A sober campaign journal of Doomsday Dawn: Doom, gloom, and TPKs


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Most of yall are jumping the gun. If you had actually read the provided reports you'd realize the way collete's games go is thus. Monsters go, they focus fire a dude either dead or nearly there, dead dude uses a hero point or is healed to get back in the fight, his slowed self gets his teeth kicked in a second time, if he was healed they then start beating on the healer, whack-a-mole commences until the healer goes down, the fight then rapidly spirals out of the players control, TPK.

"Forcing TPK" if you are stabbing downed players under the old rules you are actually handing the remaining players an easier victory. This is due to the front loaded nature of monsters damage and the fact they are only advancing the dying track by one which will be negated by heroic recovery or healing. They are effectively skipping their turn and only vary large group of concurrent enemies will be able to stab them to death before they can recover. Letting them recover to slowed 1 or 2 will be better for the enemies as the injured party member is liable to burn through the healers resources and actions so he doesnt get immediately whacked again.
Under the new rules if you get up twice from healing and then one enemy thinks to himself "I wonder if hes still alive? One stab won't hurt" You'll be dead and ill honestly think the monster was in the right. This isn't an Anime its Pathfinder.

Anyways regardless of wether he did or not so people know the score.

Lost Star - They were killed by Drakkus
Pale Mountain - shoved off a mountain by gnolls who were trapped after being let go by the manticore who ran out of spikes(but otherwise could have killed them) which is why these count as two tpks each
Shrieking peak - cheated(I believe) against the minotaurs
Arclord's - punched to death by a golem(berserk)
Sombrefell - Elite Wights and Poltergeist after losing someone to the ghasts.

These all seem like particularly vicious fights with a space horror that is killing his underlings, desperate gnolls, Minotaurs that know you to be honorless, a raging hulk of flesh that "attacks the nearest living creature", and then undead who know for a fact you aren't dead becuase you haven't risen to join their ranks.

Phone posting so please excuse any spelling errors i may have missed.


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Colette Brunel wrote:
There are no mechanics concerning how monsters identify dying/dead conditions, so I rule in favor of monsters: they can generally tell if someone is still alive.

There are mechanics for learning information about a creature during play. It's called Recall Knowledge. I imagine most monsters are Untrained in Human Lore (Though I would also allow Medicine to be used instead, per the clause that the action list is not exhaustive, and that new actions can be defined as needed), and the check would be Hard for the creature's level: So it requires one action and a DC 15 check determine if a particular 1st level human was dead or just unconsious (using update 1.3s table). Critically fail and the creature must act on false information.

Personally I don't reveal a creatures HP total, or track the PCs HP either! Hit Points are an abstraction of many health factors. Not an actual number of nicks and scrapes an enemy can count as a free action.

NPCs shouldn't know what an adventuring party's capabilities are without making an appropriate check. So unless I've got a trained soldier who's seen the enemy party using healing magic and identified it (or its results were blatently obvious), there is no reason for them to 'waste time' finishing off an enemy they've already downed.


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Twilight_Arcanum wrote:


Lost Star - They were killed by Drakkus
Pale Mountain - shoved off a mountain by gnolls who were trapped after being let go by the manticore who ran out of spikes(but otherwise could have killed them) which is why these count as two tpks each
Shrieking peak - cheated(I believe) against the minotaurs
Arclord's - punched to death by a golem(berserk)
Sombrefell - Elite Wights and Poltergeist after losing someone to the ghasts.

This is mostly correct, except that the first group for In Pale Mountain's Shadow, after being released by the manticore, successfully used social skills to bypass the gnolls, only to be defeated by the water and earth elementals.


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Zaister wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
In a world where most creatures are dead before they even hit the ground, most creatures with any survival instincts will assume a dying opponent is already dead and won't waste time trying to confirm it before dealing with opponents who are still engaged in trying to murder them.
Correct. Generally, creatures in this game are DEAD at 0 hp and do not come back or get healed from 30 feet away. Only PCs and some exceptional NPCs can pull this off, and most opponents will most likely never have encountered anyone who can survive a lethal bow taking them down. Therefore they should normally have no reason to assume that a PC struck down is not dead, unless they have concrete contrary evidence.

Which is, IMHO, a completely gamist mechanic, which gives the PC's extra "hero points" to not die. As a more simulationist gamer, I find it a pretty bad decision to have PC goblins or humans behave markedly different from NPC goblins or humans.

But I'll admit that this is a matter or preference. If you are okay with it, that's your sitch.

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Closed thread for review.

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Folks, I've removed some posts and replies to posts. There are many different styles and types of play and game mastering. It's important to keep your tone calm when trying to learn why another gamer chooses or enjoys a particular style. Avoid aggressive questioning or insults.

While we encourage every GM to play to their strengths, we recognize that some styles might not be to everyone's taste. Debating these styles is not really in the best interest of the playtest boards or the people participating. We request that you instead focus on playing your games and reporting the results via the surveys we have provided. If you want to carry out a respectful debate or conversation about a particular style of GMing, it would be a good idea to find a more appropriate section of the forums.

Lastly, when describing games where a number of people express surprise at a recurring theme (ie the deadliness of the adventure), it would likely behoove the atmosphere of the thread and people's ability to discuss it in a relevant manner, if you include relevant details about how you GM or GM'd the sessions you are writing about. For example, if you are highlighting how deadly an adventure is, it would be relevant to include that your style of GMing is to make the encounter as hard or deadly as possible for PCs.


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This report is going to be curt, short, and less detailed than usual, because the session was short and slow. I have been in poor physical and mental condition as of late and especially today, and my heart just really is not into this. There is no real point in reiterating identified problems, because they are the same old, same old problems as usual. We did not even get into a "real" HARDCORE combat either, so this report is noncombat-focused. When I am feeling better, I will try to expand this into a full report.

