4-04 King of the Storval Stairs ** SPOILERS Tips and Clarifications **


GM Discussion

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The Exchange 1/5

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so the way i ran the final fight was this. playing 10-11

Movie plot spoiler:

the kings gf used her scroll of arcane eye to scout out the area and saw the party instead of the harpies.

in an attempt to scare them off i had the king cast enlarge person on the false king. made that guy gigantic and the whole party shrieked. I burned another round casting silence on one the boulders and threw it into the middle of the party while casting black tentacles on that same area.

most of the party retreated into the left most cavern to hide. the wizards got a few acid balls off on me and I didn't throw up energy absorption because we were getting close to time.

I added see invis to the sorc because she saw a lot of casters. the invisible ninja was enjoying his greater invis for the entire scenario and ran straight up the stairs to be within 5 feet of her. she took a five foot step used her want of glitter dust and the king went full bore on the guy... it was not pretty. 5 hits came out to 102 damage BAM. dead, dead ninja.

The other giants were getting picked off by the god wizard. king and queen D-doored into the back room and the king cast righteous might. then air walk to walk up to him even though he had the reach to hit him. the queen wall of forced themselves in the room with the god wizard, forcing the party to watch the wizard quigon-jin style while they finished off the last of the giants.

The time was getting closer and closer to being called as the store was closing so i opted to not grab the wizard and kill him and instead he threw a bunch more fireballs twisted to acid and the game was over.

king went down even after i burned his heal on himself. the queen was going to cast black tentacles up in the corner to catch the god wizard.

all in all it was super fun and i went out for beers with the dead ninja . and now we are friends.

Grand Lodge 4/5

I'd just like to say this scenario critically curb-stomped me today.

7-8 party, lots of death-spiral healing, aimless PVP area effects on fellow Pathfinders, useless melee damage potential and barely any actual efforts to hurt the harpy enemies. It was probably over before it even began. Two deaths, would have been a full TPK if it weren't for Dimension Door.

But if I had prepared Wind Wall, it could have been so *so* SO different.
#preparedcasterregrets

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

I would shed a tear for you Andrei but honestly, who ever prepares Wind Wall? :)

I also ran this at 7-8, and bar one guy going down (stabilised) they were challenged but resolved the challenges.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

So, to revisit the errant Heal spell on Formoch's list (he has it memorized as a L5 spell when it is a L6 spell):

Since he has also memorized 2 CLW, 2 CMW and 2 CSW and an erroneous Heal, I'm simply having him memorize Breath of Life instead as it is the biggest healing spell available at L5.

5/5

Is Formach supposed to be wielding a warhammer or a greatclub? The stat block says a warhammer but he isn't proficient with that. (His god's favored weapon is a light hammer.) So how can he have Weapon Focus (warhammer)?

4/5

J Michael Neal wrote:
Is Formach supposed to be wielding a warhammer or a greatclub? The stat block says a warhammer but he isn't proficient with that. (His god's favored weapon is a light hammer.) So how can he have Weapon Focus (warhammer)?

*waves from across a room and 2.5 years*

He has Martial Weapon Proficiency as a feat, though it's incorrectly tagged as greatclub. I think the intention here was to have a variation on the standard Hill Giant, which has both MWP greatclub and Weapon Focus greatclub, but only one of the feats was changed.

I ran this last night at the 7-11 subtier. The party roflstomped the scenario. It turns out that hedging hill giants out of melee with Blade Barrier is sufficient to mitigate their presence from the fight entirely. That was two encounters. The CR 7 standard hill giants cannot hit the broad side of a barn with their rocks and are smart enough to walk through something that looks like it hurts real bad.

Queen Lareecan had issues with none of the party getting suckered into area E, her warbirds not standing up well to the party, and then getting hit with Mental Block, making her forget how wings work and plummeting to the ground 80' below, adjacent to a melee character.

One member of the party took the bait to fight the decoy king and shouted for a 1:1 challenge. With that in mind (and the party's general success otherwise), I had Formoch use Righteous Might before getting dim doored down into position. He then took a full round on that character and nearly floored him, but he got better well before death. The alchemist and investigator who had 6 rounds of buff time then proceeded to end most of the giants, while the psychic threw out quickened Ill Omen, then Psychic Crush at Atga, who never got a turn to do anything offensive.

In short, very effective party. They were also pretty gross throughout, including using Mantis Embrace gloves to pop off several heads, cutting open a hill giant mid-combat to have the grappler dwarf climb in, like Luke into a tauntaun, so he could safely get pushed through the Blade Barrier, and one character's (yes, character, not player) casual Suggestion spell to "go **** yourself" resulted in a grisly scene involving a greatclub being stabbed into the ground and a slam attack onto it.

It was a very entertaining evening, even if the scenario did not result in multiple kills.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

I played this adventure this last weekend with 6 person party of 10-11. It did not go well.

Want to point out to all future GMs, the King, as a cleric of god with Strength domain, has Might of the Gods. Remember this bonus to Strength is only for Str checks and Str skill checks, not for Attack or Damage.

GM missed this but it really didn't have a great impact on the results of the mission.

Sovereign Court 3/5 ****

My archer warpriest got walled in by herself with the king when I played this. I was resigned to paying the raise dead prestige. When the king's turn came up he rolled low single digits for every attack. Then it was time for my point blank master full attack to his face and he dropped like a 20 ton rock. It was a glorious day.

