PFS #7-13 Captive in Crystal

[Utii]

So I have some questions about this well ritten Senario.
First: the first Boon has three paragrafs one for turning yourself and one for turning a new character and one for a Kineticist. Do you pay Prestige for the last paragraf or gain access to that for all kineticist or only the one applied with this chronicle sheet?

Second: making a new char with the boon would it imply that you bring a copy of that chronicle sheet with the neew character?

Third: The Grand Lodge faction wants to learn of the missing agents and you can get info on Grave Threader twice either from the Genie or Master of Spells but only the Genie count at the end as a success should master of spells deal count toward the success??

[John Compton]

Kineticists:

A kineticist can select the earth child utility talent at no addition cost. However, the kineticist must still acquire the talent by using an available talent slot (such as from gaining levels).

Copies of Chronicle sheets:

Yes, please make a copy of the Chronicle sheet and include it with the new character—much as you would handle a special race boon. It might be helpful to cross out the other boons and gear, just to make clear that it's only the Elemental Saturation boon that you're using.

Grand Lodge:

Sorrina Westyr's information is insufficient for the Grand Lodge criteria because she only knows that Grave Treader agreed to work off her debt. Only the shaitan Reyshal knows where to investigate to track down Grave Treader; the the Development section on page 14.

[Yiroep]

Chronicle Spoilers:

Implication of the boon in CORE. I'm just assuming that you can't...or am I wrong in that assumption?

[Andrew L Klein]

More Chronicle spoilers (Re: Andrew):

Sounds like it. One is a new race (a rare exception to Core's "Access if it's on a boon" rule), and the other is "If you have this class already" for a class Core can't get.

It's a little disappointing to see such a major (and in my opinion, THE major for the scenario) boon be unavailable in Core, but it's made up for by giving effectively a race boon to everyone for two characters just for playing a non-special scenario.

[Iammars]

So I did my magic today on this scenario, especially since there's a kineticist in there and I figured that GMs would need help. Two questions came up as I was working that stat block though.

The 5-6 kineticist has DR 4/adamantine, but I think that they should have DR 3/adamantine (1 base, 1 from level 4, 1 from burn). Am I missing something?
Also, they're wearing boots of the friendly terrain, but that doesn't do anything since they're not a ranger, right?

[andreww]

James McTeague wrote:

So I did my magic today on this scenario, especially since there's a kineticist in there and I figured that GMs would need help. Two questions came up as I was working that stat block though.

The 5-6 kineticist has DR 4/adamantine, but I think that they should have DR 3/adamantine (1 base, 1 from level 4, 1 from burn). Am I missing something?
Also, they're wearing boots of the friendly terrain, but that doesn't do anything since they're not a ranger, right?

Thanks for that, I am running this next week and you have saved me hours of prep.

Looking at the variant elemental creatures it isn't clear what their reach is. The stat block in the scenario doesn't list one as the base creature is normally small.

Also, the ranged attack they have has some odd damage listed. the greater ones are getting 1.5xstr on damage, the King isn't getting anything.

[andreww]

Also just to note, the high tier critter at the end has improved critical but it isn't include in its attack stat block.

[Iammars]

I'll add the improved crit range on the Greater Thunder Wisps on my doc, so at least they'll be there.

As for the variant earth elementals, I'm just going now with exactly what's said in the scenario. If John comes in and says that they should have the shape of crysmals (affecting not only their reach but their CMD vs. trip), then that's an easy enough fix.

I thought that was weird with the Crysmal King too, but went "eh - they shouldn't be using ranged attacks anyway" and moved onward.

[Serisan]

Boon clarification:

For characters with GM credit and no table play, does the boon have to predate the GM credit chronicles? For example, I have 2 character numbers with enough chronicles to go straight to 2 or 3 that haven't been built yet and they'd be the obvious choices for the boon, but would they not be legal choices since I got the boon today, or would I have to assign it to a new character with GM credits dated after my chronicle for this scenario?