• Party Member #1: Generic halfling bear companion druid and their bear: An example of what I believe is one of the two strongest and most flexible builds in the game at the moment. Halfling bear companion druids are completely amazing. They have high Wisdom. They can cast spells, including heal, probably the strongest and most versatile combat spell in the system, and fireball for crowd control. They ride a bear that effectively receives an extra action each round due to the Animal Order benefit, which can either transport the druid around or deal some damage to an enemy. They can hurl out summoned monsters with Spell Points. The build's only real weakness is getting adjacent to monsters with Attack of Opportunity.

• Party Member #2: Generic halfling Sarenite pure caster cleric: The other one of the two strongest and most flexible builds in the system at the moment. They have high Wisdom. They can cast spells, including heal and fireball like a druid. Their positive energy pool can turn the tables in combat by restoring huge amounts of hit points to the party. Their Spell Points can give them potshots with fire ray, more powerful healing with healer's blessing, and extra uses of heal with healing font. This sort of build will keep the party alive, no questions asked.

• Party Member #3: Generic human (half-elf) guisarme fighter: My GMPC, because while I dislike how one-note and repetitive martials are in Paizo's systems, I cannot deny that they are good for low-maintenance GMPCs. This build is as basic and as vanilla as they come for fighters. A guisarme gives the fighter more space for Attacks of Opportunity. Sudden Charge lends plenty of mobility to this already-high-speed fighter. Brutish Shove and Improved Brutish Shove provide forced movement and AC debuffs. Rogue Dedication is a bit shabby, but a guisarme fighter has few good 6th-level feats. Sudden Leap and Felling Strike are a good surface-to-air option to bring down fliers.

• Party Member #4: Not-so-generic goblin fighter multiclassed into bard: Certainly not as outrageous a build as it sounds. The character still uses a guisarme for Attacks of Opportunity, and has the mandatory Sudden Charge for mobility. Bard Dedication and Inspirational let the character use Inspire Courage; this is not the kind of feat investment I would personally like, or even recommend due to the Charisma investment required, but I can definitely see the logic behind it. However, I definitely would not have bothered with Intimidating Strike, Swipe, and Shatter Defenses; I find them rather awful, and think that more iterations of Brutish Shove and Improved Brutish Shove would have been better for this character.

• Note on Equipment: You will note that the entire party has eyes of the eagle, because they are great for Perception and, arguably, initiative. Frankly, I am unsure if they actually apply to initiative. I have been allowing it all this time, but I am starting to think that they do not actually work for initiative. Most of the party also has boots of bounding for extra speed, and the druid even gave theirs to the fighter/bard. Mundane adventuring gear generally is not listed, because I have observed that it tends to be pointless to list them down in Paizo's adventures beyond 1st level, and I just assume that leftover gold is spent on things like rations and bedrolls. Thus far, mundane adventuring gear has never come up in adventures beyond 1st level, so I do not regret my decision.

• Note on Mounts: The characters other than the druid were not, in fact, riding mounts because of point #8 here.

• Playthrough Notes: Exploration and Hexcrawling in General: Hexcrawling was some boring business. Maybe it is because this is the first time in my entire career to run a hexcrawl, or maybe Mor Ardain - Roaming the Wastes in the background was a little kitschy, but it was more tedious than anything. First of all, the slowest speed in the party was 30 feet, thanks to the druid having given their boots of bounding to the fighter/bard. Thus, the party could travel 24 miles per day, or 12 miles per day through the trackless and non-river-hugging sections of the hills and the forest. However, this travel time was utterly irrelevant.

You see, this specific adventure's rules stipulated that the party could instead scout out a 12-mile hex in two days, or in one day with a DC 30 Perception check or a DC 27 Survival check. Both fighters had Expeditious Search, so the entire party would scout a hex in a day on a failed check from both fighters, or in half a day on a successful check from either fighter. Thus, the two fighters were potentially accelerating the party's travel, but only while searching through unexplored hexes. The cleric and the druid rolled Perception/Survival anyway, but solely to fish for natural 20s for critical successes and thus hints.

Out of the 25 hexes in total that the party had fully searched, the fighters managed to cut down the search time in 20 of them down to a day (failed Perception checks for both fighters), and the search time of 5 of them down to half a day (a successful check from either fighter). The fighters had trouble landing the DC 30 Perception check even with master Perception and eyes of the eagle, though that may have been because of the fighter/bard's Wisdom 8. The party gained a few hints from critical successes, but only during the least useful moments, like receiving a hunch to travel east when the party was already dead-set on heading east, or garnering a clue about a potential fey ally when the party was in a hex that they had already identified as home to a dryad they were seeking as a friend.

• Playthrough Notes: Lady Keleri Deverin's Briefing: The background storyline of Doomsday Dawn has warped considerably due to all of the TPKs across both groups. Thus, I have had to alter Lady Keleri Deverin's character. She has been much more prominent in the background storyline, and has been proactively solving problems in such a way as to salvage the background storyline. Lady Keleri Deverin has had to personally recover the Lost Star, the Notes on the Last Theorem, and the countdown clock, as well as assemble together all of the Ilvoresh-devoured Verid Oscilar's research.

