[Advice needed] Am I going to kill my characters?


Beginner Box


If anyone of the Eindhoven Pathfinder group is reading this, please stop now.

Hello everyone,

I am a GM preparing for our second game of Pathfinder (or any RPG) ever. The previous time we did the adventure provided in the Beginner Box. We’ve had a lot of fun, only the party found the combat encounters too easy. Our party consists of a Rogue, Fighter, Cleric and Wizard. So, for our next adventure I’d like to give them more of a challenge. However, I don’t want to kill them, hence my topic-title question.

The adventure I have in mind:

The Adventure:

General story: The players hear Blackfang is spotted near a local cemetery. They know there are rumours of undead rising, so they have an idea what they’re going to face. When they go to the spot they find a crypt with a lot of footprints in front of it, so they will probably go and investigate.

Entrance: A door which needs a specific way to open it (told to them by a ghost appearing when they approach), otherwise it curses everyone walking through. I was thinking about the sickened condition with a DC11 fortitude save.

Room 1: A warm-up fight with two Zombies (CR1/2) in a long hallway. At the end of the hallway is a trapped door (not sure what yet, but CR1) which leads to room 2

Room 2: Role-play encounter. There are a few thugs (I was thinking about 4-6 City Guards CR1/2 each) sitting around a fire. They will try to convince the players they are fellow adventurers, but are actually guarding the crypt. They will try to send the players into trap room 3, but will fight when provoked or when the players try to open the door to room 4.

Room 3: Trap room. When the players enter this room up to 30 skeletons (CR1/3) will spawn, 1d4 per turn. The spawning will stop when the players leave the room. However, when tricked by the thugs in room 2, they will lock a Good Wooden Door behind them. This will probably take them a few turns to lock pick/bash/open.

Room 4: Just an hallway giving entrance to the next two rooms.

Room 5:Story encounter, no combat whatsoever, but a place to find some hints about the plot.

Room 6: Boss encounter. I was thinking about an Animated Statue (CR3) and maybe a few skeletons. This Statue guards the entrance to the deeper parts of the crypt and a pile of loot. As it is hard to rest in the crypt, I guess the Statue alone will be enough of a challenge, but I’m not sure.


Special notes about the party: They have a Scroll of Resurrection and a Scroll of Fireball, so they have a few ‘oh shit’ moves. For the rest, the party has no special things, a few +1 items but that’s it. Also, we are using Beginner Box rules.
Thanks in forward!


The one thing that looks like a possible death scenario is if they try to fight it out or look for another exit in Room 3, rather than just break/lockpick back through the way they came in, especially if you keep rolling high on the d4. They might be able to take a large number of them out with the fireball scroll (especially if you let it damage/destroy the not-yet-animated skeletons as well) but they could very quickly get overwhelmed if they dally for more than a couple rounds.

I would gauge the final encounter by how they do up through room 4 and 5; if they look like they've breezed through things easily, certainly add skeletons or something else to the statue's retinue; if they're already looking pretty harried, have the statue keep to itself, or keep its allies to a minimum.

Good luck!


What level are they and what kinda damage do they do? At level 1-2 in several PFS scenarios I have run/played, even with well built (optimized honestly) characters, that is a tough fight.

An animated object has hardness, a typical (stone) statue has hardness 8. If they don't have 2handed weapons or a d8/d10 and a decent they won't even be able to damage it.

So just keep that in mind for the fight. A 2h weapon fighter with an 18 str can kill it in a few rounds, so long as he can stay up on hp. A sword/shield fighter with a 14 Str only has a 25% chance of doing 1-2 points to it (d8 weapon, str +2).

The rogue probably won't be able to hurt it at all (no sneak attack/precision damage and rogues usually have less than 14 str and a d6 weapon).


With the trap room, allow some perception checks to see that there are a lot of bone piles slowing moving. This will give them a sense that there are meant to be a lot of undead getting up and moving towards them. You could even allow a played the ability to run over and disrupt a forming pile with a standard action, which shuts it down.

If you're worried that they won't think to run away (a major issue with any RPG players, heh), you can give hints via some runes in the floor (knowledge arcana DC 15-20: it is some kind of containment spell meant to keep the skeletons inside) and indicate that they go all the way around the base of the floor but do not extend out the door.

Of course, some players would get the door open, then stand on the other side and kill skeletons for xp.

Also as pointed out, animated statues are cool but very hard (both in difficulty and material). It ignores the first 8 points of physical damage and cannot be sneak attacked. As TGMaxMaxer points out, your rogue will be quite bored. I'd add a few skeletons so he has something to do with himself.

You can also add monsters in waves. If the statue fight is going easily, have a few skeletons pop up in round 2-3. Then more if the fight is still easy. If it is not going well, you don't have the skeletons show up.

GMing is about creating a good balance of difficulty. The players will never know how many skeletons there could have been; only how many there were. So long as it isn't a cake walk, they'll feel challenged and enjoy the triumph.


Thanks for all the tips!

As suggested, I will give my players a clue that they need to escape Room 3. I like the runes on the floor idea, I will probably use that.

