Secrets of the stone keep 4-25 question.

[Andrew "The Great Kilt" Rauch]

Okay, I have played and run this scenario. I am about to run it again. I like it a lot except for one part which confuses me non stop. The last two pages of the scenario are written so the heroic PCs can tease information out of the Dwarven artifact. They try to find the location of another Dwarven artifact by following clues and making knowledge roles. All the while fighting terrible beasties and dodging masonry. That is how it is written. How it is was played both times I was involved and a few others I have heard about went more like this; "Hey look there is that thing we where supposed to find. The research team told us we could use it to contact them so they could teleport in and study everything. Cool to looks like it has lots of stuff for them to study." Done. In less than 18 seconds. So the whole desperate battle/frantic puzzle solving/random death part is, very logically, bypassed or done with a high level pathfinder research team in the room.
Now it is a fun encounter so the fellow who ran it for me added some "connection trouble" to delay the incoming relief. I used a wizard who failed his percentage rolls a few times and missed his target.

So after all that my question is this, Is there something written in the scenario that I am missing that logically keeps the PC's engaged, or are the PCs just slouching on their job by not investigating, or other?

[Drogon]

I think this is one of those points where Paizo is trying to bend writing away from "omniscient Venture Captains" knowing what's going to happen.

In a perfect exploration the PCs will find the room intact, have dealt with all the threats, and then bring in the research team to look it over at their leisure. This is how the briefing is presented to them.

What happens?:

All hell breaks loose. The room is huge, there are construct guardians, the door is damaged beyond the point of being closed, and with all the metal in the room What Lies Below comes up to check it out (which can go unnoticed if the PCs are all clustered around the far end - after all, there is an interposing rise between the entrance chamber and the stele's chamber). When they show up their feeding begins collapsing the chamber; studying the stele "at leisure" isn't going to happen. Because the stele is too big to move taking it out isn't going to happen, either. In fact, escaping seems like an impossibility with the hoards of creatures flooding up from below (unless the PCs are okay with being stripped of all metal gear during the fight to escape).

So, the encounter becomes a desperate attempt by the PCs to hold destruction off long enough to get the information themselves, then get teleported out via the other side of the stele's communication channel with Janderhoff.

That, at least, is how it ran with my groups, so far. It worked out pretty well; I had people breathless and smiling at their escape with the information.

[TriOmegaZero]

Andrew "The Great Kilt" Rauch wrote:

So after all that my question is this, Is there something written in the scenario that I am missing that logically keeps the PC's engaged, or are the PCs just slouching on their job by not investigating, or other?

The scenario notes that the extraction team 'teleport to the PC's location a few minutes later' after the party makes contact. A few minutes could be upwards of 30 rounds of combat with the monsters. This could be due to having to scry the PCs to determine a clear enough picture to teleport, and like your GM did, may cause delays due to mishaps and off-target castings.

In any event, the GM should make sure to call out the unknown name of Jormurden before the PCs make contact with Janderhoff. If they choose not to attempt contact, then by the success conditions "Learning of Jormurden's existence and location earns each PC 1 Prestige Point" any group that does NOT solve the riddle themselves fails to gain that PP.

[Matthew Pittard]

I am not looking forward to drawing the maps for this scenario. Has anyone made any computer versions?

[Drogon]

The first map, I think, doesn't need to be drawn. It's much better to do that "old school" and use the theater of the mind. After all, there are no combat encounters, so you're just going to encourage metagaming by giving them an accurate map to work off of. Plus, in my experience, without the map they will explore more quickly, and think through the puzzles more efficiently (without something visual to focus on they will actually be using their imagination).

The bridge map, again, does not need to be drawn. Here, too, theater of the mind will work better.

The final map can be drawn on a Chessex battlemat (the mid-size one; 34" x 48"). The entire thing will fit if you put it corner to corner (the way the map was designed by the cartographer, I think, considering the orientation of the grid).

So, really, you only need the one map.

PS - "not drawing" doesn't mean you can't give them rough sketches of the layout, or shouldn't encourage THEM to map it.