That aside, I used Lady Keleri Deverin's briefing to transparently explain to the party the mechanics behind the various point pools they could accrue. I made clear the catalog of magic items they could order and the delivery times, and stressed that the party would need to attain 4 Ally Points and 4 Research Points for Lady Keleri Deverin to send the other Esoteric Order operators to support the party at the Moonmere. The party was paranoid of coming close to the lake's edge, out of fear for the lake monster, so they declared that hex a no-go zone.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #3: Korlabablin: Nothing much occurred here. The adventure was deeply unclear on what sort of NPC representative would actually speak with the party, so I had to fabricate some sort of potato-faced gnome baroness NPC named after the town. I glossed over interactions with the gnomes here. The party learned of the roc situation, and one player was interested in the town's history, so I dumped the appropriate lore from the adventure, which of course tipped the party off to the existence of the dryad Tulaeth. The gnomes did not do anything to annoy, antagonize, or otherwise irritate the party, and indeed, three-quarters of the party were Small-sized themselves.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #8.5: Slain Reinforcement: The party came across the cyclopean cultist corpses here. They picked up the spell research notes for +1 Research Point and successfully identified the magic loot, even if the halfling cleric and the halfling druid did have to burn both of their Lucky Halflings for this. I will note that I had trouble setting DCs for identification here. The skill rules for identifying magic items refer the reader to page 146, which contains a table suitable for identifying anything based on spell levels, but that table is nonfunctional for any other type of magic item. I had to default to the new skill DC table in the errata update, which meant that I was cross-referencing three tables just to figure out the right DCs for identification: the table in page 146 for the scroll, the treasure tables to figure out the item levels of the other items, and the new skill DCs in the errata. This was clunky, and I wish that there was a more unified table for DCs for identifying items.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #10.5: The Rocs' Tor: I figured that the rocs were dozing off at this time. The party seemed terrified of the prospect of actually waking up and fighting the two rocs. Thus, they were absolutely, positively dead-set on having the druid cast speak with animals and entreat the rocs. The druid did exactly that and gingerly roused the rocs to wakefulness.

Now, the adventure does not list down a Diplomacy DC to entreat the rocs, which was quite vexing for me. However, the adventure did imply that a Diplomacy check would be necessary, seeing how the adventure mentions wild empathy as an option, when wild empathy requires a Diplomacy check to work. Thus, I made it clear to the party that the druid under speak with animals would have to make a Diplomacy check to reason with the rocs, and that the other party members could Aid the druid (though of course, Aid's bonus does not stack with other Aid bonuses). The druid's player took a look at their Charisma 14 and their untrained Diplomacy penalty of -4, and immediately decided that they would forgo any Diplomacy with the rocs and instead wholly capitulate to the rocs' demands. This is a scenario that the adventure has no real guidelines on, so I had to improvise from this point on.

The rocs, of course, demanded that the gnomes change the colors of their rooftops to drab colors. The rocs were willing to fly over with the party, though not let the party ride with them, because that was beneath the rocs. The druid and the rest of the party agreed. After checking with my three players, it seems like they were willing to side wholly with the rocs even if it meant throwing the gnomes under the metaphorical bus. Maybe it was because I gave the rocs an actual personality under speak with animals, maybe the players were sympathetic to the rocs' color-induced plight, or maybe the players found cute the pair of anime harpy pictures I used to represent the explicitly Gargantuan and non-sophont rocs. Either way, I did not tell the players that the gnomes were more valuable as allies than the rocs, because I wanted to see where this strange scenario would go.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #15.5: Yes Pls Bully: After double-checking with the group, it seemed like the party was still fully siding with the rocs. The party explained the situation to the gnomes of Korlabablin, who were now indifferent in disposition. Now, I figured that since the party had gotten away with circumventing a Diplomacy check (by fully capitulating to the rocs' demands), and that the adventure seemed to imply that Diplomacy was necessary sooner or later, I opted to call for a Diplomacy check at this point. The gnomes were quite attached to their colorful buildings due to culture-related reasons, but a DC 26 Diplomacy check (Aid-compatible at DC 20) could persuade the nature-loving gnomes to sympathize with the plight of the rocs. DC 26 seemed appropriate, since the other Diplomacy DCs in the adventure were 26-29. A successful check would garner both the gnomes and the rocs as allies.

The halfling cleric stepped up for the check, with others Aiding them. Unfortunately, even with Lucky Halfling, the halfling cleric ultimately failed the check. The party sided with the rocs, who were present for negotiations, and then bullied the unhappy gnomes into painting their roofs some drab color. +1 Ally Point for siding with the rocs.

Was any of the above in the adventure? No. I was operating off the adventure's implication that a Diplomacy check would be necessary sooner or later, given the mention of wild empathy, and I had to improvise because the adventure gave no guidelines on what happens if the PCs fully capitulate to the rocs' demands and side with the rocs.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #20.5: Tulaeth: The cleric, the druid, and the fighter GMPC all critically succeeded on the check to discern a powerful fey presence in this hex. The party encountered the dryad Tulaeth, who immediately told them to shoo-shoo-shoo. The halfling cleric led negotiations, with the rest of the party offering Aid at DC 20, though again, Aid did not stack with itself. The cleric used Lucky Halfling to blow through the DC 26 Diplomacy check, and then the DC 29 Diplomacy check, thus fully earning Tulaeth's trust and +2 Ally Points. Tulaeth still tipped the party off to the cyclopes to the south, and the party appeared to vaguely agree to negotiate on Tulaeth's behalf.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #22.5: The Cyclopes: The halfling cleric's player made a mistake while exploring this hex: because they did not think that this hex was the cyclopes' home, they burnt their Lucky Halfling on the Perception/Survival check to explore the hex, in the hopes of fishing for a natural 20 for a hint. This would come to bite them back later.

After discovering the longhouse, the cleric discerned the oddity with the burnt roof, and the fighter GMPC critically succeeded to further point out that the roof was scorched by a red dragon or a similar creature. For some reason, one player thought this to mean that there was a dragon inside the longhouse. The party opted for the diplomatic route, tangentially on Tulaeth's behalf.

Now, the adventure says that for the diplomatic route, "a PC must succeed at a DC 26 Diplomacy check to convince the cyclops to stand down and speak to the PCs," which seems to imply that a failure results in the cyclopes refusing to stand down and refusing to speak to the PCs. The halfling cleric did their best with Aid from the rest of the party, but they failed, so they spent 2 Hero Points to reroll. They rolled a natural 1 for a critical failure. Between the text of the adventure and the rules for critical failures on Diplomacy (Make an Impression) and Diplomacy (Request), I opted to have the cyclopes launch the attack. The cyclopes already had their weapons drawn during the tense and ultimately fruitless negotiations with the party, but then, the fighters also had their weapons drawn.

