+10 vs DC 25 probably takes you from needing a 20 to escape to needing a 15, which mulltiplies your escape chance by x6,

Don't forget armor check penalties. I think the cleric was wearing some fairly heavy stuff (breastplate at the least). I don't know the exact numbers but I think the cleric rolled something like an 18 and still didn't make it out.

Rogue Eidolon wrote:

+10 vs DC 25 probably takes you from needing a 20 to escape to needing a 15, which mulltiplies your escape chance by x6,

Don't forget armor check penalties. I think the cleric was wearing some fairly heavy stuff (breastplate at the least). I don't know the exact numbers but I think the cleric rolled something like an 18 and still didn't make it out.

Heh, yeah. At that point, with such a big penalty to Escape Artist, I'd say the cleric is responsible for providing her own way out or just has to suck up being grappled. That cleric owed it to herself to have an oil of grease or something.

Bob Jonquet wrote:

So the moral of this story is that when I run this on Saturday, I should use my GM screen so I can have some limited control on not tkp'ing the PC's?

I ran the table for bdk86 and friends this weekend. I thought I was going to get a TPK, honestly.

** spoiler omitted **

It could have easily gone badly, and it did result in the crossbowman dying, but some smart tactical play on the player's part wound up squeezing out a victory. However, their strategic play wasn't the best, which is why they wound up between a rock and a hard place in the end. Part of that was party makeup - no one with trapfinding, for example.

I don't like the idea of hiding rolls behind a screen -- the relief and elation when you survive a genuinely tough fight is cheapened, IMO, if I think the GM is cheating in the players' favor....

Totally agree on rolling in front of the screen and only use mine for quick reference for DC's now. I actually can't wait to run this scenario again, I learned a LOT from the first pass.

Alchemical grease, the spell grease (no concentration check from wand or oils), and the spell liberating command. All are great options.

The cleric was not affected due to freedom of movement. He liberated my bard and I made my escape artist, I immediately liberated the summoner who failed escape artist. On my initiative I moved out of the field, cast grease on summoner, and liberated again. +22 to escape artist proved to do the trick. Our paladin applied alchemical grease and the tentacles failed to maintain the grab on him the next round.

At higher tiers, grapple becomes scarier and scarier. Folks should plan for it.

The problem with Dispel Magic is that it probably won't work, especially in fights like this against a single high-level caster. A level 6 caster needs to roll a 15 to dispel the tentacles in the low tier. A level 6 Wizard can devote half of his highest level slots to Dispel Magic and only has even odds to remove the Black Tentacles that he doesn't know are coming. A level 6 sorcerer/oracle only knows one third level spell, should it really be Dispel? Scrolls have an even lower chance of success.

Witches and Clerics are on somewhat safer ground because clerics can convert and witches were just going to cackle anyway.

A seldom used portion of the dispel magic spell can be used to more easily dispel known spells.

Specifically (section bolded for emphasis)

You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.

This would mean that a caster of dispel magic would only need to his the DC of the spell level.

Gotta love those rules!

Response to Mathwei's spoiler tag is spoilered!

Take Boat wrote:

The problem with Dispel Magic is that it probably won't work, especially in fights like this against a single high-level caster. A level 6 caster needs to roll a 15 to dispel the tentacles in the low tier. A level 6 Wizard can devote half of his highest level slots to Dispel Magic and only has even odds to remove the Black Tentacles that he doesn't know are coming. A level 6 sorcerer/oracle only knows one third level spell, should it really be Dispel? Scrolls have an even lower chance of success.

Witches and Clerics are on somewhat safer ground because clerics can convert and witches were just going to cackle anyway.

A seldom used portion of the dispel magic spell can be used to more easily dispel known spells.

Specifically (section bolded for emphasis)

Dispel magic from the Pathfinder PRD, paragraphs 5 wrote:

You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.

This would mean that a caster of dispel magic would only need to his the DC of the spell level.

Gotta love those rules!

Most GMs I know believe that reference to "DC" to refer to the following, from earlier in the spell:

You make one dispel check (1d20 + your caster level) and compare that to the spell with highest caster level (DC = 11 + the spell's caster level).

