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Ran this twice over the weekend, once in Belkzin with the orcs, and once with my previous Lastwall/undead setup.
The belkzin one went well, they pretty much murder hoboed their way through, though the animate dream I had rolled really messed them up, and killed a pregen Amiri (they were at 6-7). Almost killed two others in that fight... and that was when they only had one attack nearest result after the confusion got four of the six targets (including an AC). Unfortunately, they forgot their mission and left the elf's skeleton in the cairn.
For the undead Crusader, I played the shadow as hiding along the wall in the crypt I chose for it.Gave the PCs a perception check to see it, which they did. They tried to talk it down, and came close. They had completed two of the three things to reduce the DC, but came up one short. This was typical for this group...
They found the rift, and after a few clues and nudges performed the ritual. Unfortunately their skill rolls failed them, even though they freely burned healing energies to reduce the roll. Three 19s and one 24... so, primary and secondary failure (the goals on this one seemed to me to be too harsh, since they are the same and easily failed).
They lost their whip swashbuckler to the anti-Paladin graveknight who again proved to be nasty.
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The rot grub swarm on the higher tier can be even worse with its 85 freaking HP and ability to deal Con damage. My party would have been in big, big trouble had they not found the fireball amulet in a previous room.
I agree, the rot grub swarm is really nasty, but it also only has a movement of 10 ft. and no special movement modes. The PCs can literally run away from it and not have to deal with more than 1 round of it. Another group I heard lured it out of the dungeon and several hundred feet from the entrance before leaving it in the wilderness.
Love this scenario. Great design. Can be highly dangerous if you stock your dungeon in certain ways. Need to be aware of that so to give pcs a good chance.
Definetely best to place the treasure packages ahead of the encounter they are needed at.
Really enjoy being able to place encounters and treasure packages wherever i want. Lots of planning as to put encounters in a place that is most appropriate and have enuff room to manuever. 3 bad guys on mounts need much room.
Thanks, Joe! Yeah, placing the treasure where the PCs can use it helps a bit, as does encouraging them to retreat and come back with different tactics or even resting up for a day and trying again. There are some effects (such as diseases) to discourage a 5-minute adventuring day, but generally if the PCs need to retreat and come back after some re-supply they should be able to. There is no time restraint.
I REEEAAALY wish that I was warned in advance that I would basically be making this on my own. While I love the idea, I now need to assemble a dungeon with little time to do so. There needs to be a warning that you should give yourself a LOT of time to prep this. Wow I wish that I did not have to run this.
Nohwear, I thought that having the random tables would help with this problem, but did they not work well for you? What about this seemed to take more time than a normal scenario to prep? Did you find placing the creatures in the dungeon difficult?
This scenario is really hard. Lots of death. It's a killer scenario.
I've been hearing this a lot, but I just ran it this weekend for 4 players, 3 of whom said they were social characters and not combat characters. We had one close fight (the BBEG), but they were able to handle the rest. That said, I rolled randomly for every element and got a good spread of easy/low rolls and harder/high rolls.
After talking to some people who said it was really hard, I found a few things: low subtier PCs in the high subtier game, under-equipped characters (such as martial PCs without a magic weapon at levels 6 and 7), and parties that tried to do the entire thing in 1 adventuring day even though they were low on healing/spells after 3 or 4 encounters.
I encourage GMs to remind their PCs that they can retreat and rest if they need to. The monsters here were specifically picked because most of them have some special mechanic that is common to levels 3-7 and beyond such as ability damage, negative energy damage, darkness, blindness, etc. These special abilities add to the challenge, so stacking up 4-5 of these types of encounters can make the dungeon seem more difficult.
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A cat, a rooster, and sovereign glue?
Am I to interpret this as someone having picked up the wrong lube bottle? My players will absolutely catch this!
Well... I'm not going to spell it out for you... But let's just say that she didn't find my gift of universal solvent amusing.
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One note from my in-person run: In Ustalav one of the rooms mentions containing an unassembled ballista, a bit of description I read without thinking too much about it.
Naturally, the party couldn't wait to put it together. On the fly I flipped open Ultimate combat, and after two failed tries putting it together they gave up. In the future I'll either prep a bit about siege engines in advance or (as I realized in hindsight) specify a lack of ammunition.
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One note from my in-person run: In Ustalav one of the rooms mentions containing an unassembled ballista, a bit of description I read without thinking too much about it.
Naturally, the party couldn't wait to put it together. On the fly I flipped open Ultimate combat, and after two failed tries putting it together they gave up. In the future I'll either prep a bit about siege engines in advance or (as I realized in hindsight) specify a lack of ammunition.
I just thought it was funny to give the PCs a chance to mess with a ballista. I usually include 1d6 bolts with it and make them spend 10 minutes assembling it. Even at 3d8 it's not overly powerful, just a fun toy.
