7-24 Dead Man's Debt


GM Discussion

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Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 **

Just one thing that has stuck out to me so far. I assume that the price of a +1 Greenwood Composite Longbow should not be the same as the base bow from Tier 1-2?

Silver Crusade 4/5 Venture-Captain, Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh

I have not yet finished reading this through, but my wife has already decided to play her Ekujae character. I have a feeling this is going to get complicated. Hmmm!

Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 **

Terminalmancer wrote:
I have not yet finished reading this through, but my wife has already decided to play her Ekujae character. I have a feeling this is going to get complicated. Hmmm!

Please report back about how much of your wife's blood you spill.

4/5

Few questions about this scenario:

1. For the first part with the three successes for disease, does this take place before all of the traveling or near the end? This could affect how they heal the ability damage, as the scenario takes place over several days.
2. Any guidance one when A and B happen? A says "several days," and B has no guidance other than before the Ekujae territory.
3. How many guards are with Fola?
4. Does she help with fighting?

Thanks!

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Hard to respond when all three are in a spoiler, but I'll try.

Question 1:
The saves are supposed to be representative of the time in the Jungle and the chances of being exposed to something awful. I would argue that since the effects trigger before area C, and they explicitly aren't a concern on the "walk back home" the intent was that everything culminates at the very end. But that's my interpretation.

Question 2:
The total travel time on page 7 says 5 days, in A it says, "several", which to me means three. C occurs 5 days in, which would imply B should occur four days in. Again, personal opinion.

Question 3:
The scenario reads, "She has ordered the other three members of her patrol..." So three.

Question 4:
She is explicitly noted in area D3 as a target, so I would say "yes". The problem being she doesn't scale with the encounter, so the party may spend more time protecting her than not.

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

I hope everyone enjoys the adventure. I definitely had fun writing it! Keep in mind the following answers are not official, just how I would handle the situations if I were GMing. As for Andrew's questions...

Question 1:
Because it emphasizes the danger of jungle travel, I like the idea that some of the PCs are already suffering when they get to encounter A, so I'd have the characters make one save each day for the first three days. More about timing in my next response.

By the way, I wish I could take credit for the disease system, but it wasn't in my turnover. I'd been struggling with how to represent the dangers of extended travel in the jungle, and what Linda and John came up with is much more elegant and thorough than what I'd done.

Question 2:
As for when particular events happen, I left the encounter timing inexact so the GM could decide on when they take place. I like encounter A late on the 2nd day or early on the 3rd, and B on the 4th day.

Grand Lodge 1/5

I'm planning to run this tomorrow, and something about one of the encounters isn't clear to me.

Spoiler:
Where is the quicksand located in the first encounter? The description mentions that the "innocuous puddles" behave like quicksand because of the rain, but they don't seem to be marked on the map. Is it supposed to be the brownish portions of the map?

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5

FYI, I was a player at Andrew's inaugural table, and an RP/lore bit baffled me.

(Not using spoiler tags, please feel free to mod me)

The most common second language in Ekujae elf stat blocks is Common, aka Taldane, and they're extensively characterized as xenophobic.

Is this language choice specifically because of past conflict with Aspis? It would seem logical that there'd be at least as much conflict with other human neighbors, hence Polyglot seems more logical. Note that the monolingual humans in To Judge a Soul speak Tien, while the elves are most commonly statted with Elven and Common, like in this scenario, so the seeming oddity is not unique.

Liberty's Edge 4/5

I'm running this tomorrow and have the same question as Cenorin

Shadow Lodge 5/5

I walked into running this scenario with a very strong, "well this is an absolutely middlin' adventure, 3/5 easily." My opinions were confirmed after I ran this yesterday.

Our table was a slightly under-powered group that really suffered due to the disease mechanics, and the final encounter which was the absolute definition of a slap fight. Really, I think things suffered because of the following two elements:

The disease mechanic got a lot of groans when it came out. There was a general sense of rules bending to get a desired effect, which one player argued that there are existing rules, why did there have to be another. For me though, the biggest problem is that this was only there to chew through resources. Because the actual "effect" doesn't kick in until Area C (explicitly stated in the scenario), and area C is both optional and very likely not a combat situation (you usually have Elves with you, and even if they're injured you only take one round of attacks) there's no real penalty to be had. The following area also doesn't include combat. That means that you're suffering through this diseased state only to either a) die to the disease (which nearly happened to one character at my table) or b) getting to the village and likely needing to pay gold out of pocket to get rid of the damage, since they offer some pretty solid healing. It was just not fun.

