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I'm going to be running this this Sunday and have just finished my initial read-through.
I certainly never expected to see "CR 17/MR 7" in a PFS scenario. I'm really looking forward to that one.
A few questions and observations:
Which version of DR/Epic should we use? The one that requires a +6 weapon to bypass, or the one from Mythic Adventures that just requires a +6 equivalent weapon to bypass?
Having Sorrina give the PCs standard potions of resist energy (fire) seems like a trap. The potions would be CL3, last half an hour, and grant 10 points of fire resistance. This would be largely ineffective against the amount of fire damage that the PCs will be taking.
Nonetheless, I'm debating dispelling the PC's energy resistance. It seems like something a smart monster would do, but with the 3d10 fire damage a round in most areas it's pushing the limits on how harsh I want to be as a GM. Still, it is a 12-15.
What alignment is Isah? Standard Efreeti are of course LE, but that seems a bit odd for him as written.
How many points does Vector's regeneration heal a round?
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Which version of DR/Epic should we use? The one that requires a +6 weapon to bypass, or the one from Mythic Adventures that just requires a +6 equivalent weapon to bypass?
Haven't fully read through this yet, but given the design team's response (or lack thereof) to exactly this question, I think you go with the +6 overall enhancement test, even if only +1 of that is straight enhancement bonus.
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Vector should never use a full round attack, because mythic vital strike is vastly better than his two slams.
Using mythic power attack and mythic vital strike, his attack should be:
Slam: +26 (6d6 +72 plus erasure)
Due to mythic power attack, on a crit it would be:
Slam: +26 (12d6 +234 plus erasure)
This is using the RAI reading of mythic vital strike, but mythic vital strike is very poorly worded. A RAW reading is much nastier:
(6d6 +144 plus erasure) for the normal attack and (12d6 +468 plus erasure) for a crit.
He can potentially do two of those in a round.
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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I'm going to be running this this Sunday and have just finished my initial read-through.
I certainly never expected to see "CR 17/MR 7" in a PFS scenario. I'm really looking forward to that one.
A few questions and observations:
Which version of DR/Epic should we use? The one that requires a +6 weapon to bypass, or the one from Mythic Adventures that just requires a +6 equivalent weapon to bypass?
Having Sorrina give the PCs standard potions of resist energy (fire) seems like a trap. The potions would be CL3, last half an hour, and grant 10 points of fire resistance. This would be largely ineffective against the amount of fire damage that the PCs will be taking.
Nonetheless, I'm debating dispelling the PC's energy resistance. It seems like something a smart monster would do, but with the 3d10 fire damage a round in most areas it's pushing the limits on how harsh I want to be as a GM. Still, it is a 12-15.
What alignment is Isah? Standard Efreeti are of course LE, but that seems a bit odd for him as written.
How many points does Vector's regeneration heal a round?
Use the +6 equivalent weapon version. Because Vector uses mythic rules, he should go ahead and default to the Mythic Adventures version of damage reduction.
As you note later, The Breath of Lysianassa is really the PCs' protection against the Plane of Fire. If the PCs want to cast resist energy on their own or drink a potion and roast more slowly before charging beyond the "safety zone," they're welcome to do so. You're a grown seeker; you make your own life choices.
Whenever a preprinted creature's alignment isn't printed, it's what the printed source uses. As a result, Isah is lawful evil. As an efreeti, he largely honors bargains and is in a desperate spot. The organization he represents would be very interested in what the PCs are doing and how they do it, so Isah has a professional interest in sticking around.
Oh! His regeneration should be 10 per round.
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Hmm.. what are people looking to do with free for all wishes on the cards?
"grant the PCs three wishes that they must use immediately
after his release" (unless negotiated)
With regards wish prep - can they just ask for something as per the wish spell without components for the duration of the scenario? not sure which spells to limit the options to (any of the 7th or lower options?)
Scenario looks fun and a good capstone for the season, hopefully it will go okay (my first foray into 12-15 level content running :) )
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For reasons that are unclear to me, the PCs at my table let Isah go without negotiating any terms. I had him stick around through the process of fixing things, but he then left at the start of combat.
I'd have let them do anything reasonable, even beyond the normal 'safe' wish options, but screwing with them a little if they went crazy.
They could have used the help against Vector.
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Jeff, we didn't negotiate because we were worried about running out of time. We didn't want to have to have to skip parts of the last battle just because the store was closing.
We said to him we would let him out if he agreed to negotiate wishes later when we were done.
Even as it was, we barely got done before the store closed.
When the dust settled, the efreet had disappeared. Made sense that he would make a break for it when no one was looking.
Great game, by the way. Most entertaining PFS game I've played in a long while.