Thanks for an amazing scenario, Andrew! :)
Are there any others that currently feature Venture-Captain Shevar Besnik as the one handing out missions?
Thank YOU! I have to thank John and Linda for the chance to write this scenario. When they approached me with the chance to write an evergreen 3-7, I took it to its logical extreme. I believe there are 163,000 possible combinations for the adventure, not including room placement. You could experience all content as a player with as few as 30 games. So yeah... lots of replay!
Venture-Captain Shevar Besnik makes his PFS debut in this scenario; I'm really pleased that you like him! Hopefully, with the new success of Uscalin Lodge, he will be getting some important missions from The Ten.
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I just ran this for the first time.
I generally run from my tablet. Even though I had pre-determined everything (roll dice? That is for PCs) and had the pdf open in two different windows (as much as my poor old tablet can handle) I still found myself madly scrolling through the PDF. Next time I'm going to make sure to print out more of the scenario (selected monster stats if nothing else).
One issue I had was coming up with vaguely logical reasons as to why the loot and McGuffins were still there centuries later. By the time I realized the problem I had sort of backed myself into a corner in terms of locations and so added something (the old "have to channel positive energy to get past this door" trick). I was very careful to add something that the PCs were extremely likely to figure out AND they could trivially bypass. But I wish I'd given the issue more thought ahead of time.
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Are the Besnik and his Uscalin Lodge located in Vellumis or Vigil? The box on p. 3, "Where on Golarion?," explicitly says Vellumis, but question, "What is Vigil?" on p. 5 implies that they are located there. The Pathfinder Wiki also says Vigil and cites the scenario booklet.
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Thanks, I'd read it that he was banned just from the temple, but corrupting a librarian would probably be enough to get you banned from the entire town. As a librarian myself, I know that we are a fragile and sensitive lot.
Hey now! There was no corruption of any kind; everything was consensual. She got in trouble for shirking her duties and I was banned from the library. These knights aren't as uppity as everyone makes them out to be, even me. I mostly poke fun at them to get under their skin.
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While I agree that this is not a scenario to pick up and run on the fly, I found the prep time to be only a little bit greater than most others. I LOVE the flexibility of this scenario. The room descriptions fit some of the variable elements so well that I feel that some thought was put into making placement of encounters and treasures an easy choice. In both playing it and running it, I found it challenging, but not overpowered, which is a good place to be. I am very grateful to the author, Andrew, for the work he put into writing it and to campaign leadership for authorizing this experiment. I hope that everyone else's experience matches mine so that we'll see more options like this in the future. Thanks to everyone that worked on making this excellent scenario available for play!
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I'm not sure if I'm being stupid or I found an error, but in the Orc Champion's SB (pages 31 and 32), he took Improved TWF with a DEX of 16. How did he do that?
At first glance, the feat looks wrong to me as well. There's some level of mistakes I think we just have to accept in the large number of statblocks presented here, though. Assume the guy really has 17 Dexterity and move on, I'd say.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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After prepping this myself, and watching a greener GM struggle with prepping and running this, I have come up with a worksheet to help with prepping and have uploaded it to PFS Prep
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After prepping this myself, and watching a greener GM struggle with prepping and running this, I have come up with a worksheet to help with prepping and have uploaded it to PFS Prep
That is quite useful. Thank you.
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Ok, I have played this once and ran this 4 times now. It has been a challenge every time.
I have one TPK, mostly due to every tactically sound decision unknowingly making the situation worse. The party was fighting the 2 dullahan's and the sister. They stopped the dullahan's from making the ride bys after the first round by blocking their path. This left the sister with little to due on the back of the dullan's but channel to harm.
The monk went around in front of the dullahans to clear room for other characters and ended up right outside the room with 2 wood golems. On the 4th round of the fight the wood golems joined the fray.
They had destroyed the dullahan's and the wood golems, when the wizard used a summon scroll and pulled in 5 lantern archons. After they lit up the sister, she used here con of cold to kill the archons, and she caught the pc's in the AOE as well.
This left the wizard as the only PC up. As he tried to run away she ran him down.
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Perhaps spreading out the encounters will help so encounters dont trigger ea other.
Also players do the darndest things.
They can cause their own tpk.Ran this 2x. Had 1 death and 1 near death.
I had them spread out, they sat in a hallway arguing among themselves as to what way the were going. I mean like 5-10 minutes in real time. Several times I tried to get them to quiet down and give me a decision, but they kept getting louder and louder.
I reminded them that they were in a dungeon and the could hear the echoes of their own conversation, and still they argued. So the undead encounter finally came to see what was going on. That was what pulled the two encounters togeter.
