RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I haven't read this yet, and only played this once. The final combat is really rough, though. Those rogues had Greater Invis and Silence and Arcane Eye up and max ranks in Spellcraft and Gaze of Flames to let them see perfectly through Obs Mist and 20+ daggers on them each. Also, there's the weird thing in the earlier part of the scenario that requires PCs to succeed at three different Stealth checks in order to attempt a Sleight of Hand check.
And all these things were written in a 1-2 scenario. At least, according to the GM.
Like Lau said, that doesn't sound right. It's possible your GM took some liberties with the encounters.
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I've run this... three times?... anyway, each time I've run this, the groups have chosen to do the Tavern and the Alchemist. (I second the caveat regarding drawing the sewer map... the first time I did, play broke as a bunch of adults made jokes about filthy sewers and the certain phallic shape of the mape. The White Lady in Kaer Maga was mentioned a couple of times. Thankfully, there were only adults at the table.)
The tavern has almost always been "Let's start a brawl and prevent the meeting that way!" although once, the brawl was started by a certain Sylph (maybe Undine?) walking up to the Aspis agent and slapping him across the face before crying and yelling about "How could you do this to me! I thought you loved me! I let you do UNSPEAKABLE THINGS to me!" and then rolling a couple of bluff checks to get the crowd on her side. Needless to say, the patrons were extremely upset that this sub-human piece of filth had broken this poor girl's heart and taken advantage of her so, and they had words with him. (By words, I mean they had a bar fight with him in the center of it.)
The Alchemist fight always seem to be a lot easier than it should be... If he's already at his lab, then he's cornered and the fight is over almost before it begins. I've started running it where the party gets there a few minutes before the Alchemist, to give him a bit of a chance. Otherwise, the party beats him on initiative and boxes him in, and then almost anything he does provokes, and he goes down to massive AoOs...
The warehouse is just a huge ball of fun. I love it because it gives the players a chance to get really creative. Trap the skylights, arcane lock the secret doors, blockade just about ever entrance except one, have the archer go up on the roof and set up between the skylights, trap everything, claim to be hazmat clean up, use bluff, use diplomacy, use linguistics, use disguise, and about a thousand dozen other things.
This is by far my favorite evergreen to date, and it has replaced Confirmation as the one that I keep prepped and ready to run on a moment's notice.
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I think so. So much of that encounter is freeform that it shouldn't be a big deal either way as long as it's approximately the same size.
For the bar encounter, could the map be substituted with any 'inn' map without causing too much difficulty?
I'm still trying to figure out the difference between the seedy tavern and waterfront tavern. They're nearly identical, so I don't know why they felt the need to create a new flip-mat, which is used for this adventure. Since I have the waterfront tavern, I'm going to use that when I run this tonight.
I'm not sure yet if I'll be there Sunday, but if I am, you can borrow my map.
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I think so. So much of that encounter is freeform that it shouldn't be a big deal either way as long as it's approximately the same size.
I'm still trying to figure out the difference between the seedy tavern and waterfront tavern. They're nearly identical, so I don't know why they felt the need to create a new flip-mat, which is used for this adventure. Since I have the waterfront tavern, I'm going to use that when I run this tonight.
I'm not sure yet if I'll be there Sunday, but if I am, you can borrow my map.
My understanding was that Waterfront Tavern was very popular (and used in a bunch of PFS scenarios) so when it sold out they took it and added it to the Seedy Tavern map(s) just at a slightly different scale.
IMHO either map can work just fine for #7-10. In fact, I used sharpie to draw the #7-10 warehouse map on the back of Waterfront Tavern so I can just keep that one with me all of the time, allowing me to run #7-10 as a backup scenario wherever I go!
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Just GMed this for the first time, and it went well.
I did find one minor problem that hasn't been mentioned - Laszo's alchemy formula book doesn't say what "spells" he has. Obviously, he has his prepared extracts, but he should have at least 3 more in there, based on being level 2 with a +3 int bonus.
I had an alchemist PC at the table who wanted to copy his book, so I just gave him 3 more at random from the APG list. There are 20 in there, so I just rolled randomly, and I think it came up as Ant Haul, Detect Secret Doors, and Reduce Person.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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This is by far my favorite evergreen to date, and it has replaced Confirmation as...
Glad to hear it! Thanks for sharing your experiences. Made me laugh. :) Some people have said that the warehouse encounter is too easy. I hope that the opportunity to deal with it in a variety of creative ways makes it a memorable and satisfying encounter regardless.
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...an impressive success if they are able to disrupt the meeting and identify the agents involved.
This was addressed earlier in the thread, but without resolution. For parties that have expressed interest in identifying the agents Sareth Markell and Rukaina Hasheen, how have you handled this? Would you have them make Perception checks opposed to Disguise checks? Sense Motive opposed by Bluff? Should the PCs simply have a commitment to spending time in the bar listening to conversations?
