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I am prepping this currently and wanted to check a few issues:
1. The platform hazard in encounter 1 is level 3 and low tier and level 5 at high. However, the DC on its effect is the same across both tiers, is this intended? The disable DCs increase as you would expect.
I _think_ its probably not intended, but its not wrong enough to be something I would consider changing without an official dev statement. Its likely a mistake, in the player's favor, and I'm less willing to argue myself into changing those.
2. The description of the hazard suggests the whole platform gets dragged into the air. When does it come back down? If it doesnt what is the monster supposed to do?
I had the same question. My group engaged the monster at range, triggering combat before getting close enough to trigger the trap. The monster was off the platform before the trap triggered (when it only affected an animal companion, who crit failed). I ruled that it goes up immediately on its trigger, and drops one round later. The animal companion could have jumped off (had it been commanded) after escaping, but the PC was generally playing, even the commanded animal as unwilling to do very aggressive things when hurt (and the lightning hurt it). So the bear stayed up there and by the time the platform was down the monster was dead.
When I run it again, I'll definitely add more flavor commentary about it slowly descending on its own, to make that 1 round delay more obvious (if it hasn't been clarified before then. I could imagine the intent is for it to be back immediately).
3. Likewise the organs sonic blast has the same DC and damage across both tiers.
I had noticed that, it didn't come up in my first running -- the party destroyed the organ in the second round, and I had used it to show off the zombie dance/pummel thematic in the first round (even if not his best strategy). Like your question #1, I feel its surprising, but not obviously wrong. And remember there was/is a lot of feedback against DCs raising for arbitrarily, non-narrative reasons just to make the numbers work. So I can imagine there's times when the DCs will be the same across tiers.
4. The haunt in C1 triggers when someone moves within 10' of an area of the floor from which the choir can rise but no area for the haunt is marked.
I viewed the raised area as the choir loft and the PCs are entering from a passageway that is the same level as the main floor and below the choir loft. Under that interpretation you can still have two choices -- once the haunt instantly triggers as people enter the map, with the ghosts passing through them from the floor into the loft. Or you wait until they get out from underneath the overhang and can see up into the loft, at which point they flood in and trigger. I'd pick whichever feels more cinematic to you. This fight was a _very_ good/fun/thematic fight for my table and making the story feel right was what I focused on given the lack of hard/defined rules.
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Venture-Captain, Washington—Seattle
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This is a summary of the things that were said on the discussion channel for PFS2 #1-25 on the GenCon Discord (where it was discussed before general public release of the scenario), preserved for posterity.
Regarding the bi-resonant wayfinder not being on the Chronicle -
"Ok, the reason it is not on the Chronicle sheet is because the players actually already have access to it by virtue of being members of the Pathfinder Society, so it was pulled from the Chronicle in D2. There's no harm in including it to signal to the PCs that they might want one, but it doesn't actually change the game state to have it on the Chronicle sheet either."
To clarify further,
The following Pathfinder Society options are uncommon, but characters who are members of the Pathfinder Society have access to them.As all PCs are, by nature, members of the Pathfinder Society, the options on page 110-115 are legal for all PCs (as long as you own the book).
Regarding the trap in area A2 -
Trap in A2 is super odd since its a trapped door that doesn't open, and yet high tier trap trigger is that the threshold of the door is openned, assuming I'm reading this right
just gonna assume that RAI is trap goes off if an open attempt is made.
(for what it's worth, I agree with that)
Regarding clearing curses (for Pharoah's Ward hazard) -
The Pathfinder Society has resources to take care of its members, and many of the possible negative effects an adventurer can be subject to during an adventure are assumed to be taken care of during Downtime. The exceptions to this are death, permanent petrification or polymorph effects, curses, and permanent negative conditions (Core Rulebook 618–623) acquired during the course of the adventure. These negative effects must be cleared at the end of the adventure or the character must be reported as “dead,” unable to continue adventuring in Pathfinder Society organized play. Most of these negative effects can be cleared by spending Fame for the appropriate service on Table 2: All-Factions Boons. Other PCs may use their spells, feats, class abilities, or consumables to assist you in recovering from such negative effects, but they aren’t required to.
