Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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After reading the scenario i have some questions.
All encounters in the scenario use the underwater combat rules which means alle bludgeoning and slashing attacks take a -2 to hit penalty and deal only half damage. Many of the monsters used here have no piercing attacks so they would suffer from that penalty. Is this intended? it seems to make most of the encounters far easier than they look at first. Even the haunt in area area A8 would suffer from that because it deals bludgeoning damage.
Regarding the jellyfish hazard in the first encounter how should i handle players trying to attack or destroy the jellyfish? There is no information about AC or hitpoints.
According to the tactic Razethka is supposed to use invisibility to surprise the party but an invisible creature gets only normal concealment (20%) while submerged. So she gets no bonus to stealth and being large with DEX 11 and no ranks in stealth she gets an incredible -4 stealth bonus to hide from the party. That is not going to surprise anyone.
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Yeah, Razethka would seem to start combat with her tactics negated already. On the bright side for the PCs, Water Breathing isn't dismissable. I guess. :)
With respect to the underwater penalties, according to the GameMastery Guide:
The rules presented in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook for underwater combat apply to creatures not native to this dangerous environment, such as most PCs.
I think you run with the stats as written and only apply the penalty to PCs.
I imagine a jellyfish's AC would be somewhere south of "broad side of a barn" but destroying the bell does not necessarily remove the tentacles, as centuries of beachgoers will tell you... I'd let them destroy them if they want and not let it make their journey one bit easier. Provide some arbitrary target HP total perhaps? I haven't looked yet to see if they are actually a thing in any of the bestiaries yet.
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Re: jellyfish, looks like pathfinder jellyfish are essentially giant sacks of hit points. I'd treat them as immobile variants of the Giant Jellyfish when we need statistics for something not mentioned in the scenario.
A wild Knop pointed out that Razethka's 1/day free casting of Water Breathing wouldn't be long enough to last 24 hours. Seems like, since we don't seem to have submersibles for this expedition, that she should cast it as needed. Should probably be transparent to the players anyway.
Thinking more about the final combat, I think it's still possible that Razethka can pull off her tactics as written--she's hiding behind a curtain. I think if the PCs have destroyed that particular curtain on their way in, though, her position may need to change.
She should be able to plow through said curtain pretty easily and make a heck of an entrance.
Contributor
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According to the tactic Razethka is supposed to use invisibility to surprise the party but an invisible creature gets only normal concealment (20%) while submerged. So she gets no bonus to stealth and being large with DEX 11 and no ranks in stealth she gets an incredible -4 stealth bonus to hide from the party. That is not going to surprise anyone.
In addition to the "curtain call" mentioned above, she still gets the +2 bonus for attacking while invisible, and the target of her attack would not get their Dex bonus to their AC.
At the low tier this won't really matter since she'll become visible by using her breath weapon to open the fight, but could make a big difference at the high tier.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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According to the tactic Razethka is supposed to use invisibility to surprise the party but an invisible creature gets only normal concealment (20%) while submerged. So she gets no bonus to stealth and being large with DEX 11 and no ranks in stealth she gets an incredible -4 stealth bonus to hide from the party. That is not going to surprise anyone.In addition to the "curtain call" mentioned above, she still gets the +2 bonus for attacking while invisible, and the target of her attack would not get their Dex bonus to their AC.
At the low tier this won't really matter since she'll become visible by using her breath weapon to open the fight, but could make a big difference at the high tier.
I can suggest taking the time to modify the file a couple of ways and print it:
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Contributor
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While I appreciate that (and often do print out more complex maps), my printer is currently not working, so I'm SOL there, heh.
Notes I made as I prep this scenario -
Battle in the Bloom - Given Riam's proximity, I'm going to assume that the combat takes place near the sea floor, so heavily-armored PCs (it's looking like I may have 2 Paladins at my table when I run this in a few days) will be able to walk, at least.
