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EDIT: found the huge cage cost 60gp
Heavy wagons are 100gp each
Yaks are 24gp each or 96gp per wagon
Oxen (castrated cattle) are 50gp each or 200gp per wagon
So cost of the 2 heavy wagons plus animals is 400gp-600gp plus 60gp for the cage
How have others handled these pack animals when the Bulette is around and with keeping them alive in other cinderlands encounters?
How have your PCs lifted several tons onto the back of a wagon?
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As I mentioned in the "Proud Moments at the Table" thread, one of the players (Chelaxian Barbarian) wrote a song on the spot for his faction mission, and he gave me permission to post the lyrics!
Off in the town of Urglin
Was a meowling cat called Mardiskaal
Face as fine as a dwarven lass
Smells as great as their bearded maw
Listen to her meowl away
Screech and howl all night and day
Spread her filth to make some pay
Sounds just like the donkey's bay
And should we let the donkey start
At least we know the ass is smart
Madishaal the more you say
Just makes the ass look smart today
At least the ass has a use
Her's is just to take abuse
Madiskaal's not worth the time
To even waste a rotten rine
And now I bring to end my tune
And all the time I chose to waste
Not a second more to lose
Though I wonder just how bad you taste!
Just wanted to share :)
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I'm honored...I think.
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You should be very
But seriously, it was a fun scenario to run.
However, the only issue i had was the environmental effects during the hunt. In our case, With 11 hours after Survival rolls (and rolling 2 fives in a row.. ouch), I felt that there was a significant resource drain, without much opportunity to avoid (or role-play).
There wasn't any real risk of death, given the hour between each event, but having the same character step on the 'land mine' twice in a row, wasn't much fun.
Aside from that I had a lot of fun watching the players interact with the orc inhabitants. Also
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This was a rules question that came up when my players tried to Obscuring Mist to block the charge from the bullete. I figured this would be relevant to the interests of anyone reading this thread, so I'm linking it here.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So I played this scenario recently, and then went home and told my tales to my wife. When I finished, she expressed her distaste for my/the party's actions. Puzzled, I inquired further. She took issue with having fought the ettin at the end to acquire the guide slave. I started to try and explain about the guy being a gladiator and he was going to fight someone anyway even if it wasn't us, but then she said:
"You killed someone just to get information."
After some thought, I have to agree: the PCs need information, and are essentially told "Kill this guy and I'll give you the info." And near as I can tell (haven't read it, only played it) it's assumed that this is how the adventure is resolved.
I briefly entertained the thought that "Well maybe the ettin is a legitimate slave (as opposed to kidnapped or something) so it's alright." But then I realized that just makes it lawful, and has no bearing on good/evil.
Did this bother anyone else? I mean, what if we captured somebody who we thought was lying about his identity, and when he wouldn't talk we just killed him and cast blood biography to get his name and race with no save? Would that be acceptable? It's already been established that (at least in PFS) torturing for information is considered evil, so is this really any different? Or what if instead of killing in the arena, it was an assassination contract?
"The price of mission success is this person's life." That's how I'm seeing the situation in this scenario. If the final fight had been against a beast or some other non-sentient opponent, that would be different. But I'm just not seeing how PFS can say "torturing for information is evil and will be a step toward getting the PC removed from the campaign, and the assassin PrC is illegal on similar grounds, but killing someone to get information is expected behavior for a typical PC".
Am I missing something? Was there a situation-changing detail that I didn't hear in the noisy venue and everything's fine? Did anyone else have a dilemma here?
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Jiggy, the predominate alignment in Belzken is CE its a country of Orcs after all. The Ettin was CE most of the PC's in an average PFS are lawful or NG,TN or CG or some CN alignments would not have any moral question about killing a CE Giant that preys on other humanoids and is a man eater after all.
Remember that the social norms are not the same as ours our and judging our PC's by our social norms is not right. Gladiatorial combat is well excepted in many parts of Golarian, slavery is also excepted in most countries except Andoran and Galt. So fighting in the arena to acquire a slave is perfectly acceptable. What you do with the slave afterwards is what would decide on any alignment infractions.
I played this scenario last night with my dwarven ranger who hated orcs [Racial Hatred] he insulted the orcs when ever he could get away with it and stayed quiet when he thought he could not get away with it. When we got the slave Grunar horrified the Andoran Halfling by claping the slave in irons and brought him to Venture Captain Heidmarch and turned the half orc over to him w/o caring a whit about what happened to him after that.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Remember that the social norms are not the same as ours our and judging our PC's by our social norms is not right.
