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I'm running the City of Golden Death starting this sunday, and I'm sure I'll have some questions... haven't even read it all yet and already I have a couple basic questions.
1) One of the players will need to run an Iconic (no PC in the level range) - so, does she get one of the ones in the Mod (the basic 4 at 5th level)? or can she pick from any the standard 4th level ones (such as the Gunslinger or the Ninja)?
2) Double checking on how the Chronicle will work for someone running an Iconic. She assigns it to a PC-# and when her PC gets to that level (4th) she would assign the Chronicle to her PC at that time. Is this correct?
Thanks all!
Oh! and any pointers/suggestions on running it would be most welcome! (be sure and spoiler as needed.)

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realizing that in PFS, encounters should be mostly identical from one running of the Mod until the next, is there a set way to run the Random encounters? The module give "random encounters" with a % chance basicly every 8 hours. and the CR of the possible encounters can be very different with some being as low as 4 but others being as high as 8 or 9.
This will result in one group of players encountering little or no "wondering monsters" and another group getting smacked with a CR 8 encounter every 8 hours of adventure time.
Is there a suggested methiod of dealing with the random encounters? something like a guideline that I have missed that says "Encounter XX random encounter here and here"?

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nosig: When I ran this for the PSOC, I made a spreadsheet with the random encounter rolls entered on it ahead of time so that I could slipstream the set-piece and random encounters together.

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nosig: When I ran this for the PSOC, I made a spreadsheet with the random encounter rolls entered on it ahead of time so that I could slipstream the set-piece and random encounters together.
** spoiler omitted **
yeah, that's the one I was worried about, that...
I'm a bit more worried about the Water Elemental just punching a hole (or three) in the bottom of the boat. Sink the boat out of sight of land and you have a TPK with all bodies lost... From a "Wondering Monster", before the adventure even starts.
The first set of Wondering moster rolls is "a little over a week" - so you can figure the odds are good for 2 encounters there. A set of "test rolls" gave me 4! (2 at night). And this is before the first real encounter. wow...

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Ran the first part of this last night....
PC's get on the boat and head out. Role random monster encounters...
20% chance three times per day... and a 7 day trip. As always, I roll the dice out where the players can see them... with a brief explanation of what I was rolling for. I used d20s, with a 1 to 4 bing the 20%. One of the players commented that he was glad these were not combat rolls (one of the days rolls was a 20,20,18), as in the 21 rolls I only got 2 below 5. 2 random encounters, one on the third night (Constrictor snakes - 3), and one on the last day (Large Water Elemental). I played the Elemental kind of stupid, and just climbed on the boat and slugged it out, rather than swam under the boat and ripped out the bottom. Did get to play up the role play a little with the ships crew calling the Elemental "Bad Water". "Bad water on the port side - closing fast!"
The PCs didn't dig up the bodies of the cultists - Kind of funny, all six plays rejected the idea, each for different RP reasons. "Ewww!", "We're here now 'cause someone was disturbing the dead", "dig up things? seems like a lot of work...". There was a question raised as to where the cultists got fuel for thier fire...
Terror wolves were spotted when before the attack, and a Rogue Snapshot (with a Crit) dropped one. The other three charged in and the three stacked Fear Aura saves causes one PC to panic and run. Something is really wrong with this template - it gives Darkvision, immunity to fear effects, negitive energy resistance/healing, AND a AOE that causes Shaken if you MAKE the safe (Panic if you miss it)... and is CR +0? Really?

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I actually ran all the encounters up to the Map Room, and called it a night at that point.
I'm prepping the rest of the Mod this week - and frankly I having concerns about how to run the rest of it. The PC team in my run is the following....
5th level Mutt barbarian (Part Inquisitor)
5th level Rogue trapspotter (Elf with a bow)
5th level Fighter (Melee, THW)
4th level Sorcerer (Draconic bloodline I think)
4th level Cleric mutt (3 cleric/ 1 Sorcerer)
4th level Iconic Kyra
so they are APL 5.5.
Looking at the encounters in the last half, I think they are very overmatched.
His insistance that he doesn't need "new equipment" has several of the players wondering if he might be carrying "artifact level stuff" - as "artifacts don't detect as magic"... and "How many levels can you get in ten years on this island?"... da-da-DA!
It's not real clear how much (if any) he knows about the inside of the city.
Or if he is willing to go with the PCs into the City of Golden Death... do I have him wait outside (or in the Map Room)?
The party is moving fast - trying to catch the Cultists. Is there any provision for catching up to the BBE that I am not finding? or is it "boxed text" that the encounters have to take place in the order they appear?
Or do I hint that they should ease up and rest between the hard encounters?
If this were a home game I have more freedom in rewarding creative play, playing to the parties style - but in a PFS game I give up most of that (being a Judge and not the GM). and I'm normally very happy with that. The adventages of OP far outweight the control I give up. I'm normally a real stickler for "Play as written" - and other Mods I have run or played in have been mostly great... but this one seems to be just a "monster crunch" - "get on the railroad and fight monsters until you die". It doesn't feel like much thought went into this Mod, it reminds me a lot of the old Gary Gygax style of 'crawl.

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Of course, in my experience PSOC players tend to be high system mastery, high genre-savvy, so my table MIGHT have been effectively ECL+1.
The adventure is pretty cool conceptually, with some nice showcase monsters.
It couldn't have been a more perfectly fated comment, given the lack of allowance for playing fickle finger of fate in OP.