Area A1 - Would it be safe to assume that PCs who beat the relevant DCs for the skill checks by 5+ (5, 10, etc.) earn additional successes? Otherwise, this section will most assuredly drag, and hold little incentive for PCs to try and go past 12 - they won't have any idea that they're being observed/judged.
Area A9 - If a Galvo's attacks are all bite attacks from its component eels, wouldn't the damage type be P/B/S instead of just B/S?
All in all, I like the way this scenario reads - I'm looking forward to running it!
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Battle in the Bloom - Given Riam's proximity, I'm going to assume that the combat takes place near the sea floor, so heavily-armored PCs (it's looking like I may have 2 Paladins at my table when I run this in a few days) will be able to walk, at least.
No sea floor in the plane of water... subjective directional gravity, though, so let them make will saves to fall in a given direction if they really need it.
The shell became an unattended object when Riam, sadly, stopped attending to it, so it is not subject to gravity or sinking.
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Contributor
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Battle in the Bloom - Given Riam's proximity, I'm going to assume that the combat takes place near the sea floor, so heavily-armored PCs (it's looking like I may have 2 Paladins at my table when I run this in a few days) will be able to walk, at least.No sea floor in the plane of water... subjective directional gravity, though, so let them make will saves to fall in a given direction if they really need it.
The shell became an unattended object when Riam, sadly, stopped attending to it, so it is not subject to gravity or sinking.
Good catch - thanks!
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According to the tactic Razethka is supposed to use invisibility to surprise the party but an invisible creature gets only normal concealment (20%) while submerged. So she gets no bonus to stealth and being large with DEX 11 and no ranks in stealth she gets an incredible -4 stealth bonus to hide from the party. That is not going to surprise anyone.In addition to the "curtain call" mentioned above, she still gets the +2 bonus for attacking while invisible, and the target of her attack would not get their Dex bonus to their AC.
At the low tier this won't really matter since she'll become visible by using her breath weapon to open the fight, but could make a big difference at the high tier.
Good catch on the invisibility. I read the rules in Terrain as nulling out the invisibility bonuses, but the Invisibility special ability is more explicit and it does sound like she would keep the +2 to hit and her opponents would all be flatfooted. Thanks!
Regarding maps: at least it's not Overflow Archives? (Small comfort, I know.)
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Regarding maps: at least it's not Overflow Archives? (Small comfort, I know.)
Funny, Overflow Archive was the very first map I printed (and I am certainly in the 3 digits at this point) just because drawing it was entirely outside my skill range ^^
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Contributor
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Well, I did it...I think I butchered the map but my roommate thinks I did alright.
I have that much more incentive to get my printer fixed now, though! :P
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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Hmmm. Realization I will totally not make use of: once the PCs kill off Razethka, they are stranded days away from air without their source of infinite water breathing. That seems bad. Could see a disgruntled GM taking advantage of that.
One of the powers of the Breath of Lysianassa is to give the benefits of a water breathing spell for 8 hours to any creature that touches it.
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b]Area A1 -[/b] Would it be safe to assume that PCs who beat the relevant DCs for the skill checks by 5+ (5, 10, etc.) earn additional successes? Otherwise, this section will most assuredly drag, and hold little incentive for PCs to try and go past 12 - they won't have any idea that they're being observed/judged.
I looked for this. I didn't assume it was the case, because I'm not aware of any general Pathfinder "margin of success" rule, and other scenarios where it applied spelled it out explicitly. A pity. My players were blowing away the DCs, but stopped at 14 successes because they basically had the full story.
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Seems like a pretty solid scenario to me!
