone manages to argue community service to the Beast, all in the name of acclimitation to society.
Such as by accompaning a party of well known dogooders?Oh yes. and that manual of flesh golem. It would appear to be a pretty good investment as such for a bunhc of 7th or 8th level adventurers. Each setting 3-4k aside, and they get a new friend. And here comes the real horror... a wife for the beast... (or for a lonely mage) :D
And serves for amny levels as a viable bodyguard, longer still for other purposes ;) Such as carrying treasure, im sure.
Barbarians in PF are not illiterate. That was only in 3.x. :)
Creative Director
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The Beast of Lepidstadt is very much inspired by Frankenstein... as in, the original story. In which the beast IS smart. And can read.
It's true that the typical (as in most of them) flesh golems are mindless... but that's not the case with the Beast of Lepidstadt. And that's why he gets an entire adventure to basically star in... because he's a delicate snowflake unlike all the others! :-)
The Beast of Lepidstadt is very much inspired by Frankenstein... as in, the original story. In which the beast IS smart. And can read.
It's true that the typical (as in most of them) flesh golems are mindless... but that's not the case with the Beast of Lepidstadt. And that's why he gets an entire adventure to basically star in... because he's a delicate snowflake unlike all the others! :-)
I have the sudden urge to do an impression of John Hurt as the Elephant Man
This is why I'm looking forward to the second installment. An intelligent golem? Haha! Adventurers, prepare to re-examine your preconceptions and comfort zones!
They're the real monsters, after all.
The fleshgolem reading.. as barbars are illiterate :p
Even if he was illiterate it would still be a picture version of "Crushing Adventuring Parties: A How-To Book". That's what I like to imagine, anyway.
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The Beast of Lepidstadt is very much inspired by Frankenstein... as in, the original story. In which the beast IS smart. And can read.
It's true that the typical (as in most of them) flesh golems are mindless... but that's not the case with the Beast of Lepidstadt. And that's why he gets an entire adventure to basically star in... because he's a delicate snowflake unlike all the others! :-)
I suspect the Beast is reading Hegel's "The Science of Logic" in preparation for the upcoming trial. Be thankful that he is not, instead, reading Kafka.
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I suspect the Beast is reading Hegel's "The Science of Logic" in preparation for the upcoming trial. Be thankful that he is not, instead, reading Kafka.
He'll get to Kafka right after Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" :P
He's a rather refined monster, after all.
Will certainly be fascinating. Arguments for everything from sentinence to death penalty to whether it was a intricate suicide etc etc... haha. Maybe even let players take the prosecutor and defender roles and the last 2 players+dm as "jury".
The map of Schloss Caromarc is really, really tiny. So much so that, well, I don't really know how to run those encounters.
For instance: in the gatehouse, there are 2 trolls and 3 of their goblin slaves. There are twelve total squares in the gatehouse. The trolls take up 8, and the goblins take up 2, leaving one open square. Alternatively, the trolls cannot climb the stairs in the gatehouse because it is smaller than 1/2 their size and they cannot squeeze through it. G2 has a huge creature summoned, and G3 has a large creature in it, but neither area is really big enough for any movement. Later on, the PCs face a huge creature in a room that it can barely maneuver in. The map is extremely cramped.
Should the map actually be 1sq = 10ft, and the cartographer made a mistake?
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The map of Schloss Caromarc is really, really tiny. So much so that, well, I don't really know how to run those encounters.
For instance: in the gatehouse, there are 2 trolls and 3 of their goblin slaves. There are twelve total squares in the gatehouse. The trolls take up 8, and the goblins take up 2, leaving one open square. Alternatively, the trolls cannot climb the stairs in the gatehouse because it is smaller than 1/2 their size and they cannot squeeze through it. G2 has a huge creature summoned, and G3 has a large creature in it, but neither area is really big enough for any movement. Later on, the PCs face a huge creature in a room that it can barely maneuver in. The map is extremely cramped.
Should the map actually be 1sq = 10ft, and the cartographer made a mistake?