So you should expect table variation if you try to argue the DC for targeted dispel should be 10 + spell level + casting stat mod.

So you should expect table variation if you try to argue the DC for targeted dispel should be 10 + spell level + casting stat mod.

I wouldn't think there would need to be much table variation if you had the text for Dispel Magic ready and open for reference.

Rogue Eidolon wrote:

So you should expect table variation if you try to argue the DC for targeted dispel should be 10 + spell level + casting stat mod.

I wouldn't think there would need to be much table variation if you had the text for Dispel Magic ready and open for reference.

Even though I think it's pretty open and shut like you, I've met reasonable people who are still convinced that it refers to the spell's save DC, even though it never calls out save DC in the text.

Worthy note. Dominate Person is a Casting Time 1 round spell in Pathfinder.

Worthy note. Dominate Person is a Casting Time 1 round spell in Pathfinder.

Bwuh. It is!

Colin Webster wrote:

Worthy note. Dominate Person is a Casting Time 1 round spell in Pathfinder.

Bwuh. It is!

D'oh! Well, that would have gone differently. I blame it in a bunch of very experienced 3.x players getting caught in yet another small but significant rules change. I wish there were a comprehensive list of them.

bdk86 wrote:

Colin Webster wrote:

Worthy note. Dominate Person is a Casting Time 1 round spell in Pathfinder.

Bwuh. It is!

D'oh! Well, that would have gone differently. I blame it in a bunch of very experienced 3.x players getting caught in yet another small but significant rules change. I wish there were a comprehensive list of them.

Not too differently; I think it just wouldn't have dragged out in the same way. My PC would still have been stuck and eventually the Cleric would have to choose between keeping me up and keeping the Fighter doing damage up. There's no guarantee I would have still not been crushed to death before they were able to get to me/get me out of the tentacles.

But yes, a Comprehensive "Things Are Different in Golarion..." sort of document for 3.5 to Pathfinder would be useful.

Not too differently; I think it just wouldn't have dragged out in the same way. My PC would still have been stuck and eventually the Cleric would have to choose between keeping me up and keeping the Fighter doing damage up. There's no guarantee I would have still not been crushed to death before they were able to get to me/get me out of the tentacles.

Actually...

So, yeah, quite a bit different.

Actually...

** spoiler omitted **

So, yeah, quite a bit different.

Eh. No worries. If I hadn't had the prestige for a raise/restorations I might argue otherwise, but I did, so yeah.

Jonathan Cary wrote:

Actually...

** spoiler omitted **

So, yeah, quite a bit different.

Eh. No worries. If I hadn't had the prestige for a raise/restorations I might argue otherwise, but I did, so yeah.

Hey, wait! Isn't that an illegal character death d-:

In case it's not obvious, I kid.

Also, to add to Colin's revelation, doesn't the subject get a second saving throw at +2 on the following round when it is told to attack it's friends (as this act would "go against it's nature")?

He actually got two more saves thanks to two castings of protection from evil -- one from the summoner, and one from the targeted cleric. He failed both rolls, even with the bonus from the spell. Would a fourth roll have allowed him to beat the DC? Maybe. He was rolling terrible all day, though, and it didn't get any better -- he never even hit the cleric with his AoOs (cleric didn't let him get normal attacks in).

BDK's a good sport -- I've known him for about a decade now -- and he knows there was no malicious intent. Yes, I dropped the ball on the spell (and I really should have remembered the extra save, too). On the other hand, there was no one at that table with less than 10 years of experience playing the 3.x ruleset, and we all missed it.

I won't miss it again, though.

Totally agree on rolling in front of the screen and only use mine for quick reference for DC's now. I actually can't wait to run this scenario again, I learned a LOT from the first pass.

** spoiler omitted **...

To address your spoiler: One of the characters at your table was a monk (martial artist)/inquisitor using exploit weakness almost every round for the +2 to attack and ignoring DR and hardness. At a minimum 13 points of damage per hit, it made it seem much easier. That is an atypical build and physical attacks being able to ignore both DR and hardness is not likely to appear at most tables.