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Agreed with many of Terminalmancer's observations above. This scenario was relatively easy to prep (for a 7-11) and my players (who all had knowledge of the events from #8-19) really enjoyed it. A few even said it was their favorite of the season! I'll be posting a review in the not-too-distant future as well.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion here - it helped my prep quite a lot! :)
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One thing that did happen that I wasn't quite sure how to deal with, and probably didn't deal with well, is the players trying to handle the eels before the Galvos assemble. The scenario says they assemble one round after the door is opened. A party (even of 4) can do a lot in one round. The eels look like a swarm, and anti-swarm tactics really ought to work pretty well on it. One person summoned an aqueous orb. Fortunately for me, he didn't summon it right in the middle of the room (as the person who opened the door in the first place was already in there); if he had, I would have looked like the pathetic GM who says "your tactic doesn't work because I don't want it to!" when it didn't pretty much sweep out all the eels. Or, perhaps it should have worked. Guidance as to what to do in this situation would help. If they cleverly get rid of the eels with something like that before the galvo forms, perhaps that means that they've found a creative solution that allows them to avoid the galvo fight?
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One thing that did happen that I wasn't quite sure how to deal with, and probably didn't deal with well, is the players trying to handle the eels before the Galvos assemble. The scenario says they assemble one round after the door is opened. A party (even of 4) can do a lot in one round. The eels look like a swarm, and anti-swarm tactics really ought to work pretty well on it. One person summoned an aqueous orb. Fortunately for me, he didn't summon it right in the middle of the room (as the person who opened the door in the first place was already in there); if he had, I would have looked like the pathetic GM who says "your tactic doesn't work because I don't want it to!" when it didn't pretty much sweep out all the eels. Or, perhaps it should have worked. Guidance as to what to do in this situation would help. If they cleverly get rid of the eels with something like that before the galvo forms, perhaps that means that they've found a creative solution that allows them to avoid the galvo fight?
I'm prepping this to run this weekend, and the Galvo says it has swarm traits - I would rule that any anti-swarm actions taken by the party before it forms would remain in effect.
What is everyone using for shark minis? The Great White and Hammerhead from Skull & Shackles are both large. I need 6 medium size before this weekend. The only thing I can find that is remotely close are the lego sharks - my kids only have 2, I think - guess I'll order a few more unless anyone else has a better suggestion
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Contributor
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What is everyone using for shark minis? The Great White and Hammerhead from Skull & Shackles are both large. I need 6 medium size before this weekend. The only thing I can find that is remotely close are the lego sharks - my kids only have 2, I think - guess I'll order a few more unless anyone else has a better suggestion
I used a mix of Grindylow minis (Skull & Shackles) and Kruthik Hatchlings (my go-to for generic creepy-crawlies) for medium sharks.
Developer
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I am prepping this to run on Sunday and I cannot find a four player adjustment for A9. Am I missing something or is it just not there? Given how under CR'd these things are this could go very badly for a party of 4, especially one of those marginal high tier APL9 5 or 6 player groups.
Hmm, looks like the sidebar dropped out somewhere along the line. Here's what it should say.
Make the following adjustments to accommodate a group of four PCs.
Subtier 7–8: The galvo is sluggish when it forms. It has the fatigued condition and takes an additional –3 penalty on Initiative, for a total penalty of –4. Reduce its natural armor by 2, reducing its AC and flat-footed AC by 2.
Subtier 10–11: Replace both advanced galvos with standard galvos from Subtier 7–8.
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Played at PaizoCon, just ran tonight. The party was well equipped for the combats and poorly equipped for the everything else in the 10-11 subtier, no adjustment.
In town: One player was smart enough to Detect Evil on the dragon before heading off, so he was pretty sure he knew the score.
Baron Zemdar: This was made trivially easy by the sorceror casting Dimension Door and bringing the mounted paladin over to the other side of the jellyfish, such that the sahuagin had targets that weren't really in the forest and the tide wasn't carrying the PCs into the bulk of the jellyfish. In retrospect, I should have positioned the sahuagin in the middle of the jellyfish instead of having an interposing area.
Coral Gardens: I prodded the players until they decided they should look at things. It took them 4 rounds (i.e. 20 minutes) to go through to get enough successes for the story. What I don't understand is why the judgment breakpoint for scoring was higher than the potential to gain knowledge.
