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First I would like to thank Mike for grandfathering the The Ruby Phoenix Tournament to the old Module rules for a short time, without that we would not been able to play the module.
We just had a 2 day event at my house with running The Ruby Phoenix Tournament, since most likely would be the only time I will ever get to run this locally due to its high level I allowed 7 players to join in.
We had a great time and would love to go over our experience with all of you, highlighting some of it.
To start off here was a group make-up
Dwarf Barbarian 10
Elf Rogue 11
Human Bard 11
Human Monk 11
Gnome Sorcerer 11
Human Magus [Bladebound] 11
Human Cleric of Asmodeus 11
To start off the group decided to make the combat rounds more interesting they would only send 4 of their group into the Combat Rounds, while using all 7 during Tests and Exhibitions.
Arrival
They arrived at the island being sent by the PFS to the fanfare of the crowd, right away at the Yon Loi’s Noodle House they were suspicious of the food and the cleric decided the next day he would have detect poison memorized(which would be helpful later on).
Right away they tracked down rumors of the dragon Huyanwo, and were looking forward to possibly going head to head against him.
Day 1
For the competitions that day they had no problems taking down their competitors, though on the Breaking Competition they did fail to break Metal bar.
That night the cleric discovered the food was poisoned but the group decided to keep that to themselves to help dwindle down their opponents.
Day 2
Oddly enough the Bard in the group was an Archer build (Who has ever heard of an Archer build Bard!) and had no problem with Test 2: Archery.
For the other events they had no problems. I was sure the Oracle was going to give them problems in the Test of Three Towers, but they took care of her with no problems.
That night after the Poison the day before and meeting Donguma they know something fishy is going on but still don't have enough info.
Day 3
This is when things start getting a little more difficult for the group.
During Boar and Tiger Exhibition the Gnome was able to take care of the Boar in short order, but the next event they almost lost their first PC.
I was certain that the group would have no problem in Battle of the Embers, I mean really, 4 Bards? But I was wrong. The Magus started off by casting black tentacles, thoroughly rooting the bards in place. The bards not being fully familiar with the spell decided to put all effort against the magus in hopes taking him down would take the spell down (false assumption), so they used all their wordstrike against him taken him down him after striking him over and over. sadly for the Magus he was on a bed of coals and the damage taken from that from being prone on them killed him. Luckily for the Magus the Cleric was only a step away and was able to use breath of life on his burning body saving him from destruction and an early cremation. After words the group was able to finish off the Bards.
They had no problems the rest of the day and where easily able to survive the ambush later that night. Now certain that the Golden League
was rigging the competition they became more paranoid then ever!
Day 4
Though they had no deaths during the Blood and Mud round, they did take a beating. They ended the fight with the Gnome Sorcerer feebleminded from Hok Fong the Eunuch, -1 Dex drain and -3 Str and -3 Con damage from the Leech Swarms and the Monk -2 Str and -2 Con damage from the Leech Swarms. Though they won, it cost them. Sadly the cleric would have to wait on the morrow to fix them, which would put them on a disadvantage for the rest of the day.
Because of their disadvantage they decided not to take the Emissary up on taken out the dragon which was a huge disappointment to them but of course they had no idea they would meet him later ;).
During the Iron Body test the Human Barbarian had no issues completing all the challenges.
Of course this all leads to the kidnapping of Marthysan the Righteous, and the group decides to track him down, as soon as the discover the Aspis Consortium is involved they resolve to save them even though they know their Sorcerer and Monk are not all there.
They track him down to New Harbor and proceed to attack the Aspis Consortium. They do hear something large flying around but they can't see the invisible brine dragon. The little Gnome that could, feebleminded, even got into to action!
During the combat they were ripped apart by Huyanwo the brine dragon but where able to defeat him, but sadly the Rogue, who got hit with a hold person was coup de grâce by the Aspis Consortium Rogue, killing him. He would have stay dead for the night.