[andreww]

I am prepping this for tomorrow and have questions about the final encounter.

Spoiler:

What are the save modifiers for the archive. We have hardness and HP but it may well be included in the area of aoe spells. In particular it is likely to be caught by the Terror Tempest. In a related point does the Tempest damage the archive? It says creatures but the description of the effect would suggest everything in the area is affected.

[Leg o' Lamb]

Serisan wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry dog, in yer case it is brand spanking new! The chrons must be applied in order of earning them.

[John Compton]

Andrew Roberts wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Regarding the longest boon on the Chronicle sheet:

Actually, the oread boon is entirely compatible with the Core Campaign, and it represents a way for someone in that campaign to play a non-Core race. Note, however, that this boon does not open up other oread options from other books, so the Core oread would not have access to variant racial abilities, oread feats, the oread spells from Advanced Race Guide, etc. What you see in Bestiary 2 is what you get.

[andreww]

John Compton wrote:

Andrew Roberts wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Do you have to have the linked chronicle in core mode for its discount to apply?

[Yiroep]

andreww wrote:

Do you have to have the linked chronicle in core mode for its discount to apply?

CORE mode is its own separate campaign, so yes, you would need the boon for this one in CORE mode, and you would need the linked one also in CORE mode to use the boon in CORE with the discount.

[Andrew L Klein]

John Compton wrote:

Andrew Roberts wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

CORE Chronicle question:

The instructions for CORE say

Quote:

Race boons found on Chronicle sheets may not be used in the Core Campaign.

There should be a note on this chronicle if it's an exception to that rule. As it stands, unless someone comes to this thread, they aren't going to know that the boon doesn't follow the CORE rules. Normally I wouldn't request an edit to a scenario file, but this is kind of big.

[Moskau]

Question about implementing the long boon:

Since I expect to get a lot of questions about this boon, when it comes to switching races, what exactly is lost and gained? For example, if a player would have a human and want to utilize this boon, do they lose all the standard or would they just lose human alternative favored class bonuses/human race traits/etc? When they become the oread, do they gain everything listed as a racial trait or is there a subset?

[Muser]

I had a lot of fun in this scenario, playing as my Stonelord. It's surprisingly engrossing considering the subject. I mean, on the surface it's a crystal cave full of elementals. Woo. Leave precision damage classes home. But wait, suddenly it's almost a planar adventure, even the politics are there? Wait, a magical archive? Wishes? Metaplot?!

Great stuff.

[Freki]

Muser wrote:

I had a lot of fun in this scenario, playing as my Stonelord. It's surprisingly engrossing considering the subject. I mean, on the surface it's a crystal cave full of elementals. Woo. Leave precision damage classes home. But wait, suddenly it's almost a planar adventure, even the politics are there? Wait, a magical archive? Wishes? Metaplot?!

Great stuff.

Ehhehe, best library ever! Pity about th'cost of transforming into a geniekin. I'd have to lose me traditions.

-Freki Slagson Ironblood, Stonelord of the Warrior's Ring

[Salafax]

Randy Saxon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

A related question/example about the boon...

Spoiler:

Let's say my human ranger wishes to take advantage of this awesome boon. Would I have to give up "Skilled" and the bonus feat at first level for Oread goodness? I guess I'm not clear on what "race related options" referenced in the chronicle sheet are.

Thanks in advance -- my players and I really enjoyed the scenario!

[John Compton]

Salafax wrote:

Randy Saxon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

A related question/example about the boon...

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks in advance -- my players and I really enjoyed the scenario!

Spoiler:

You would change all of it, losing skilled, human-specific favored class bonuses, and the bonus feat.

[Salafax]

John Compton wrote:

Salafax wrote:

Randy Saxon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

A related question/example about the boon...

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks in advance -- my players and I really enjoyed the scenario!

** spoiler omitted **

Makes sense -- thanks, John!

