#3–23: The Goblinblood Dead

[Kefflyn Mar]

Oops, I missed that part under the tiers. Thanks :-)

[Quentin Coldwater]

I'll be running this next Thursday, one quick question: On page 13 of the scenario, it says enemies get a Perception roll to prepare for the fight. I'm a newbie GM, so I might be asking a very silly question, but what's the DC? The Perception entry in the rulebook says it's a -10 to hear, with all sorts of modifiers, such as thickness of walls and distance. Is there an obvious DC I'm missing, or in absence of that, what DC should I be aiming for?
EDIT: Also, for the haunt: Say they fail the initial check (DC 14 Fortitude), the damage only starts at the next hour, right? Right now you're thirsty, but not so much that you immediately get damage, I presume. Meaning, even if they fail that save, fatigue would only set in after an hour. Or at least, that's how I read it.

[Damanta]

As one of the players in Kwinten's run of the scenario, I must say it was well played and your preparedness showed :)

Sadly most of us failed miserably at a lot of the knowledge checks for the flavour, but we got lucky at the moment it mattered (the haunt).

Great job chaining the last two encounters and having the BBEG buff because of stupid actions from a player.

chained encounters:

Brawler decides to take 20 to break open a door (which was not locked) while the rogue was checking the corridor for traps (after having fallen into the pit trap earlier and missing the spot check on the haunt I was a lot more cautious).

Ofcourse the door he decides to break open leads to the inner sanctum of the BBEG and gives it the time to buff up, and causes enough noise to get another group of mooks to join into the fight as well.

3 people went into the negatives, and only the hot running healing wand from the battle oracle kept everyone alive (minimum roll was like a 6).

Timely assistance from the befriended Worg was also very very appreciated and helped us to overcome the two encounters.

What was really hilarious was how bad the "mooks" in that fight were at getting out of the patch of grease compared to how hard the BBEG was hitting. The lady who should not be named was clearly favouring the BBEG over the mooks.

[Nimrandir]

I just ran this scenario this afternoon, and I and my players enjoyed it. However, I did want to ask if the haunt issue has been revisited. Admittedly, I was running off a printout from one of our VO's, so I do not have access to the current PDF. On the other hand, I could find no confirmation in the forums that the missing cup of dust clause was added back into the haunt's text.

[Mindfever]

TPK. We just ran this scenario with a four play team. We had a mounted halfling fighter type lvl 3, my Flowing Monk 2/ Unchained Rogue 2, a lvl 4 Necromancer, and a lvl 1 Barbarian. We bypassed the first combat with Darak and the Bugbears in C2. We ended up encountering the entire dungeon of mobs in C5. The Creatures section for C5 states that all of the surviving NPCs from C2 will make their last stand at C5. So we had that whole room and the lvl 7 Oracle.

The Oracle blinded all of us except the Necro. He was held though and then hit with a Coup de Grace. They pummeled the rest of us while we missed shots due to total concealment. Eventually we were all knocked unconscious and subsequently killed. How is this a "good scenario for new players" as people have listed above? The ability for the BBEG to lay out 5 blinds at a DC17 and then still have access to 7 hold persons is insane. This is probably the third or fourth scenario that I have played recently that has had impossible to beat tactics. Whether its a construct with a hardness that no one can overcome, or an elemental that picks up the players and drops them each turn for four turns, or a caster with overpowered control spells, the scenarios are often unbeatable unless the players have some fore knowledge that would be impossible for them to justify.

I spent 3 weeks getting this character built to have it die in the second (third?) encounter of the scenario. Im at the point where the "fun" of playing Pathfinder is sorely overshadowed by the ridiculousness of the scenarios. I dont know if I will be continuing in society play.

[TriOmegaZero]

Why did you play the high tier with an APL 3 team? The oracle doesn't have blindness/deafness in the low tier.

[Quentin Coldwater]

Yeah, the guide says you're supposed to play low tier. Either you miscalculated someone's level, or the GM accidentally ran high tier.

I think the GM ran things wrong. If you have total concealment to the enemy, the enemy also can't target you. Concealment goes both ways. Blindness/Deafness needs a target in sight. I'd talk with your GM about this, seems like he messed some stuff up.

Also, most tactics aren't "impossible to beat." You mentioned a few difficult scenarios, but I hardly think they're impossible. The hardness is annoying for "death by a thousand cuts" builds, but most people with a two-hander will have no problem with it. The flying elemental only has so many rounds for flying, and when I GMed it, my players were also outclassed, but through smart tactics, they managed to survive. But you need to realise how that encounter works. Splitting up so it can only pick up one party member at a time helps a lot, as well as taking one for the team and getting picked up so others at low HP don't. This boss had some tough spells, granted, but you shouldn't have been fighting that tier. At the proper level, she lacks all those nasty spells. I understand that constantly getting beaten down isn't exactly motivating, but these are exceptions to the rule, not common occurrences. And as said, with proper tactics there's certainly ways to avoid this. Also, doesn't seem like party setup was ideal for this, with a more well-balanced party I think you would've stood a better chance, but that's the risk of Society.