So that day was not a good one.
Day 5
The final day started off by bringing back their friend from death and removing the effects from the day before, though the Rogue would still have 1 negative level for the rest of the day.
They were easily able to take care of Seishuku with a glitterdust But the Exhibition "They of Two Heads" did not go well for them.
Right off they suspected they were not facing a normal Ettin but had no clue what they were really facing. The Rogue did his normal shtick of waiting for a greater invisibility and went directly for the disguised Atamahuta. Boy was he surprised when the Atamahuta looked directly at him and obliterated him with his orc double axe. And the Rogue goes down again, this time for the rest of the tournament. Though it was a tough fight the rest of the group were able to kill the Atamahuta.
After taken care of the riddle the group moves on to the Final Fight.
Much to my chagrin Gomwai did not last a round and his rest of his party wisely surrendered. But of course that is when the twins' decided to get their revenge.
The twins' fully aware of the group tactics where buffed up the wazoo and surprised the group shortly after Gomwai fell. Though they were able to disable Wu Dizhen they still had a 13 level Wizard flying around with greater invisibility on her. After a lot of back and forth and a cleric playing a mime in his forcecage, the Magus was able to convince Wu Jufeng if she did not surrender he would kill her sister. Though the Magus failed in scaring her in surrendering he did convince he would follow through on the threat so she grabbed her sister and teleported away to come back in another 10 years to try again.
Though the twin sisters escaped the Emissary formally declares the PCs the champions of the Ruby Phoenix Tournament!
Before it all ends the cleric decides to once more bring back the Rogue. That is 2 he owes the cleric and Asmodeus ;).
Here is just the Pics
Yon Loi’s Noodle House
Test of Three Towers
Battle of the Embers
Blood and Mud
New Harbor
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+1 Great work on the color poster maps!
I'm interested to hear what you did for printing options on this, using what equipment, etc. I'd like to duplicate that for my run next weekend.
I'm running this next weekend (and the one following it, too). It's scheduled in three slots - about 4 hours per slot, though up to 5 if you need it (same as Gencon).
Am I going to have enough time to run it? What's your take on the total run length time?
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How did you get the zoom/enlarged prints to keep the sharpness of the image? (no pixelating)
That is just a trick of the Camera, the sharpness was reduced.
All I used was MS Paint and zoomed the maps to about 255% until the squares were about 1 inch, then I printed it up on a normal printer. Took a lot of ink!
Used a Paper trimmer to cut the paper and then clear shipping tape to put it all together.
Was originally going to tape it to cardboard but it did not stick well, that is what I did for the Tower though.
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Damn tricksy camera! I thought you discovered something that would change how we all prep our maps.
Bob,
You want to increase the size of the original sample in Photoshop or GIMP so it corresponds to 1" = 1" and when you do so, you want to be sure to *resample* the original at the highest quality. If you don't resample, the quality will be significantly downgraded. Be sure to increase your cache memory settings in GIMP by several GIGS before you do this.
Resampling still causes some artifacts, but it improves the overall output considerably.
You can then choose to print it in poster map output or just a continuous print job, depending on your printer (very hardware dependent choice).
Trim it, then tape the thing together with very small amounts of tape applied on the front just enough to keep the things together as you carefully flip a page over. Then, use a fair bit of tape to affix the seams but use on a large number of short lengths of tape, no more than 1.5" in length. DO NOT stretch the tape before applying it to the seams as this will cause the tape to contract after applying it and that will end up wrinkling your map. Flip back to the front side and add another page with a bit of tape to tack it, flip back over to reverse, tape in many small lengths. Wash, rinse, repeat. A hundred or so applications of short length of tape will allow you to assemble your map perfectly with almost ZERO tape showing on the front of the map.