• Playthrough Notes: Battle(?): The Nine Elite Cyclopes and their Smilodon: The elite cyclopses acted first (I forgot the +2 Perception from their elite adjustments, and they still acted first), followed by the smilodon, whose initiative result broke a tie. In past sessions, monsters winning on initiative ties has always caused grumbling and moaning from the players, and this was no exception. Due to the terrain of the map and starting positioning, only four cyclopes could actually attack in melee, yet they hit quite hard due to Flash of Insight and Swipe. The players were deeply disgruntled and frustrated by the fact that these lower-level mooks were automatically landing attacks with Flash of Insight and Swipe, which dealt a significant amount of damage across the party. At one point, a cyclops provoked two Attacks of Opportunity from the guisarme fighters, but both missed due to the -2 penalty.

Then the remaining five cyclopes fired heavy crossbows also with Flash of Insight, thus dropping the fighter/bard to 0 hit points and damaging the GMPC fighter. The fighter/bard did not opt to spend a Hero Point. The smilodon managed to Pounce the fighter GMPC and establish a Grab with another action.

The fighter GMPC used Improved Brutish Shove to break the grab. Now, I was actually unsure of how this worked. The grabbed and restrained conditions are unclear on how they interact with forced movement, and whether or not forced movement can break a grab or a restrain. I ruled that, yes, it could.

Despite the cyclopes' Flash of Insight being expended, and despite the PCs having a virtual chokepoint against the enemies, the party still disliked their odds. Thus, they opted to have the druid heal up the unconscious fighter/bard and begin a retreat. The nine cyclopes and their smilodon had no way to meaningfully prevent the retreat, so off the party went.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #25.5: The Dragon and the Giant (a new bestselling fantasy novel): The party discovered the dragon's lair, upon a tor suspiciously identical to the rocs' own lair. They also gained a visual on the fire giant standing guard for the nearby young red dragon. The party weighed the odds and decided that under no circumstances whatsoever would they engage the dragon and the giant, let alone make a deal with the scaly creature, perhaps out of Shadowrunners' instincts.

• Playthrough Notes: Day #28.5: Ramlock's Ruined Tower and the Moonmere: The party caught sight of the Night Heralds' security crew: a fire giant, a hill giant, and five trolls. "Any PC who wants to scout the camp attempts a DC 31 [as of errata] Perception check. If at least one of them succeeds, the group gains 2 Research Points, or 3 Research Points if anyone critically succeeded," so sayeth the adventure. The entire party made the daunting DC 31 Perception check to scout, and only the cleric succeeded, earning the party 2 Research Points. It was then that the group realized that they had a daunting challenge up ahead. We ended the short and slow session there.

According to the adventure, "Research Points are also gained by encountering people who have seen the tower, or by the PCs personally scouting the tower once they’ve found its location (area M). 
The PCs’ Research Point total decreases as time goes by and the Night Heralds become more entrenched in their position at Ramlock’s Tower. Once every 7 days, reduce the party’s total Research Points earned by 1."

Therefore, the 1 Research Point the party had gained from the slain reinforcements had already deteriorated, leaving the party with exactly 2 Research Points left.

The party had only 3 Ally Points and 2 Research Points, so Lady Keleri Deverin had no way of convincing the Esoteric Order's other operators to actually pitch in to the battle against the Night Heralds.

The party spent the day searching the hex, discovering the tower, and scouting it, which means that the party must sleep before doing anything else. When they awaken, the halfling cleric could whip up a sending to contact Tulaeth and tell her to send in the treants, but the treants could not just go up to the rocs back in the rocs' home, because the non-sophont rocs have no way of knowing that the treants are the party's allies. The halfling druid could then use a phantom steed spell to travel to the rocs and tell them to come to the Moonmere.

Thus, under the above plan, the party is going into the final confrontation with 0 Treasure Points, 3 Ally Points, 2 Research Points, and absolutely no Esoteric Order backup.

I am continuing the adventure today. It looks like the party is destined to rumble with the Night Heralds' giants, and then the Night Herald cultists themselves, which is very worrying. The Night Heralds are lunatic cultists and intergalactic aliens dead-set on destroying Brevoy, the River Kingdoms, and Galt with an apocalyptic mu spore, so I will be playing them in an especially vicious manner. This is not to say that I will aim straight for unconscious PCs, however; due to the way Hero Points clear out both the dying condition and the wounded condition in Pathfinder 2e Playtest v1.3 (what a cumbersome name that is), monsters are effectively discouraged from aiming for unconscious PCs. I will focus fire and lay down debuffs in an intelligent fashion. I will still play my fighter GMPC in an optimal and smart manner, as I always do with my GMPCs.

The party could very well lose, given these daunting odds. This looks like yet another forced TPK under HARDCORE combat. Eastern Avistan is under threat of a mycological fate. I do not know, maybe Treerazer from neighboring Kyonin will step up to overwhelm the mu spore and be the true hero of The Mirrored Moon.


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Just a minor note Colette, we retreated from the Cyclopes not because we thought we'd lose but because we couldn't see any benefits to fighting out the combat.

I'm fairly certain had we slugged it out we would have almost certainly won -- a fighter who crits on a 13 with cleave is terrifying and gets downright insane once you realize they're using a +2 Master scythe. Throw in another fighter, an optimized bear druid, and a healbot cleric and that fight probably would have been likely to go in our favor.

That said, I'm also certain the fight would have taken over 4 hours, and have been as boring as hell.


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Colette Brunel said wrote:
Thus, under the above plan, the party is going into the final confrontation with 0 Treasure Points, 3 Ally Points, 2 Research Points, and absolutely no Esoteric Order backup.

It seems you might have missed something from the adventure guideline.

It says:
"Let the players know that reaching a combined total of 4 Ally Points and Research Points is enough to get Keleri to offer support to face the Night Heralds (see area E for details)." -page 51.

So the party should be getting help from Keleri. So still a dangerous fight but at least a bit more manageable.

Anyways good luck with the rest of the adventure.


Nettah wrote:

It says:

"Let the players know that reaching a combined total of 4 Ally Points and Research Points is enough to get Keleri to offer support to face the Night Heralds (see area E for details)." -page 51.