5/5 *****

Talon Stormwarden wrote:
My archer warpriest got walled in by herself with the king when I played this. I was resigned to paying the raise dead prestige. When the king's turn came up he rolled low single digits for every attack. Then it was time for my point blank master full attack to his face and he dropped like a 20 ton rock. It was a glorious day.

It was indeed. I was certain you were going to be splattered.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I still need to get a run of this in, to be one scenario from complete for Season 4 GMing.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

Our archer 5 short the lover off the back with seeking arrows. His attacks knocked her off and the 50 foot fall finished her

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Ran this last night. Had 4 players, but wide level range meant they played down with no adjustment. Roster was Krow the pregen Bloodrager, a typical reach cleric, a pistol tiefling, and a drunken monk ki-blaster. They've dealt with harpies before, and they've always been a bit of a joke. Not this time.

They rolled through the first giants, then the cave giants easily. But things went bad with the harpies. Gunslinger failed the save to the song, ran into the room. Wall goes up. Cleric d-doors into room to help him. The rest of the harpies are on top of the giant's cave at 70 feet up - the monk pops out of the cave, gets shot, sees that everything's out of his range, and goes back inside.

In the room, harpy succeeded in stealing the gunslinger's gun, but was rewarded with a longarmed-polearm and a back-up gun taking her down. Then several rounds of hacking through the wall.

Back outside, Krow got himself flying and went up to deal with the 2 mooks and caster. Then got blinded. Then filled with arrows. Then his hammer was greased out of his hand. Then more arrows sent him down. Cleric finally gets out of the room, flies up to help the feather-falling rager. Manages to stabalize him, but then gets pincushioned and goes down himself.

Gunslinger comes out, manages to resist several blinding attempts and throws a spare fly potion to the monk. Then he and the monk finally do some damage. But by now the queen's actually fighting. Gunslinger drops, it's just the monk. And I roll max damage on some more bow shots... that's that then.

Everyone had a good time at least. And much talk about the most effective and dangerous harpies we've ever seen.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

You monster, they didn't even meet the king!

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
You monster, they didn't even meet the king!

That is likely a good thing...

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Sure, they still would have died, but they would have gotten the full adventure! :)

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

The king wasn't nearly as scary (from what I remember) as the harpy queen.

5/5 *****

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
The king wasn't nearly as scary (from what I remember) as the harpy queen.

He is exceptionally dangerous, especially buffed up. A full attack is likely to kill most PCs in tier. My abiding memory of running this is killing a level 11 rogue from full hp to dead who tried, and failed, to tumble around him. x3 crits are unpleasant.

On one run an alchemist threw a variety of different types of bombs at him in a hasted full attack, as the smoke cleared I declared that the King seemed entirely unharmed, he accused me of lying.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

andreww wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
The king wasn't nearly as scary (from what I remember) as the harpy queen.

He is exceptionally dangerous, especially buffed up. A full attack is likely to kill most PCs in tier. My abiding memory of running this is killing a level 11 rogue from full hp to dead who tried, and failed, to tumble around him. x3 crits are unpleasant.

On one run an alchemist threw a variety of different types of bombs at him in a hasted full attack, as the smoke cleared I declared that the King seemed entirely unharmed, he accused me of lying.

Agreed that X3 crits are unpleasant. The King is not the most unpleasant thing about it however. His, hmm companion I will say, is the real problem.

When we played it, my son's archer used seeker arrows to drop her in one round. The fall is what finally killed her....

But because of her, my party was an effective TPK.

Dark Archive 4/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
The king wasn't nearly as scary (from what I remember) as the harpy queen.

That's because when we played it, Lau, the King and his consort appeared besides my Cleric, which got whacked around until she got her HP into single digits, with my Cleric then proceeding into panic channeling, crippling everything around her (hangover Cleric of Urgathoa with a Ring of Protected Life). That King and consort where a lot less threatening when they where panicked, sickened and rife with diseases (Bubonic Plague, Blinding Sickness, Etc). It was good that she didn't die at that moment, because then the zombie harpy archers would have been unfettered from my control...

I'm running this tonight with 4 players on the high tier, with the only method of healing the archer bard or paladin using a wand... I'm fearing for their lives... Maybe I will give them some breathing time between the cooking pot giants and the harpies, just to make sure they live to see the king...

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

Mr. Bonkers wrote:
I'm running this tonight with 4 players on the high tier, with the only method of healing the archer bard or paladin using a wand... I'm fearing for their lives... Maybe I will give them some breathing time between the cooking pot giants and the harpies, just to make sure they live to see the king...

Wow, I just got the visual of watching a cheap slasher movie and screaming at the screen "Don't open the door!!!"

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

I'm a player from Mr. Bonkers' table. We were lucky we had a sudden fifth player, that really evened the odds. Well, he mostly provided another body and 100 more hit points to deplete, and we needed it. We had two very optimised strikers at the table, and we got them sweating. Luckily, no deaths, but we got close. This scenario is nasty, almost bordering on the unfair.
I had my buttcheeks clenched for a lot of it, but still had fun.

Also, Mr Bonkers, you rolled way too many natural 20s. To be fair, that's also true for the Paladin, but we needed that.