[NickSullivan]

In regard to the core campaign and the use of certain boons, here is the relevant rule from the original blog post.

Spoiler:

Mike Brock wrote:

For players participating in the Core Campaign, only the Core Rulebook, Character Traits Web Enhancement, and Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play may be utilized for character creation.

At no time may any trait, feat, equipment, magic item, skill, animal companion, familiar, or any other character option come from a source beyond these three resources unless it appears on a Chronicle sheet. Race boons found on Chronicle sheets may not be used in the Core Campaign.
If an item appears on a Chronicle sheet, a PC may purchase and use it regardless of the book it comes from, with the exception of a boon that opens up a different character race.

[Serisan]

facefacefaceface wrote:

In regard to the core campaign and the use of certain boons, here is the relevant rule from the original blog post.

** spoiler omitted **

And this is a specific exemption from that.

[GreySector]

John,

I had a question from a player regarding this boon.

Spoiler:

The question is whether the stat adjustments are completely changed from the original race to the oread race, or if it is similar to reincarnation where only the physical stat adjustments are changed? For example, say an elf (+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, –2 Constitution) uses the boon to become an oread (+2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, –2 Charisma). Does the elf retain +2 Int, lose +2 Dex/-2 Con, and gain +2 Str? Or does the elf lose +2 Dex/+2 Int/-2 Con and replace it with +2 Str/+2 Wis/-2 Cha?

[John Compton]

Michael Eshleman wrote:

John,

I had a question from a player regarding this boon.

** spoiler omitted **

Response:

It is complete replacement of all ability scores (+2 Str, +2 Wis, –2 Cha), much as though the character had always been an oread.

[GreySector]

John Compton wrote:

Michael Eshleman wrote:

John,

I had a question from a player regarding this boon.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks John! I thought that was most likely the case, but it is good to have confirmation!

[Duncan7291]

Is there any interaction between boon on #6–07: Valley of Veiled Flame and this chronicle? Any plan for #6–07: Valley of Veiled Flame boon?

[DrParty06]

Robert Reine wrote:

Is there any interaction between boon on #6–07: Valley of Veiled Flame and this chronicle? Any plan for #6–07: Valley of Veiled Flame boon?

It's explained on the chronicle sheet for this if you read carefully.

Chronicle Text:

If any of your PCs possesses the Oread’s Favor boon, halve the Prestige Point cost of using this boon.

[Duncan7291]

Nice. I guess I didn't read close enough the first time when I skimmed through it :)

[Azouth]

Can all kineticist you make take that or only the one?

[Zoomba]

Reading through this scenario, very excited to run it this weekend.

I do have a question about the Thunder Wisp's terror tempest ability. It says that the storm is short-lived but does not mention a duration. Should it be one round (thus giving the wisp concealment while it's visible and disappearing right when it can vanish again)?

I am also wondering how hard it is to move the crystal plates. While I doubt they can be moved quickly, knowing my lodge it's possible some players may try to take a few plates and run if they have trouble with the final encounter.

[andreww]

I ran it as lasting for a round. I didnt think the plates could be easily moved, especially not during combat, given how many their are and they are stacked very high.

[Zoomba]

Ran this today at high tier, 4 players.

This session ran relatively smoothly, and ran on the shorter end relative to most recent scenarios (a good thing, as most s7 have run long in my experience). The players did not jump on many of the missing Pathfinder leads, but none were Grand Lodge so it was not escpecially out of character.

The First encounter went well, being a good balance of threat and ability of them to handle it. They quite liked the meeting with ik Jalman, and took to RPing the terms of the deal even before realizing it was a mechanic. The first fight in the Archive was pretty short (super crit on the prism warden for 100+ damage will shorten that fight). The last combat took a while, as while the could essentially kill a vault guardian in one round, hitting the Terror Tempest was a challenge. Luckily a silence cast on a RiddleWhipple both helped mitigate the archive damage and and reduced the sonic damage they were taking (my GM ruling, which I believe is correct, but at least makes sense). They eventually prevailed however, and managed to stop it just before it hit the first Secondary Success threshold.