The final encounter though felt like the biggest slap fight I've ever encountered in PFS. With a lack of "good" aligned characters in the group (there were some, but they weren't viable combatants, so there was no reason to attack them), the entire fight turned into "I do 2-3 points of damage to you, you do 2-3 points of damage to me". On their side this has to do with low damage attacks, on the PCs side it has to do with having weapons out to take on the silver DR of the BBEG, which then leaves them dealing with the cold iron DR of the demons. It's really counter-intuitive when you think about it. Not the scenario's fault for this part, but my group also suffered from lacking ranged damage options, which meant that the BBEG just plucked at them at range (with fairly minimal damage too), while they tried desperately to do the same (not being able to get to him). Honestly, it was one of the most slog-worthy encounters I've ever seen.

Oh well...

Grand Lodge

Just finished playing this one today. It was fun. Not overly difficult. We played up with 5 players, including my Investigator 3, a Divination Wizard 4, a Blood Rager 4(pre-gen), a Mesmirist 4(pre-gen), and what I think was an Arcanist 3. The biggest problem for us was the disease, as two characters(Diviner & Arcanist) succumbed. In the final battles, the "heads" were dispatched quickly with Burning Hands, and although our Arcanist ended up 'making out' with one of the "flying, screaming, evil craniums", the Blood rager sqashed them, and the BBEG was taken out by numerous volleys of Magic Missle from the Arcanist.

My question for now concerns what is on the chronicle sheet.
We can get Greenwood & Yellowheart wood weapons. Do these special materials have any special properties? They're not listed anywhere under special materials.

Edit: Sorry, found the info about Greenwood, but nothing on Yellowheart wood.

Dark Archive 5/5 *

Yellowheart wood makes the weapon count as silver.

4/5 ** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

Reading through this, In preparation for running it next weekend, I have two main questions.

The first is echoing Cenorin and Mike. Namely

Spoiler:
Where is the quicksand in Encounter A. I am presently assuming that area of quicksand should replace the river presented on the flipmat referenced (as the text for the encounter describes it as simply crossing a muddy pool) but I would like some clarification.

I also have a question about how Encounter C1 is meant to happen:

Spoiler:
Based on encounter B, it seems far more likely than not that the PCs will have rescued at least one Ekujae captive, and it then desribes that they 'are willing to take the PCs to C2 directly'.

Does this mean that encounter C1 should only be run if neither Ekujae captive survives/is freed in encounter B? Or are they willing to take the PCs directly to Fola, but the group encounters a set of scouts (aka C1) anyway?

The way encounter C1 can be affected if an Ekujae is with you would seem to imply the latter, but as written I could see it possibly being intended that freeing captives in the previous encounter means that C1 is skipped entirely. Which would be a minor shame in my opinion as the vine mechanics and environment make look like the scenarios most memorable encounter.

The Exchange 4/5

I too was looking for where to

Spoiler:
put the quicksand. Geotechnical Engineering equations are not helping me solve it yet either - Geotechnical Engineering pp. 193/214 for reference.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Regarding A: I put it where the water is on the map. The DC 8 perception check (10 with the noise of the jungle, because you know...that affects your ability to see quicksand) made discovering it a non-issue. Having it where the water is didn't make the fight unnecessarily challenging either.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

William Donald wrote:

Reading through this, In preparation for running it next weekend, I have two main questions.

The first is echoing Cenorin and Mike. Namely ** spoiler omitted **

I also have a question about how Encounter C1 is meant to happen:

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah in regards to optional encounters that choice is kind of odd for this adventure.

Spoiler:

The way I read it is that if you are running long they take you immediately to the next location. If you aren't running long then you do the whole diplomacy thing and even then potentially the encounter may be bypassed.

Grand Lodge

joe kirner wrote:
Yellowheart wood makes the weapon count as silver.

Ah, thanks Joe.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

My hypothesis is that the disease checks are best done around area C1. Earlier on, the PCs have to make navigation checks (if they didn't get a guide), and failing those increases the chance to get a disease, but doesn't add additional days of travel to the trek, additional days in which a disease could run its course. The travel time doesn't become uncertain until the trek from C1 to C4.

Also, keep in mind that damage done by an infliction such as disease doesn't heal normally until the affliction is gone, so the three checks basically represent the accumulated state the PCs are in by the time they arrive at a place where they can get some kind of help.

