Atteisti's page

I've been GM:ing Emerald Spire for two groups. The other group is at level 9 and the other at level 7. I've also run the first level a couple extra times and because of this I've collected a lot of GM credits.

I don't think I'm gaming the system because of this. I've prepared the levels extremely well, I'm spending my time organizing for two groups and making sure everybody (including me) are having fun.

I enjoy my four stars, but the stars are not the reason why I GM. Sure it was fun at first to gain new stars quickly, but the main thing is that you have fun, your players have fun and you keep learning new skills about GMing. Somebody that just GMs We Be Goblins will still learn new ways to GM, new ways to RP the humorous NPCs and will still learn social skills.

And as it has been said, getting five stars is harder than to just run the same scenarios over and over.

So let's just keep the current system in place. A new system would just confuse everyone (I know that I'm still confused about the ACG-classes :D) and just have fun. Because that's why we all play these games.

I ran the 8th floor a couple of weeks ago and ended up winging it myself. Luckily transition from 7th level to 8th is pretty simple, since the seventh level provides with material that can easily be adapted for a pathfinder mission.

I'm running the ninth level soon and that's a different thing.

I'm still interested for these intros. My PFS-groups have enjoyed them and I've enjoyed using these to create some sort of a "meta plot" for dungeon delving.

Really good stuff, I hope that Brian is still interested in writing these :)

I fixed my Emerald Spire tables. They were all set to level 1 so I had to manually change them to the correct level numbers at the event's page and at the reporting page. It was a bit of a chore, but now it's done and I'm not missing any tables. And look at that, the fourth star is finally there since I was able to report some other Spire levels.

I lost all of my Emerald Spire runs. At My Pathfinder Society I can't find them in my GM sessions, but if I look at all completely reported scenarios they are there. I tried the fix mentioned in this thread and it did help for Tower Ruins. However I had some problems with the other levels, for example the Godhome level. I can select it from the dropdown menu, but when I save the session it doesn't show the name of the level in GM sessions.

I'll have some clicking to do this evening, it seems.

Thanks Joe, John and TetsujinOni for your thoughts. Very good points, especially about the Negate Aroma spell. I'll report back once I've run this scenario.

Looking forward to the chase scene! I'm pretty sure my players who usually gringe at the sight of a chase scene will love this one. I personally deciced to just give the DC:s to the players. I think it reduces metagaming and will save gametime for actually enjoying the chase instead of pickering about what choices to make.

I'm running this scenario this thursday and ran in to a question. In encounter A1 it is very possible that some of the pc:s (or all of them) get the Monkey Tree oil on them, making the rest of the scenario a little harder.

The oil is described that it smells really bad and in my region it's very common that pc:s use prestidigitation to negate smells and aromas after sewers and other unpleasant places. However using a cantrip to completely circumvent the difficulty of an entire encounter seems to easy. How should I rule this if it comes to play on thursday? Does prestidigitation work on monkey oil smell?

I've been sitting on five Emerald Spire runs and tomorrow another session is added to the pile.

Luckily in the Website Feedback -messageboard they said that Paizo is currently fixing this error. I hope they'll fix it soon so I could get my fourth star officially and start organizing bonekeep in my region.

Thanks for the effort and good work Brian :) These really have helped my pc:s to act as pathfinder agents instead of just mindless dungeon delvers.

Hey Brian, any updates on these mission briefings on level 7 and forward? I'm running level 6 next week and I presume we'll be able to play level 7 in the next week.

The briefing in level 4 really did help my PC:s. Full rewards, and fun was had - though all the trogs were slain :D

I ran this scenario yesterday on tier 1-2 and I thought this was a really good start for the upcoming trilogy.

The highlight for me was the roleplaying part in Fort Bandu with the Praetor and the Aspis agent. I really liked roleplaying Valacosti as a smug Aspis agent, who used every turn to dismiss the PC:s and Pathfinders. My PC:s roleplayed this encounter and succeeded in every Sylien's challenge. I really liked their energy and thus was dissapointed when the final diplomacy check turned out as a natural 1, getting the PC:s evicted from Fort Bandu.