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I have spent the last few days prepping the encounters for this and setting up an online table (I am not yet finished). I have a few questions from what I have done so far:
2. Low tier Michiko looks to have some editing errors. She is recorded as level 5 but has 7HD, her HP look like they are based on 7HD but her caster level is based on 5. Which is right?
Her hp are correct; the listing of 7HD is incorrect.
3. Low tier Yua's tactics have her attacking with a spectral katana but only the high tier version seems to have that ability.
The low subtier is only a visual effect, not a mechanical one. Many ghosts appear to be using weapons that they were familiar with in life, but mechanically it's still corrupting touch.
In the high subtier, she gains the ability to use her corrupting touch like an actual weapon as one of her special ghost abilities. This allows her to threaten squares, unlike most ghosts.
4. The bralani tactics have them flying around shooting arrows, however bralani only have a fly speed while in wind form which I don't believe allows it to make weapon attacks (it works like wind walk)
It should do either as tactics, depending on the situation.
5. Adding the celestial template to the chimera has very little effect as the smite evil is never going to work in pfs. I can see this thing murdering out of tier characters on a regular basis. Also, it only speaks draconic which makes the negotiation option tricky.
The celestial chimera is not evil, it gains DR, resistances, and SR. The template does what it was intended to do.
Also, you may optionally treat the dragon head as gold and the goat head as that of a unicorn. I'm sure the folks in Montreal would appreciate it.
6. Blemia lacks a four player adjustment in low tier
Add the degenerate template. See the question up-thread.
7. The high tier Shirish encounter looks potentially very dangerous given the bear priests ability to hand out +8 con to everyone
Indeed! This is why it's 5 or 6 on the chart instead of 1 or 2. The higher results on the charts are typically more challenging.
8. The orc pyro stat block looks like it has various copy/paste errors, a corrected stat block would be handy given how complicated kineticists can be
That is unfortunate.
9. We have stats for an animated training dummy and knight but neither seem to appear on any encounter list
If you want to use them, then consider them a 2 on the Additional Threats table, leaving just the number 1 for "Roll on the environmental threat table."
10. Does the enraged defenders haunt persist? Otherwise it looks a little pointless.
As a caster level 6 effect, it lasts for 6 rounds with one spiritual weapon attacking each creature in the haunt's radius. With a 7 PC party, there could be 7 points! If all of them have an animal companion, eidolon or phantom, there could be 14 points!
11. How much green slime is there per hazard? The CRB gives no rules for detecting it, how would you handle this?
My recommendation is a single 5-foot square. Maybe in a spot that's hard to avoid, such as the only entrance to a room with obvious treasure. The stuff is pretty potent, so one patch should be more than enough.
As for how to detect it? It's a patch of green slime; it doesn't really hide. To identify it: as it's a classic dungeon hazard, I'd go with common Knowledge (dungeoneering) of 10+CR, so a DC 14 to know what it is and how to deal with it:
A single 5-foot square of green slime deals 1d6 points of Constitution damage per round while it devours flesh. On the first round of contact, the slime can be scraped off a creature (destroying the scraping device), but after that it must be frozen, burned, or cut away (dealing damage to the victim as well). Anything that deals cold or fire damage, sunlight, or a remove disease spell destroys a patch of green slime. Against wood or metal, green slime deals 2d6 points of damage per round, ignoring metal's hardness but not that of wood. It does not harm stone.
12. Likewise, how do we handle detecting yellow mold.
Same as the slime. I'd tell the PCs that there's nasty mold all over the room, then ask for a Knowledge (dungeoneering) check (10+CR is DC 16).
13. The wyvern arrow trap is missing the detail for its poison, easy enough to find but worth pointing out to people.
Yeah, PFS scenarios don't tend to list the effects of poisons unless they are unique to the scenario. However, I can list it here and you can feel free to copy it into your notes:
Type poison (injury); save DC 17; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Constitution damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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The low subtier is only a visual effect, not a mechanical one. Many ghosts appear to be using weapons that they were familiar with in life, but mechanically it's still corrupting touch.3. Low tier Yua's tactics have her attacking with a spectral katana but only the high tier version seems to have that ability.
That's a question that's come up before. Can you not normally take AoOs with Corrupting Touch?
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That's a question that's come up before. Can you not normally take AoOs with Corrupting Touch?
The low subtier is only a visual effect, not a mechanical one. Many ghosts appear to be using weapons that they were familiar with in life, but mechanically it's still corrupting touch.3. Low tier Yua's tactics have her attacking with a spectral katana but only the high tier version seems to have that ability.
As far as I know, you cannot. Corrupting touch states that a ghost can use it as a standard action. This would allow them to ready an action to use it, but they wouldn't automatically threaten.
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I should also point out that the bear priest's raging song doesn't help Shirish very much, as she is unable to use her kinetic blasts while under its effects.
While under the effects of inspired rage, allies other than the skald cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.