Any PC who fails the DC 15 skill check is caught and kicked off the ship, but as long as two or more PCs are not caught, the rest of the PCs may board the ship without being noticed. If the people on the docks notice two or more PCs, they conduct a thorough search, and find all PCs who did not succeed at the skill check by 10 or more. Thereafter, the DC of skill checks to sneak aboard the ship increases to 25.
This utterly baffles me. If two PCs succeed, everyone may board the ship. If two PCs fail, a thorough search is performed finding anyone that didn't exceed the check DC by 10 or more. A hardline read may be too penalizing. How did you handle this at your tables?
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Moderately excited to run this Friday at PaizoCon. We'll see if anyone can top my dhampir warpriest running a distraction by asking the first mate if he could book passage for the church of Urgathoa.
Let us know how it goes! Or maybe I'll bump into you at the con. I probably won't be there until Saturday, though.
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I'm curious how GMs handle the meeting at the bar in respect to the skill checks.
Do you come out and tell the players that they require 3 successful checks, from different players, to pass from one phase to the next?
For someone who has never played or ran this scenario it might not be intuitive. If a spell caster uses a Silent Image to create a distraction, if I were the DM I could assume he was using Spellcraft and taking 10 and receives a bonus if needed to achieve the needed DC. I would never consider rolling it as a player. I'd think the spell was a good enough solution. Even with this, it's not good enough for a distraction since you don't have two more PCs thinking of a skill to use to help.
A few of the solutions in this thread sounded awesome but left me wondering what other skills the other PCs used. If you slip a mickey in someone's drink or charm someone it would look like a success.
Do GMs occasionally hand-wave the requirement for 3 PC skill successes at every phase?
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Regarding the skill checks, I've only ran this once but to get the whole team cooperating; once they had a rough plan I would go around the table and ask specifically what their character was doing to make this plan work. For more seasoned players I would take a second to mention that the mechanics of the challenge favors independent rolls over aiding another.
I would just go clockwise around the table from the plan instigator asking how are you helping the group blend in with the locals, how are you helping mcstab poison their drinks without getting caught, how are you helping seoni trick them into drinking these drinks? With some of the plans that really hinge on one character, I would introduce mini complications that the other party members would need to prevent to ensure a success. For example, mcstab successful poisoned the drinks but no one else has rolled a skill, so two thugs walk up and say 'thanks for the drinks chump' and try to make off with the poisoned drinks, and the other players would have to find a way to bring it on track. Another thing that helps is instead of asking a player what they are doing, rolling a skill check, narrating events, then asking the next player what they are doing (which really confuses them when they are asked what they are doing to help with the poisoning after mcstab rolls a 30), it helps the ask each player how they will help with the plan, then roll all the skills and narrate the result.
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Just ran this again yesterday (have now played and GMed it twice each), and I had trouble keeping up with the skill checks in that bar scene.
The problem wasn't so much the quantity of successes needed at each step, it was keeping track of which check should count for which step. Sometimes, planning, implementing the plan, and recovering from problems will overlap, and I find myself thinking "Which step does this count for, so what's the DC?"
In this case, there were only 3 PC's and a pregen, so they only needed 2 successes per step with the 4 player adjustment. It's a good thing, too, since they were rolling awful, and didn't exactly have any high skill characters.
And now that I've been through the scenario 4 times, I still have yet to have a group go to the ship. It's always the bar and the alchemist. These guys did everything else different than my previous runs, though:
1. They're the first group who didn't start a bar fight using the "Three Stooges" method to disrupt the meeting.
2. They're the first group to get impressive successes on both of their early tasks.
3. They're the first group to actually damage the warehouse. They decided to rip the ladder off the side of the building to cut off the easy access to secondary guard room door, and they also knocked over a stack of crates during the Aspis fight.
4. They're the first group to have a PC death in this adventure. One of the Aspis agents in the warehouse got a crit against a PC that was already wounded.
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Too lazy to go back and re-read 100+ posts right now. Did we ever establish if the two agents meeting at the tavern know each other? Can PCs reasonably impersonate one of them to fake a meeting with the other, or do they know each other, so they wouldn't fall for that?
Just skimmed the scenario trying to find this, and it kinda suggests that they know each other " Markell called a meeting
with one of the Aspis’s Bronze agents, Rukaina Hasheen."But given the nature of the encounter, what is the harm in letting the impersonation work? Or how would you spin this into an "unexpected twist" or "preparation".
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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If the PCs can figure out who to impersonate, that could work great, but they don't know which agents are involved until they actually spot the agents, absent some other creative measure. Delroya only knows that a meeting will take place, but not who is meeting, so the PCs don't know either until the last minute.
EDIT: the impersonation would require a disguise, as they do know each other, unless a dev says otherwise of course. :)
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Too lazy to go back and re-read 100+ posts right now. Did we ever establish if the two agents meeting at the tavern know each other? Can PCs reasonably impersonate one of them to fake a meeting with the other, or do they know each other, so they wouldn't fall for that?