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not to resurrect an old post, but I ran this adventure over a multi week event.
6 players - ninja, magus, sorc, druid, inquisitor, fighter in full plate, and a druid.
each player was either 5th or 6th level
one of the first random encounters on the water, not even in the city yet, was a Dire Crocodile - CR 9 - which basically TPK'd the party.
first round, heaved himself up on the boat.
round two, bit the gnome sorc in half - 3d6+13, and tail slapped the boat 4d8+6 - which capsized it
the rest of the rounds had the party either sinking or getting deathrolled.
I'm a little confused and concerned that this creature would be listed as a random encounter, it makes me think that the environment was either over looked or was not fully taken into account.

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13 encounters before including any random encounters, this will be a long run. A few notes and questions from prepping it:
omg stacking fear auras...
Whisperscale Chiefs Attack bonuses: Looks like they gave the morningstars the multiattack -2 and the TWF -2. Normally he should be using normal TWF for the morningstars and the multiattack reduction for the bite, although that makes him slightly more effective.
Contact poison used as an injury poison, does it still have a one round onset time? Assuming no. Link to Poison Blog for brushing up on poisons.
Travel to the golden city seems fast, 7hrs at 30ft. Will need to factor in the tracking penalty for moving at full speed. Won't need survival checks to avoid getting lost since they are following the Razmirians.
I'm also looking for ideas for items in the Price of Gold trap. I'm thinking to mix in half useful items to help with condition removal and the coming fights, half random loot.

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Otherwise, it went well. Party of 5: 6 Barbarian, 6 Paladin, 6 Ranger, 4 Kyra, 4 Amiri. So they had the firepower to blow through the random encounters they did not avoid. Used the elemental, snakes, and ghost as the lake random encounters, it made the barbarian who took the ghost rager power feel good. They found the graves and the ranger decided to place the holy symbol of Erastil above them as he played the Mask or the Living God and was having second thoughts about this Razmir fellow, wanted to ensure these graves were concentrated to a Real god.
Found the overland travel rules for trackless wilderness and trails instead of roads and applied the x2 travel modifier for trackless wilderness and then gave them the option to move at half or full speed for tracking, and the option to move at half or full speed for stealth. They took the penalty on tracking to move at full speed and are not being sneaky, so they are moving across the island at a brisk 1 mile per hour and gained some extra ground by forced marching.
They found the battle site at noon on day 2, fight ensued and due to lucky rolls only the barbarian and the animal companion were poisoned. The barbarian made his save and the animal companion almost died before getting lucky on saves. And this is were we hit the 4 hour mark after a slow start.
Next week we roll for one random encounter as they climb the mountain to Xin-Grafar (do they encounter Terror Trolls!?) and then into the city.

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Had to make a quick decision on if the gold had a magic aura, decided it didn't. In hind sight I think it might be best to give the molten lava a dim aura (the stuff that was created less than 10x1d6 minutes ago).
Trap-finding found the summoning trap in the intersections so that saved some time and gave a nice RP and atmosphere development as I got to describe a ruined tavern/barracks/warehouse every time they went around an intersection.
Forgot to think the darkness rules all the way through during the demon assassin encounter. Had to make a quick decision on if the molten lava was ambient light (if the darkness spell made things completely dark or just brought it down to dim light). Took the nice path and said it gave off normal ambient light, if I ran it again I would would say it was a normal light source and suppressed by the darkness spell.
Double reach weapons on ogres who trip chargers are hard on reckless barbarians. Fudged a crit so that I wouldn't kill the barbarian, even fudging only raging vitality kept him alive.
They refused to approach the giant pile of loot. Thought it was a trap. Shame, I put a wand of fire resist in there.
They almost used smart tactics to shoot the caryatid columns to death from range, but the barbarian couldn't resist charging in.
Now they are setting up camp to regain some spells before taking the inner ring. Ranger aced the survival checks and the made the int check at the gate, so they are very confident in their time remaining.
So now I get to roll 23hr (I searched and as far as I can tell divine characters can only get new spells once every 24 hours? even though arcane casters only need 8 hours of rest?) of random encounters and come up with skill check methods for them to avoid these wandering monsters. Then the fight the dragon, I think it might kill the barbarian if he drops tactics again.

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Playing in the weekly game store time slot with drop-ins, so Osprey organized three pathfinders to teleport in as reinforcements and the group jumped from 4 to 7.
The party wanted to scout the third ring before resting for a night, so they fought the dragon a little low on resources. The dragon held the bridge and opened with a breath weapon the scout in the surprise round - cast shield as the rest of the party moves forward from were they were hiding - and then breath weapon again as everyone arrives, this made the group feel like they had to close and they ended up charging done the bridge. It was a great fight, the dragon was taking a character out of the fight every round. I didn't have to make a decision on awesome blow because the characters that the dragon thought were a threat were not in a position to be knocked into the molten gold.
They had no disable device, so the rope was cut and the razmir was gone by the time they hacked through the door. The Naga fight wasn't to threatening as most of it's spells were hitting single targets but it was a great encounter for learning, learning about fall damage, learning about climb DCs, learning about miss chance, learning how blind a group is without knowledge skills, learning how magical defenses can make it hard to kill a caster, how it is a standard action to wake a sleeping ally, how it is a full round action to force feed a potion to an unconscious ally, how you are in trouble if you can't find an invisible enemy at level 6.
The razmirs were as ineffective as expected and made the group feel better after two long fights.
Iramine was a great archetypal wizard fight. Web shut down the party in part to bad saves, the ice storm was some nice guaranteed damage, and it was really fun as a GM to get the fireball web combo of. But after all the bad saves the group put her down with double criticals. If you run this make some kind of reminder to roll spell failure from armor, it was such a rare mechanic that I kept forgetting.
We were short on time in this last session (7 players) that the naga respawn and random encounters on the return trip were hand waved.