To address your spoiler: One of the characters at your table was a monk (martial artist)/inquisitor using exploit weakness almost every round for the +2 to attack and ignoring DR and hardness. At a minimum 13 points of damage per hit, it made it seem much easier. That is an atypical build and physical attacks being able to ignore both DR and hardness is not likely to appear at most tables.

I think I might have had one of the more... creative uses for your spoiler Will. I wanted to do more but felt it best to tone it down as we got further along.

Some great input here about how to play up the overall feel of the mod once you get past the first fight, thanks to everyone.

I played this at Gencon and

Marcus Mayes wrote:

To address your spoiler: One of the characters at your table was a monk (martial artist)/inquisitor using exploit weakness almost every round for the +2 to attack and ignoring DR and hardness. At a minimum 13 points of damage per hit, it made it seem much easier. That is an atypical build and physical attacks being able to ignore both DR and hardness is not likely to appear at most tables.

** spoiler omitted **

Sadly, when I played the guy with your spoilered item ran away! There's a reason I called the terrain +2 CR ...

Will Johnson wrote:

Marcus Mayes wrote:

To address your spoiler: One of the characters at your table was a monk (martial artist)/inquisitor using exploit weakness almost every round for the +2 to attack and ignoring DR and hardness. At a minimum 13 points of damage per hit, it made it seem much easier. That is an atypical build and physical attacks being able to ignore both DR and hardness is not likely to appear at most tables.

** spoiler omitted **

Sadly, when I played the guy with your spoilered item ran away! There's a reason I called the terrain +2 CR ...

Melissa and I were at the same table and yes, the spoilered item actually flew away.

To your point, Will, I meant my attacks ignoring DR and hardness in addition to a party member with that other thing. Imagine the outcome if there had been only the one and it flew away?

Our party dealt with the last encounter pretty well. We got hit with black tentacles, but the oracle who already had freedom of movement up used liberating command on my bard who used liberating command on another party member. :-)

This was followed up the next round with hitting him with our own black tentacles and an encounter ending cacophonous call.

We also got past stabby mcstabberson by succeeding (for the first time ever) with a bardic fascinate followed up by a few rounds getting a suggestion to sign a confession and turn them self into the authorities (not realizing the 4 workers in the back were part of their crew...).

Response to Mathwei's spoiler tag is spoilered!

** spoiler omitted **

My bard "saved" the party by essentially terrifying the guy at the end. With Expeditious Retreat and Feather Step up, he got one of the only high initiative rolls of his career and sprinted 80% of the distance to the caster. This must have freaked him out because he dropped the BT on me alone. It nearly killed me, but thanks to a well timed Grease/Gallant Inspiration combo, Herger got loose, downed a CSW potion and helped hack the guy down (after Big Bopper kept him tripped and a pair of Sneaky McStabbersons kept his organs well ventillated).

We also got past stabby mcstabberson by succeeding (for the first time ever) with a bardic fascinate followed up by a few rounds getting a suggestion to sign a confession and turn them self into the authorities (not realizing the 4 workers in the back were part of their crew...).

Weird, she also got a fascinate/suggestion in our game. The suggestion was to take us into the back to see what was going on, but her buddies did not take kindly to the intrusion.

Too funny!

The story of this scenarios is good, especially with a great GM. Living dolls creep me out so that was fun and the insulting door was great. The creepy version of Black that wanted to scalp the beautiful hair off the noble at the table was great. As were was the psycho vibe. Good stuff.

It's a tough scenario though if your not playing at your best. To which, I wasn't, and my Gunslinger met his temporary end. I did not expect black tentacles and once it hit the field I knew it was pretty much over. Things could have went completely different if we had not wasted time breaking down the door and had rushed into the room.

Oh well, you get raised and learn.

I don't mean to derail the thread, but I wanted to address the displacement question.

The subject of this spell appears to be about 2 feet away from its true location. The creature benefits from a 50% miss chance as if it had total concealment. Unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally. True seeing reveals its true location and negates the miss chance.

Total Concealment: If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight, he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can't attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).

