Contributor
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gen Con is fast approaching, and it seems #8-02 Ward Asunder is now available for downloading. To ensure that Gen Con GMs can run it as smoothly as possible, I would like to offer to answer any questions you may have about the scenario, and if necessary, clarify anything that seems unclear.
To avoid spoilers before the scenario is officially released, please send me your questions in a private message (rather than posting them here). After the scenario becomes available to the general public, I'll post the questions and my answers as a FAQ in the scenario's GM thread so that all GMs have the same information available.
Lastly, thanks to everyone who is running PFS scenarios at Gen Con! In fact, I'll be playing #8-02 Thursday morning, and will be playing lots of other scenarios, too, so I'll see y'all there in less than two weeks!
|
Contributor
|
Please ignore my earlier request to keep questions in private messages. It seems other new Gen Con scenarios are being discussed in this forum, so I guess I there's no reason for secrecy.
So if you have questions about the scenario, fire away!
Some errata:
p. 13: In the lower subtier, the Morale section of the combatants says that last one standing leaves when reduced to 25 or fewer hit points. It was 15 in my turnover, so that's probably a copy-paste error. Since 25 wouldn't make much sense, the last enemy combatant flees when reduced to 15 hit points.
There were a few more questions sent to me, and I'll post them and the answers here too sometime soon!
|
Played this today and enjoyed it. I do have a question about the Kami Reunited boon and taking Tanabaru as a familiar. Can you do so if the PC in question does not have the Tanabaru's respect boon from 6-21? If so does Tanabaru remain a Spirit Oni or does he become a Kami? If he does remain a Spirit Oni how does one take him as a familiar since a Spirit Oni normally requires a Lawful Evil master? Is there a work around for this? Thank you for any clarification.
|
I made a stat block document like normal for this. I also made an item document, with the idea that when they find treasure in the scenario, you can cut it out and give the physical slips of paper to the PCs. Feel free to let me know if it's useful for you guys or not.
You can find it, as usual, on pfsprep.com
|
|
I made a stat block document like normal for this. I also made an item document, with the idea that when they find treasure in the scenario, you can cut it out and give the physical slips of paper to the PCs. Feel free to let me know if it's useful for you guys or not.
You can find it, as usual, on pfsprep.com
I liked it and I used it today. I downloaded the .docx and modified it. I wanted the monster stats but didn't want to print out the items as well.
Note: I confirmed this with the author. There is a copy and paste error on page 13. "if reduced to 25 or fewer" should be "if reduced to 15 or fewer" in subtier 3-4.
|
Running this next Saturday at TraCon. I've read it two times now and keep likin' it more and more!
Just have some Q's about what to expect:
1. Anybody ran the encounter with snakes on the narrow ledges? I can't see how to present that direction as enticing when there's a perfectly scalable wall next to it and with rope the Climb DC is 5! I guess what I'm asking is that are we supposed overlook the Climb rules and treat the DC as written on the scenario or is rope enough to just skip the challenge?
2. How upfront have you guys been about the testing? It'll be obvious once I start to track Respect that something's afoot and since so much depends on all the little mistakes the characters can do on while on the trail, some kind of need-to-know basis could be established I guess. Metagaming is a b$%&% though.
3. Since I'm running it in a con environment and newcomers are a possibility, the flavourful start with Tanbaru, Ranpassarad and the Hao Jin shenanigans is sure to be a lot to stomach for someone not in the know. Any ideas how to present it concisely, what to focus on and what to not? I ran The Glass River Rescue to 3 newcomers a few years back and gotta admit that they didn't come back after that. There was just too much world information, politics and metaplot. Don't wanna repeat that.
Pretty anxious about running this!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've run this four times now -- three at GenCon and this afternoon.
Running this next Saturday at TraCon. I've read it two times now and keep likin' it more and more!
Just have some Q's about what to expect:
1. Anybody ran the encounter with snakes on the narrow ledges? I can't see how to present that direction as enticing when there's a perfectly scalable wall next to it and with rope the Climb DC is 5! I guess what I'm asking is that are we supposed overlook the Climb rules and treat the DC as written on the scenario or is rope enough to just skip the challenge?