I know, and I'm going by Pathfinder morality, not by my own.
Mike Brock has made the statement that in PFS, torturing someone for information is evil. He made no provisions for "unless the victim is evil" or "unless the victim is a slave" or "unless the victim is a man-eater" or any of the other qualifications you listed. It is a fact of the campaign that torturing someone for information is evil. Period.
That's the game, not my own morality.
So the only difference between the situation with the ettin and the campaign rule of "torture is evil" is that the PCs kill instead of torture. So is that really different enough to change the morality of the action?
Think of it this way:
What if instead of Ploog saying "Kill him in the arena, and you get the guide" he had said "Give him a good thrashing in the arena until he looks dead, but don't actually kill him because I want to use him later; then you get the guide"? In that case, the act would (again, by campaign rules, not my own standards) be unquestionably evil: torturing for information. All the other things you talked about (slavery, man-eating, etc) are still there, but it's evil.
So why does dealing a couple more points of damage so he dies instead of surviving change anything? The target's the same, the culture's the same, the laws are the same, the circumstances are the same. The only difference is killing versus torturing. Is that really enough to make it not evil?
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Ploog would not have said not to kill him just give him a good thrashing as Ploog is a CE Orc and is running a blood sport arena. The average PFS party would out right kill the ettin as he is a danger to the party. they might bring him to around zero hp and stabilize him but would not shed a tear if they killed the ettin as the ettin is a dangerous combatant that would not hesitate to kill any member of the party.
Killing and torturing are far different. Torture is the intenional infliction of pain to illicit information or a confession and killing is the taking of a life. I think Jiggy that you are confusing Killing and Murder. You can kill with out malice as in killing in self defense or combat as opposed to murder which is the intentional taking of a life with malice and fore thought as if someone committed an act of premidatated murder, assassination or , murdered someone in the commission of a crime like rape or aggrevated robbery.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Lou, we're not talking about self-defense here.
The PCs are in Ploog's office, asking the price for the guide. The price is "Kill this guy over here." The PCs agree.
The PCs literally enter a verbal contract to kill Person X in exchange for access to information.
Pointing out that self-defense is different than murder has nothing to do with the morality of contract-killing.
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There are alternatives. The scenario specifically mentions that PCs could, should they so choose, attack Ploog to gain access to the Slave. In fact, it is easier to do so later in the scenario, after bringing back (or failing) at the Bulette acquisition; the scenario specifically mentions that there are less guards present when the PCs return a second time to Ploog.
So, given that the PCs are in a CE city where the 'law' as it were is the priests of Rovagug, there is an alternative that does not involve 'murder-for-hire,' although it exposes the PCs to greater risk in order to accomplish their mission this way.
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Jiggy, Plog asked the party to engage in gladitorial combat and as payment
the party was allowed to take the guide and do with him as they wished. This is far diffrent than Plog telling us to go off dude A in pink town because he owes Ploog money or something and the party doing a contract killing for Ploog. Ploog is an evil orc scum that runs an arena where people get killed all the time. The Party is matched against an Ettitn that would happily kill the party if he could. Things like this happen when you are in a CE Society like Belzkin.
A paladin would not have agreed to enter the arena and fight the Ettin as Paladins do not do that sort of thing. My dwarf Ranger that has favored enemy Giant had no qualms fighting a giant in the arena to get the slave half orc or what information he had to offer up. In the dwarf's eyes killing a giant is a good thing to do any day of the week besides Grunar almost got gushed by the Ettin in fair combat. Life is very gritty in Belzkin and those with very high morals need not apply for this mission.
Also look at it from a dwarfs POV, the reason we were getting the guide in the first place was to find the entrance to the dwarven sky citidal and whats a few orcs or giants to a dwarf if he could locate his peoples lost wealth and lore.
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I have a couple questions:
1. How have people handled finding Gulrus, if the PCs attacked Ploog, his 8-10 guards, Vroth, and Wroth's pets?
2. If you are playing high tier and Sarenrae's Tears explosion (Bulette Hunt) disturbs a second glob, is there a chance that a third, fourth, fifth, etc. glob could be disturbed? Or does it only diturb a second glob?