Concealment Miss Chance: Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment. Make the attack normally—if the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance d% roll to avoid being struck.

Due to the "if the attacker hits" condition I think the proper way to do it is to first resolve the mirror image, then resolve the displacement if the attacker hits the intended target. I think the key thing is that the displacement should in no way apply to the mirror images.

As I'm running this tomorrow I've been doing some reading on the thread, and I stumbled across this...

A seldom used portion of the dispel magic spell can be used to more easily dispel known spells.

Specifically (section bolded for emphasis)

Dispel magic from the Pathfinder PRD, paragraphs 5 wrote:

You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.

This would mean that a caster of dispel magic would only need to his the DC of the spell level.

Gotta love those rules!

I'm not sure how this works for a character grappled by black tentacles.

1 - Do characters with no caster level use that of the potion's creator's minimum (5)?
2 - Do characters drink the potion and then get a caster level check roll?
3 - Dispel Magic says that the DC is 11 + "the spell's caster level". So for the 5-6 subtier, this would be a DC 21 since Black is level 10?

Assuming the answer to all three of those is yes, that's still a difficult (16+) roll to get one character out of black tentacles (since it's a potion it can't affect an area, I believe), unless I'm off somewhere?

As I'm running this tomorrow I've been doing some reading on the thread, and I stumbled across this...

Eric Brittain wrote:

A seldom used portion of the dispel magic spell can be used to more easily dispel known spells.

Specifically (section bolded for emphasis)

Dispel magic from the Pathfinder PRD, paragraphs 5 wrote:

You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.

This would mean that a caster of dispel magic would only need to his the DC of the spell level.

Gotta love those rules!

I'm not sure how this works for a character grappled by black tentacles.

1 - Do characters with no caster level use that of the potion's creator's minimum (5)?
2 - Do characters drink the potion and then get a caster level check roll?
3 - Dispel Magic says that the DC is 11 + "the spell's caster level". So for the 5-6 subtier, this would be a DC 21 since Black is level 10?

Assuming the answer to all three of those is yes, that's still a difficult (16+) roll to get one character out of black tentacles (since it's a potion it can't affect an area, I believe), unless I'm off somewhere?

You can't end a tentacle effect by drinking a potion of dispel magic, even if the tentacles are grappling you at the time.

Mike Bramnik wrote:

As I'm running this tomorrow I've been doing some reading on the thread, and I stumbled across this...

Eric Brittain wrote:

A seldom used portion of the dispel magic spell can be used to more easily dispel known spells.

Specifically (section bolded for emphasis)

Dispel magic from the Pathfinder PRD, paragraphs 5 wrote:

You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.

This would mean that a caster of dispel magic would only need to his the DC of the spell level.

Gotta love those rules!

I'm not sure how this works for a character grappled by black tentacles.

1 - Do characters with no caster level use that of the potion's creator's minimum (5)?
2 - Do characters drink the potion and then get a caster level check roll?
3 - Dispel Magic says that the DC is 11 + "the spell's caster level". So for the 5-6 subtier, this would be a DC 21 since Black is level 10?

Assuming the answer to all three of those is yes, that's still a difficult (16+) roll to get one character out of black tentacles (since it's a potion it can't affect an area, I believe), unless I'm off somewhere?

You can't end a tentacle effect by drinking a potion of dispel magic, even if the tentacles are grappling you at the time.

If you drink a potion, you are the target of the spell. If you drink a potion of dispel magic you are the target of the spell - not the black tentacles.

Rogue Eidolon wrote:

You can't end a tentacle effect by drinking a potion of dispel magic, even if the tentacles are grappling you at the time.

If you drink a potion, you are the target of the spell. If you drink a potion of dispel magic you are the target of the spell - not the black tentacles.

I guess that's part of why I was confused by the original post about dispel magic potions.

Dispel magic is a weird spell to put into potion form any way you look at it. An oil of dispel magic will allow you to apply it to objects, like the tentacles.