However, there is not an entry in the All-Factions boons table regarding curses, so unless the party has or can obtain a scroll of remove curse (70 GP) and one of the party can cast it, it seems perhaps the character must purchase spellcasting services (4th level, 40 GP). Unfortunately, spellcasting services are listed as Uncommon so PCs don't normally have access to them - but perhaps a kind GM might say the Society gives them access for this purpose.
(Or, and this seems a bit extreme, the PC could always die and purchase resurrection for 25 fame using the Resurrection Plan boon.)
Various people also pointed out things in stat blocks e.g. that DCs did not necessarily scale between high and low tier or, e.g. Bolster is missing from the Organ at high tier.
Regarding the bi-resonant wayfinder not being on the Chronicle -
"Ok, the reason it is not on the Chronicle sheet is because the players actually already have access to it by virtue of being members of the Pathfinder Society, so it was pulled from the Chronicle in D2. There's no harm in including it to signal to the PCs that they might want one, but it doesn't actually change the game state to have it on the Chronicle sheet either."
Absolutely true, it doesn't change anything formally. Then again, with no actual formal change to the "game state" the players could have been issued a chronicle that was not depressingly empty. It was an all-win no-loss option that would have felt much more satisfying for the player and would have only cost a few letters' worth of ink on the chronicle. And somehow they still chose against it. Sad...
Regarding clearing curses (for Pharoah's Ward hazard) -
The Pathfinder Society has resources to take care of its members, and many of the possible negative effects an adventurer can be subject to during an adventure are assumed to be taken care of during Downtime. The exceptions to this are death, permanent petrification or polymorph effects, curses, and permanent negative conditions (Core Rulebook 618–623) acquired during the course of the adventure. These negative effects must be cleared at the end of the adventure or the character must be reported as “dead,” unable to continue adventuring in Pathfinder Society organized play. Most of these negative effects can be cleared by spending Fame for the appropriate service on Table 2: All-Factions Boons. Other PCs may use their spells, feats, class abilities, or consumables to assist you in recovering from such negative effects, but they aren’t required to.
Curses have been an issue from all the way back in Quest 1, where the same thing could happen to a player from one of the monsters - they end up cursed, may even be unaware of it (in Quest 1, the curse had an onset time of 1 day so that would only start manifesting after the expected end of the scenario) and then after seemingly successfully finishing the scenario would have to be declared dead according to the Guide. I'm not sure if any GM ever actually did that but according to RAW they should have.
It's a ridiculous way of handling the issue with no currently available in-game solution and I'm sure neither author was aware that they were including a hidden very likely perma-death trap into their scenario. So while I agree that it would make logical sense to have the hazard trigger on attempting to open the door, it is a modification of the scenario as written that is hugely disadvantageous to the players since it can lead to permanent character death that would not be possible if the hazard was used as written (since as written the curse would never be triggered). Thus I'm opposed to modifying this hazard, even if as written it doesn't work at all.
Really, curses need to be written out of the Guide as a cause for declaring a character dead until such time that a workable solution, e.g. via fame or ACP, becomes available. But that didn't happen when it was pointed out for Quest 1, so I doubt it will happen now :(.
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"Ok, the reason it is not on the Chronicle sheet is because the players actually already have access to it by virtue of being members of the Pathfinder Society, so it was pulled from the Chronicle in D2. There's no harm in including it to signal to the PCs that they might want one, but it doesn't actually change the game state to have it on the Chronicle sheet either."
I can see their reasoning, but if that is true, then the narrative about the VC giving them out as awards to the characters for a job well down should have been removed. It sets up an expectation that is not delivered. It would have been a simple thing with plenty of precedent to add the item to the chronicle sheet with a small discount to reflect that it is a reward for their actions. I don’t think anyone is expecting something for nothing, but if you are going to go to the trouble of adding a narrative “attaboy” it should be reflected in the actual rewards.
With respect to clearing the curse, they could somewhat future-prof this issue by simply saying that while spellcasting services are normally uncommon, Pathfinder agents have access to them through the Society’s connections and resources. Or at least add a short list of services available to agents like we had in 1E. Neither of those solutions would take much development effort and would resolve all the existing issues with curses and provide a solution to all future issues with negative effects that carry on beyond the end of the scenario. Otherwise, players are going to get more and more particular about the group compositions and insist there is a character with access to remove spells which will play havoc on organizers.