Yeah, it should probably 10 feet to a square instead, though I'd recommend keeping the bridges between buildings at 5 feet per square (note that the summoned creature at area G2 flies, so it doesn't need to walk on the bridge).
Yeah, it should probably 10 feet to a square instead, though I'd recommend keeping the bridges between buildings at 5 feet per square (note that the summoned creature at area G2 flies, so it doesn't need to walk on the bridge).The map of Schloss Caromarc is really, really tiny. So much so that, well, I don't really know how to run those encounters.
For instance: in the gatehouse, there are 2 trolls and 3 of their goblin slaves. There are twelve total squares in the gatehouse. The trolls take up 8, and the goblins take up 2, leaving one open square. Alternatively, the trolls cannot climb the stairs in the gatehouse because it is smaller than 1/2 their size and they cannot squeeze through it. G2 has a huge creature summoned, and G3 has a large creature in it, but neither area is really big enough for any movement. Later on, the PCs face a huge creature in a room that it can barely maneuver in. The map is extremely cramped.
Should the map actually be 1sq = 10ft, and the cartographer made a mistake?
Noted. I did see some parts about "acrobatics checks" and "falling to their death," after all.
Oh, and big kudos to Richard Pett for this module. There's a lot of fantastic stuff in here.
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Yeah, downloaded my pdf today. Not thoroughly impressed with the cartography.
Also thinking about increasing the DC of a LOT of the skill checks! There are far too many DC twenties that earn the group 1k+ xp.
If this is gonna be an effective "who done it" I would have liked to see more tiers of success and not a pass/fail scenario that appears to be common
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BTW page 53....
::DROOL:: love it
BTW page 53....
::DROOL:: love it
I love the
That encounter should be a blast to run.
BTW page 53....
::DROOL:: love it
Agreed.
Unfortunately, the artwork for the Aberrant Promethean is really below the standard. You don't really get a good look at him, the Beast looks different than the two previous pictures of it and it looks like it's crying in Promethean arms and not engaging in an epic battle.
Yeah, downloaded my pdf today. Not thoroughly impressed with the cartography.
Also thinking about increasing the DC of a LOT of the skill checks! There are far too many DC twenties that earn the group 1k+ xp.
If this is gonna be an effective "who done it" I would have liked to see more tiers of success and not a pass/fail scenario that appears to be common
Many of the skill checks represent the DC to find out information about monsters and fit the standard of 10+CR. They are mostly there to allow the PC's to get XP without forcing them to enter combat in order to do so. It seems this book is large on RP.
To those who have their copy *grumble grumble, sick of seeing the word "pending"* how much of a role does the trial play? Is it a manditory part or is it presented as an optional encounter?
To those who have their copy *grumble grumble, sick of seeing the word "pending"* how much of a role does the trial play? Is it a manditory part or is it presented as an optional encounter?
It is a big part of the book. I think it is interesting, but if a group just wants to kill things the GM may have to cut certain parts of the book out.
To those who have their copy *grumble grumble, sick of seeing the word "pending"* how much of a role does the trial play? Is it a manditory part or is it presented as an optional encounter?
I have only skimmed through my copy, but it seems to have a pretty big part, and most of the quests revolves around finding evidence to prove the beast is innocent.
Were the monsters listed under Pharasma's customized summon list (page 69) cut for space, or am I just blind?
Were the monsters listed under Pharasma's customized summon list (page 69) cut for space, or am I just blind?
I could not find them either.
Just got my copy a minute ago, so I'll just go through and read it myself. Guess what I meant was how much time is spent with the PCs in a court room. I'm definately cool with some fantasy CSI action...I'm just thinking a whole adventure of playing Jack McCoy could get a little old a little quick. Thanks for the answers though.
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To those who have their copy *grumble grumble, sick of seeing the word "pending"* how much of a role does the trial play? Is it a manditory part or is it presented as an optional encounter?
The adventure is designed so that the trial can take up as much space and time as your group would like. It is mandatory in that it is the background for the entire adventure, but it can be reduced to just a few skill rolls each day in between investigating and fighting. OTOH, if your group wants to roleplay out the trial, it can be expanded to allow that too.
