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Hi,
This is mainly for Hogarth who was sure things were going to go badly
Upon arriving at the Lodge, we were greeted by some friendly fellow Pathfinders who preceded to attempt to attack us while asleep. Only thing that failed was the Summoners buddy. I .. think it was in the food and drink but I did not ask why the pet was eating and drinking also.
Suffice to say they were butchered (Subtier 4-5).
Travelling further downstairs the Ninja was spiked in the feet on some stairs, healed and moved on. We located the Organ room upon where creepy doll girl used some negative energy mojo on the summoner (although a poor damage roll). She decided to levitate and was quickly shot down. No Casualties bar pride so far.
Moving on again, we came across 2 small gnome style creatures who attempted to get us to help do something. The Ninja decided to help out, opened a door and was blinded. As I was when I attempted to help the Ninja. The Druids Companion ( A Plant) managed to smash the thing causing the light. Then I was stabbed in the back by our new friends for a fair chunk (crit). They too were killed, after which we went back got some Sunrods, admired the broken machine and moved on.
This is where things got nasty.
The Vampire Bat Swarms were were causing serious damage. I had no Alchemist fire of my own, so I had people actually throwing it on me, to eventually kill the bats. We also had people firing Goblin rockets at me. I did survive on 4 hp. To try and put this combat into words would just get too messy. It was however very close.
Getting to the excavation site, we realised a little too late we had nothing to combat the Deeper Darkness. The sunrods were tried and used and 2 lost in the darkness. Sending in the 'pets' first, I went in second and nearly lots a kidney to a second critical (I was fully healed by then though with a wand down to 1 charge). Apparently the elemental gem was used an a earth elemental was there in the darkness as well as stabby small guy).
We ran out of time (the bats swarm took about 1 hour or more), so retreated losing gold and items.. and maybe more pride but escaping with all lives intact!.
I still enjoyed the module, and swarms put the fear of death into me .. or rather reminded me how dying can be easy. Darkness is a real killer though :)
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I have seen this scenario complained about multiple times. It is always called a cakewalk until the second to last encounter (hard for some, easy for others), and often called a killer for the last encounter alone.
For the first time, I want to weigh in on something that I really feel is the GM's duty to impart in this scenario:
Once in the experiment room in the Darklands, GMs should allow the players to get a look at what is occurring (the massive machine in the center of the room, with the lodge's Venture Captain strapped to it and being tortured by wires dripping acid onto his flesh). At this point, initiative should be rolled, and the combat should ensue. Deeper darkness gets dropped on the party. The Dark Stalker is supposed to move in an out of range of the PCs, always taking a round to apply poison. Essentially, he should only be attacking every other round from the deeper darkness. Sure, he can use the elemental gem to bring along a buddy (not called for in the tactics and should probably be ignored if the party is judged not capable of dealing with this). And sure, he COULD just stand next to his target and unload, doing far more damage. But his tactics say to do otherwise.
Ultimately, someone in the party should be able to get to the machine and activate it, nullifying the deeper darkness that the Stalker is dropping. At that point, the Stalker is barely a speed bump, as he is light sensitive and his darkness is useless.
GMs should prepare this scenario properly, run the tactics as they are written (only introducing certain elements if the party warrants that introduction) and this should not be the destroyer it has the reputation of being. A smart man recently said "Even though the GMs are being given 1001 ways to kill the party doesn't mean they should be bringing every single one of those options to bear."
Yes, this is a tough scenario if run with all the options. Taking the tactics and the presentation and giving them to the players correctly mitigates a lot of that danger. Please start paying attention to these things. And not just with this scenario, but with the myriad other "party killers" that people keep bringing up.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Fair enough. Sorry to jump the gun and assume this was another OMGWTF!?!? thread. It's just that there are quite a few threads out there that mention this scenario as being too dangerous, and that's just not true when run correctly.
Glad it seems your GM ran it correctly and you survived (-:
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I was the ninja. Oh man, that second last encounter...
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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How did the bats cause anyone problems, or take an hour to run? They were hardly a speedbump when I went through.
I've also prepped this as a GM, but ended up handing off to another GM. What we had that helped a lot was making physical props for the machine and sunrods. (Some wooden dowels with marks on them, and a 2x4 with some holes in it.) Should really help the party to figure the machine out.
Luckily for us, the last baddy failed his perception, so we were able to sneak some people into the room. Combat started with my musket getting a crit. The dude rolled crap on initiative - we took him down before he even got a turn.
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My character died in that scenario, but it was my dumb mistake in pulling the caster into melee range.
But still, Deeper Darkness at low level and you can't shut it down. Nobody expects it really. I am confused also as to how are character's supposed to activate something which they can't see.