I see. All that is necessary is a combined total. So they should, in fact, be able to circumvent the giant encounter, and skip straight ahead to the main event.

I have to say, while having a fighter along is nice for speeding along exploration time, this adventure looks like it is nigh-impossible without having people who can cast phantom steed, sending, shadow walk, and the like.

Thank you. We will see how this plays out from here.


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The deterioration of points over time looks like it will be a problem when combined with it taking two days (!) to search each hex, barring critical success. 1 day seems more appropriate as a baseline considering they're only 12 miles each. I'm going to have to go back over this adventure before my group gets to it and see if it offers guidance I missed on giving PCs a hint whether a hex is worth searching.


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I really have to wonder how that briefing with Keleri went.

Keleri: So, I sent adventurers to get my necklace and they... all died. So I had to get the necklace myself and found a book detailing the Night Heralds and their plans. Then other adventurers were sent with that info by colleagues of mine to retrieve an important magic item and, uh, also all died. So I had to go myself again to get the damned thing. And this happened two more times before we got to this point. So... who wants to be a hero? <big smile>


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Fuzzypaws wrote:
The deterioration of points over time looks like it will be a problem when combined with it taking two days (!) to search each hex, barring critical success. 1 day seems more appropriate as a baseline considering they're only 12 miles each. I'm going to have to go back over this adventure before my group gets to it and see if it offers guidance I missed on giving PCs a hint whether a hex is worth searching.

Expeditious Search really helps here... but it is ultimately less valuable than the nigh-mandatory castings of phantom steed, sending, shadow walk, and similar spells that the party will need to contact their allies after finding Ramlock's tower.


Regarding the deterioration of research point, I would assume that you would be able to scout the camp again, once the research points have faded (Since that would let you observe the changes that is the reason your research is invalid). However not loosing the research from "Slain Reinforcements" seems impossible, so overall I do think research points feels quite weird in the adventure.


Very brief update: TPK due to three mummy paralysis auras (yes, I was, in fact, keeping track of bolstered and durations very carefully), two spellcasters being enervated, and PCs generally being bursted down. I did not target any unconscious PCs with attacks, because doing so was suboptimal.

I will try to type out a more expanded report in time.


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My 10th-level party was killed by a family of mundane rabbits.

Thus far, I have GMed two iterations of The Lost Star under no updates, one iteration of In Pale Mountain's Shadow under no updates, one iteration of In Pale Mountain's Shadow under update 1.0, two iterations of The Rose Street Revenge under update 1.0, two iterations of Raiders of Shrieking Peak under update 1.1, two iterations of Arclord's Envy under update 1.1, one iteration of Affair at Sombrefell Hall under update 1.2, one iteration of Affair at Sombrefell Hall under update 1.3, two iterations of The Mirrored Moon under update 1.3, one iteration of The Frozen Oath under update 1.3, one iteration of Heroes of Undarin under update 1.4, and one iteration of The Frozen Oath under update 1.4.

That is 17 sessions thus far. Every single one of them has been a TPK. Both In Pale Mountain's Shadow sessions actually included two TPKs, so that is technically 19 TPKs. The party in Heroes of Undarin is supposed to TPK, but they died to wave #2 out of #9, so I consider that the party's failure.

But just moments ago, my party for the second run of The Frozen Oath stumbled across the most bizarre TPK imaginable. None of the party could speak Jotun, so they never deciphered the stone tiles. When they entered the storeroom in Dvalinheim, two PCs were using the Sneaking exploration tactic, and two PCs were using the Searching exploration tactic. The PCs were rummaging and sneaking around the storeroom, specifically through the pile of discarded clothing and furs, simultaneously. The PCs who were using the Searching tactic failed the DC 24 Perception check.

Quote:

THE AWAKENING CURSE

When any creature wakes someone else while in Dvalinheim, the waker is immediately stricken with a powerful curse that manifests as a bone-deep weakness and desire to rest, although rest perpetually eludes her. She is immune to effects that cause the asleep condition (but not other forms of unconsciousness), is drained 3, and cannot reduce her drained condition. If she awakens multiple creatures, her drained condition increases by 3 each time.

A pile of discarded clothing and furs is jumbled against the north wall. This pile conceals a small hole that leads outside of Dvalinheim, under the snow that surrounds the building. The hole is only a few inches wide, but it is large enough for a small family of pikas (short-eared arctic mammals related to rabbits) to enter Dvalinheim. The pikas have created a burrow in the middle of the clothing pile. The creatures are currently asleep, and a PC who disturbs the pile wakes them up, subjecting that PC to the Awakening Curse. If awakened, the pikas flee out the hole as quickly as possible. A PC can detect the pikas’ presence with a successful DC 24 Perception check while searching, and a PC can gently rouse the pikas with a successful DC 27 Nature or Perform check or by calling to them softly while under the effects of speak with animals. Doing so awakens the pikas slowly enough that the Awakening Curse does not activate.

I asked my players what the average size of a family of rabbits was. The consensus was a number of "6." Thus, the PCs were all drained 18 and died instantaneously because they had the temerity to awaken a family of sleeping arctic rabbits.

It could be argued that only one PC, arbitrarily determined as the very first one to awaken the rabbits, would be the one deserving of death. Even if that did happen, the scenario would be rendered unwinnable by dint of being down a PC, when the party is supposed to face a severe encounter later.

I do not know what to think of this. For comparison, the first party in The Frozen Oath eluded death by fluffy bunnies, but was then brutally crushed by the stone golem's Inexorable March; this was before Mark Seifter clarified in a forum post that Inexorable March was misworded and that only those trying to block the golem take the damage.

Also in both of my runs of The Frozen Oath, the game ground to a halt during the first encounter with the rocs, because the rules are completely unclear on what happens if a creature is grabbed by multiple other creatures, something that can dramatically influence roc tactics. In both playthroughs, I had to skip the first encounter after a PC would have been grabbed by both rocs, because the group could come to no consensus.