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I really enjoyed the phoenix fight, but I think Liam is right about the save DCs. I think most of us had around a +15 or greater for a lot of our saves, so we weren't likely to fail major effects. Even the firestorm when it dropped 20d6 on us, after halving it and fire resistance wasn't as scary as it should be. I don't think we failed against the other effects.
He let me look at the stats and mechanics for the other fight we completely missed, it looked significantly more threatening, particularly with our weak combat healing.
I liked the Efreeti interactions, people were a little suspicious but we wound up trusting him. The wishes are neat, but we saved 2 of them hoping to pull them out at a really bad moment, so we probably could have gotten more out of it.
I really like the concept of the last fight and the getting knocked in and out of existence. And the mythic vital strike crit on our wizard dropped him in one hit. Had us worried for a bit, but a lot of focus fire went into whatever the spider goblin thing was before it could do that again.
Our monk was a little grabby and cost us Ranginori's boons, so it was a forced hardmode, but I think for our group those would have just made things a little too easy. I liked feeling threatened by seeker content.
The environmental stuff was neat, we probably spent a good 45 minutes trying to figure out the best way to deal with it before we grabbed those planetary adaptation effects. A lot of buff planning and prep I think is what helped us get through without any actual PC deaths
One; the wish boon is neat. But my question is;
I love adding Ranginori as deity option and fully plan to make my GM credit cleric one of his followers now. But while you gave all the domain info and alignment, there's nothing about what his holy symbol should be and I can't find anything online.
So, what's his Holy Symbol?
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I totally to say outright that this scenario was a ton of fun. The story was great, the theme was neat, plot made you feel like an important, high level member of the society. And the whole thing just felt good. The designs around all the fights were cool as well. Kudos to the writers on a great end to the arc.
I think the affinity boons controlling what you can do with the artifacts was a bad choice. I don't know about others, but every character as my table hadn't been played in a year or two, so we had no access to those powers. It's neat for characters who played the right scenarios this season to take advantage of an artifact they can use a bit more. But I think a lot of Seekers are just being dusted off for it.
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I think the affinity boons controlling what you can do with the artifacts was a bad choice. I don't know about others, but every character as my table hadn't been played in a year or two, so we had no access to those powers.
I believe it counts the total affinity boons you've collected, not just one the ones on that specific character.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I think the affinity boons controlling what you can do with the artifacts was a bad choice. I don't know about others, but every character as my table hadn't been played in a year or two, so we had no access to those powers.I believe it counts the total affinity boons you've collected, not just one the ones on that specific character.
That is incorrect. I spoke to Tonya today and she said that it only counted the number of affinity boons on that particular PC.
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That is incorrect. I spoke to Tonya today and she said that it only counted the number of affinity boons on that particular PC.
That's incredibly disappointing.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the scenario is how it felt like a capstone to the season, where every action taken by your PCs contributed in a concrete way to the final result. Like Assault on the Wound you wanted to play this one after doing the entire rest of the season to give the Society a chance to properly prepare for the momentous task in front of them. It's also kinda puzzling, because if you look at the breakdown, the vast, vast majority of the affinity boons are granted in low level content, (the only two high level affinities I can think of both came out in the last 6 months!) which means a Seeker is unlikely to have them.
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Came up with the following questions after my review
Is the statblock for Vorviex tier 14-15 posted somewhere?
What is is Vector's 4th mythic feat (only 3 in stat block)?
John answered my question about regeneration already.
Mythic Power attack and vital strike
I came up with 6d6 +93 on a normal and 12d6 +308 on a crit. This is different then what FractialLaw had.
This is based on his base attack being 2d6 +9. the mythic power attack adds 22 damage (bab of 18 = -5 attack +15 x 1.5=22.5 rounded down) =31x3
Then on a crit its 44 damage from the base (9x3x2) and 264 bonus damage(44x3x2)=308
can someone confirm what the right answer would be
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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Regarding vector's attacks (these are my results which may also be wrong and that just shows how bad mythic power attack and vital strike are defined):
its slam damage with power attack is 2d6 + 24 (BAB 18 is 5 iterations of power attack , so we get 5 x 2 x 1.5 which adds 15 points of damage, it does not get 1.5 times str on its slam)
so its mythic vital strike damage is 3 times its normal damage 6d6 + 72
a critical hit on a normal slam deals 4d6 + 18 (2 x STR) + 60 (the power attack bonus damage of 15 gets doubled for being a crit and then doubled again for being a critical hit with a x2 modifier) for a total of 4d6 + 78
now stuff gets commplicated for the vital strike crit:
vital strike says "These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total." I understand this in a way that all additional damage added by vital strike does not get multiplied again on a critical hit, but one could argue that the static modifer added by mythic vital strike still gets multiplied.