When finished, insert your map into a Blueprint protector. Not only does it protect the map during play but you can draw on it too with wet erase. These protectors come in a number of sizes but they are very cool and use a ziplock top to keep the map securely inside of it.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Thanks for the in-depth report, Dragnmoon. We put a lot of care into making this adventure as great as it could be, and from your feedback, it seems we succeeded. Hearing about specific parties going through something like this is always fun when I have the time to really dig in and read such reports. Thanks for running it for your group (and for making the maps look so danged awesome!)
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Hey Dragnmoon! I think you might have missed that request up top but can you tell me the total # of number hours taken to run the module please? And if you cut something to get to that number -- then tell us :)
I *promise* that PFS Security Ninjas will not descend from the ceiling with throwing stars, smoke bombs and blow-guns to haul you away to Gitmo if you cut an encounter or three -- but it would be nice to know if you did so I'm comparing apples to apples.
I've got this module coming up twice in my bombsights, with the first run five days away and I want to be certain that I will have enough time to finish it.
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Hey Dragnmoon! I think you might have missed that request up top but can you tell me the total # of number hours taken to run the module please? And if you cut something to get to that number -- then tell us :)
Saturday we played from 12pm - 8pm but we started a bit late.
Sunday we played from 12pm - 6pm.I did not cut anything, so total was about 14 hours.
Roger that. Thanks!
*threadjack* Hey Robert,are you planning on using the performance rules, when you run it.*/threadjack *
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(first off, linking another Ruby Phoenix Thread for future searches)
I plan on running this soon and have a quick question:
"A character's ability to spend Prestige Points is dependent on her being in contact with other members of her faction, and unless noted otherwise, most factions tend to have agents, contacts, or headquarters in settlements that are at least the size of a large city. To reflect the difficulty of contacting a faction agent in a smaller settlement, Prestige Point costs increase by 5 in communities with fewer than 5,000 people. Note that it's possible for a player to spend her character's Prestige Points even if the PC is dead, petrified, or otherwise out of commission. In essence, this represents the PC having made prior arrangement with her faction to perform certain actions on her behalf, such as recovering her dead body and returning it to a specific location or having it raised from the dead. In this event, the PC's actual location does not impact the Prestige Point cost."
So, just to confirm, should the party not be able to provide their own Raise Dead for whatever reason, it would cost 21PP and the restoration to remove a permanent negative level would cost 9 PP?*
*(since they're in the middle of a tournament, if they get raised, they'll still be carrying around one negative level as restoration can only remove one negative level per week.)
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Per the rule you quoted, unless the party suffers a TPK, it should still just cost 16 PP for a Raise Dead: "In essence, this represents the PC having made prior arrangement with her faction to perform certain actions on her behalf, such as recovering her dead body and returning it to a specific location or having it raised from the dead. In this event, the PC's actual location does not impact the Prestige Point cost."
Then again, given some of the other limitations of the module, I am not sure they can get a Raise Dead without breaking the rules, if they cannot provide it themselves.
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Yeah, I'm make sure to emphasize they bring everything they need for the entirety of the tournament as they're on their own.
Yeah, that info is given in one of the text boxes early on. I think before they get on the boat to Goka, so they know it is their last chance.
Then again, to be honest, unless the party composition is odd, it isn't really that hard a module. But I was using my ranged disarm/trip build, and we had a synthadin in the party, too. Having mainly humanoid opponents, which is no secret given the theme of the module, makes high level combat maneuvers fairly much a pwnz thing.
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Running this in 2 parts at my FLGS. Here is a report on part 1.
Party:
L10 Paladin
L10 Life Oracle
L11 Wizard
L11 Monk
L11 Rogue
I meant to lock the table size at 4, but forget to ask to have the sign ups limited, so I ended up with a table of 5. Because of the number of combats and the limited time in-store across two nights (9 hours max), I broke down the event schedule like so:
Pre-Tournament: Online via e-mail
Day 1, 2, 3: Session 1
Day 4 & 5: Session 2
I plan on running this twice--once for the FLGS and once for friends. Because I was worried about time and keeping combats moving, the FLGS run will NOT be using the optional performance combat rules.