Silver Crusade

I owe you an apology. When I saw the first line of your post I assumed that you had made some absurd ruling or other. But no, you ran it EXACTLY as written. Death by bunny rabbit. I used to think that only happened in Monty Python movies.

When I ran this we ran out of time before we encountered the Bunnies Of DOOM. Fights take too long for a 4 hour slot.


I have to wonder how those pikas are even alive in the first place. Shouldn't they each be dead already from waking each other up at one point or another in the normal course of life?


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

@colette Would you be open to streaming or recording your game for public viewing? I really would like to see you in action.


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Strachan Fireblade wrote:
@colette Would you be open to streaming or recording your game for public viewing? I really would like to see you in action.

No, and I am still struggling to actually write up reports.


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Spoilers for Red Flags ahead.

Thus far, I have GMed two iterations of The Lost Star under no updates, one iteration of In Pale Mountain's Shadow under no updates, one iteration of In Pale Mountain's Shadow under update 1.0, two iterations of The Rose Street Revenge under update 1.0, two iterations of Raiders of Shrieking Peak under update 1.1, two iterations of Arclord's Envy under update 1.1, one iteration of Affair at Sombrefell Hall under update 1.2, one iteration of Affair at Sombrefell Hall under update 1.3, two iterations of The Mirrored Moon under update 1.3, one iteration of The Frozen Oath under update 1.3, one iteration of The Heroes of Undarin under update 1.4, one iteration of The Frozen Oath under update 1.4 (the one wherein the party died to a family of mundane rabbits because of the Awakening Curse), and one iteration of The Resonance Test: Raiders of Shrieking Peak under update 1.4.

That is 18 sessions thus far. Every single one of them has been a TPK. Both In Pale Mountain's Shadow sessions actually included two TPKs, so that is technically 20 TPKs. The party in Heroes of Undarin is supposed to TPK, but they died to wave #2 out of #9, so I consider that the party's failure. The latest TPK in The Resonance Test: Raiders of Shrieking Peak was to the second group of minotaurs, who simply went first in initiative and overwhelmed the middlingly-optimized pregenerated characters (Fumbus, Kyra, Valeros, and my GMPC Seoni) with melee attacks; despite the usage of Focus Points (e.g. to double healing from potions), the minotaurs did not even have to target unconscious PCs in order for the minotaurs to pull a clean victory.

I am now preparing to run Red Flags, and I am struggling with the final room, the vault. You see, this is a 14th-level adventure that advises the players to create noncombat-focused characters, because it is advertised as a noncombat-oriented adventure, and yet the final room has a mandatory combat against an 18th-level kraken.

Quote:
The true danger within the room, though, is a kraken that Free Captain Whark spared no expense in capturing and binding into the chamber as his vault’s guardian. The magical effect was placed by a powerful spellcaster to bind the kraken to this room and also compel it to guard the treasure. This is a 9th-level mental enchantment spell. If this effect is dispelled or otherwise removed, the kraken immediately abandons the chamber, swimming to freedom through a long submerged tunnel. Otherwise, the kraken surges up out of the water to attack intruders as soon as they enter the area, fighting to the death.

I have searched all over the adventure, and there is nothing foreshadowing this at all, let alone that the kraken is under a mental enchantment, let alone a way for the PCs to have a shot at dispelling said enchantment. What is supposed to happen here? Is the kraken really supposed to pop out and attack the characters as they approach the vault? How is the party supposed to survive this scuffle with an 18th-level creature? Stealth seems difficult when the kraken has Perception +30, and when the vault itself is specifically warded against magical intrusion. What happens if and when the PCs ultimately do get tentacle-crushed by the kraken, thus losing the mission?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You aren't supposed to fight the Kraken. The kraken is more of a set piece for the encounter. The kraken can't make it all the way up to the vault. So all the PCs need to do is get past it. Unlock the vault, and then they will be attacked by Necerion who attempts to steal the book and make his escape (he too will need to tangle with the kraken if he decides to run off on foot).


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Dire Ursus wrote:
You aren't supposed to fight the Kraken. The kraken is more of a set piece for the encounter. The kraken can't make it all the way up to the vault. So all the PCs need to do is get past it. Unlock the vault, and then they will be attacked by Necerion who attempts to steal the book and make his escape (he too will need to tangle with the kraken if he decides to run off on foot).

The kraken is Gargantuan-sized, has a reach of 60 feet, and has Perception +30. The vault takes a few rounds to open, by which time the party is being crushed by tentacles.


This is the part of the Playtest that the players make PCs that are really good at subterfuge and skills right?

I would hope that they had ways of determining what could be in the water and after finding out, work around it with ways such as spells or items to help them sneak into the vault itself If not find a way to distract or even find the way to release it.


Something tells me that the kraken is going to notice at least one PC first with its Perception +30 and then initiate combat.


Yeah, I would be interested for ideas how to circumvent this Monster. And it brings up an interesting question - imagine the Players let their Rogue sneak Forward with Improved Invisibility or something - How do you manage the multiple turns he will spend there opening the vault and maybe disabling the trap? Does he have to spent Actions to be stealthy? Does the Kraken roll regular See Actions?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Colette Brunel wrote:
Dire Ursus wrote:
You aren't supposed to fight the Kraken. The kraken is more of a set piece for the encounter. The kraken can't make it all the way up to the vault. So all the PCs need to do is get past it. Unlock the vault, and then they will be attacked by Necerion who attempts to steal the book and make his escape (he too will need to tangle with the kraken if he decides to run off on foot).
The kraken is Gargantuan-sized, has a reach of 60 feet, and has Perception +30. The vault takes a few rounds to open, by which time the party is being crushed by tentacles.

The kraken cant reach around the floor though. From it's place in the water it doesn't have line of sight to the door of the vault since it's on a pillar up in the air. It's too large to climb around the cliff so it's stuck down in the water.


Nothing is stopping the kraken from hoisting itself up to the surface of the water and attacking from there, presumably well before the PCs ever reach the vault.