However, when applied to a person (or drunk in potion form) I don't see how it can target a specific spell or effect. As a result, I'd have the player roll the level check and then go down the list of spells and effects on them to see which it dispels. This may produce an undesired result.

nosig wrote:

Rogue Eidolon wrote:

You can't end a tentacle effect by drinking a potion of dispel magic, even if the tentacles are grappling you at the time.

If you drink a potion, you are the target of the spell. If you drink a potion of dispel magic you are the target of the spell - not the black tentacles.

I guess that's part of why I was confused by the original post about dispel magic potions.

That post mentioned an oft-forgotten portion of the spell's description, not a potion.

This may have been answered, so I apologize if I missed it.

Mike Bramnik wrote:

nosig wrote:

Rogue Eidolon wrote:

You can't end a tentacle effect by drinking a potion of dispel magic, even if the tentacles are grappling you at the time.

If you drink a potion, you are the target of the spell. If you drink a potion of dispel magic you are the target of the spell - not the black tentacles.

I guess that's part of why I was confused by the original post about dispel magic potions.

That post mentioned an oft-forgotten portion of the spell's description, not a potion.

...glasses fail? aka damn my eyes?

Oy vey, my bad.

I skipped the Sisters encounter due to time crunch and lack of any capable threat.
it wasn't an encounter that would deplete resources, and the combat would have just sucked up a few minutes of creepiness. If they were at least NE then the creepiness factor would have been backed up by something more serious. as it was Rage was not a good power/alignment for the dolls. =P

This last week has been a truly crazy one for me between college classes and doing a local con, but I ran this scenario on 11/02/12, as well as on the weekend before Halloween and... Wow. Just wow.

The first group I ran through I had to sorta rush them from the encounter at the Golemworks office to the lab (they had a Sczarni that dealt with the encounter in the shop then they wiped up mooks easily enough), but I had 'em all good and creeped out. It was awesome.

Nearly TPK'd 'em in a boss battle, but due to short time and the fact that the Black couldn't do much more actual damage on his own, and the party was just whittling 'em down, he hit his contingency and they won.

The second party, however...

Not only did I somehow kill the Bardgus (Bard 1, Magus 8) 3 times (character put themself in danger the first 2 times then took a Chain Lightening to the face), but I wiped 'em all on the fight against Black. I wasn't even trying to TPK 'em, but I couldn't legitimately pull punches at the 8-9 tier with a bunch of experienced players, so... ouch.

It was an amazing scenario, well written, and just downright fun, and I think (aside from frustration at the dice and difficulty of the last fight), the players enjoyed the scenario. Man, oh man. Good times.

about them dolls...

about the tentacles...

What spell is in Black's ring of counterspells? I put in Dispel Magic and it worked like a charm.

Great Scenario, thanks.

What spell is in Black's ring of counterspells? I put in Dispel Magic and it worked like a charm.

I put in Feeblemind as it is kind of ironic. Dispel Magic is a good idea that makes him even tougher.

Other thoughts:

A few folk seem to forget about the Shield spell and that it blocks magic missiles (including me first time it came up in this scenario).

Also need to fully understand Mirror Image and how it isn't effective against or affected by non-attack-roll-spells or effects. Such as Magic Missile or Chain Lightning.

I would save the bonded item for contingency use unless you want to risk a TPK.

The golems at the start can be a bit of a damp squib if you have them make strength checks to get out. Just have them smash their way out.

Thanks to Drogon for the door insults, they went down a treat.

Wraithcannon wrote:

What spell is in Black's ring of counterspells? I put in Dispel Magic and it worked like a charm.

I put in Feeblemind as it is kind of ironic. Dispel Magic is a good idea that makes him even tougher.

Also remember that he begins scrying on the PCs the moment they enter his office (or kill his simulacrum? - I can't remember which action makes him aware, but it's early on). That scrying will give him insight into what he needs to put into the ring.

Thanks to Drogon for the door insults, they went down a treat.

You're welcome. Glad they were of use to someone (-:

Edit: Awesome ideas, Shea. I'm going to remember the doll room one, for sure.

oh boy.. looks like the party tonight consists of a gunslinger, tank (whatever the class) and two barbarians

I'll report the outcome