Dark Archive 4/5

Quentin Coldwater wrote:

I'm a player from Mr. Bonkers' table. We were lucky we had a sudden fifth player, that really evened the odds. Well, he mostly provided another body and 100 more hit points to deplete, and we needed it. We had two very optimised strikers at the table, and we got them sweating. Luckily, no deaths, but we got close. This scenario is nasty, almost bordering on the unfair.

I had my buttcheeks clenched for a lot of it, but still had fun.

Also, Mr Bonkers, you rolled way too many natural 20s. To be fair, that's also true for the Paladin, but we needed that.

It only seems that way, but I had more than 15 attacks per round (hasted harpies are nasty), so the number of Nat 20's will seem to be a lot more than usual. Still, critting with bows is nasty.

But indeed, they have survived! The extra player brought the APL from 10 towards 9.4, staying in the high tier 4-player adjustment. It was a good thing too that it was a tank-build, because you indeed needed it. The encounter with the Harpies was the highlight of the evening.

Nobody (except for the NPC) failed their save versus the song. The NPC was knocked out (non lethally) to prevent his slaughter. Then the players went out to investigate, and the two main frontliners decided to go into the building to deal with the songstress. Which sprung the trap of the queen... Now with their main damage dealers (Bloodrager/Dragon Disciple and Paladin/Bloodrager) stuck in the building, the queen and the harpies (4) decided to rain down on the Rogue, Bard and Tanky Multiclass. By the time that the two frontliners made it out again, the Bard was out due to a failed save, the rogue was on the roof of area D, and the multiclass was already a fine pincushion. Unfortunately, the Paladin came out of the building flying, and was the only one who had taken flight... becoming the main target of all the harpies. He only survived due to insane Lay-of-Hands rolls (every Pally is raised by Fey...) and a instance of Reactive Healing (also a killer healing roll). He eventually took out the Queen, and with the remaining harpies losing their buffing the battle quickly turned into their favor. Still they had enough time/damage output to hit the Dragon Disciple into the negatives (who was grateful for Raging Vitality).

For the final battle, they did what every party does that survives the harpies: "Never again, let's buff like crazy and kill them all!" The king and consort did surprise the Bard and Rogue who where hiding, but due to Mirror Image and Displacement spread over multiple people, the bard eventually risked an AoO, lost 1 of his 5 images, and then Telekinetic Charged the Dragon Disciple into the kings face, who one-rounded him with a full round attack on his own turn. The consort saw it happen, was alone, had intelligence (and we were already past our time) and made her magical escape.

All in all, it was a fun time, and everyone (barely) survived!

Silver Crusade

I was the paladin/bloodrager at mr. Bonkers' table and I wanted to throw in my opinion of the module. Looking back on it, i have mixed feelings about it, leaning towards negative. As said before we played 10-11 with 4 player adjustment with a party that didn't have a full caster nor an archer or healer. (bloodrager, paladin, bard (he was an archer but didnt get to use his bow i believe), melee rogue, low level tank multiclass).

On the plus side, thr adventure is incredibly challenging and features a few borderline sadistic and ingenious traps that i couldn't help but admire from a design standpoint.

The bad thing is that if you lack the archer or high level caster to help vs the harpies, it's an incredibly frustrating experience that is also more or less guaranteed to be a tpk. It underlines some (imho) fundamental balance issues at higher level pathfinder play in that if you are a melee faced with this type of encounter, you should probably go home. Even with fly and fairly optimized defeses, i was shot i believe 20-ish times for more than my max hp in damage (yay l.o.h...) before i was able to really attack,the harpy queen. And when you do get into melee range, you need to start rolling hover checks to avoid just falling (did you buy the product for the shirt/portfolio reroll boy?) to the ground again. In the meantime, you keep taking at least 12 attacks per round from enemies with rediculous to hit bonusses which are also spread through the 4 corners of the complex in the air. By the end of this *ahem* clusterf&*&, i had taken 244 damage and ended with 20 hp when the second to last enemy fell. This number doesnt reflect the 20? Or so missed ranged attacks from decent ac (28) or l.o.h. sanctuary.

Meanwhile, My fellow melee bloodrager with 166 hp got two rounded by stray arrow attacks and claws from the harpies which for some reason do even more damage than the bows when you actually manage to get to them -_-. The melee rogue was on the ground desperately seeking for some way to get sneak attack with her one attack each round, which the dm allowed at long range with a throwing dagger but i'm fairly sure by raw doesnt work since that's range capped at 30 feet. The other tank had a bow out and only did some minor damage as well. Note that any of us could have failed the multiple save or die effects which are also present in the song or the fear spell which took out the bard in round one.

In short the entire fight was a really frustrating experience that to me as a non dm feels really off for the average difficulty of a fight, even high tier. The only other thing i've encountered on this level of frustrating is runelord krune from the waking rune, who has a bit of an infamous reputation.

Then you read other posts here of a i.e. a mesmerist using mind block on the queen to
More or less instantly kill her or windwall to block out all incoming fire and compare it to our struggle. It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm also fairly sure the dm taking pity on us was also a huge factor in us somehow surviving. At one point the harpy queen 5 foot stepped away from me one the air and used a heal scroll instead of just flying away and kiting us (can easily be done with all the harpies probably, just use range increments and hit from 300 ft away) This allowed a full round attack following a lucky hover check reroll which ended up killing her (also, what is up with her also having over 200 hp + a heal scroll??). This for the record didnt really cut down the incoming damage all that much since both good hope and haste are still active and i didnt notice a real decline in the hp dropping rate. So you also have to hope your dm is nice and pulls the punches, which detracts from any feeling of achievement you might get from surviving this.