Finally, I suspect the point of the disease is not actually to make things harder, because by the time the PCs get to the village it should be possible to remove most of the effects, quite before they face the boss. Rather, the idea is to illustrate that the jungle terrain is itself something to be taken seriously.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Finally, I suspect the point of the disease is not actually to make things harder, because by the time the PCs get to the village it should be possible to remove most of the effects, quite before they face the boss. Rather, the idea is to illustrate that the jungle terrain is itself something to be taken seriously.

Which is my biggest issue with them. It's no different than the garbage that was The Price of Friendship and the 80-bajillion wands that scenario uses as a "cost of play". If there's no real mechanical penalty for the disease (due to its placement before a number of non-combats, and before healing is accessible) therefore, it becomes nothing more than a penalty for playing the scenario in the first place.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

That's a bit too harsh I think. I'd try to play up the idea that after days of trudging through an horrible jungle, the PCs finally reach these elves, and that it's a huge relief to get access to cures. The point is more to show off the setting, than to create a mechanical challenge.

You can reinforce that idea by playing up that the elves have healing magic, but they're not really that enthused about helping the PCs (you have to pay). If you can impress the elders though, they'll do it for free. And if you've been doing the obvious things on this peace-making mission, it shouldn't be very hard to impress the elders; if you rescue the elves from the Aspis and aren't too cheap to heal them, the rest should be easy.

Also, The Price of Friendship was great. Coming back out of the Cinderlands with several bound monsters to a cheering crowd was a really neat rockstar moment.

You seem to be casting it as a "if it can't kill me, cut it out of the scenario" issue. I don't agree. Some setting bits make more of an impression if you use mechanics to quantify them than if you just say "it's hot and humid and awful" without attaching any consequences.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Anyway, I'm also wondering if Fola Barun should go into Dehu Inu (nice editing on making Dehu Inu area D by the way). As an Ekujae half-elf, shouldn't she be bound by the taboo as well?

Besides, what with an elf already lying bound on the altar, is she really needed in the scene? I think she makes more sense as a guide to the place, than actually going in. Also, I don't feel like reading up on shamans.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
You seem to be casting it as a "if it can't kill me, cut it out of the scenario" issue. I don't agree. Some setting bits make more of an impression if you use mechanics to quantify them than if you just say "it's hot and humid and awful" without attaching any consequences.

That isn't my opinion; rather, I'm following one of the most important rules of writing, everything you write should have a meaningful contribution. In this case, the disease should have a meaningful interaction with my experience as a PC. I don't disagree with you on the point that narrating the difficulty of jungle travel is important, and I think by having your difficulties move directly into its cure only lessens the value of narrating that impact.

Consider the difference between the following two stories:

"I walked into the Jungle, caught malaria, and had chills for several days. Fortunately we found the village I was looking for and after some healing magic I was fine. Glad I didn't meet anything in the Jungle while I was sick."

vs.

"I walked into the Jungle, caught malaria, and had chills for several days. Unfortunately, we learned the real danger of these diseases when a group of blood-sucking beasts started drinking our already sickened bodies. We barely survived, but fortunately were able to find the Elves who took pity on us and provided us with the healing magic while hearing our story."

One just lets you know there's a danger, the other lets you experience the danger.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You know, I didn't exactly plan for my Ekujae half-elf vigilante to be perfect for this scenario, but I'll take it!

Looking forward to prepping and running this over the weekend.

5/5 *****

I just picked this up today after playing it and plan to run it next week.

Can the price of the bow in high tier please be fixed. I appreciate that the PDF may never actually get updated but can we get a campaign post or we will be dealing with people buying stupidly cheap magic bows for ever in the same way as we had the issue with the mispriced holy sword.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Developer

3 people marked this as a favorite.

The base cost of the bow in the high subtier should be 2,550 gp. The low price was a copy-paste error from when I was including the text to let people buy the bow for different strength bonuses.

Whenever we present a discounted item, we call out the discount specifically on the Chronicle sheet.

5/5 *****

Thanks for that Linda.

I am just prepping this and it looks like the Beheaded's ranged attack modifier is wrong. It is listed as +2 but should I think be +4 due to them being tiny.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

MisterSlanky wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
You seem to be casting it as a "if it can't kill me, cut it out of the scenario" issue. I don't agree. Some setting bits make more of an impression if you use mechanics to quantify them than if you just say "it's hot and humid and awful" without attaching any consequences.

