#8-18 Champion's Chalice Part I: Blazing Dangerous Trails GM Thread

[aboyd]

James Anderson wrote:

We went 1-2-plains-plains-forest-plains-done, as that's what looked fastest. But because of that, the only creatures we faced were the amphipteres (which the Eidolon made fast work of).

For any GMs reading this, please note that the caterpillar fight explicitly states that if the PCs get off the beaten path, you may move the caterpillar fight to them. Note: it's "may" not "must," so you could skip the fight if needed. But if you have the time, you are 100% allowed and expected to drop that fight on the PCs, wherever they go. See page 14 for more info.

[GM Erich]

The caterpillar fight can be moved per the scenario, most groups will traverse hex 2 or 3 for the amphipteres, and I am also of the opinion that you cannot skip the last battle.

p. 25 wrote:

The race begins on the northeastern corner of Tile 1 and ends on the southwestern corner of Tile 8, thus requiring the PCs to progress through both these tiles to complete the race.

Thus, the only fight that can be skipped is the ambush, which has no penalty to do so.

As an aside, when I ran this online, the group just missed the perception check to catch the cheaters at the start and were forced to craft and loot for the remainder of the race.

I won't even discuss the one druid (who shall remain nameless) who swallowed a securely wrapped package containing his holy symbol and other tiny mundane items before the race and needed a fort save to "expel" them the next day. Nor the other player who convinced their deity to guidance said attempt. :)

[outshyn]

Paul Jackson wrote:

Amongst my many problems with this scenario is how trivial it is to win the race.

I think one of the reasons for the huge amount of buffer time is this:

GM Erich wrote:

As an aside, when I ran this online, the group just missed the perception check to catch the cheaters at the start and were forced to craft and loot for the remainder of the race.

If you have to spend a day crafting, that's gonna make it close. If you have PCs who take so much ability score damage (in the caterpillar fight) that they go unconscious, it may take days of rest before they are up and OK again. So I think the module author might have put buffer time in there to maybe allow players to salvage a win or 2nd place even if things are not ideal.

[Raginstorm]

Nathan Goodrich wrote:

Here's a sample playthrough the way we were doing it earlier. My team is L4 Valeros, Kyra, Amiri & Seoni (btw, kind of a bad team)

** spoiler omitted **...

Thanks for the write-up, this made running this simpler.

[Russell Akred]

I am prepping for this tonight and made this sheet for the race if anyone is interested.

Race Sheet

[Tomppa]

Ran this yesterday (for the second time).

Since only the "two paths" are numbered, I flat out told the players (who were contemplating a "plains-plains-hills-plain all the way-"route that it was beyond the scope of the adventure.

A bit cheap way to handle the obvious oversight in the design, but really, they players would have been pissed for the reduced gold in the reward.

[FLite]

My 7 year old daughter observed that the hills jungle route looked really unsafe, and insisted that the party go all the way around (though she was persuaded to detour to check out the ruins.)

One person made the check to spot the ashen leaves member leaving with the race official, but failed the stealth check to follow them. So they just posted a watch to wait for the ashen leaves racer to return, succeeded at a second perception check (at 4 higher than the origional since the scenario didn't list a Dc) and so saw him return and throw "something" into the fire.

They weren't sure if the red X on the map was a trap or a cache, but either way decided to turn in the Ashen leaves for collusion and cheating.