As for the final encounter, I still have a few questions there. I can't find why the statue can't be sneak-attacked. Maybe it's in the full version of the rules? Also, as far as I can find hardness works on any damage and not just on physical. The warrior has power attack and uses a Battleaxe two-handed, giving 1d8+6 damage on a power attack, so he should be able to damage it quite a bit.

I don't expect the Wizard and Cleric of the party do any damage on the statue, so it might be fun to just find another boss instead. How about a Hell Hound (also CR3). It kind of fits in the evil cleric plan I have for the rest of the crypt.

Too bad the monster manual in the Beginner Box is a bit limited. I'll have to convince my party to switch to Core Rules ;)


Yeah, Hellhound would probably be better for making everyone in the party feel like they can actually do something.

The statue can't be sneak attacked as per the rules for attacking objects - objects, even animate ones, are immune to critical hits and anything that is immune to critical hits is also immune to precision damage like sneak attack.

Webstore Gninja Minion

Changed "players" in thread title to "characters".


Yes, that seems more appropriate. I'm not planning going on a RL murderous killing spree any time soon. :P


your best friend for a monster listing

d20pfsrd

Hallway fights can seam a bit dull as there is almost no way to move around. I would recommend you make the hall 15' wide with pillars down the middle.

In room 3 roll the number of skels at top of the round and have them animate and roll init at the end of the round. If a PC takes standard action while next or in a square they can keep the skeleton from rising. Allow creative ways do the same thing at range. Since the new skeletons are flat footed until they go the rogue can sneak attack if his init is high enough.

I would add a plot room like 5 before 3 so that if the PCs open the door the thugs have to rush over from 2 fight them in 2a instead of just blocking the door. Just make room 2a really creepy to explain why they guards not stay in it after locking the door to 3.

edit: A map for you

temple


So a critical hit or precision hits (which the category under which sneak attack falls) only work on things that have parts which are more sensitive than other parts.

For example, landing a blow on a person's kidney, or against their knee, will do more "damage" (an abstraction, it isn't really health but ability to keep on going) than a shot to the shoulder or abs.

Animated objects, ghosts, oozes, molds, gelatinous cubes, and such do not have any part more or less sensitive/important than any other part of the body. You cannot hamstring a ooze, nor can you strike a nerve cluster in an animated statue.


Made a very simple map for you, see above post.

The brown corridor has a secret door on either end and allows different escape route from the skeletons and way to get the jump on the thugs in the middle.

Hope you like it.


Is there an oppertunity to rest between encounters? If not they might get killed if they blow all their good spells in the first rooms, that depends on how well they spread out their spells. If there is you don't have to worry.

Have you ever read the rules about hero points?
If you like them you could introduce them.

Dark Archive

You're only going to kill the characters if you want to. If the fight turns out with you on the winning side, that would be a perfect time for the bad guys to spend a few rounds gloating, complaining loudly about how stupid the heroes are, what the villain has planned for them, etc. (giving the heroes plenty of room to recover, so they can win after all, yayy!)

or, fudge the dice. You rolled a 20? oops, now it's a 3. problem solved. err...this works best if no one sees your dice.

jeuj, nederlanders :) geef maar een gil :D


Darash wrote:

The warrior has power attack and uses a Battleaxe two-handed, giving 1d8+6 damage on a power attack, so he should be able to damage it quite a bit.

I don't expect the Wizard and Cleric of the party do any damage on the statue, so it might be fun to just find another boss instead. How about a Hell Hound (also CR3). It kind of fits in the evil cleric plan I have for the rest of the crypt.

Are they level 1? If so I'd be careful with the statue. 1d8+6 seems like a lot, but for a stone statue with hardness 8 it's effectively 1d8-2. Average 2.5 damage per successful hit. It takes a long time to whittle through 36 hp dealing 2.5 damage per hit.

You could always go with a wooden statue, though that's a bit strange (and the object gets some other ability to make up for it, anyway)... or a different boss, yeah.

Dark Archive

Orthos wrote:

Yeah, Hellhound would probably be better for making everyone in the party feel like they can actually do something.

The statue can't be sneak attacked as per the rules for attacking objects - objects, even animate ones, are immune to critical hits and anything that is immune to critical hits is also immune to precision damage like sneak attack.

Thanks, I never knew that part about animated objects. Seems like a useful thing to have put in the Bestiary entry ...

Coriat wrote:
You could always go with a wooden statue, though that's a bit strange (and the object gets some other ability to make up for it, anyway)...

I agree that the Hardness seems too high. However, I suggest simply lowering it to 5 by GM fiat - perhaps the stone is a bit brittle or something.


I have decided to go with the Hell Hound as final boss. He seems a bit more interesting at this level and with this team comp.

Brun IronBender wrote:

Made a very simple map for you, see above post.

The brown corridor has a secret door on either end and allows different escape route from the skeletons and way to get the jump on the thugs in the middle.

Hope you like it.

Can I ask you which program/site you used for making this map? It seems quite nice.

Thanks for all the advice!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

http://pyromancers.com/

Pretty easy to use, the map took me about 10 min to make.

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