In the end im feeling really 'meh' about the module. It' s challenging but fair if you have your god casters and archers to carry you through the harpy fight, almost impossible to do and heavily underlining the weakness of melee characters in parhfinder vs the aforementioned gods if you dont have them. And the thing is, since pfs groups are random there' a really good chance that you don't. i'd recommend such a group with 6 players to go home immediately. There's probably no realistic way to survive double the harpy numbers.

Silver Crusade

Since I can't edit the original post, I wanted to clarify that I still did have fun but that was mostly by good acting from the GM and the other players in the fairly sparse roleplaying and not so much the fights, which made up the most of the module. All three giant fights are much too easy (except perhaps the last one, it might just be that the bard just had the perfect counter available, which he had), and my thoughts the rediculously hard harpy fight is described in detail above.

Just to add to the harpy queen, I realize that at any point she could have just switched to her bow and used her humanbane arrows on me instead of using her heal scroll which would have definitely killed me and caused a tpk. It feels like overkill added on top of overkill and further reinforces my belief that we only survived because the DM had pity on us.

Dark Archive 4/5

Trevor86 wrote:

Since I can't edit the original post, I wanted to clarify that I still did have fun but that was mostly by good acting from the GM and the other players in the fairly sparse roleplaying and not so much the fights, which made up the most of the module. All three giant fights are much too easy (except perhaps the last one, it might just be that the bard just had the perfect counter available, which he had), and my thoughts the rediculously hard harpy fight is described in detail above.

Just to add to the harpy queen, I realize that at any point she could have just switched to her bow and used her humanbane arrows on me instead of using her heal scroll which would have definitely killed me and caused a tpk. It feels like overkill added on top of overkill and further reinforces my belief that we only survived because the DM had pity on us.

Well, her tactics state that she prefers her spells, and no matter how much you guys invalidated tactics, I stuck with that to the end. I was desperately trying anything that would prevent that Harpy Queen from drawing her bow and fly into an advantageous position (for she is a way better damage dealer than her fellow minions...).

I did make some tactical errors in her positioning, just to make sure you guys had a winning chance.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

Trevor86 wrote:
I was the paladin/bloodrager at mr. Bonkers' table and I wanted to throw in my opinion of the module. Looking back on it, i have mixed feelings about it, leaning towards negative. As said before we played 10-11 with 4 player adjustment with a party that didn't have a full caster nor an archer or healer. (bloodrager, paladin, bard (he was an archer but didnt get to use his bow i believe), melee rogue, low level tank multiclass).

Hey, I shot... four arrows in total during that adventure! My damage output isn't as crazy as yours, but it's definitely up there, I think. I just got knocked out in the harpy fight (should've used my reroll there), otherwise I would've been much more effective. My to-hit and damage output is better than those harpies. I just didn't need to show it in the first fight, and I was busy buffing you guys in the last fight.

Just throwing that out there to show I'm not just a wimpy buffer Bard. >_>

Silver Crusade

Quentin Coldwater wrote:
Trevor86 wrote:
I was the paladin/bloodrager at mr. Bonkers' table and I wanted to throw in my opinion of the module. Looking back on it, i have mixed feelings about it, leaning towards negative. As said before we played 10-11 with 4 player adjustment with a party that didn't have a full caster nor an archer or healer. (bloodrager, paladin, bard (he was an archer but didnt get to use his bow i believe), melee rogue, low level tank multiclass).

Hey, I shot... four arrows in total during that adventure! My damage output isn't as crazy as yours, but it's definitely up there, I think. I just got knocked out in the harpy fight (should've used my reroll there), otherwise I would've been much more effective. My to-hit and damage output is better than those harpies. I just didn't need to show it in the first fight, and I was busy buffing you guys in the last fight.

Just throwing that out there to show I'm not just a wimpy buffer Bard. >_>

I of course meant no disrespect to your characters no doubt awesome archery skills :) like we were warned at the start, the module is rediculous. The fact that you were taken out right away by a save or removed drom combat effect probably crippled us.

Sovereign Court 3/5 ****

That stat blocks for the harpies already include Good Hope and Inspire Courage. Those bonuses weren't getting added twice were they? I mean, it's definitely a tough fight, but you guys seem to have had a particularly rough time, so I wonder if that point was overlooked.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

When I played it with my roc-riding inquisitor I fley up into the harpy queen's face trying to sunder her scroll; failed; them got perforated from all sides. But it's the one scenario (in three) where I don't hold a grudge about it, because it was my own fault for using bad tactics. This wasn't a writer fudging CR calculations, this was a straight ambush and I fell for it.

At this level (and frankly, at lower levels) enemies with actual tactics and synergy and terrain advantage can be deadly. If you try to buldoze them with the same fast-forward melee offensive that works in most scenarios, it doesn't end well.

If you think of pathfinders as basically military commandos, consider how they'd approach a situation like this. Faced with an enemy with superior numbers, superior firepower and tactical position, do they just charge in wildly? No, they start pulling out their bag of tricks.