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This is my 21st TPK and counting. A second party has died to wave #2 of Heroes of Undarin, the glabrezus, mostly because the glabrezus more or less have to start in melee range of the PCs in order to actually fit inside the temple as the adventure stipulates, and glabrezus have ungodly powerful melee attacks.

The first party suffered when the glabrezus attacked unconscious PCs. The second party never had unconscious PCs attacked at any point, and they still died to the glabrezus regardless. Neither glabrezu duo started out pre-buffed; they simply had the privilege of being shoved into the middle section of the temple, because they could fit nowhere else.

Those glabrezus are absolutely insane with their melee attacks, especially the pincers with their deadly 2d10.

This adventure is supposed to force a TPK over nine waves of monsters, but it is rather embarrassing to die to wave #2 of 9 waves just because the enemies had completely overloaded numbers for their melee attacks.


Even if you did spawn the demons directly on top of the PCs it shouldn't lead to an instant TPK out of it. The ideal attack for them in that scenario would be pincer +25 if hit grab as second action and captive rake as third for two claw attacks at +21. At that point the PCs should have an AC around 32 (10+12[lvl]+3[magic armor]+[7[armor&dex]) and that's without any buffs. So that first strike lands on a 7+ crits on a 17+ get grabbed and the two rake attacks hit on an 11. For a maximum of 98, a minimum of 35, and average of 66.5 without assuming crits and again assuming that your PCs have no access to buffs or damage reduction by this point. The PC can break free on a 26 atheletics check and escape into better position.

While spawning them on your PCs heads is gonna suck for them I don't believe it should lead to an easy wipe without either the worst luck or ill prepared PCs.


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When a glabrezu's pincer scores a critical hit on a 17+ (or a 15+ against flat-footed/flanking) and deals 8d10+28 damage, it will spell a monstrous amount of damage for any PC who does take the critical hit. The glabrezus are essentially guaranteed to go first with their effective Deception +30 for initiative.


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Yeah, if your PCs have no defenses, are standing in the middle of the map, the demons teleport perfectly surrounding them, you land every single hit/crit and roll max damage, I would assume the party wouldn't be able to react to the new threat and would just fall over dead.

However, my players tend to listen when I tell them to make hardcore crusaders that have spent a significant amount of time working together and have signed on to fight in the worldwound. Thus they would have defenses setup with their 10 min prep time. They would cast defensive spells that would last a while to protect themselves and prep themselves as much as possible to guard the stairs with their lives. I also would never drop the demons directly on my party since I am not told to. The demons spawn where they are supposed to and have manuever themselves into church. This would require them to have the suffer with trying to move between pillars and not being able to easily reach the PCs. I also probably wouldn't even let them use deception for initiative and instead have it rolled up with perception since initiative has already been rolled and continues for the entire wave. So they pop into the fight two rounds after the first event at their initiative and take their actions.

But that's just my playstyle and not yours. Though if you don't already I would recommend you mention to players that come to your table that you play the game, hell-bent on murdering the PCs. This will allow the players to understand they should be playing characters min-max'd so they can survive breakfast.


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Both parties in this case had maxed-out defenses (e.g. AC 32 for anyone not a fighter or a paladin) and did their best to buff up with blessed oil, potions of quickness, and the like. You will notice that the adventure specifically stipulates Deception for the glabrezus' initiative, too.

Part of the issue came from conserving resources. I do not think anyone in either party expected such heavy enemies right from wave #2 alone.

The glabrezus could not physically fit in the edges of the temple because of all the pillars there. The adventure stipulates, "One of them appears atop the rubble in the northwest corner, while the other appears in the eastern end (or as near to those locations as possible, if they are blocked)," and I followed the parentheses because the map itself was blocking those locations.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Go watch the replays of Paizo or The Glass Cannon running the playtest. They haven't had a single TPK. What are the GMs doing different from you?

Dark Archive

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Dire Ursus wrote:
Go watch the replays of Paizo or The Glass Cannon running the playtest. They haven't had a single TPK. What are the GMs doing different from you?

Well, they skip whole encounters in all of Paizo's playtest sessions, even in the first one. During "In Pale Mountain's Shadow" Logan even lets them "auto-kill" two elementals they originally fled from, and later on ignores the mummy encounter altogether. Jason repeats this in "The Heroes of Undarin", skipping 'Event 2' and running 'Event 3' right after 'Event 1'.

Some of those encounters are tough ones, and might have led to TPKs -- eventually if not immediately.

But that is likely beside the point, as I believe Paizo's sessions are primarily meant to showcase the rules and get people excited about them. I have to say that they actually did boost my enthusiasm about the potential end product. I've been on the fence so far, but now I'm leaning a bit more towards "hopeful about 2E" than before. :)

Shadow Lodge

I'm also curious how the Order of the Amber Die sessions compare.


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Dire Ursus wrote:
Go watch the replays of Paizo or The Glass Cannon running the playtest. They haven't had a single TPK. What are the GMs doing different from you?

Playing a game that only superficially looks like the Pathfinder Playtest? The system strictly as written is disfunctional.

Shadow Lodge

No one plays Pathfinder strictly as written.


No, but the point of the playtest is surely to test the rules as written, or as close as one can.

Silver Crusade

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TOZ wrote:
No one plays Pathfinder strictly as written.

While I agree with that I think that I'm not alone in trying to run the playtest as closely to what I think is RAW as I can bring myself to do :-). I'm being stricter with myself than I am even in PFS.

That said, there are still gazillions of places where the rules are so odious that I can't bring myself to follow them or where they're sufficiently unclear that I have to wing it or where the adventure is sufficiently badly written that I have to change SOMETHING.

And, of course, I am making LOTS and LOTS of mistakes running things. This game is quite complicated and I don't have the months or years of experience that a GM normally has by the time they make it to 12th level play. Combined with lots of poorly written or missing rules, lots of rules changes, and lots of quite minor (and seemingly totally gratuitous) changes from PF1.


pauljathome wrote:
TOZ wrote:
No one plays Pathfinder strictly as written.