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I must be blind, where is the trapped door in A2 supposed to be? The trigger of the higher-level version of the hazards talks about a "seal on the tomb. What tomb? What am I missing?
Also, the higher-level hazard feels weirdly out of place ("Pharaohs" in Ustalav?!) and I feel it's strange that so very different from the lower-lever version.
It's just one of the example hazards from the CRB that was copy/pasted over. It seems like a 7th level hazard was needed, and they just picked the only one in the CRB with little regard for if it made any sense, worked at all or was contextually appropriate. Might have happened in editing, as it's completly at odds with the otherwise very flavorfully written adventure.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Weird decision, both the selection of the higher-level hazard and the door placement. Why would anyone open the door when the flip-mat clearly shows it must be a fake?
I'm totally putting a secret level on my next map that you can only enter by walking in something that the flipmat clearly shows is a blank wall.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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Weird decision, both the selection of the higher-level hazard and the door placement. Why would anyone open the door when the flip-mat clearly shows it must be a fake?
Depends. Are you actually using a flipmat? And is the whole flipmat uncovered?
If the answer to both those questions is "Yes" (neither is a given), then you have a very different situation than someone drawing/uncovering a map as they go (especially if players don't already know this flipmat in the Uncovering case), or someone using a VTT with dynamic vision tools restricting players' map view to their characters' lines of sight.
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Wanted to post first to say thank you for the questions folks asked, above, as so far they've echoed things I was looking at, especially as regards the curse (and how PCs can relieve themselves of it, should they fall victim to it). I don't suppose anybody has learned more about possible solutions?
Having played this a week ago, I think this might be my favorite season 1 adventure (although it's a close race - there have been a ton of great ones).
Everyone at my table loved the puzzle in A7, so I decided to put a little something together for other GMs to use (that I'll be making use of when I run this next week, myself).
All art was found through random google searches or created using public resources, and posted to the PFS Prep shared GM resources site.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Weird decision, both the selection of the higher-level hazard and the door placement. Why would anyone open the door when the flip-mat clearly shows it must be a fake?Depends. Are you actually using a flipmat? And is the whole flipmat uncovered?
If the answer to both those questions is "Yes" (neither is a given), then you have a very different situation than someone drawing/uncovering a map as they go (especially if players don't already know this flipmat in the Uncovering case), or someone using a VTT with dynamic vision tools restricting players' map view to their characters' lines of sight.
In this case, the door leads to the exterior of the keep, which would not preclude the possibility of it being a secret door that they missed from the outside.
Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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4. The haunt in C1 triggers when someone moves within 10' of an area of the floor from which the choir can rise but no area for the haunt is marked.
The text of the trigger actually says "A creature moves within 10 feet of the section of floor from which the choir can arise." (emphasis mine) In the description of the hazard, it say "A choir of lost souls rises out of the floor.." These lost souls are ghosts so they are incorporeal. There is no section of floor physically rising or falling.
Since it does not say where the the area is, I put the area on the northern edge of the brown area directly in front of the door. This way it can be detected but not triggered.
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4. The haunt in C1 triggers when someone moves within 10' of an area of the floor from which the choir can rise but no area for the haunt is marked.
I ended up handling this off the map as something the PCs had to get past while moving from section B to section C. Otherwise the map is super crowded, and it becomes a bit much to have the PCs noticing and dealing with such a vicious trap for this level (we were playing subtier 5-6 and that thing is too much for this tier - DC 28 to disarm, Will save DC 24 and it does on average 36 damage) while in a room filled with zombies doing a Thriller dance.
The haunt itself says it occurs "as the PCs approach the hall", but the map is already entering hall itself. Since this encounter is not included in the final boss encounter C2, but is its own prior encounter C1, it shouldn't be happening at the same time. Also, hilariously the C1 haunt is labelled a "Trivial" encounter, despite it being a trap that a level 5 party would have a 20% chance of disarming and that could one-shot such characters (it can deal as much as 50 damage). It actually could massive damage kill a level 5 character since it can do 100 damage on a crit fail on the save. Trivial.