The harpies try to kill you going out of the building, but you have a building to take cover in. Hide around the corner (+4AC). Light a smokestick (20% concealment) and 5ft back and forth into total cover every other roound.

Or use fog clouds. Level 1 obscuring mist is the most brutal counter against enemies that try to sit in a sniper nest and gut you. Compare these to commandos using smoke grenades to cross ground that they'd otherwise get gutted trying to run across.

---

And of course you need your own ranged options. Trevor, your character has obscenely optimized melee to-hit and damage, and absurdly high defenses. I think you may have deeply over-invested in combat in one particular way, and when enemies don't cooperate it gets harder.

You're not wrong that this scenario is hard without a full caster. The last couple of weeks I've been able to observe parties with and without full casters make it through the high tiers of 8-99 and 9=00, and the differences are clear. At high levels status effects become more crushing and a divine caster capable of removing them becomes important. Also, the difference between healing with a wand and spike healing by a real cleric becomes noticeable and important. Arcane casters acquire important logistical spells like Dimension Door and Fly, and area control spells that can change the archer game.

So yeah, those classes "have it easy", although they also depend on strikers to do the actual damage (experience from a party with a shaman, wizard, witch and two rogueish strikers during 9-00). A party with "all food groups" is the peak of power and efficiency.

But you can fake your way through another class. With UMD you can use some "control" wands and scrolls, just like a wizard can try to do a fighter's work with damage spells. It's not as efficient, and it's hard to keep it up for a whole adventure. But if your party is all melee strikers, you need that trick in your bag. Don't think of yourself as "only" a melee character, but as "best at" melee.

---

I think Storval Stairs is exceedingly cool because it's basically the PCs getting a taste of how the monsters usually feel: attacked by a brutally teamworked party of monsters that focus fire and split the party, just like players usually try to do to monsters.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

If I remember right, I popped silence and obscuring mist to prevent enemy targeting and control. Andrew rolled right along with it and we had a tough but winnable encounter. (The king later ended up pasting me with superior positioning.)

Dark Archive 4/5

Talon Stormwarden wrote:
That stat blocks for the harpies already include Good Hope and Inspire Courage. Those bonuses weren't getting added twice were they? I mean, it's definitely a tough fight, but you guys seem to have had a particularly rough time, so I wonder if that point was overlooked.

Don't worry, didn't calculate those twice. But Haste isn't already pre-calculated in the stats, so that was added. Still left them with a +19/+19/+14, giving them a good chance to hit the Paladin (I believe I missed him once per harpy per turn, if the Targeted Mercy didn't force them to shoot someone else with their remaining shots). That, and they never had a problem with not having Precise Shot, due to the Queen being the only one the players closed in on, and her being earlier in initiative than her minions. This allowed the Queen to get out of melee for a clearer shot for her minions.

For a more clearer view on the fight, the Paladin was the one with the most "Air" time and was the one primarily being focused on (as is written in the minion tactics). The enlarged Dragon Disciple eventually also emerged from Area E, and decided to first cast Protection from Arrows before becoming a flying target (smart man).

EDIT: Also, everyone except for the Bard was build for close-combat, and I had put that Bard out of commission...

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

I think the GM didn't add double Good Hope/Inspire. The harpies hit for mid-10 damage fairly often, but (IIRC) never above that.

Also, to nuance some complaints Trevor made (this isn't me correcting you, just clarifying):

Trevor86 wrote:
Since I can't edit the original post, I wanted to clarify that I still did have fun but that was mostly by good acting from the GM and the other players in the fairly sparse roleplaying and not so much the fights, which made up the most of the module. All three giant fights are much too easy (except perhaps the last one, it might just be that the bard just had the perfect counter available, which he had), and my thoughts the rediculously hard harpy fight is described in detail above.

The giant fights seemed pretty easy, but we had the numbers advantage. That really helps a lot. Also, you and the Bloodrager/Dragon Disciple are highly optimised melee machines, a regularly-built melee character wouldn't be able to one-round him (plus, you were insane on rolling those crits). Also, remember how the Barbarian from the first fight nearly one-rounded the "tank" character, while he had nearly 100 HP. we would've been in deep trouble if you weren't there. The regular Hill Giants are indeed not really a challenge for us. I could probably one-round one if I was properly buffed up. They're probably boss encounters for a level 4-5 party, now they're just mooks.

You complain about Mesmerists and Wind Wall shutting down tactics entirely, but that could happen with anything. Mesmerists in general are incredibly infuriating (Mental Block is a *****), but Wind Wall is a spell not many people will carry, maybe on a scroll (which reminds me, I should get one >_>). I was the perfect counter for the final boss, but basically any fight could have a "perfect counter," the trick just is if you carry it. Archers get shat on by Wind Wall, Giants usually have terrible Will saves, casters are usually negated by getting up close and personal. A Hold Monster would've finished the fight as well, or imagine what havoc a Confusion would wreak on those things.

Trevor86 wrote:
Just to add to the harpy queen, I realize that at any point she could have just switched to her bow and used her humanbane arrows on me instead of using her heal scroll which would have definitely killed me and caused a tpk. It feels like overkill added on top of overkill and further reinforces my belief that we only survived because the DM had pity on us.

Remember that the GM has to follow tactics as well. Her tactics say that she uses her song again to lure people away or switches to her bow if she's out of spells and uses the Heal scroll to heal her subjects. She noticed that none of us fell for her song, so she isn't likely to do that again. The subjects weren't that injured at the time and she was, so it made sense to me.