While I agree with that I think that I'm not alone in trying to run the playtest as closely to what I think is RAW as I can bring myself to do :-). I'm being stricter with myself than I am even in PFS.

That said, there are still gazillions of places where the rules are so odious that I can't bring myself to follow them or where they're sufficiently unclear that I have to wing it or where the adventure is sufficiently badly written that I have to change SOMETHING.

And, of course, I am making LOTS and LOTS of mistakes running things. This game is quite complicated and I don't have the months or years of experience that a GM normally has by the time they make it to 12th level play. Combined with lots of poorly written or missing rules, lots of rules changes, and lots of quite minor (and seemingly totally gratuitous) changes from PF1.

Same boat, here.

I'm playing this incredibly strictly. After all, that's what I expect Paizo wants and needs: real play-testing by actual gamers in the trenches.

The result of this is that I'm running into tons of really rules-broken scenarios and situations that seem to be a combination of simplification of PF1 rules and rushed module design that has bugs and mistakes.

In many ways, I'm wondering if PF2 is kinda like their take on DND5 rather than an evolution of PF1.

Does that make sense?

I mean, if it is, sure... I get that. DND5 is a damn fine game! But it's really, very different from PF1, DND3.5, and DND4. Trying to find a single system to comprise a blend of those would be really tough and potentially unwieldy. If that's, indeed, what they're trying to do. I dunno; that just sorta popped into my head, the other day.

Thoughts?

Yours,
Sylvan


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Colette Brunel wrote:
Nothing is stopping the kraken from hoisting itself up to the surface of the water and attacking from there, presumably well before the PCs ever reach the vault.

Sure the kraken can attack the PCs if they stay on the ground floor. But if they make it to the vault the kraken can’t attack them. So teleporting to the vault is a very good option. The only mission is to get the Last Theorem away from Necerion so if someone has to distract the kraken while the one with the last theorem gets away the party still succeeds. There are plenty of ways to play around the kraken.


The kraken seems like a moot point now; update 1.5 will supposedly patch it.


Just checking in the Adventure, they could have at least given an indication how the Treachery Demons are supposed to use Deception for initiative. Looking up the bestiary it's one of their Special rules "Sudden Betrayal", with Zero roleplaying logic.
Deception is one of those skills I could see being used if you talk to someone and then somehow trick him into looking the other way (or Change shape or whatever), but Glabrezu are so good at lying they - start combat with it. D'ough.


TOZ wrote:
No one plays Pathfinder strictly as written.

It's pretty hard to effectively test rules when nobody is trying to run them the way they're written. PFS runs them as written. And really, if the rules don't work as written, that's a fairly serious issue with the rules.

The game should work as written. If that isn't a goal, why are we even here?


@Colette Brunel

Just wanted to say I appreciate your writeups, especially after the group I'm playing in got utterly curb stomped in Mirrored Moon last night. It's certainly nice to not feel alone in it.

On the first encounter, no less. The poor Wizard only had two outcomes for his spells:
1. He cast Magic Missle and did damage.
2. The sea monster critically succeeded on its save.

That was it. There was literally no other outcome. Talk about feeling ineffective. :( Our DM (a very experienced 1e DM and someone who seeks to provide a challenge and have monsters act sensibly, but will not generally play to ruthlessly murder the party) actually thought the Wizard had miscalculated his save DC because it was so easy to make.

We only really investigated two hexes so I don't know how well that worked, but it felt like we needed pretty high rolls to succeed. That's a theme throughout the playtest, but it felt worse here.

DM also wondered if maybe he was supposed to weaken encounters for a party of four or something. When it can take half of the Fighter's HP in a single attack, it certainly feels overtuned.


@DerNils it kinda makes sense that they could in typical encounters use deception since everyone in those encounters rolls initiative at the same time and the demons need to be aware of someone to do it. Basically they use deception to pretend like they are moving slow or not ready but before you can act they pounce on you.

However, since you keep initiative going for the whole event I don't necessarily believe that they would be able to do that against the PCs. Since they are teleporting into an already rolled initiative and I believe that they would need to use perception. They *poof* into the fight and have to get their bearings and determine who and what they are fighting.

Order of the Amber Die

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TOZ wrote:
I'm also curious how the Order of the Amber Die sessions compare.

There are some excellent points being made in this thread, it's awesome to see how many groups are trying to stick to RAW for the Playtest. I wanted to chime in and say thank you to all of you for putting in the time to interact on threads like this, I can say that OAD members do frequently keep up with what is being discussed, and we spent about an hour before each playtest session just going over what is currently being said among the community. Some members even like to cite specific comments they’ve read, and we go around the table trying to interpret elements of the playtest. We agree with many of the comments here, in that we felt the best way to offer data (and the point of the Playtest) was to play as close as possible to RAW. That being said, there is no "right" way to play and enjoy the game, so while our style works for us, every group should find what's comfortable for them.

As for TOZ's question about how OAD compares to the live games mentioned in a couple of posts above, we don't skip any encounters or change anything in the narrative structure, and play everything as tight as we possibly can. Related to this, we have sometimes struggled with expressing one particular piece of data after every session: total session time played. When learning an entirely new system and at the same time trying to accurately record how long it takes to play, we've been wondering if other groups count the time they spend looking up rules? Since our game is out in front of the community, we feel obligated to spend time looking up rules (we’ve even texted authors in the middle of a game) in order to make sure it's played right. As a result, we've tried to employ a system similar to stoppage time in soccer, where we estimate the amount of time spent looking up rules, and remove some of that from our data. The same goes for time spent in character creation. Do players count the time they only spend making the character, or include the time spent looking up how all the spells, feats, and abilities work for the first time as well? In the latter case, that same player a couple of years down the line would have a better understanding of the system, and thus the amount of time spent in character creation will likely drop to a more accurate average for the edition.

When it comes to the doom, gloom, and TPKs, hang in there everyone—we might just have another TPK to show off in a future report, too! :)

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