So the total damage is:
2d6 (base damage) + 2d6 (additional crit damage) + 4d6 (additional vital strike damage) + 18 (2 x STR from crit) + 18 (2 x STR from vital strike) + 30 (doubled power attack bonus) + 30 (doubled power attack bonus added from crit) + 60 (2 times the doubled power attack bonus from vital strike) for a total of 8d6 + 156
Also worth of note is the fact that the prebuffed haste is NOT included in the stat block.
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"Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat."
The way I read this the power attack bonus should be x3 for vital strikes x2 for critical mod.
I still think that that PA bonus should be 22 not 15
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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A slam is a primary natural attack so should be 1.5 strength
Primary natural attacks get 1 times str modifier, secondary attacks get half str modifier. The only time you get 1.5 is if it is the only attack of a creature or the creature has a special ability that says so (for example dragon bite attacks).
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Actualy looking at the mythic vital strike again "Benefit: Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat"
So that should be all bonus's by 6 and then the critical would be even worse.
Base MVS PA
6d6 + (9+15) x6) = 144
Critical 12d6 (8d6? Maybe not that it matters with this bonus damage) + ((9+30) x6x2)=468
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When I mentioned that Mythic Vital Strike was very poorly worded the "multiply ... by the number of weapon damage dice you roll" part was what I was referring to.
When Vector uses a Improved Vital Strike he's rolling 6 damage dice, meaning that his strength and mythic power attack bonuses should be multiplied by 6, not 3.
I think it would be a perfectly reasonable argument to say that RAI was that it should be sets of damage dice, but that's not actually what the feat says.
I've run this twice now. I've used the RAW version both times. Each time, before making Vector's first attack and outright murdering a caster, I've gone through and explained exactly how I arrived at the numbers I was using.
Everyone has agreed with my reading, while at the same time also agreeing that Mythic Vital Strike is really, really broken.
As an aside, in my home games I use the RAI version. I usually like embracing the mythic cheese, but MVS is with foe biting, beyond morality, and undetectable on the short list of things that are simply too broken to use.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I can't find it right now, but IIRC that "sane" version of mythic vital strike is was some designer explained at some point, likely because of the adventure path.
A clarification how it is supposed to work for this scenario would be appreciated, you might be able to come back from the "sane" interpretation, but you would need something like a wish to come back from the insane version.
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I think it's pretty clear that "number of damage dice" was intended to refer to what I'll call the vital strike multiplier. I also think it's pretty clear that that's not exactly what was written in the mythic vital strike entry.
Still, when I ran it, I used the sane version I figured the author intended. The party got enough of a challenge out of this one as it was. Move action to teleport, swift action to steal a standard action, and then two standard action mythic vital strikes with mythic power attack, all in the same round? It's bad enough as-is. At least IMO.
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One thing i was considering I was going to do is hand out a sheet with a bunch of slots for xd6 xd8 damage rolls and have the players fill them in for me as we are waiting for the game to start to speed up rolling and mathing those big attacks later on.
Does anyone else do something like that?
Heh. I'm usually slow setting up and make the players wait on me, but this time my players took half an hour to get ready, reacquaint themselves with characters they hadn't played in months (or years), plan tactics and buffs, or in one case, speed-level a character because the player wasn't expecting to be able to play! They wouldn't really have had the time or focus to roll dice ahead of time. If they had, I'd have just started sooner.
Six or eight dice on my end weren't even that bad--the slowest thing was probably calculating the fire troop's damage taken when making a reflex save against an empowered cold fireball. Ugh. Not sure you want to give that away but that would have been the thing I'd precalculate...
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I can't find it right now, but IIRC that "sane" version of mythic vital strike is was some designer explained at some point, likely because of the adventure path.
A clarification how it is supposed to work for this scenario would be appreciated, you might be able to come back from the "sane" interpretation, but you would need something like a wish to come back from the insane version.
A breath of life should be able to bring back most characters hit by the "insane" version, assuming that they were at full health when they were hit. Unless it crits; the only thing to be done for a PC crit by that would be to find a very large diamond.
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Actualy looking at the mythic vital strike again "Benefit: Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat"
So that should be all bonus's by 6 and then the critical would be even worse.
The weapon damage dice for Vector is 2d6, so it is 3 and 6 respectively.
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Found something else.
Nairoth does not appear to include it's desecration aura properly in its stat block.
The hit points for a normal nightwalker are 21d8 +147. Hers is listed as 21d8 + 105. But the total is the same.
The to hit is the big wrong 15 bab + 12 strength +2 profane should be +29 to hit.
