Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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First of all, it looks like these were all composed separately, and then when they were compiled, the names of locations (A1, A2, etc) were changed to match the "chapter" (So for Lightning, A1 becomes B1 and so on.) However a whole bunch of these were missed in the text, so various chapters refer to A1 or A2 that does not exist on the map.
I am really confused by the Haunt in Lightning. It is a CR 2 Haunt, with a 40 foot radius and 4 hit points. (At CR 2 it should have a 10 foot radius and 9 hit points.) But then it says it's effect fills the "marked area" which is a ten foot radius. But then the next encounter says it starts when the PCs approach withing 10 feet of the crater, which means if the PCs approach to neutralize the haunt, they will automatically trigger the second encounter (which will then be affected by the haunt as well.)
So which is correct, is it supposed to be 40 feet? or 10 feet?
I'm guessing it was written to be a 10 foot haunt, and someone realized that would mean both encounters would be combined, so it got upgraded to 40 foot and it's hit points cut in half to make it more reasonable and the map never got updated.
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The haunt is as Entangle, therefore using the radius of the entangle effect, centered on the point within the marked area closest to the PC's when they approach.
While running this several dozen times at Pax Prime, I allowed the PC's to damage the haunt so long as they were in the area effected by the entangle -- specifically because it says Dr. Quoloroum recommends hurting it with torches if they don't have another way of dealing with it.
Oh and don't forget to take advantage of your movement advantage since the monsters are floating and even without the entangle effect the area is hindering terrain.
Another fun encounter that relies a lot on the environment was the final encounter of Monolith. While the Morlock is pretty likely to get a surprise round / win initiative, without getting gamey with his climb speed that fight is over really quick. It particularly sucks that there's no mention of the ceiling height.
In my experience, the hardest part of the set was University. The 8 day DC 15 dominate person will wreck a first level party -- particularly since the mind-slaver mold should be targeting the first person to enter range (usually a martial with a low will). I ended up TPKing a group when Krow the Bloodrager got dominated and proceeded to kill everyone else. That said -- save the dominate for when the NPC gets killed accidently (no reason to show your best tricks early).
The pull mechanic in Epicenter is pretty brutal too. Since the Cerebric Fungus can take AoOs as they climb and pull them off the cliff face and drop them. Also if the players don't bring good light sources, the dim light provides concealment for it to stealth every round and continue throwing people into the pit.
Also IMO the small ledge around the other side of the map should require acrobatics checks (like a DC 10) given it's size and the fact that it's covered in wet mold according to the room description.
Those are my thoughts at least. Remember that the point of the quests is to help draw new players in and don't worry too much about RAW.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Also IMO the small ledge around the other side of the map should require acrobatics checks (like a DC 10) given it's size and the fact that it's covered in wet mold according to the room description.
Fortunately, the guide to organized play says that you can impose that penalty on the party, if they are having too easy a time. (If a description in the scenario does not have mechanics listed, but does have mechanics defined in the rules, it is the GM's choice whether or not to apply the mechanic depending on the players experience and how badly they are crushing the scenario)
Things to Know.
Linguistics cannot be used untrained, except to decode ancient versions of the PC's racial bonus languages. The party almost lost the Gorum's Eye from Monolith because no one had linguistics or knowledge skills (except knowledge nature)
But Kyra was with them, and her bonus language is Kellish, and the monolith's runes are ancient kellish, so she just squeeked by. (Though it took her three tries. Failed on the monolith, failed on a folio reroll, finally made it in the tunnels.)
Also, I realize this scenario is playable by people outside PFS, but I was amused to note that it calls out the monolith as a target for detect psychic significance, a spell that none of the pregen have.
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Kyra probably shouldn't have been able to get away with that. The monolith was Kellid, while Kyra speaks Kelish, a language that's most commonly found in Qadira. The very similar names for completely different groups is a bit frustrating.
Hallit would be the language to use here, possibly alongside Skald.
Any suggestions for that combat, Juniperkitsu/anyone else? I'm running a PBP group through the quests, and we'll be going to the Monolith soon. Combats so far have been pretty easy, so good ideas to up the difficulty a bit (or at least make sure the combat lasts long enough for everyone to have a chance to participate meaningfully)?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Kyra probably shouldn't have been able to get away with that. The monolith was Kellid, while Kyra speaks Kelish, a language that's most commonly found in Qadira. The very similar names for completely different groups is a bit frustrating.
Darn. Ah well. Played is played, yeah, I got confused by the endings.
That means that of the core Pregens, the only one who could use that loophole is possibly Amiri. Except that since her int is too low for bonus languages, we don't know if her racial bonus language is skald or hallit.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I always thought Amiri was Shoanti, not Ulfen or Kellid.
Could be, I couldn't find anything in her abreviated bio on the sheets other than that she is six bears tribe.
Pathfinder Wiki says she is kellid. No idea if that is someones assumption, or sourced from somewhere.
ETA: it is from her meet the iconics. So Hallit would be her racial bonus language.