Also, for the underlings being better with their melee weapons, their to-hit and damage are roughly the same, but they have Power Attack, which helps a lot.

As for the "god-casters," they're a popular choice. It's pretty likely at least one out of six characters would have been one. We just happened not to have one (I have a few, but sadly not yet in tier). With one of them, or a decent archer that isn't incapacitated by a Fear spell (>_>), things would've been very different. I think the GM did fudge the stealth rules for the Rogue, but she was being outclassed already, she needed the help.

EDIT:

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
So yeah, those classes "have it easy", although they also depend on strikers to do the actual damage (experience from a party with a shaman, wizard, witch and two rogueish strikers during 9-00). A party with "all food groups" is the peak of power and efficiency.

I was there. The Shaman/Witch debuff team was a very good choice. We really smoothed things out for the rest of the party. I'm pretty proud of what we did there.

Dark Archive 4/5

Quentin Coldwater wrote:
Also, for the underlings being better with their melee weapons, their to-hit and damage are roughly the same, but they have Power Attack, which helps a lot.

They are better with those things, unfortunately. Power Attack, the same amount of attacks as the bow, but then with a two-handed weapon. Followed up with two Talon attacks if they can full attack with their 3 Morningstar attacks, means 5 attacks with Power Attack, Inspire, Good Hope during their Haste... I saw that to be better than 3 arrows without Deadly Aim.

Also, **** Talons. Stupid creatures which are allowed to attack with natural attacks on their feet, keeping their hands free for other stuff.

Sovereign Court 3/5 ****

Mr. Bonkers wrote:
Also, **** Talons.

Those asterisks are masking the word "hug" right? :)

Dark Archive 4/5

Talon Stormwarden wrote:
Mr. Bonkers wrote:
Also, **** Talons.
Those asterisks are masking the word "hug" right? :)

........ yes ;)

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Quentin Coldwater wrote:
The giant fights seemed pretty easy, but we had the numbers advantage. That really helps a lot.

Note that this is part of the problem with the 4 player adjustment to the scenario. In high tier the cauldron fight takes away 1 giant barbar, but adds 2 regular giants. So now you've got 4 players and 5 large baddies. When I played we lost someone to that fight (I think it was the wizard).

Of course, this was the first 7-11 to HAVE a 4-player adjustment, so I'm not surprised that it's not perfect.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

Yes, Mr. Bonkers noted that as well. Looking at the stats, it seems like it actually increases lethality rather than decreasing it.

Silver Crusade

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

When I played it with my roc-riding inquisitor I fley up into the harpy queen's face trying to sunder her scroll; failed; them got perforated from all sides. But it's the one scenario (in three) where I don't hold a grudge about it, because it was my own fault for using bad tactics. This wasn't a writer fudging CR calculations, this was a straight ambush and I fell for it.

At this level (and frankly, at lower levels) enemies with actual tactics and synergy and terrain advantage can be deadly. If you try to buldoze them with the same fast-forward melee offensive that works in most scenarios, it doesn't end well.

If you think of pathfinders as basically military commandos, consider how they'd approach a situation like this. Faced with an enemy with superior numbers, superior firepower and tactical position, do they just charge in wildly? No, they start pulling out their bag of tricks.

The harpies try to kill you going out of the building, but you have a building to take cover in. Hide around the corner (+4AC). Light a smokestick (20% concealment) and 5ft back and forth into total cover every other roound.

Or use fog clouds. Level 1 obscuring mist is the most brutal counter against enemies that try to sit in a sniper nest and gut you. Compare these to commandos using smoke grenades to cross ground that they'd otherwise get gutted trying to run across.

---

And of course you need your own ranged options. Trevor, your character has obscenely optimized melee to-hit and damage, and absurdly high defenses. I think you may have deeply over-invested in combat in one particular way, and when enemies don't cooperate it gets harder.

You're not wrong that this scenario is hard without a full caster. The last couple of weeks I've been able to observe parties with and without full casters make it through the high tiers of 8-99 and 9=00, and the differences are clear. At high levels status effects become more crushing and a divine caster capable of removing them becomes important. Also, the difference...

All right, those are some fair points.

On the tactics, I was thinking at the time to stay inside the building and just buff myself up fully before going outside. I could have at least used shield and a 22 temp hp buff by staying inside for two whole turns. Possibly I could have waited 5 more turns to smite evil every target before running back outside. This latter strategy would have made me near immune to arrow attacks as my ac would be 39 vs all enemies. There was also the emergency contigency of using a chronicle boon for orc ferocity for one turn, dimension dooring out and then flying back to the fight scene after healing and buffing up. This last thing is what I would have done if at least one more attack would have hit me and gotten me to 0 after the hero's defiance casts ran out. Before we get to the next part though, I wonder if the average character is expected to be able to do this, which I suppose a module should be written for?

That aside, there were two problems with these strategies:

1. All squishy team members were outside. Of those, one was running away in panic since he happened to fail his save or practically die effect and would definitely be unable to save himself if the harpies had no other targets remaining (meaning if everyone else started hiding). On this, I also wonder to what degree it's necessary with this lethality of enemies present to also add multiple save or die/removed from the combat effects.