I've had two fights on the ledge. One PC near the stairs, the rest at the along the path. Had the snakes attack from above. Worked fine. Actually the first time, one PC was all alone at the stairs and the rest not even on the narrow ledge. Higher tier. Lone PC almost didn't survive.
2. How upfront have you guys been about the testing? It'll be obvious once I start to track Respect that something's afoot and since so much depends on all the little mistakes the characters can do on while on the trail, some kind of need-to-know basis could be established I guess. Metagaming is a b!~%# though.
Didn't mention the tracking until after the adventure. They didn't 'know' that I was tracking their actions but most players did their best to keep to the rules. At the end, I would wrap up with were they gained and lost points. Players really liked that. Also, in the final encounter just before the question I had the adversary include in their speel stuff like "I saw you when you ..." then mention a good or bad thing they did. Several times after I mentioned something the players didn't do I've had a player comment saying 'we did that'. That was quickly followed by several player reminding them that they actually didn't.
3. Since I'm running it in a con environment and newcomers are a possibility, the flavourful start with Tanbaru, Ranpassarad and the Hao Jin shenanigans is sure to be a lot to stomach for someone not in the know. Any ideas how to present it concisely, what to focus on and what to not? I ran The Glass River Rescue to 3 newcomers a few years back and gotta admit that they didn't come back after that. There was just too much world information, politics and metaplot. Don't wanna repeat that.
Hopefully you will have some experienced players at your table to bring along any newbees. I made a large stack of knowledge cards. Any time the PCs succeeded a knowledge check I gave them the card. Instead of me telling them what they know, they get to read the card and give the info to the rest of the party as they see fit. As a side benefit, it saved my voice some. It also can be interesting when a player reads a card, but doesn't know the whole story. One player described the weapon marks in the courtyard that a battle had taken place there.
Pretty anxious about running this!
Good luck. Have fun. I've averaged just over four hours of run time.
Venture-Captain, Isles—Online
|
1) i ran it on sunday. I told them it was slippery and looked like a difficult climb, and that the ledge was only 2ft across. No one asked about the difficulty of the acrobatics checks they would need - or looked up the acrobatics skill, and they dismissed the climb out of hand.
They decided to send a single (out of subtier) player across - so she got attacked on her own, while the rest of the party who were waiting at the beginning of the ledge got the rest.
2) I emphasized that from the pillars it was all sacred ground, and repeated the warnings in common twice. The player who was wearing tambaru then asked for the translation, which i provided. There was some derision as it sounds like the warnings you get outside a national park, then one player seemed to realise the significance of what they were told. the tracker from PFS prep is excellent and was a great help.
3) I think my group was 50-50, and so it didnt seem to be much of an issue, I think its pretty flavoursome and even those unfamiliar with the lore will pick up and run with it.
|
Contributor
|
The map should have had a different shade of gray for the roofs, but yeah, you're right, each building has a roof.
As for Muser's questions, I think Swiftbrook's answers & advice are spot on. Using a rope is perfectly legit, but of course, one PC has to make the climb anyway (or use a grappling hook), so ledge-hopping may seem like an easier option because the DCs are pretty low, both for Acrobatics and Climb.
As for Respect Points, Swiftbrook's approach is how I intended it to be run. The adventure hints at the importance of respect and tradition quite many times, and players are likely to guess their choices matter even though they don't know about the points. I also agree that it's a great idea to tell the players which tests they succeeded at and which they failed, to get across the point that their choices matter. In my experience, players really appreciate that. It's possible to use Jiraku for that purpose; the adventure gives an example of what she might say if the PCs scared the birds away, for example.
Swiftbrook's knowledge cards sound like a great idea! There are so many bits of information in the scenario (and some of them make sense only later on in season 8) that anything that helps the players remember what they've learned so far is really useful.
I have a few questions to everyone who's played or run the scenario: How many Respect Points did your group get? Which tests did they succeed at and which did they fail? Did they come up with any out-of-the-box solutions in the encounters or alternative approaches when talking to Jiraku? Which combat encounter was the toughest of the three and why? Did any PCs die? Thanks in advance!