Overall a fun scenario, with a nice offbeat scope for a typical Pathfinder mission.

I do have one question about the chronicle sheet however. The Elemental Saturation boon allows for:

Spoiler:

"When creating a new 1st level PC, you may instead spend 10 Prestige Points and check the box that precedes this boon to create an Oread PC"

Who would pay these Prestige Points? I read this boon as saying the character getting this chronicle could pay the Prestige to let the player make a new PC, but another GM thought differently.

[Eric Clingenpeel]

Well since there's no way for a new character to spend prestige, the only way for it to work is for the character who earned the boon to pay it.

[CorvusMask]

Azouth wrote:

Can all kineticist you make take that or only the one?

Would be nice to get answer on this question <_<

[Matthew Morris]

I want to give a special thanks to James McTeague for his cheat sheets. The kineticist write up made it a lot easier to run the guy. That and having our resident geokineticust on hand.

[Belafon]

Finally played this yesterday and then read it to figure out what on earth (pun intended) was going on with that kineticist. It absolutely brutalized us at the high tier. I'm still not well versed in the Occult classes. I struggled through it for a while but figured it all out except for one thing:

Quote:

For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist takes 1 point of nonlethal damage per character level.

The ability descriptions call for the pech to take a number of points of nonlethal for each burn equal to its racial HD plus its class levels. (11 at low tier, 14 at high tier.) However I don't see anywhere where it says that Racial HD are treated as character levels. The only thing I can find is in the Bestiary section on "Monsters as PCs" where it says:

Bestiary wrote:

Treat the monster’s CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.

So maybe I'm missing something but since a base pech has a CR of 3 I would think that the burn should be 8 (low-tier) or 11 (high tier). Mind you, I think the way the scenario says to do it is more fair, but I don't see how it got to that conclusion.

On a related note about that encounter it appears to be CRed way too low. Monsters with HD have a CR of (Racial HD + Class levels). So just the pech kineticist would be CR 8 at low tier and CR 11 at high tier. All the pechs were given the heroic NPC stat array (+5, +4, +3, +2, +0, -2) in addition to the normal scores as a monster NPC. So that was a huge boost. I'm not sure what CR adjustment that adds but it's got to be at least 1. Low tier the kineticist is a CR 9 or 10 and high tier is CR 12 or 13 by itself. At the high tier add in a couple of CR 9 or 10 witches. Oh, and don't forget the favorable terrain for a creature with a climb speed. The total encounter CR is between 13 and 15. No wonder our APL 8 group struggled so hard.

[Iammars]

You don't have how to calculate CR for class-leveled monsters correct.

First of all, as part of adding class levels, you're supposed to add +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2. That's part of the process. In addition, if you give a monster a class that isn't a key class for it's role, then every 2 levels adds only +1 CR until you've added enough levels to double it's CR.

That encounter is CR'd correctly. Now, it may be harder than its CR implies - but everything seems fine.

[Belafon]

James McTeague wrote:

You don't have how to calculate CR for class-leveled monsters correct.

First of all, as part of adding class levels, you're supposed to add +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2. That's part of the process. In addition, if you give a monster a class that isn't a key class for it's role, then every 2 levels adds only +1 CR until you've added enough levels to double it's CR.

That encounter is CR'd correctly. Now, it may be harder than its CR implies - but everything seems fine.

Yeah, I know I don't have the CR system down properly. I suppose it's possible the +4 +4 +2 +2 +0 -2 array was used instead of the heroic... let me recheck the possible places the level bumps could be.

edit: Nope, went back and checked it. I can't find a way to get both Dex AND Con to 18 (before elemental overflow) without using the Heroic NPC stat array. Ditto for the witches (although it's Int and Str that don't work out for them.)