Small Rooms: They opened the door, saw and altar, and decided not to investigate. Then they opened the next door, saw nothing terribly interesting, and closed the door. Then they opened the next door and finally decided to interact with the orb. By and large, they were hunting encounters and didn't have interest in restoring the temple. Felt kind of weird.
Golems: "30 wasn't enough to see them?" "Nope, 32." This encounter could have gone very poorly for the PCs, but one of the more experienced players was playing a character that hands out teamwork feats and gave the whole party Escape Route. The resultant maneuvering allowed the players to filter in effectively and take these guys out. No big shakes, really, but it was a bit hectic for a while. That said, 2 paladins meant that the bleed and damage of the encounter was really balanced out.
Aquel: One thing I don't quite understand is why GMs were not given any options for fewer than 4 points or if the PCs do obviously terrible things. There were summoned hellhounds and a gout of hellfire in her line of sight. I kind of wish that I could have had a replacement combat option where the PCs fight Aquel instead of the dragon - it certainly would have been very reasonable given the infernal bloodline sorceror doing multiple evil things. As it was, the party dutifully managed 4 judgment points and got the breath after the paladin/ninja/monk corked the doorway and obliterated the greater galvos. Due to time, we skipped the haunt, though the other paladin had Freedom of Movement and could solo the tooth in a couple rounds.
Dragon: The feeder did more damage than the dragon, who was scolded by the singing cowboy (intimidate 63), then failed the Will save against another attack debuff, etc. This ended up being a relatively short encounter as there was still plenty of self-healing available for the holy tactician paladin, who dutifully stood in the way and had AC in the 40s for most attacks.
I love the scenario. The players had a good time and they managed to get full prestige as they successfully saved all the hostages.
My game play report is similar to andreww's. I just wrapped up a game with 4 players, low tier. All 4 players used level 7 pre-gens!!! We had: ranger 7, barbarian 7, cleric 7, and rogue 7. The ranger and barbarian were played by teenage boys who had never played a tabletop RPG in their lives, the rogue was played by a teenage boy who had played Pathfinder but never PFS, and the cleric was played by the store's Venture Agent.
Frankly, without the VA, this would have been a mess. Trying to teach new players with a level 7-11 module is HARD. There was just too much to do, too many concepts for them to handle. (DR? What's that? ER? What's that? SR? What's that? Swarm immunities? What's that?)
During the last 30 minutes of the game night, I handwaved a ton of stuff to get them through 90 minutes of remaining play.
The big problem is that with the enemies having DR 10, it was a SLOG for these pre-gens to actually make a dent. The barbarian was fine, actually. Not a bad pre-gen. But the ranger? He relied on his animal companion, which was weak. I should have killed it twice over. The cleric pre-gen was actually great too -- 6d6 channel healing at level 7 is very nice, above the norm. And they needed it. Like, a LOT. The rogue? Ooof. IF he could get sneak attack, he was OK. Otherwise, he couldn't beat DR.
The store closing actually saved them. I had to call the last fight. I love dragons and I wanted to play that monster at full throttle. I think I could have murdered all of them. Instead, I shrugged, and said, "Well, looks like you're going to kick its butt, so we call it here." It was of course a fabrication. These poor teens didn't need a TPK to be their welcome into PFS.
We gave them newbie boons and printed guides and so on.
In summary, if I could add one thing to the conversation about this module, it would be this: you've gotta must absolutely should 100% definitely follow Linda's post about the missing 4-player adjustment. Really, seriously. Andreww is right, the galvo for the 7-8 tier is super difficult, if the GM is running it right. Without a 4-player adjustment, I probably could have dropped 1 PC or animal companion per round, or close to 1 per round, and they'd have a hard time hitting back. That swarm ability to ignore single-target spells is mean against noobs.
I love this module, but it's definitely intended for seasoned players.