That isn't my opinion; rather, I'm following one of the most important rules of writing, everything you write should have a meaningful contribution. In this case, the disease should have a meaningful interaction with my experience as a PC. I don't disagree with you on the point that narrating the difficulty of jungle travel is important, and I think by having your difficulties move directly into its cure only lessens the value of narrating that impact.

Consider the difference between the following two stories:

"I walked into the Jungle, caught malaria, and had chills for several days. Fortunately we found the village I was looking for and after some healing magic I was fine. Glad I didn't meet anything in the Jungle while I was sick."

vs.

"I walked into the Jungle, caught malaria, and had chills for several days. Unfortunately, we learned the real danger of these diseases when a group of blood-sucking beasts started drinking our already sickened bodies. We barely survived, but fortunately were able to find the Elves who took pity on us and provided us with the healing magic while hearing our story."

One just lets you know there's a danger, the other lets you experience the danger.

I don't totally disagree with you. It could have been better. But I don't think it's entirely bad. This is still a 1-5 adventure, you don't want it to be too punishing.

Think of this as a gentle warning; in a 5-9 you should be prepared for the real thing.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Where is Nrana?

Nrana:
Encounter C1 lists Unemi the jungle druid having a tiger companion named Nrana

I cannot any stats for it, am I going blind. Please help

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Developer

Nrana is not with Unemi during this encounter. She's off hunting in the nearby jungle.

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

The base cost of the bow in the high subtier should be 2,550 gp. The low price was a copy-paste error from when I was including the text to let people buy the bow for different strength bonuses.

Whenever we present a discounted item, we call out the discount specifically on the Chronicle sheet.

By the way, Linda, since Yellowheart wood items appear on the chronicle sheet, and, if they do indeed work like silver weapons vs. lycanthropes, and since this scenario is the only place I can find that states this, shouldn't its properties be noted on the chronicle sheet?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Aristophanes wrote:
Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

The base cost of the bow in the high subtier should be 2,550 gp. The low price was a copy-paste error from when I was including the text to let people buy the bow for different strength bonuses.

Whenever we present a discounted item, we call out the discount specifically on the Chronicle sheet.

By the way, Linda, since Yellowheart wood items appear on the chronicle sheet, and, if they do indeed work like silver weapons vs. lycanthropes, and since this scenario is the only place I can find that states this, shouldn't its properties be noted on the chronicle sheet?

They work vs. werebat lycanthropes. But yeah, I'm surprised it's not on the chronicle as well. As well as the increased hardness and HP/inch.

5/5 **

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

How can the party learn about destroying the altar? Could this be a Knowledge check? (Religion pertaining to Camazotz? Local pertaining to lycanthropy?). Any suggested DC?

Silver Crusade 4/5

waltero wrote:
How can the party learn about destroying the altar? Could this be a Knowledge check? (Religion pertaining to Camazotz? Local pertaining to lycanthropy?). Any suggested DC?

I think my GM had us roll knowledge religion. Also, it detects as magic, so we knew something was up.

5/5 *****

I destroyed it on general principle when we play and was pleasantly surprised to find it helped.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I had a brand new player listen to my descriptions of the altar and statue along with the whispers and decide she needed to smite it to pieces as Seelah the paladin.

4/5

And at the other extreme, I had 6 experienced players (2 slayers, barbarian, kineticist, ninja, and bard) never even think about destroying the altar.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I ran it yesterday and while the veteran players seemed focused on crushing enemies, it was one of the newer players who'd been taking notes ("Kaghaze, that's the scout that went missing") and the new players suggested destroying the altar.

The Exchange 4/5

Effect: lighter or darker? The module says one and boon sheet says another.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Something else I ran into when GMing. The cave Kaghaze is in - is there light? Kaghaze has only low-light vision and the scene description assumes the PCs can actually see the cave.

The Exchange 4/5

Isn't there light from the top of the cavern?

Dark Archive 4/5 *

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Sigh - I'm running this 4 times at Gencon and just read through and went to grab the map pack and of course it's out of print and $75 on amazon. Guess I'll print off the maps...

Sovereign Court 2/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Alaska—Anchorage

For event C1 where does Unemi fit in?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

CigarPete wrote:
Sigh - I'm running this 4 times at Gencon and just read through and went to grab the map pack and of course it's out of print and $75 on amazon. Guess I'll print off the maps...

Amazon map prices can be crazy. As printing goes these were easy to do, just by copying the picture out of the PDF into GIMP.