Ambrus gave a standard briefing and gave as much info as he could. The party was then teleported to a Gokan Pathfinder Lodge where Amara Li answered any remaining questions and escorted them to the boat to the Island.
On the boat, the Wizard and Paladin mingled with contestants. The Wizard ran into Risha (disguised as a fisherwoman) and they playfully bantered back and forth. The wizard never attempted a sense motive nor was alarmed when she occasionally pressed for info about the party. They ended their conversation on good terms when the boat docked.
To expedite matters, I had Marthysan introduce himself to the party and offer his lodgings for their stay. Marthysan had been contacted by fellow paladin Ollystra from the Silver Crusade and because she once assisted him in Lastwall against the orcs, he was more than glad to honor such a small request.
At the inn, they briefly see Kiang Zhen looking over the welcoming celebrations. I skipped Chung Po's challenge.
At this point, the party had gotten pretty much all but the 30+ DC knowledge checks and lots of flavor info, so they were prepared going in.
Round 1 vs Monastery of the Enduring Spirit:
After a single round of tactical positioning by both groups, the groups clashed and it was over by the end of round 3. The Rogue brought his own air elemental familiar to flank with, the Dragon Style flurrying monk had tons of +hit boosts from party buffs, the Paladin is melee paladin and the wizard is a L11 wizard. Quick fights would be a theme. During this fight and all the fights to follow, the party would play to the crowd with combat flourishes and acrobatics rolls during movement. I described how the audience loved their antics.
Test 1: Breaking Competition
Moved to game session 2 under "run if time allows"
Exhibition 1 vs Shenzuzhou:
I held the combat in a 15' radius ring, with the party on one side and Shen on the other side. Because of the size of the ring, it was quite possible that he would get a full two-weapon attack routine off on a flat-footed person. 3 PCs beat Shen in the initiative order. The wizard cast Acid Pit. Shen saved and was repositioned right next to the party. The Rogue's air elemental flanked Shen and the rogue did a full two-weapon sneak attack routine. Next came the Paladin with a smiting full attack. Shen falls over dead. Combat is over mid-round 1.[/b]
Feast:
The party partook in the food. The monk was immune to the poison, 2 characters had Delay Poison on them from previous buffs and everyone handily made their consecutive fort saves. They immediately told Marthysan.
Test 2: Archery
Moved to game session 2 under "run if time allows"
Exhibition 2: The Spider Fight
Everyone put on the slippers and clambered down the cliffside. Since the air elemental familiar could not be knocked off (due to flight), it was disallowed from participating.
The enlarged Monk moved halfway towards Orometsu's group and readied a reach trip. I made a mistake and forgot about Oro's Spring Attack, and simply had her charge. The Monk's trip succeeded but Oro managed to cling to the cliffside. The rest of the party focus fired her and she amazingly made her climb checks to hang on until the Wizard's force punch killed her and sent her flying. I hand-waved the remaining monks and had them surrender as their leader just got smoked in round 1 (and the party had handled 4 monks with the same stats previously without burning resources). Fight over by the end of round 2.
Round 2: Test of the Three Towers
The flying Rogue spotted all the trapdoors and warned the party as he flew over with his elemental to Ganyavesha. The Monk, doing extra acrobatics to please the crowd, hopped from tower to tower on his way to her. Ganya got a few hits in but did not confirm any of her possible crits. The Rogue and the Monk, combined with some Wizard long range dps, took her down. Fight over by the end of round 3.
Yon Loi's:
The PCs find and help Donguma and learn of the Golden Leagues activities. They inform Marthysan.
Exhibition 3: Boar and Tiger
I cut this encounter because it's a one PC combat.
Round 3: Battle of the Embers
Because Weird Words has not been officially errata'd yet, I was worried about possible killing someone here with 4 Sound Striker bards. Before combat, the party cast Protection from Energy--even after a tournament official warned them the crowd would not like that. There was disagreement in the party about using it or not, but they cast it.