2. The party was split with the harpies in between us. Since we also had no way of closing the entrances to either building and at least one building has a fairly high interior with only narrow pillars, the harpies could still just fly in the courtyard and kill everyone in the large building (the squishies) at range. I also now know that the harpies are more dangerous in melee and if team two had been able to use something to become immune to arrowfire it would get worse if they moved down to ground level. It might be that their tactics order them to stay in the air even if every target is out of their bowrange and not do anything, but that seemed like irrealistic behavior and is not something I could know unless I'd read the module beforehand.

From my point of view at the time, if I didn't go outside right away there would have been at least one near immediate death, probably more. Am I supposed to say "Well, team B got Heidmarched (sent on a suicide mission), just as I predicted. I'm just gonna let them all die and clean up after," and like that the encounter design forced me to do that if I play it tactically, or if I run in untactically I get killed myself due to how overpowered the enemies are? Or, you know, was it a huge tactical mistake from the beginning for me to try and find and take out an enemy hiding in shed B who is trying to AOE mind control the party from range?

I will give the module points for how sadistic this setup is since I can admire it by design, but it doesn't change how frustrating it felt to fight this encounter or having to chose to let your teammates die so you can buff and heal yourself first. I can see it being a lot more doable with caster and archer support but if you don't have those you are still out of luck and multiple people are guaranteed to die.

This is, of course, my opinion/feelings on the fight and I can understand if you like these types of situations since they don't occur often.

On needing a ranged attack, sure, I have a bow (without a high dex or feats). You say I've overinvested in melee and ignored a ranged option. So... where does flight + haste/fervor factor into this then? Saying that my strategy (melee) cannot be expected to work because enemies don't cooperate here (they fly) despite me taking the best possible measures to ensure it would (getting reliable flight + movement speed buff) is basically saying that melee is not supposed to be a viable way to play pathfinder combats in every situation. This is, I guess, fair to a point. But then when are archery or casting not viable options?

As a melee character with fly avaible, it feels really aggravating somewhere that in the fight in which I really needed to reach flying enemies to prevent a tpk, the best flight available in pathfinder cannot let me do it realibly. 15 k for a winged boots isn't a small investment when your total gold owned is somewhere around 70? k. Yet I still need to roll at least an 8+ with heroism to be able to not fall down after I reach a flying target, and this is after exposing myself to be able to fly in and the actions it actually takes to get there. So then... what point is melee if I could use a bow and always full attack, from anywhere, without having to provoke first from the average enemy having reach, all with 0 hassle and also better feat support? I feel somewhat cheated by how hard it is to melee effectively at this level, but that's a balance problem of pathfinder in general and not the modules fault I guess.

Closing on this, in my opinion, the harpy fight is too difficult, unfairly so, and can definitely ruin the module for the average character since there's a high chance of death without the ability to fight back. I'm not convinced the contingencies the average character probably has available are enough to reliably counter this setup, even if they play super tactically.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Season 4 high tier is not for average parties, really. It was a reaction to people complaining for years that the previous seasons were too easy, that people could always play up for the extra gold. Also because scenarios were written with four players in mind but often played by six.

So in season four, they started writing harder adventures to begin with, and also started using more enemies to compensate for more PCs. It took them a while to figure out how to write four-player adjustments that actually do what they're supposed to do.

---

In this scenario enemies do what the PCs usually try to do: split the party, using walls and compulsions. There are spells available to stop that (remove fear, suppress charms and compulsions, protection from evil), available to a wide range of classes.

What makes the fight nasty is that most of the time in PFS, it's good tactics for melee characters to go fast forward and put extreme pressure on enemies, and so give the squishies in the back room to work. This scenario however tries to lure the melee characters away from the squishies so that the monsters can divide and conquer.

What you could have done (in hindsight) is throw up a smoke curtain and hide inside the building; let the harpies come in and bottleneck them in the doorway. Yes, they're scary in melee, but 1-2 harpies bottlenecked in melee is not as scary as five of them focus-firing arrows.

---

I don't agree with your "melee is too hard at high level" statement in general. I've seen far too many scenarios where you run into a supposedly scary caster in a bare room where he can't really stop the PCs from mobbing him in melee and cutting him down. Much of the time, and especially at lower levels, melee is really "too easy". Using a 2H sword and doing massive damage is so effective it's almost cheating.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

I think, at this level, you need the help of casters to get things done. As you said, you have good maneuverability options, but enemies will generally outmatch you (also note that these harpies were fully prebuffed. If I had the time to buff you guys up, it would've been much easier). Casters could've thrown up smokescreens, throw some healing around, use spells like Hold Monster to make them fall down. Or aided you in moving around, so you have more actions for yourself. I think my high-level Shaman would've been a perfect fit, but he's level 13 now.

The casters vs melee disparity becomes visible here, because at this level, most decent casters have a solution to everything (or should have), while melee just have a sword. Also note that this was a particular instance with cleverly-designed opponents. In most other cases in PFS, your regular tactics will work just fine. Trevor, I think you're forgetting you play in a team. You're a monster in melee and have spent considerable resources in shoring up your weak points, but there's still at least 3 other party members with you. Yeah, you can't guarantee every "food group" is present, but I think there's a decent chance you have a good mix of characters. We just had bad luck in this case. As I said earlier, if I had time to prep and/or wasn't knocked out, this fight would've been vastly different.