The damage seems right +12 strength +2 profane =14
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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So, I was just made aware of the fact that weapon damage is not halved against troops. I apologize to my GenCon tables and encourage all GMs to thoroughly read the troop section. Because I was so used to swarm rules, I had read a 50% halving mechanic into the first encounter which made that encounter nearly impossible for certain tables.
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So, I was just made aware of the fact that weapon damage is not halved against troops. I apologize to my GenCon tables and encourage all GMs to thoroughly read the troop section. Because I was so used to swarm rules, I had read a 50% halving mechanic into the first encounter which made that encounter nearly impossible for certain tables.
We accept! Still a ton of fun. The near death experience was quite invigorating.
Wolf
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I ignored the entropic field listing, since he didn't have it (and I don't think really needed it).
I ran this last Friday, with the game going from 6 to 11 p.m. There were a total of seven players at the table. Nobody summoned the elder air elemental with the Untouchable Opal, which is just as well considering the number of people present.
The battle with the troops took more time than I thought it would. They have a lot of hit points and DR. They also managed to dish out quite a bit of damage. Our group did make sure everyone had planar adaptation cast on them before they left Lodehollow (giving them resist fire 20 for the entire scenario, and immunity to the fire planar traits).
For the second encounter, they found the underground passage and went to the magma caverns. I managed to knock a PC into the lava before the mythic elemental got critted and pinned with Fossilblight, effectively ending it as a threat.
They freed the genie and negotiated for the wishes, with a good enough check to have him participate in the final combat. They also succeeded at all four checks to calibrate the machines.
We ran out of time in the final encounter--I only managed to complete one round of combat. Had it continued, I likely would have dropped a caster with his round 2 tactics. They tried using a wish offensively to wish the inevitable into the sun (though they didn't specify which one--I guess any would do). However, the genie's save DC is only 21 with the wishes he grants, so even if the efreet had overcome SR (which he didn't), it almost certainly would have made the save.
For Mythic Vital Strike I used the "sane" version, rather than rules-lawyering for more damage. The only time I might make an exception to this is if there was one or more players at the table with very overpowered characters, especially if they use "rules as written" loopholes to get that way.
I do recommend playing this in a 7 hour session if you can. I also recommend avoiding 7-player tables if you can, since extra players slows down the game, especially at this tier.
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So, is there any chance in this thread of getting an answer to just how Mythic Vital Strike actually works. 6d6+72 damage versus 6d6+144 damage for a single hit is a very large difference, especially at low tier where the higher damage value is very likely to kill a PC outright.
How did people who ran this at Gencon do it?
I doubt we'll get an official ruling overall, but Robert Brookes (the scenario author) did comment that the 'sane' version was the one intended in the scenario design, which is good enough for me.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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OK, having prepped this to run I have a few more questions/comments:
1. Apart from the damage does the pillar of fire in Area C have any other mechanical effect? The encounter seems to assume that the group walk up to the ziggurat, if they can see Azghazara or Nairoth inside the pillar that changes the entire tenor of the encounter. I am inclined to treat it as providing total concealment to those inside it.
2. Vector lacks any form of fire resistance, the acolytes have fire resist 10. Area D is subject to the Fire Dominant trait, is it intended that they should be taking 3d10 fire damage per round?
3. If the PCs don't release Ranginori before Vector arrives I assume they do not get the Elemental Might boost? The sidebar is quite explicit about the order of operations and there is no clear information at the start about the exact process nor any knowledge check to work it out.
4. The acolyte's tactics include them casting heal spells on Vector but they have almost no chance of penetrating his spell resistance. While cure spells are harmless he would still need to lower his SR as a standard action to avoid a roll.
Unofficial but "as-intended" suggestions:
1: Fire a wide, tall, and hot as the flame pillar typically appears opaque in the real world (not even considering smoke). Visually, I always intended the flame pillar to provide total concealment to whatever was inside.
2: That's an oversight on my part. Vector isn't inherently immune to fire, so I would recommend that he be protected by something akin to planar adaptation at an appropriate caster level for his CR. John will more than likely need to weigh in more properly on this.
3: If they don't eat their meat they can't have their pudding. Er—if they don't free Ranginori they don't get the boost. That's the "secret" hard-mode.
4: You're reading that as intended. It's a huge risk for Vector to spend an entire standard action doing that. The best tactic there would be for it to signal to its allies that it will do so on the next round, have them ready, and then when he drops it they all blast Vector with healing simultaneously.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Got to play this over the weekend. We considered using a wish to summon a herald of Milani or Sarenrae, but the fight didn't last long enough for us to get around to that.
My musket master started off at the wrong end of the map, and spent the first round moving and putting up a buff (unneeded, as it turned out).
Round 2 he had moved closer. Killed him on my turn.