I asked this very question when I first played this. The GM read the relevant part of the scenario carefully, and found the wording to be at best ambiguous; while at least the name of the Aspis agent is known to the other agent, there's nothing to say they have actually ever met face-to-face before. Given that (and the exhortation to allow creative solutions) our plan of serially impersonating each of the agents in turn, and acting so boorishly that each agent stormed out vowing to never do business with the other party again, was allowed to proceed. Some cooperative dice rolls on bluff checks meant that although we managed to disrupt the meeting, neither of the two agents were aware of any outside interference - each blamed the other side for the failure to reach an agreement.
I'm a little disappointed to see a post from the scenario author that rules out this approach; everybody at the table (including the GM) had great fun role-playing this encounter, and I still think of it as a significant part of one of the most enjoyable games that I've played.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I'm a little disappointed to see a post from the scenario author that rules out this approach; everybody at the table (including the GM) had great fun role-playing this encounter, and I still think of it as a significant part of one of the most enjoyable games that I've played.
I don't see any problem with that. The important thing is for everyone to be creative and have fun. I suppose my assumption was that the agents knew each other, but yes, the text is ambiguous. In that case, the GM's interpretation is most correct! :)
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I could easily see showing up at the meeting and explaining that the reason I am here rather than XXX was "our superiors have decided he was being to lenient when dealing with your organization. He has been quietly recalled and I'm here to straitened things out while he is 're-educated'".
Yeah, I've got a good bluff as well as a good disguise... ;-)
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Another question that's come up in a couple of my runs of this (including my current PBP): What should you do if the group goes to Laszo's lab while he isn't there. They find the test subjects, obviously, and they can wait to ambush Laszo (I had a group knock him out in a surprise round).
But what about the beetles? Should they come out and attack anyone searching the lab, or do they wait for Laszo's instructions?
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Each time, my group has gone there first. They fought the beetles, interacted with the junkies, searched. One group found the notes and the unrefined vial. The other didn't, and figured they ought to come back later.
Them: "Well, that wasn't much help. What time is it?"
Me: "Call it quarter-past-eleven."
Them: "Well, let's hurry and catch that meeting, come back here later."
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I just noticed that the Acolyte NPC on page 27 is a cleric with the law and healing domains, but no deity given. The only major deity that has both of those that I can find is Irori. Should I tell my PCs that they see a holy symbol of Irori on him? Or is there a less well known god that this guy would follow (while possibly being a member of the Kortos or Aspis Consortium)?
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Irori should be okay, even for Aspis.
Has anyone made a copy of the ware house map without boxes?
Hmm
I just use it as is, but I printed little 3/4" square pictures of boxes that the players can put onto the map to represent a stack they moved, and then turn one upside down to mark the place they took the boxes from.
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I had half a dozen sets of these I speed-painted one evening. They weren't enough to actually represent the whole warehouse but they worked okay... players have a funny way of thinking that anything that's a mini is something they interact with. Your ideas to use something else for boxes helps!
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/crate/latest/77248
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I'm running this this evening, and so have been going over the fine points... and questions pop up.
Moving Crates in the Warehouse. "...One PC can move
a 5-foot square of stacked crates by hand a total of 5 feet
in 10 minutes—if the PC succeeds at a DC 20 Strength
check, or if a group of PCs works together, they can move
the same amount a total of 10 feet in 10 minutes..."
so say, if one of my PCs wants to block a door by moving crates in front of it... It's a DC20 Strength check after 10 minutes. To go 5'.
He get's a friend to help. The two now have to make a ...???... Do they still have the Strength check? Do both of them roll and they count the better roll? Does one roll and the second rolls Aid Another?
6 Hours of moving crates would be 36 checks to get a DC 20... SO someone with an 18 strength (+4) will move one square of crates an average of 45 foot. 9 squares of crate movement. With a 14 strength (+2) this drops to slightly over 5 squares of crate movement.
And someone with a 10 strength ... will get slightly over one square of crate movement in 6 hours, call it 2 squares.
How are people getting almost all the doors blocked?
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No, the DC 20 strength check, or 2 people working together (no check required), can move the crates 10 feet. One person working alone and failing the strength check can still move the crates 5 feet. And you don't have to move every stack of crates to cover the doors.
Besides, I've never had a group try to cover every door. They usually just cover most of them to force the enemies to come in through one particular entrance (and usually overlook the skylight). That's from 8 times playing/GMing this so far.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If the players block every entry, it's a good learning scenario. They'll learn that:
- If you're going to completely block the enemy, you'd better succeed.
- If you leave the enemy no good way in, they'll come in at a place not of your choosing.
When I played it we covered the skylights with blankets, so you can't see what you're descending into before committing. And then put bear traps underneath. Took down the Aspis healer.
The Aspis fighter got crit to death by another bear trap on the stairs. (We had one of those alchemists in the party.)
The storyteller bard cannot use their countersong bardic performance ability because they do not have ranks in Perform (keyboard, percussion, wind, string, or sing)?
Correct?