Were the monsters listed under Pharasma's customized summon list (page 69) cut for space, or am I just blind?
That's a mistake. Those referenced in the Pharasma article are in #47, with two more in #48.
Thanks Wes, now I'm looking forward to future installments even more!
I have a question about the Ungol Dust trap on page 32.
The description lists a primary effect (1 Cha drain) and a secondary effect (1d2 Cha damage). As far as I know, in Pathfinder poison has a single effect, applied on every failed save. Is this another mechanism of which I am unaware, or is this 3.5 nomenclature that slipped in? What's the proper way to handle this trap?
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Thanks Wes, now I'm looking forward to future installments even more!
I have a question about the Ungol Dust trap on page 32.
The description lists a primary effect (1 Cha drain) and a secondary effect (1d2 Cha damage). As far as I know, in Pathfinder poison has a single effect, applied on every failed save. Is this another mechanism of which I am unaware, or is this 3.5 nomenclature that slipped in? What's the proper way to handle this trap?
Most poisons in Pathfinder have a single effect, but some (like ungol dust) have initial and secondary effects. A character takes the initial effect the first save is failed, and the secondary effect when additional saves are failed.
The relevant information on Afflictions can be found on page 556 of the Core Rulebook or here in the PRD under Effect.
Thanks Wes, now I'm looking forward to future installments even more!
I have a question about the Ungol Dust trap on page 32.
The description lists a primary effect (1 Cha drain) and a secondary effect (1d2 Cha damage). As far as I know, in Pathfinder poison has a single effect, applied on every failed save. Is this another mechanism of which I am unaware, or is this 3.5 nomenclature that slipped in? What's the proper way to handle this trap?
Can someone give me a good idea on what a poison that drains Charisma actually does to the person being effected? I'm at a loss to describe both what Ungol dust actually is and how it makes someone becomes less agreeable.
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Ideas:
It makes you speak in a stutter that makes you hard to understand.
It gives you a weird skin condition, so you're always scratching off flakes of yourself.
It gives you Bell's Palsy.
It's a mental condition that causes you have anxiety attacks when you try and talk to people.
Can someone give me a good idea on what a poison that drains Charisma actually does to the person being effected? I'm at a loss to describe both what Ungol dust actually is and how it makes someone becomes less agreeable.Thanks Wes, now I'm looking forward to future installments even more!
I have a question about the Ungol Dust trap on page 32.
The description lists a primary effect (1 Cha drain) and a secondary effect (1d2 Cha damage). As far as I know, in Pathfinder poison has a single effect, applied on every failed save. Is this another mechanism of which I am unaware, or is this 3.5 nomenclature that slipped in? What's the proper way to handle this trap?
I see it as some kind of ju-ju dust weakening your personality and making you more compliant(diplomacy checks are modified by the targets charisma)and zombie like depending upon how bad you are affected.
Bell's Palsy is a fantastic idea. Permanently damaging the facial muscles so you slur your words sounds like something that would both demoralize you and reduce your own self-esteem and would make you less charismatic to others.
Thanks!
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Bell's Palsy is a fantastic idea. Permanently damaging the facial muscles so you slur your words sounds like something that would both demoralize you and reduce your own self-esteem and would make you less charismatic to others.
Thanks!
It does all that plus makes you want to hide in the closet for weeks wiping drool off your chin (you can't feel anything there and your mouth hangs open if you don't think about it).
Most depressing, self-esteem destroying, introvert creating affliction you could ever afflict a teenager with. After going through it for 6 weeks I cringe at the thought of it.
Hey Guys,
I was just looking through the AP today, and I wanted to see if there was any reason (via story or mechanics) that would prevent the Beast from joining the party at the end of the AP. He does call the party his 'best friends', and surely it would not be hard for the party to convince an infantile-like flesh golem to join them as they go to the woods. I would like to prevent this from happening in as little as cop-out way as possible, mainly because I don't want a GMPC that's way above the power level of the party tearing things up.