You're right about the witches and their CR/role. But is the kineticist is really not considered a "combat" role when considering whether or not it is a key role!? I can't find where any classes but the CRB ones are defined.

edit again: OK, after looking it over again I still think the kineticist should be a "combat" role and at high tier she is right around CR12. Call it a hair under. The witches make it around CR13. So that works out to an Epic encounter for a group of 6 9th level characters. Works out to "PFS Epic" (just made that up) for an APL 8 group.

We did manage to triumph but it was a long fight with tons of healing, several people dropping into the negatives and one character death. Never said it was an impossible fight, just that the CR was on the low side. And it took a long time. :)

[Iammars]

Kineticist definitely shouldn't be a key class unless the base creature also counts as having levels of kineticist for the purpose of blasts much like casters never count as a key class unless the creature has some innate casting.

As for the stats Either way, off by +1 to hit isn't really isn't that big of a deal. If it makes you feel better, decrease his Dex by to make up for it. That minor error in stats isn't that big of a deal.

[Belafon]

Got sidetracked there with an aside... the actual question was "is the amount of damage she's taking per burn correct or is it too much?"

Spoiler:

Yes that would make her even harder... not really trying to judge, just the thing that popped out at me.

[WaterDragon]

James McTeague wrote:

So I did my magic today on this scenario, especially since there's a kineticist in there and I figured that GMs would need help. Two questions came up as I was working that stat block though.

Wow, James. I always download the GM prep before I run an scenarios. It is always a pretty good read and it does help a little, but I always have to redo it in a format that is easier for me to run. This is the first time, I ran across a prep that is so good that I don't think I would have done a better job. Hats off to you.

Love to know what else you done, so that I would be more incline to GM those scenarios.

[Phylotus]

So, I have a question about the Crysmals:

The Greater Crysmals have their damage listed as 3d8+12, while the Crysmal King is running a 3d8+11. So, was something listed wrong and the Crysmal King should instead have +16 (1.5 strength), should the Greater Crysmals have +8, or should they stay as they are and I missed something?

[Serisan]

The king has 2 stings, so his are at normal strength. Because the greaters have only 1 sting, it gets 1.5x STR to damage, in accordance with the natural weapon rules.

[Phylotus]

Aha, so I did miss something. Thank you very much :-)

[CanisDirus]

So, since I'm running this a few times at a con this weekend, I started pre-rolling some things to help save time, and I noticed something -

In area B2, the scenario states that sonic damage does full damage to the plates, which have hardness 8. Should the sonic damage bypass hardness?

If no, using my first two pre-roll sets, it will take 11-13 rounds for the plates to reach 65hp (the first important threshold).

If yes, it only takes 4-5 rounds to reach that point and a total of 10-13 to hit 30hp.

Based on the scenario's language in the success conditions section, I'm inclined to think yes, but wanted to post just in case I'm wrong (which in turn makes two of the success conditions rather easy). Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

[Martin Dreier]

@Mike: In the description of the crystalline disks at the beginning of page 22, it says that sonic damage ignores their hardness and deals full damage.

I noticed that standard Crysmals' shard spike as well as the Crysmal King's crystal shard deal no additional damage (only 3d6 / 3d8), but the Greater Crysmal's crystal shard deals 2d6+12. I think either both crystal shard attacks should deal additional damage, or none should, but I cannot say which one was intended.

[CanisDirus]

@Martin: It doesn't say that, actually, which is why I asked.

Page 22 wrote:

During this encounter, the collection of crystalline

disks has 100 hit points and 8 hardness (sonic damage
deals full damage)

As for the Crysmals, I think someone answered that further up-thread, but I'm on a mobile device right now so I can't easily check.

[BigNorseWolf]

What exactly is zarta doing in the intro? This is the second time i've seen her paired with kreighton shane. Are they a thing now?

[Serisan]

While she's been toned down, I think she's there for the innuendo.