---

As an aside, when is casting not viable, and when is archery not viable? Dude, anything with SR will be a problem for evokers, anything mindless will be a problem for enchanters, anything with DR will be a problem for summoners, and so on. Most decent casters try to mix up their spell repertoire, but sometimes you're just boned. Transmuters are usually fine, they can just buff the team, but still. Also, they have to be mindful of their spell slots. You can't just throw around your highest-level spells all the time. Your best way of thinking is, "what's the lowest spell level I can expend to turn this in my favour?"
As for archers, hoo boy. Any small dungeon will pose a problem. Cover gives a -4, and that can be killing, and line of sight is easily blocked. DR/Slashing is also pretty common, the only kind of weapon type archers can't deal with. And several spells, such as Wind Wall, fog clouds, darkness effects, and so on. Again, for every strategy there's a counter-strategy to come up with. Your biggest problem is, "can I hit it with my sword?", which is relatively easily solved with flight or teleportation. My biggest problem is dealing with the entire environment (to put it extremely bluntly to make a point). I'm just happy I have other things to fall back on to help out.

---

Also, I agree with Lau. Until level 4 or so, most enemies simply die from one hit from a decent melee character. A standard Goblin has 6 HP. A standard melee-unit has 18 STR and wields a weapon two-handed. That's already 6 damage on its own, plus weapon damage. That Goblin is dead as soon as he's heard the attack hits. Factor in Power Attack, maybe Rage, and you overkill these buggers so much it's pretty frustrating for the GM. Around level 5 the enemies might survive a single hit from them, and at level 10 maybe even a full-round. And that's just one enemy versus one party member. At this point, it's the job of the rest of the party to finish off the weakened enemies.

When faced with superior numbers/tactics, players need to get creative. The Harpies are maybe an unfair example, but the Hill Giants in the room were a good example. It was 5 versus 5. In theory each party member could take on a different enemy. But the way it was positioned, that wasn't possible. So now people will have to face multiple attackers at once. With some proper AoE effects, that would've been possible. It isn't unreasonable to think in most cases someone will have something available for this. We had four characters overly reliant on melee, and one character overly reliant on ranged (with some tricks up his sleeve). That's just our fault.

Silver Crusade

I think the thing people seem to read over is where I keep repeating that I can see the module being fair if you have a balanced party to cover your bases. The major flaw with this is that in PFS, the team you get is essentially random. Is it my/our fault somehow that we got assigned a team with no casters for instance? Should a module for a random group of people account for this possibly or be written to instantly murder a group with bad luck like this, with supreme overkill?

Anyway, I've said my piece. I'm out.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

Fair enough. I think this is an extreme case, but most scenarios are written in such a way that a lopsided party is able to defeat it. This scenario just suffers from Season 4 overcorrecting.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Yeah, it is an authentic piece of season 4 overreacting to complaints about previous seasons being too easy. It's a jump in enemy build quality AND enemy tactics quality.

As for the problems of an unbalanced party (foodgroup-wise); we actually manage to put together balanced parties with Warhorn most of the time, by having people sign up with class and role. It works best when people are a bit flexible about which character they bring; if everyone decides "I'm bringing the melee" then it's hard to get a balanced party. And you were playing together with another player who always plays some kind of bloodrager variant.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Anyone have a good recommendation for what map to use in area A?

5/5 *****

I think I normally use desert ruins. The area always suggests to me a rather blighted sort of wasteland and it works well enough for that.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Mark Moreland wrote:
Dennis Baker wrote:
I meant for Queen Lareecan to have "Rapid Shot" not "Rapid Reload". Most likely it's a non-issue, she has plenty of spells and abilities to put the hurt on the PCs without a few extra arrows flying around.
This will be changed when we get back from Gen Con. I don't know how that slipped by Dennis, Sean, and me before hitting print. Oops!

Seven years in the future and the queen harpy still has Rapid Reload instead of Rapid Shot and the giant still has Weapon Focus (greatclub) instead of warhammer. I'm running this for our con next weekend, and plan to run it as written. No changes. Unless I'm told that X is supposed to be Y feat instead.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that in one of the descriptions, a hill giant is still alive, although gagged. What's the plan for that one? Is it just assumed the PCs will kill the "still alive" giant trying to break lose of their bindings?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Derek Blakely wrote:
Mark Moreland wrote:
Dennis Baker wrote:
I meant for Queen Lareecan to have "Rapid Shot" not "Rapid Reload". Most likely it's a non-issue, she has plenty of spells and abilities to put the hurt on the PCs without a few extra arrows flying around.
This will be changed when we get back from Gen Con. I don't know how that slipped by Dennis, Sean, and me before hitting print. Oops!
Seven years in the future and the queen harpy still has Rapid Reload instead of Rapid Shot and the giant still has Weapon Focus (greatclub) instead of warhammer. I'm running this for our con next weekend, and plan to run it as written. No changes. Unless I'm told that X is supposed to be Y feat instead.

I think "we'll fix this in the PDF" was a bit optimistic. There's a lot of scenarios with developer corrections in the discussion threads. In later seasons the developers get more realistic and go for "do it like this" instead of "we'll republish".

If I were you I'd run it with the intended feat, as if Mark Moreland had said "yeah we goofed, we can't fix the PDF, but please use the intended feat instead".

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