I am glad you brought this up. I had not thought of that.
I would have the alchemist guy take the monster back so as to protect it from the towns people or the towns people can force the alchemist to take responsibility for it since he created it*, and he would not allow the beast to adventure since it's mind is not developed enough to make that decision.
*It could be a "control it or leave" ultimatum. He does not want to lose his lab and all of his research so he agrees to keep it on a short leash.
edit:Just because the monster is proven innocent that does not mean the people have to trust it or like it.
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Hey Guys,
I was just looking through the AP today, and I wanted to see if there was any reason (via story or mechanics) that would prevent the Beast from joining the party at the end of the AP. He does call the party his 'best friends', and surely it would not be hard for the party to convince an infantile-like flesh golem to join them as they go to the woods. I would like to prevent this from happening in as little as cop-out way as possible, mainly because I don't want a GMPC that's way above the power level of the party tearing things up.
I am glad you brought this up. I had not thought of that.
I would have the alchemist guy take the monster back so as to protect it from the towns people or the towns people can force the alchemist to take responsibility for it since he created it*, and he would not allow the beast to adventure since it's mind is not developed enough to make that decision.
*It could be a "control it or leave" ultimatum. He does not want to lose his lab and all of his research so he agrees to keep it on a short leash.
edit:Just because the monster is proven innocent that does not mean the people have to trust it or like it.
In my game I plan to run...
I'm also going to introduce a bit of the Whispering Way into Schloss Caromarc, since, well, the PCs need an impetus to go further into the mansion besides 'we need to help this random semi-related guy, who made a ton of evil monsters we have to fight to get to him, out, because we are nice people.' This ties into a concept I think would be interesting-- a hand-held radio prototype that the PCs find early on that Caromarc built, and that Caromarc and the Whispering Way cultist both can speak through, but not listen in on. It makes it easier to share all of that delicious backstory, and to egg the PCs on to finish the book instead of just taking off at first opportunity.
I'm also going to have this cultist transmogrify into the Abberant Promethean, since, well, this book gives me a lot of Resident Evil deja-vu, and you need at least one person who ingested something they shouldn't have turning into a monster.
Hey Guys,
I was just looking through the AP today, and I wanted to see if there was any reason (via story or mechanics) that would prevent the Beast from joining the party at the end of the AP. He does call the party his 'best friends', and surely it would not be hard for the party to convince an infantile-like flesh golem to join them as they go to the woods. I would like to prevent this from happening in as little as cop-out way as possible, mainly because I don't want a GMPC that's way above the power level of the party tearing things up.
I am glad you brought this up. I had not thought of that.
I would have the alchemist guy take the monster back so as to protect it from the towns people or the towns people can force the alchemist to take responsibility for it since he created it*, and he would not allow the beast to adventure since it's mind is not developed enough to make that decision.
*It could be a "control it or leave" ultimatum. He does not want to lose his lab and all of his research so he agrees to keep it on a short leash.
edit:Just because the monster is proven innocent that does not mean the people have to trust it or like it.
In my game I plan to run...
** spoiler omitted **...
If the alchemist knows who the whispering way are he may be smart enough to not get involved. He may also have an injury that prevents him from adventuring anymore.
To Mr. Pett ;
You outdid yourself on this one. Fantastic! Still reading through it, but wow.
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In my game I plan to run...
** spoiler omitted **...
I would nit-pick that; Speak with dead only allows interrogation; the remains of the person can't volunteer information, make decisions, or offer things. being able to offer stuff would require that the corpse can have an opinion of the party, be told what they've done, and make a decision to reward them.
Sadly, the fact that it works on fleshless skulls kind of invalidates it, but I've always thought of it as temporarily re-animating a dead brain, without a soul. And in settings where sentient beings have a animus like that, not having a soul is a debilitating, creepy deficiency. Without that, all thats left is a buggy, half-ruined biological computer.
(admittedly, a normal brain is a biological computer as well. But this is a fantasy setting).