Also, thanks to everyone who's reviewed the scenario. :)
|
Ran twice. Both had at least 14. Starting with 10 is too easy. Party has to be total disrespectful, murder hobos and burn the place down tp get low enuff to fight jiraku.
Really only 2 combats. Nagajis toughest of 2. Especially at high tier. Pcs just fly up then.
One group were so paranoid of tambaru and wouldnt talk with him but still expected him to go inv and scout the place out. Lol.
Breaking gong most common.
|
|
I have a few questions to everyone who's played or run the scenario: How many Respect Points did your group get? Which tests did they succeed at and which did they fail? Did they come up with any out-of-the-box solutions in the encounters or alternative approaches when talking to Jiraku? Which combat encounter was the toughest of the three and why? Did any PCs die? Thanks in advance!
I've run this four times now. I doubled the number of info cards the last run and it added a lot. (also, I added them to GM Shared Prep)
2nd and 3rd tables are a GenCon blur. One low, one high. Both earned plenty of respect points. One had profession(cook) and blew the roll - LOL.
Last table last weekend. Very experienced players - a VL and several GMs who don't get to play much. Had a lot of fun. Six players including two pregens (kenetisist and brawler I think) playing low tier. Party, broke the gong, burned the rice, missed the library, and smashed temple walls. Before running this time I was reminded by the author about deducting points based on other actions, so they lost points for smashing the walls. Ended with 7-9 points. They almost decided to fight but out of respect, left instead. The after scenario debrief was very satisfying for all involved.
Starting with 10 is too easy. Party has to be total disrespectful, murder hobos and burn the place down tp get low enuff to fight jiraku.
Agree 100%. I'd start at 5 at the most. Makes earning the boon feel like they earned it. Zero is probably too low.
Also, as the PCs explore the temple, I have them take turns just like we're in combat except initiative is simply going around the table. Movement and actions count (with a lot of 'close enough'). It is really interesting to watch a party this way. If you simply asked the group, 'what are you doing', you're only going to get group answers and group movement. In contrast, two of my four tables had their PCs scattered all over the map doing their own thing during the exploration portion. It made the second combat a lot more realistic as players commented 'well, they did have time to observe us'.
Just My Thoughts
|
|
That AAR I promised(including answers to Mikko's questions)
Had some great shenanigans and character moments on the Path. The broke the gong and left some spent ammunition laying around, but cooked delish rice - with Profession (cook) no less - and cleared the fallen rocks, so the Respect count kept see-sawing up and down.
Next up, the first combat: They set up with the ropes and the ledges surprised no one, but having the group spread wide instead of presenting a unified front confused them a tad and the snakes hit pretty good. No one dropped though and after handling the lost Con from poisons they quickly started canvassing the complex, starting with the dormitory and ending with their name in the books.
(Gonna take a breather here to give props for the interesting loot. The Mountain Scrolls especially were flavourful and useful, as well as the snake eggs which they left unharmed.)
I had some trouble at this point with the map layout. Too many darn pillars! Didn't bother the team though and on they went, succeeding at most checks. The nagaji ambush didn't give them too much trouble either, beyond me erroneusly looking at the wrong stat block twice and giving the archer monk Deflect Arrows instead of the fire one. Both "ranged" enemies pummeled the oracle until he was down, spear nagaji dropped to a well-placed knock-out blow and then my dice went cold. Interesting goons though and probably the most challenging combat in the scenario.
On with the show: Once Jiraku made her debut, I told the group they could hear a great wind swirling in the altar room. They did what all heroes do and had the BBEG wait till they topped their HP...Anyway, my second mistake came here. In fact, I'd been running the Respect count wrong this whole time* so instead of having the ten starting points, they had exactly zero. Saw some good roleplaying during the ensuing conversation and they managed to get a middling success(5 pts iirc, so with the starting 10 that I missed that would have been 15 actual pts).
They listened to Jiraku's wish for them to leave, had a brief convo among each other and it was time for a boss fight. A boss fight wherein the archer finally started hitting her foes and all but Jiraku fell pretty fast. They just didn't have enough AC for tier 6-7 opponents.