Last part of the activation of machine should be set in motion and clarified more to players. Perhaps something like "... the device which you saw humming, suddenly stoped, and darkness surrounds you..." to imply to player's that it actually DOES something.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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But still, Deeper Darkness at low level and you can't shut it down. Nobody expects it really. I am confused also as to how are character's supposed to activate something which they can't see.
Last part of the activation of machine should be set in motion and clarified more to players. Perhaps something like "... the device which you saw humming, suddenly stoped, and darkness surrounds you..." to imply to player's that it actually DOES something.
Just like you can fight and move in darkness, albeit slowly or with a miss chance, you can manipulate objects in darkness. There may be a penalty (I'm not in front of the book, so I can't look it up to tell you) but you can still try to "turn it on" so to speak. Especially if you've fiddled with the one upstairs and have an idea of how things should work, already.
If I remember correctly, it is actually the sunrods that need to be set at a certain property (which can be done ahead of time, and will already be done if you took them from the machine upstairs) and then they simply need to be loaded into the machine. Once they are in place (a matter of dropping them into the right tube, I think - certainly something you can do in darkness), the machine puts up a daylight equivalent (or brighter) effect.
So, yes, assuming you get a look at what's in the room, and have been "set up" by what happened above with the dark creepers, you will know to get the downstairs machine running. All that set up is up to the GM and how he presents things. Thus my mini-rant above...
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The gm was...flustered.Lame. I'd be jumping up and down. That's the way it's supposed to happen!
Oh, that the party survived, she was happy. That I somehow crit something I couldn't see and wasn't even sure if it was there? Impressive. Oh, and was at AC 11. I was more than mildly panicked when I found out how *DUMB* that was later.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Yeah I turned on the machine wrong. So my clever 'big damn heroes' moment didn't work as planned.
As for the swarms... "You laughed when I said I love snapdragon fireworks! Who's laughing now? Hint, it's not the guy tossing alchemists fire above his head!" :-)
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::from beyond the grave::
I experienced this adventure last night. Should have backed away from the creepy dark thing, but I wanted my summoned celestial dogs with scent to be able to find him faster. He critted me for 20 pints of damage, and then I failed to stabilize the next round. Permanently a ghost, as I was a first level character that had just been confirmed.
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I have seen this scenario complained about multiple times. It is always called a cakewalk until the second to last encounter (hard for some, easy for others), and often called a killer for the last encounter alone.
For the first time, I want to weigh in on something that I really feel is the GM's duty to impart in this scenario:
** spoiler omitted **
GMs should prepare this scenario properly, run the tactics as they are written (only introducing certain elements if the party warrants that introduction) and this should not be the destroyer...
Most of the time I see it played the GM doesn't give the players a picture of the room before the darkness is dropped, the darkness is up before the players even get into the room. They open the door and see nothing but darkness.
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Most of the time I see it played the GM doesn't give the players a picture of the room before the darkness is dropped, the darkness is up before the players even get into the room. They open the door and see nothing but darkness.I have seen this scenario complained about multiple times. It is always called a cakewalk until the second to last encounter (hard for some, easy for others), and often called a killer for the last encounter alone.
For the first time, I want to weigh in on something that I really feel is the GM's duty to impart in this scenario:
** spoiler omitted **
GMs should prepare this scenario properly, run the tactics as they are written (only introducing certain elements if the party warrants that introduction) and this should not be the destroyer...
Deeper Darkness is suppose to be up unless players get through the door in a way that doesn't draw the BBEG's attention.
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I ran this one myself. Here is how I GMed.
1. Showed the room and rolled initiative.
2. When it came to the baddies turn, he put deeper darkness on his sword.
3. Baddie hid in corner.
3. Followed tactics, ran in and out. He actually ran out of poison because people would go in, get stabbed and run out, and he would go back to his corner.
4. 2 minutes of in game combat later, the group was out of about everything.
5. I had been giving them a skill check to manipulate the machine as a standard action, DC20 Perception, when the first part was set, I would increase the light level 1 step within 5 feat as the machine began to come online, lowering the perception needed by 5 to normal darkness (no one had dark vision), then again by 5 to low light, increasing the lighted area another five feet, until they had everything on.
6. The group was EXTREMELY scared of the dark, as such they would not commit. I downed 2 with crits, I killed another with a max damage crit.
7. Once they got the machine on they were able to kill the baddy in a round. They just would not commit and kept sending the continuously low rolling, low perception rogue in to manipulate the device, because his +5 perception was the best in the group.
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He critted me for 20 pints of damageSo, um, just for my information, what is the pint to HP conversion rate? 20 pints of damage seems like a lot.
Poor Balin. We didn't get a chance to know you.
Well dwarfs use alcohol as blood... so that's like twice his blood so must have been at least twice his HP!
A mighty blow indeed. :-)