Dark Archive 4/5 *

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
CigarPete wrote:
Sigh - I'm running this 4 times at Gencon and just read through and went to grab the map pack and of course it's out of print and $75 on amazon. Guess I'll print off the maps...
Amazon map prices can be crazy. As printing goes these were easy to do, just by copying the picture out of the PDF into GIMP.

I use inkscape, but still pretty simple. Bonus since they both fit on one poster, so costs me less at staples.

Scarab Sages

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

The base cost of the bow in the high subtier should be 2,550 gp. The low price was a copy-paste error from when I was including the text to let people buy the bow for different strength bonuses.

Whenever we present a discounted item, we call out the discount specifically on the Chronicle sheet.

By the way, Linda, since Yellowheart wood items appear on the chronicle sheet, and, if they do indeed work like silver weapons vs. lycanthropes, and since this scenario is the only place I can find that states this, shouldn't its properties be noted on the chronicle sheet?
They work vs. werebat lycanthropes. But yeah, I'm surprised it's not on the chronicle as well. As well as the increased hardness and HP/inch.

just finished this as a player, with my only question regarding the chronicle being: Where can I learn more about yellowheart weapons?

I did enjoy the adventure.

Liberty's Edge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

The base cost of the bow in the high subtier should be 2,550 gp. The low price was a copy-paste error from when I was including the text to let people buy the bow for different strength bonuses.

Whenever we present a discounted item, we call out the discount specifically on the Chronicle sheet.

By the way, Linda, since Yellowheart wood items appear on the chronicle sheet, and, if they do indeed work like silver weapons vs. lycanthropes, and since this scenario is the only place I can find that states this, shouldn't its properties be noted on the chronicle sheet?
They work vs. werebat lycanthropes. But yeah, I'm surprised it's not on the chronicle as well. As well as the increased hardness and HP/inch.

just finished this as a player, with my only question regarding the chronicle being: Where can I learn more about yellowheart weapons?

I did enjoy the adventure.

It doesn't seem to be listed anywhere else, but there is the information in-scenario for GMs.

I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to post this here - someone say so if I can't.

Dead Man's Debt wrote:

To determine

the price of a yellowheart wood item, add 10 gp per pound
to the price of that item.
A weapon made primarily from yellowheart wood (such
as a staff or club) overcomes the damage reduction of
werebats as if made of silver. Arrows, crossbow bolts, and
other ammunition can be made of yellowheart wood as
well. Such ammunition is less destructive than usual and
imposes a –2 penalty on damage rolls.
Yellowheart wood has 12 hit points per inch of thickness
and hardness 6.

The Exchange 4/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Something else I ran into when GMing. The cave Kaghaze is in - is there light? Kaghaze has only low-light vision and the scene description assumes the PCs can actually see the cave.

Bottom of page 19 it says it is dark. Ran it today and if human cleric wasnt along for light spell, dont know what he would have done. There is run as written and than this. Have 6 more times at GenCon to run it, and just hope they all bring at least one light.

Sovereign Court 4/5 *

When Lau ran this for me, I thought it would probably be Dim Light since werebats have lowlight vision. But he ruled otherwise, in favour of all participants (normal lighting).

2/5

Arcaian wrote:

It doesn't seem to be listed anywhere else, but there is the information in-scenario for GMs.

I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to post this here - someone say so if I can't.

Dead Man's Debt wrote:

To determine

the price of a yellowheart wood item, add 10 gp per pound
to the price of that item.
A weapon made primarily from yellowheart wood (such
as a staff or club) overcomes the damage reduction of
werebats as if made of silver. Arrows, crossbow bolts, and
other ammunition can be made of yellowheart wood as
well. Such ammunition is less destructive than usual and
imposes a –2 penalty on damage rolls.
Yellowheart wood has 12 hit points per inch of thickness
and hardness 6.

Thanks for this. I had a really good time playing this at PaizoCon UK last weekend, and was considering having my Mwangi witch doctor (Magaambian Initiate/Unlettered Arcanist) pick one up as a souvenir after a very nail-biting mission (playing at 4-5, with 4/6 out of subtier, including a 1 and a 2).

Grand Lodge 1/5

I'm not really sure how the players are supposed to figure out that they should destroy the altar. The main clues seem to be the strange voice and the victim tied to the altar, the latter in particular if Kaghaze gets the chance to cut him and increase the profane effect. In my game, I had players cast both Detect Evil and Detect Psychic Significance, so I gave them a hint or two and those led them to destroy it.

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