There was more intra-party consternation when in round 1, the Wizard drops a Tar Pit on the bards...preventing the Rogue and Paladin from closing on foot (the Monk simply jumped to an open space near the bards). The next round, the Wizard cast cloudkill, obscuring the audience's view of the combat. I played up the unhappiness of the audience as they figured out the party was unaffected by the embers and that they couldn't see most of what was going on.
The 3 bards who were left standing were in bad shape. 2 used Weird Words on the Monk (possible 18d8+18 worth of damage) and 1 used it on the Rogue. If it were anyone else in the party, I would have hit on all the attacks--but the Monk and Rogue with their high Touch ACs dodges a vast majority of the attacks and made their saves to reduce the damage to half.
By the end of Round 3/beginning Round 4, the last bard left standing surrendered.
After the combat, I had the Emissary express his mild displeasure at the actions of the PCs. I used the next test as an offer to redeem themselves in the eyes of the audience.
Test 3: Tsavati
The PCs easily tracked Tsavati the sorceror in the forest but only two made their perceptions to act in the surprise round when she attacked from the canopy. On the surprise round she cast a Quickened Magic Missile and a Scorching Ray on the Life Oracle, almost dropping him unconscious. The Rogue activated his celestial armor and Paladin scooted out of the kill zone. The next round, the Wizard blasted the canopy with a maximized fireball, severely hurting Tsavati and clearing out the canopy's cover. The Togue double moved and flew up next to the sorceror. The sorceror tossed a lightning at the Rogue, but improved evasion kept him from taking any damage. The Monk flew up and shot some scorching rays, also hurting Tsavati. The Wizard finished it off with a maximized magic missile attack.
Golden League Attack:
They took 1 alive and got more information before turning the thug over to the authorities.
At this point, we had reached what I had planned to cover for the session. We agreed to do one more combat as we had time...
Round 4: Hok Fong the Eunuch
All the PCs acted before the Eunuch and most before the leech swarms. By the end of round 1, the party were all on islands or flying and out of reach of the leech swarms. Hok ate a scorching ray from the monk and another long range spell from wizard before he tossed out a confusion that everyone but the elemental resisted. Before he could cast another spell, the party was all up in his grill and dropped him with more spells.
GM Mea Culpa: I forgot he had Blink active. Honestly, it would have only extended combat by a round or two (at most) as they just had action economy (5 to 1). He had Cloak of Dreams up for any melee attackers, but again, it was mostly academic as the whole party acted before him and had already encountered a Blink user (Ganyavesha).
Slay Huyanwo!
The Emissary laid out the challenge and the PCs accepted. We stopped here as it gave them something to look forward to next week
Thoughts so far:
>Even with copious notes and highlighted reminders, I still made 2 minor mistakes (forgetting Orometsu's Spring Attack and Hok Fong's Blink). Given that I had run 7 combats in 4 hours, I really can't beat myself up too much about that.
>Without performance combat to intentionally slow down the PCs AND having a fifth PC in the party, this solidly built party is just rolling over combats.
>I run my combats pretty tight (calling out who's on deck, reminding players to know their actions before I get to their turn, etc), so that's contributing to how fast combats are progressing. Also, I'm willing to call combat when it's a forgone conclusion--in a combat heavy mod, unless there is a reason for an NPC to fight to the bitter end, I'd rather use that time for RP or moving on (and not wear down players' endurance with useless rounds of combat)
I'll drop part 2 of the report after next Monday's game.
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Pt 2
Huwanyo
No one made their perception checks to see an invisible Huwanyo 200' above them. The Dragon waited until the party was halfway down the cliff, peeked over the edge and hit 2 of them with acid. The party rallied and repositioned to the top of the cliff.