This means the kineticist could gain a +8 to Con, but not use it to bolster her kinetic blasts.
Those orc thugs can take great advantage of it, however.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I should also point out that the bear priest's raging song doesn't help Shirish very much, as she is unable to use her kinetic blasts while under its effects.
While under the effects of inspired rage, allies other than the skald cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.This means the kineticist could gain a +8 to Con, but not use it to bolster her kinetic blasts.
Those orc thugs can take great advantage of it, however.
Do kinetic blasts take concentration? She can't gather power, that clearly states that it requires concentration, but kinetic blasts don't have anything in their descriptor that implies they require more concentration than swinging a weapon.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I should also point out that the bear priest's raging song doesn't help Shirish very much, as she is unable to use her kinetic blasts while under its effects.
While under the effects of inspired rage, allies other than the skald cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.This means the kineticist could gain a +8 to Con, but not use it to bolster her kinetic blasts.
Those orc thugs can take great advantage of it, however.
Do kinetic blasts take concentration? She can't gather power, that clearly states that it requires concentration, but kinetic blasts don't have anything in their descriptor that implies they require more concentration than swinging a weapon.
Never mind. I just realized that Kinetic blasts are Sp not Su. I may need to start readying to hit kineticists more often.
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It looks like Michiko's Sacrilegious Aura isn't factored into the DCs for her Channel Negative Energy/Touch of Corruption. The DCs are 17 & 18 for tiers 3-4/6-7 respectively.
This fits with a DC of 10+1/2 Antipaladin Level+CHR Mod, but the constant Desecration w/ Altar effect on her from the aura in question should increase these by 6. They should be a (terrifying) DC 23 & 24 respectively.
Also, her hit points at tier 6-7 don't appear to be correct. The HD listing shows a +63. By my math the bonus breakdown should be +35 (CHR Mod +5 x 7 Levels; Per Graveknight), +7 Toughness, and +14 Desecrate for a total of 56. Where are the other 7 points coming from? Did Michiko get PC level stats and sink Favored Class Bonus (Antipaladin) into that? Or is her Charisma in tier 6-7 supposed to be 22?
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Just a comment on the four player adjust for subtier 6-7 Akina. Reducing the DC of the energy drain doesn't do a whole lot in play, since the save to overcome negative levels doesn't happen until 24 hours later.
Only being able to use dominate 1/day is the big adjustment, the DC lower is just gravy.
For Michiko, the stats seem a little off. Not sure what happened there. Good catches.
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As I'm making a Roll20 table for this, creating Pathfinder character sheets for all the NPCs (using the "NPC" tab), I'm discovering a lot of errors in the stat blocks. The monster ones copied straight out of the bestiary all seem to be OK, but the ones where templates were applied, and the ones with class levels, have quite a number of errors.
I know that we can just run with it as written and not worry about the fact that the stats aren't self-consistent. It does perturb me, though, as I'm putting the character sheets into Roll20. Do I fix the errors? Or do I have to put in lots of hack-one-off patches to make the stat blocks I'm using match the erroneous stat blocks in the scenario?
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Her hp are correct; the listing of 7HD is incorrect.I have spent the last few days prepping the encounters for this and setting up an online table (I am not yet finished). I have a few questions from what I have done so far:
2. Low tier Michiko looks to have some editing errors. She is recorded as level 5 but has 7HD, her HP look like they are based on 7HD but her caster level is based on 5. Which is right?
(Edit: slightly misread. I read that the hp and 7hd were correct. It should be 5hd, and it seems we all agree.)
I'm still confused about this. Looking at Michiko at subtier 3-4.
Things that look like a level 7 antipaladin: The HD/HP, the +14 and +12 on melee attacks (*)
THings that look like a level 5 antipaladin: The listed level, the CR, the DCs on Graveknight powers, daily uses of antipaladin abilities.
( (*) I don't understand why it's not +14 and +13, though. The only difference is missing Weapon Focus. The katana is +1, but the other two weapons are mwk. )
In any event, there are a few things that will need to get changed.
I would think that the level 5 antipaladin makes more sense. That's a CR 6 individual (as Graveknight adds 2 to the CR). A level 7 graveknight antipaladin would be CR 8, which is rather much for subtier 3-4.
Which is right? Moving forward, I'm going to assume that actually the level 5 version is right, and the attack bonuses and hd/hp need to be twiddled.
Edit again: I also think the attack bonuses of subtier 6-7 Michiko are wrong. For the katana, I get: +7 (BAB) +5 (Str) +1 (Enh) +1 (Focus) = +14. Yet +16 is listed. Am I missing something where the other +2 comes from?
Likewise, I expect the other two weapons to be +13, yet +14 is listed. I get: +7 (BAB) +5 (Str) +1 (Mwk).