And then they just blew the top two pick last night. :(
So, as noted, we're at an end. You escaped with Narcela, so I'll check box A on the reporting sheet. Lumna made it back to Golarion as well, so I'll check box B on the reporting sheet. You did NOT steal the Gale’s Claw, so I will not check box C on the reporting sheet.
You completed your primary objective by returning safely to Golarion with at least one Ardis Scholar or Lumna, and your secondary objective by returning safely home with two or more Ardis Scholars, Narcela, and Lumna. You'll also gain 2 additional Reputation with the Horizon Hunters faction thanks to correctly identifying and bringing back the multiversal navigator.
So, part of the reason I was hedging a little at the end is there's a combat in the skyport, which can be a pretty tough one. But because of the time you had left, you weren't going to get a chance to Treat Wounds or anything before leaving, which triggers that final combat. That combo could potentially have been very deadly and I didn't want you all to stumble into that unaware. I hope that wasn't a disappointment for anyone...
So, a couple of things I like to share:
* I think I put this in a blog, but this adventure really came together for me on a long drive to see my family as I was working on the outline. I suddenly realized that I wanted to capture the feel of Star Wars, when they're sneaking around the Death Star. That informed a lot of the feel at least I was hoping to get.
* Revecka was a character I created back in 3-14 Tomb Between Worlds, though she was only mentioned in a letter. The (maybe amusing?) back story is I grabbed her name from an Ustalav character I'd played in Malevolence and planned to bring into PFS. In my head canon, the character writing her a letter in 3-14 was now her brother, and that would make sense for me to bring my character into PFS. But then she became an NPC in 4-06, the preceding adventure for this one. So new head canon: Revecka is a very popular/common name in Ustalav!
* There's a chance if you play things wrong that it's Revecka -- not Bremix -- who transforms in the final fight. The art for that is fantastic. That's my biggest regret for this scenario -- that I didn't make it a little more difficult to avoid the Revecka fight, since she's got a cool stat block and art, and they don't get used enough (and I didn't have the word count to give Bremix a unique stat block, which I wish I'd done if I'd realized how much more likely it was he'd be the final fight -- even though the monster he turns into is pretty cool on its own).
If you have any other questions, please free free to shoot them my way!
OK, just sent all the chronicles out. If you don't see yours, please check your spam folder.
Also, I'll keep the thread open until Monday, but will close it then.
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I got my chronicle, thank you very much for running this scenario, I had very much fun playing it. AS I mentioned, I had played it in VTT but was lured to play it in pbp for better understanding of a scenario (vtt for me is sometimes rushed ;)), and due to the fact that this was author run. And boy I am glad that I joined!
I am glad that Zazu proved useful to the team, I always feel the risk when playing low tier pc in high tier game that I would be a pawn. I really enjoyed that each of my spells actually worked ;) Phantasmal Killer, Mercurial Stride, Wooden Double, and I even get to use Jump spell ;)
Thank you fellow players for an amazing game! It is always a pleasure.
I hope to see you at other tables.
@Gm - any chance that you can share the Reveckas morphed image? I would love to see it, also if this is not a secret, what are the preconditions to fighting her instead of Bremix?
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Seconding the request to see Revecka's art, and the conditions for triggering that fight.
Did we spend an excessive amount of time traveling between sites? Or was not being able to visit every site planned? This is one of the very few scenarios where the time actually came into play.
Did you coordinate at all with the author of 4-06 to put things in (like Revecka) that would become important later?
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Quinoline received 9 Treasure Bundles worth of gold. Is that a typo (660 vs 600), or did we miss one? If we missed one, Quinoline would like to use Treasure Bundle Insurance to make it whole.
Thank you for writing and thank you for running!
Yeah, I guess there's no reason I can't share it. It's now on the map slides. I think the 2e artists have been SO good. I LOVE Yandrada's art especially from 2-19 Enter the Pallid Peak, but great art here too. The interior artists are listed as Ernst Eskelsen, Josef Kučera, Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo, but I don't know which one specifically is responsible for her image. Bremix's too is wonderful.
The scenario tracks transfiguration points throughout that are based on a NUMBER of things, some going back to what happened in 4-06 and Revecka's fate -- which is why I asked you at the start if folks played that. And why it didn't really matter if it was with this character or not, since it was Revecka's fate there that plays a role here, not what each PC may do.
Basically, though, if you realize Bremix is a jerk and shut him down; don't mistreat Narcela; and do a few other things that prevent Aslynn from known what's going on -- including in the encounter you didn't experience -- she won't transform.
The Skydock, in addition to the fight, has the Gale's Claw. And, yes, you can absolutely steal it!
I would say you did end up spending more time than most of my tables have traveling between sites; I think you're my second (of 8?) that didn't feel they had time to steal the Gale's Claw.
It's intentionally designed to make time a pressure -- which is something I really like. Too often, I think, healing time is effectively irrelevant in 2e, since the game expects you to be at full health for encounters so there's intentionally not a time pressure to force you to keep moving. I definitely wanted that to have to be a decision here -- do you heal up using Treat Wounds, or expend resources that you might need otherwise (but being able to use Lumna to fully rest adds another element, since you could do that to save time, but that uses your charges). The design is that you CAN get to every room, but you do need things to go well. Obviously, the default is wanting PCs to do well (because that's definitely more fun!) but I didn't want it to just be pro forma.
I discussed this with my developer, and gamed out times. So one earlier version gave 5 hours, but 30 minutes as the default time for Explore. There are 8 rooms, so with that timing it would be 4 hours if the PCs have no failures in Explore the Electric Castle and don’t spend time healing after combats. That gives them leeway, so they should be able to get to every room, but not so much leeway that they may not have to make some tough decisions in terms of expending resources in healing (which could push them to use Lumna’s rejuvenation ability) or skipping a room or two.
The final version ended up being reduced to 20 minutes to Explore, and then changed Aslynn’s return time to 4 hours. That gave 240 minutes, while they would need 160 minutes to explore every room without failures/healing, so an additional 20 minutes to allow for healing, etc. That said, I think you all had some definite unfortunate rolls that kept you from reducing some times.
I didn't coordinate with the author of 4-06, but I did have his submitted scenario ahead of time, so was able to see what he planned for Revecka, Lumna, etc.
Bundles: You received all 10 bundles; and I just doublechecked that that's what it says in RPG Chronicles. Looks like it's 60 gp per bundle at 10th level, so 600 should be right.
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THANK YOU GM!! Not only great job running but great job writing! I really enjoyed this one, both with the overall plot and mechanics!
Also good job everyone! Think we crushed this one!
I would've been interested in another combat, and I think there's a decent chance with alchemist + champ + battle medicine we could've been OK back to back combat, but yeah, that gets pretty risky. Better to live to fight another day, and seems like we didn't end up missing any rewards so that's the best case scenario.
Appreciate some of the inside perspective on this one!
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Guide also says 60 gp/TB. My first Chronicle at level 10 had a typo.
I also like the time pressure, in particular, not handwaving out of combat healing. I think it makes things more interesting, and also, encourages people to have things besides the aeon stone that heals 1 hp/min.
Thanks again, and go Pats!
I think this one actually makes that aeon stone more interesting. Since you know the exact amount of time available and you're not just going to handwave and say you're at full health, you can take maximum advantage of it (ironically, it makes that item less effective if you do well at the Explore skill checks).