After knocking out Jiraku they did some good ol' ropecrafts on her and smelling salted her awake. A common ground was found, the kami found each other after centuries of loneliness and much rejoicing was had.!
*(While this was already my 86th table, somehow these mistakes just keep happening!)
I think the biggest thing to take from this tl;dr going forward is to either up the challenge or give lasting penalties from failing checks e.g mountain fatigue or poisoning from dead air pockets are something that would have been right at home in this milieu. I understand there's no way to predict what kinda monstrosity comes out of the editor's cutting floor once the scenario is outta your hands though, so upping the ante might not affect the end result all that much unfortunately.
I don't mean to imply the scenario was too easy, but the ample amount of consumables within the temple grounds combined with the low AC's made the opposition feel somewhat unthreathening. Even something like a low visibility effect from bad weather or a shaken status from a haunt might have added some challenge. It's the small things.
Good stuff otherwise. Looking forward to the next one!
|
e.g mountain fatigue
If you mean altitude sickness then no, a thousand tines no.
One thing that I absolutely loved about this scenario is that they had the PCs intelligently get aclimated to the altitude almost as if they were experienced adventurers or something.
[Aside]one thing that amuses me is that Paizo almost always ignores its own rules for altitude (the rules really are very silly). They almost always just collapse the multiple rolls into a single near guaranteed failure.[/aside]
|
Contributor
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Sounds like starting with 5 Respect Points would have been enough, or alternatively, some of the DCs should have been higher. Muser, thanks for the long and detailed post about how it went for your group! Balancing a scenario for two subtiers is one of the toughest aspects of writing scenarios, but I'll try harder next time.
Regarding altitude sickness, I very intentionally didn't want to punish the players like some scenarios set in the mountains do. Incidentally, I played a particular season 3 scenario just a few days before I started writing the scenario, and my reaction to how countless Fort saves were forced upon the PCs until everyone failed was "hell no, none of that in my scenario". (A number of other scenarios have similar mechanics, but that one is by far the most unfair I've seen.)
As for Craft (stonemasonry) and other "rare" skills like Profession (cook), each of my scenarios has a few encounters that allow PCs to use some of these less common skills where it makes sense. There's usually a second (more common) skill you can use so that succeeding at a challenge won't depend on having ranks in a skill that normally only affects your day job roll at the end of the scenario.
|
|
I've never had a problem with environment rules, but yeah, some scenarios don't know when to quit. It should be on the background, maybe automated somehow but not ignored entirely either. 6-7 is the final tier where natural environments can still challenge characters and environmental threats are still of worthy CR(avalanches, etc) and I can name maybe 10 scenarios where they feature at all. Beyond the ubiquitous endure elements potion/slot tax of course.
Personally, I tend to roll most dice-athons(forced march, stonecunning, Sense Motive in a social event, heat dangers, etc) before hand and just narrate the results. It's just smart GMing, I find.
|
Contributor
|
I see what you mean, Muser, but I respectfully disagree. Scenario writing is mostly about storytelling and challenging the PCs (and players) in fun, meaningful ways. A dice fest whose only point is to expend the PCs' resources is un-fun and repetitive. It's not a meaningful challenge or great storytelling if your only option is to roll a Fort save. And again. And again.
I agree that the GM rolling the Fort saves in the background removes the element of player attrition, but it doesn't make a badly written scenario better. Also, it removes the players' only way of interacting with the challenge--if they don't even get to roll the die, all they can do is accept that their PCs got hit by an effect. Trust me on this one, players hate that sort of things.
Interactions with the environment can be fun and interesting, though. You gotta make it cinematic (outrunning an avalanche as a group escape encounter, for example). You gotta make the players' choices matter, otherwise they'll feel cheated when they end up fatigued (or worse) no matter what they do (or don't do).
Let them have fun while they're getting punched in the face, is what I'm saying. :)
|
|
I'm only now having my first opportunity to prep this scenario...