Sorry to nit-pick, but it's a thought that I had before, and I wanted to express it. It's your game, and a perfectly valid thing to do.
It's just that Caromac being dead slightly invalidates everything the PCs have done; being able to rescue this guy is part of the reward, if only so they can say "You SICK BASTARD!" after seeing his castle.
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General Observation on Underlying Crunch in Pts 1 and 2 of Trial of the Beast
There are a number of Perception skill checks and similar rolls in the first part of Trial of the Beast that require a DC 25 and even a DC 30 in order to succeed.
These DCs are much too high and should be reduced to a maximum of DC 20. You might even consider a DC 15 if it feels appropriate to your campaign and party make-up, too.
A clue/evidence based adventure where the real "fun" of the adventure is figuring out how the clues all fit to reveal the truth is seriously undermined by DCs for finding the clues which are much too high to be practically accessible to a 4th level party at anything approaching a reliably good chance.
I promise that the module won't break and the rest of Richard Pett's design for Trial of the Beast will unspool, more or less as intended, if you reduce these high DCs. Without such changes to these high DCs, the adventure probably won't unspool as intended.
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To push back slightly:
First, the PCs should level up partway through the Trial. They are supposed to be level 6 upon entering Schloss Caromac, so I estimate they'll be level 4 for 1/3 of the Trial and level 5 for 2/3rds of it.
Given that the PCs *know* that they are on a sleuthing mission, it's pretty much assumed that they will be taking 20 on those Perception checks. They will also probably go out and acquire some means to boost Perception, be it hire a bard, buy a magic item, etc.
It would be a totally different case if these were reflexive "notice the guy sneaking up on you checks." But they're not: they're done with the PCs in full control.
Also note that the way the Trial itself is set up, you either need to be good at Perception or Diplomacy. Because if you flub all the hard Perception checks, you're still only looking at a DC 20 Diplomacy check: which is entirely reasonable at level 4/5. It's reasonable that the "face man" in the party will have a 50% chance of success with no modifiers for evidence, meaning he can take 10 and negate all risk.
But let's say that the PC does have good evidence (because he passed all those Perception checks to find it), well, then he gets bonuses in the realm of +15 and +20, trying to hit a DC 20. That's auto-succeed, regardless of your Diplomacy score. Even if you miss the hardest checks, you still get a +10 bonus, and combined with the "take 10" rule, that's still auto-success.
And even then, you don't need to succeed all the Diplomacy checks in order to "win" the Trial. And even then, the PCs don't need to win the Trial in order to win the module: it's an optional victory that should appear hard-fought. (And losing, while a downer, is somewhat thematic to a horror game.)
Those high DCs are there for a reason. It's because the module permits so much failure on the way. If you lower those DCs, you'll remove the challenge entirely.
I may be being a little dim here, but the PCs get XP for discovering clues at the various locations. Do they then also gain XP for presenting the evidence at court as per the chart?
I may be being a little dim here, but the PCs get XP for discovering clues at the various locations. Do they then also gain XP for presenting the evidence at court as per the chart?
Yes. It's one reward for discovering it, and a second reward for successfully presenting it to the court. Which does translate to some of the evidence being "free" XP to present, since they give +20 to the DC 20 Diplomacy check.
So, the AP states that guardsmen arrived and overpowered the Beast. How...? They're 6 lvl 2 warriors, they can't even put a dent in a raging CR 13 Flesh Golem, god forbid subdue him somehow.
So, the AP states that guardsmen arrived and overpowered the Beast. How...? They're 6 lvl 2 warriors, they can't even put a dent in a raging CR 13 Flesh Golem, god forbid subdue him somehow.
Best guess...The WW just let it happen when they were in control mode...
So, the AP states that guardsmen arrived and overpowered the Beast. How...? They're 6 lvl 2 warriors, they can't even put a dent in a raging CR 13 Flesh Golem, god forbid subdue him somehow.Best guess...The WW just let it happen when they were in control mode...
My party asked the same thing but at that point they didn't know the Beasts stats, so I just passed it off that more and more guards showed up until the creature gave up.