And then the delays came. They had to find Sharrowsmith's trail themselves and after two days they found it...and decided to travel at night, causing another delay. In future I have to emphasize the rush they should be facing because of the captured miners. In every encounter they found dead miners and managed to discover that they would have been alive if they had succeeded better.

The encounters themselves were pretty easy for them, all but final encounter lasted at most 2 rounds. The final encounter was a long one, for the wrong reasons. PCs managed to beat the regular kobolds easily, but the kobold fighter managed to frustrate them. It had AC 24 using Combat Expertise and most PC:s were able to hit him only with a natural 20. The encounter dragged for rounds and my players were visibly exhausted at the end when they finaled succeeded grappling him and getting him in to 0 hp.

I found success conditions a bit harsh. With just a couple of delays it is possible that PC:s will get 0pp, because they have to get Sharrowsmith's journal AND rescue at least 3 miners.

But all and all I though this was a nice scenario. Good roleplaying, nice varying encounters and not just plain kobolds. Not too hard, not too challenging but a nice experience.

I'm having problems with reporting Emerald Spire levels. I ran level 3 a couple of days ago and in the reporting page it just shows "The Emerald Spire Superdungeon" instead of separate levels. Should I wait for this to get fixed before I report my game?

I GMd this level a couple of weeks ago and my party had no problem getting all the credit on this level. I used the PFS intros created by Brian in the previously mentioned thread. My players opted to use the slow track thinking that they'd use the same characters through the whole Superdungeon run.

They did have problems, when in Level 5 some character deaths happened and I had to give incomplete chronicles because they only got to experience 1/3 of the level before two characters died. I'm running another non-emerald spire scenario for those players and one player got gm-exp for their character.

I guess what I'm trying to say here, is that this level isn't really a problem, because a character death later brings problems to players using the slow track either way. I loved that fact that level 4 chronicle is special and it has different ways to reward the players. We need more of these!

Though threads like these have already infiltrated the players meta-levels, almost all of my players had encountered the reward-system on this level on a another thread.

If you weren't in the confines of PFS; would you be flexible about how they raise characters if the need comes up? Like, maybe you can have the party indebted to a temple and they have to forgo certain future proceeds of their dungeon exploration?

I'd show some flexibility. I really admired how the Order of the Amber Die handled these problems in their Emerald Spire run. Instead of just killing pc:s, their GM made intelligent opponents make intelligent decisions concerning the PC:s.

If I'd GM Emerald Spire in normal campaign mode, I'd too make different decisions. In PFS I'm more restricted, but I accept that and my players accept that.

Check out their amazing Emerald Spire campaign notes, stories and level by level synopses here. Spoiler alert though.

I have been thinking the same subject myself. I recently started GMing Emerald Spire for two local groups using PFS rules. I too have my concerns about character deaths, because my two groups consist of four characters per group. One PC death could ruin the whole groups efforts.

I've expressed these concerns to my players. Instead of sheltering them I decided to roll openly (I usually do it behind my screen) and let the dice land where they land. I hope this will get my players to think tactically and play safely and work as a team. With Emerald Spire, I think that too much handholding will diminish the awesome superdungeon.

I still hope I won't kill anybody before they have the means of raising their characters. But if it happens, it happens.

You are not supposed to add any monsters there. Just run as written and if you think that your pc:s will steamroll the enemies without too much effort just limit the maximium number of PC:s. I'm starting my own Emerald Spire campaign for PFS and recruited two parties consisting of four party members, so it won't be too easy for optimized well-funded pathfinders.

Hi guys!

I've been preparing this superdungeon for PFS-play in my hometown. I'm running for two different parties consisting of four partymembers each. I'm really looking forward to get this show running.

I had one question though. At level 5, the drowned level, in area E2 it is stated that the water is two foot deep and the water provides concealement to anything in it. Who does this apply to? I can understand the crab swarm, but does this apply to Jorgual and his crab eidolon, since they both are medium creatures. Most PC:s are over 5 feet tall. They have more than half of their body over the water. Do they get concealement?

Thanks in advance!

I'm preparing to start Emerald Spire run for two different groups here in Finland, for Pathfinder Society. I've translated these intros to finnish and they are great. Nice to have an actual intro instead of just "Here's a dungeon, smash away." Thanks for your efforts!