I'd heartily recommend that any GMs download some pics of the Kailash Temple in India to provide some "it basically looks like *this*" ambiance for the players when they arrive at the temple.
|
|
My table last night ended up being full but a pair of lvl 3s put the game in the high tier with the 4 player adjustment. My observations:
Linguistics: I had a couple moments of "why can't I just roll linguistics to read the language I can't read?" One of my pet peeves (alongside an overinflated importance on the Perceprion skill to find macguffins) is PFS scenarios allowing Linguistics to fill in for actual/magical language knowledge for less-than-book-length passages. Bravo to the writer for keeping Linguistics to read Tien to one, appropriate instance in this scenario.
Respect points: this group was pretty middle of the road on their behavior on the Pilgrim's path, very murderhobo-y in the temple proper, but blew away Diplomacy checks on the BBEG and still ended up at a net +3 respect points. Since they started with 10, they easily qualified for the super-happy ending. Starting with 5 points instead of 10 seems like it would have been better balanced, unless of course the intention was that Jiraku almost never be fought at all (that's an insane challenge especially in the lower tier)... If so, starting with 10 points seems like a good beginning point.
CR difficulty: dovetailing with the mention about Jiraku's high CR, the guard-snakes nearly TPK'd the group. They were tough as is, but all four (three in the 4PA) getting to gang up on one PC while the party is all strung out in unsuppprting positions cranked the challenge beyond what may have been computed on paper. Since that was the tactics specifically called out, I'm sure the force multiplication factor for the snakes was anticipated.... but man. THat fight was very nasty and the PCs barely survived it.
Speaking of unsustainable expenditure of resources: this is more of a funny anecdote. Good enough to share, imo. After barely surving the snakes, the party consensus was to rest up before exploring further. The party wouldn't listen to the guy playing the lvl3 who reminded them of the super handy camp/cave just a few miles back, nor were they concerned about the details in the B2 box text that hinted the temple is actively occupied. They just set up camp there in the courtyard, and set up a watch schedule. I figured well, rather than waiting for them to explore 4 rooms for the monks to "return", letting a few hours of the first watch go by would be a fair substitute, and unleashed the monk ambush on the flabbergasted players that (mostly) expected there could be no possible "random encounter" in a PFS scenario. I didn't even have to swear I wasn't making it up... the poor guy noone listened to got to straighten it all out for me by pointing out "come ON... we're camped in their front yard in broad daylight...WHAT DID YOU EXPECT WOULD HAPPEN".
After they defeated the monks they did indeed listen to the guy and go back to the Pilgrims Cave for safer resting :D
|
|
My table last night ended up being full but a pair of lvl 3s put the game in the high tier with the 4 player adjustment. My observations:
Linguistics: I had a couple moments of "why can't I just roll linguistics to read the language I can't read?" One of my pet peeves (alongside an overinflated importance on the Perceprion skill to find macguffins) is PFS scenarios allowing Linguistics to fill in for actual/magical language knowledge for less-than-book-length passages. Bravo to the writer for keeping Linguistics to read Tien to one, appropriate instance in this scenario.
Respect points: this group was pretty middle of the road on their behavior on the Pilgrim's path, very murderhobo-y in the temple proper, but blew away Diplomacy checks on the BBEG and still ended up at a net +3 respect points. Since they started with 10, they easily qualified for the super-happy ending. Starting with 5 points instead of 10 seems like it would have been better balanced, unless of course the intention was that Jiraku almost never be fought at all (that's an insane challenge especially in the lower tier)... If so, starting with 10 points seems like a good beginning point.
CR difficulty: dovetailing with the mention about Jiraku's high CR, the guard-snakes nearly TPK'd the group. They were tough as is, but all four (three in the 4PA) getting to gang up on one PC while the party is all strung out in unsuppprting positions cranked the challenge beyond what may have been computed on paper. Since that was the tactics specifically called out, I'm sure the force multiplication factor for the snakes was anticipated.... but man. THat fight was very nasty and the PCs barely survived it.
Speaking of unsustainable expenditure of resources: this is more of a funny anecdote. Good enough to share, imo. After barely surving the snakes, the party consensus was to rest up before exploring further. The party wouldn't listen to the guy playing the lvl3 who reminded them of the super handy camp/cave just a few miles back, nor...
That was a good idea to do the nagaji ambush then.
Linguistics very important to have.Yes, even trashing the place and disregard to rules of the path and failure on the 3 q's still not enuff to trigger jiraku.