3. Is the Osirion faction SOL if they dont to encounter a emberstorm? I realize that they could be out there up to 22 hrs, but they could also be out there as little as 3. What other ways have players been creative to obtain the embers if they have not encountered the emberstorm.
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Kirseten,
I can't quite tell from Meetup which level you're running this at (8-9?). I ran this for a table of 4 at 5-6.
1. As far as I'm aware, this has yet to happen locally (could have happened elsewhere). Additionally, if you have even a single Silver Crusade member on your team, this is unlikely to happen due to their "cause no real disruption" faction mission. That said, if it does, handle it exactly as written...a brutal, brutal fight that will exhaust the party quickly. There's a reason why picking a fight at that point is the CR it is. Additionally (and this is how I read the scenario, YMMV), the group would have finished only two encounters (searching the city & fighting Ploog & company). They have also never met the slave at this point, don't necessarily know he exists (they might), even if they do, they don't know his name or what he looks like, and therefore, they'd likely fail their faction mission and gain 0 XP in the process.
2. Each glob has a chance of setting off a chain reaction (unlikely to happen with the percent involved).
3. They're not SOL; they will in fact have a harder time with their mission, but all they have to do is say to the party, "I need to capture an ember in an emberstorm" and stick it out in the plateau a little longer. If they want to go hunting, use the same kind of listed survival check system to see how long it takes them (don't go for the full 4d8 hours. I'd do 1d12 based on the table they provide for how often emberstorms occur.
4. Embers come from emberstorms. When the emberstorm is done, the embers snuff themselves out. There's little in the way of creative ways to obtain an ember if they don't encounter a storm.
5. You didn't ask, but the part you should be concerned with is being ready to run the bulette fight. Know the creature's abilities (including the fact it has tremorsense), and combat prowess. As a word of warning, do not be surprised when your Bulette makes his stealth check, the party does not make their perception check (or if they do, they can't do much anyway because it's underground), and it does its special charge attack possibly killing somebody outright. Gauge your table and decide if they want the hardcore "I'm going to die if this touches me" experience, or the "I hate dying, and would rather this not be run like a meat-grinder" experience. As an example, here's how my table played out.
Surprise round:
Bulette goes first (rolled high on initiative). Bulette charges the closest opponent, hits with all 4 claws, and brings him to -13 HP (CON 14). Two characters could act during surprise round (one is now unconscious), the melee character (the only other one up) charges and takes an Ao (minimum damage). (I do not make the fallen Pathfinder roll to stabilize because it's the surprise round and I didn't want to be "that guy". Round 1 starts, Bulette goes, full attacks, crits the fighter and takes him to -13 HP (Con 14). One of the remaining characters has to pick who to save, and picks the fallen inquisitor (surprise round guy) because he can use a wand of CLW. Second fallen player bleeds out. Witch flies in and curses Bulette. From there the fight was hard, but the group did eventually prevail with one death. The key here is that for all intents and purposes I should have killed two before anybody really had a chance to act.
Oh, Ploog would never jerk people around, Calybos1. :)
Developer
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Clarification on the final fight:
The scaling notes specifically state "dire wolves" in the sidebar. I am assuming the same scaling applies in high tier RE: the aurochs? we just "remove" all the animals?
Just a bit unclear, want to make sure.
That's right. The dire wolves (and at one point grizzly bears, if I recall correctly) were a holdover from an earlier draft.
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Lou, we're not talking about self-defense here.
The PCs are in Ploog's office, asking the price for the guide. The price is "Kill this guy over here." The PCs agree.The PCs literally enter a verbal contract to kill Person X in exchange for access to information.
Pointing out that self-defense is different than murder has nothing to do with the morality of contract-killing.
I'll have to doublecheck my PDF, but when I played it we were told he needed us to be a part of the main event. We weren't told the price was 'kill this dude'. We could have beaten the ettin and left him unconcious but stable.
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Any suggestion for the proper stats on the pit trap in front of Ploog's desk?
As it stands, it appears to be a CR 2 pit trap with a basic Perception DC of 20 and a +2 to the CR with 6d6 falling damage. To get it to tier 8-9 CR 5, it would need to be DC 30 Perception or DC 26-29 with a higher reflex save of 21-25. The disable DC is irrelevant since the result of Ploog seeing that happen would be obvious. I would wager that the Perception DC should be 30, building on the "Concealed" theme of the pit trap and bumping it a step up from the DC 25 of the lower tier. This would definitely make it more interesting.
Any official response? Or run it as erroneously published?