The Life Oracle, who originally was piggy backing on the Ant Hauled Monk during the climb down, hopped of the Monk's back and cast a Blessing of Divine Fervor 10' away from the Dragon. Huyanwo full attacked the impertinent Oracle and killed him outright.
Huyanwo should have taken flight thereafter, but I had stick one more round on the ground to full attack the monk. He missed most of his attacks and the Monk and Rogue tag teamed on the Dragon, dropping him.
The Oracle was rezzed from a scroll and would run with 1 negative level for the rest of the mod.
Aspis
The party arrived at the harbor. Still not knowing she was their enemy, Risha greeted them and spoke for a round or two to allow her partners to buff.
The Aspis sorceror got a black tentacles off that grappled 3 of the 5 party members, but the Wizard made their concentration check and Dim Doored the Paladin right next to the Aspis caster. Meanwhile, the Monk and Rogue moved to the center of the harbor while their Aspis counterparts did the same.
The party quickly made short work of the Aspis combatants once their sorceror was stomped by the Paladin and Rogue and the Monk stunning fisted Risha.
Ninja Alchemist
The Ninja was last in initiative order. The Monk pulled a fast movement stunning fist in round 1. Party swarmed attack.
Ettin
The Ettin hung back and dropped a fireball to start off combat, forcing the party to come to him. The Monk ran in and obliged him. Next round, the Ettin full attacked, crit twice, and dropped the Monk to -2. The flanking Rogue and smiting Paladin finished the Ettin off.
Riddle Test
Skipped.
Gomwai
Gomwai's mooks had high init, so I had them charge across the arena and try for stunning fists on the Oracle and Monk (no go). Gomwai moved to mid-arena. The PCs cleared out the monks and moved up to Gomwai. Gomwai was sitting at a ridiculous AC because of barkskin, a ki point and total defense, so all the PCs attacks missed. Gomwai swapped to offense and wiffed all his attacks on the Rogue. With Gomwai's defense lowered, the 5 PCs brought him down on their go around as the casters dispelled his buffs and the melee full attacked him into oblivion.
The Twins
For the first time all module, I had rolled very well on initiative. In the surprise round, Wu-D drank a potion of enlarge. Wu-J dispelled the Life Bubble on the PCs (setting up their next round).
Wu-J cast Force Cage, only trapping the Paladin while Wu-D dropped a stinking cloud which didn't nauseate anyone, but help to divide the battlefield.
The Paladin UMD'd a scroll of dim door to escape the cage. The Rogue and Oracle moved out of the stinking cloud and the Wizard, seeing Wu-J hiding in the crowd, fired off an empowered Magic Missile only to see it splash against her shield spell. The monk moved into the stands and tried to stunning fist Wu-J but he missed due to displacement.
Wu-D moved into melee and would be dropped by the Paladin and Rogue. Wu-J cast Greater Invisibility and moved away from the monk. The wizard could see her and cast something that failed. Wu-J did not like this and cast Suffocation on the Wizard...and he failed his save!
The next round, most of the party had their See Invis options active...except the Monk, who simply did a dragon's roar on the area he thought she was in. The party closed in and Wu-J dropped a chain lightning, sizzling the Oracle, the Paladin and the Wizard. Unfortunately, the wizard had failed his second Fort save for suffocation and was unconscious at 0 HP when he ate the 47 HP Chain Lightning.
The party closed the noose and chipped away through Wu-J's displacement...with the Monk getting a trip in to keep her there. With her final spell, I had her cast Detonate as a final insult. The party finished her off, she blew up and everyone got a little scorched.
Everyone had fun. The Oracle learned a hard lesson about standing next to a Dragon and casting a spell. The Wizard caught a bad break with getting Suffocated and then Chain Lightninged. The Monk, who was boastful about his AC, hopefully learned that at higher levels you can't charge in and eat a full attack because you WILL get hit.
Otherwise a very fun time. I look forward to running it with performance combat to see how that affects things.