Bad Player's page

Bad Player did not write an account of their game, but I finally reached that section and played it.

That's because we haven't reached it yet :D (My group has a... 'relaxed' schedule.)

Interesting to hear about your experience! My group captured the two pet snakes in the Habebe Building and sold them to Oba, so I've been toying with the idea of having Nairu's mission instead being retrieval of Salathiss' pets. We'll see!

Thanks for the thoughts! Giving Goana dying values probably is the easiest and most elegant solution. (I did it for the anadi at the end of book 1, since I don't see how they could possibly survive otherwise, so I feel like I should've thought of that here.)

My group is /incredibly/ melee focused, which added to my concern, but 2 people have Battle Medicine and another has Stabilize, so they'll definitely have the tools to save Goana if she goes into recovery checks (rather than insta-death).

The AP says that Kreekoss might grab a Small PC instead of Goana, which is another option if you have a PC that fits the bill. I didn't think I did, since the only Small PC in my group was a leshy and I thought mixing up a leshy and halfling would probably be throwing the party too big of a bone, buuuuuut the leshy player just took the Childlike Plant feat at level 5 (which lets them disguise themselves as a human), so now I think that's another viable possibility.

Any advice or suggestions or how the players are supposed to approach Carving Trouble in chapter 2? Kreekoss should be able to pick up and lift Goana to 80 feet in 2-3 turns (Snatch lets him fly at half speed while grabbing something, and moving up is difficult terrain, so he can move up 15 ft per move while holding Goana), which does not seem like much time for the PCs to deal with him. There are anti-flying spells and feats, but they're relatively niche so there's no guaranty the party will have any. So what options do they have? I don't want them to be forced to sit back and watch helplessly as a civilian is murdered before their eyes.

1. Yes, 4 secret checks. You can hear different pieces of gossip from different people in town.

2. Just the art
3. The goblins are goofy creatures and didn't have time to finish their work, so the trap placement seemed random. Run it the way you think best.
4. Yes, it's a check
5. Spending extra actions to leave and then reroll with disadvantage doesn't seem like "gaming" the system to me
6. He just shoves them is all, he doesn't shove to provokee his own reaction
7. Sure
8. Yup
9. review the Incorporeal rules.

Thanks!

Wait, Stone ghost doesn't know undercommon? That seems like quite an oversight. My players know so many languages, but not undercommon, so they had some trouble with the gremlins so far. I will have to add it to stone ghost to make him a believable commander of gremlins.

Yeah, I'll admit I've read very very very very few official Paizo adventures/scenarios, but I feel like the most common error I've spotted is writing/implying interaction between NPCs with no shared languages.

I skimmed all six books, but now I’ve gone back and read Book 1 in more detail in preparation for starting my own SoT, and have... quite a few questions. (I’m new to the system and to GMing, so some of these are not really SoT-specific.)

1) When the entire party is using Gather Information (such as to find the market at the beginning), how is that generally adjudicated? Do I make 4 secret checks and give potentially conflicting information? Is it one check with the highest modifier in the party? A check from one player with the rest Aiding? (Not really an AP-specific question, but I'm a new GM)

2) Is there a particular reason Lumusi's eyes are closed in her art? The only reason I'd guess is that she's blind, but nothing in the text in the encounters with her suggests this.

3) Is there a particular place the PCs are supposed to start the Kurshkin encounter? The southern border seems the most natural, but then I’d expect them to just run up the stage, and I’m not sure how/why they’d ever get caught in the snare. To make the snare matter they’d need to start on the western edge, but I’m a bit worried about letting Kurshkin take potshots at them as they try to traverse the difficult terrain to the stage.

4) When Kurshkin redirects an attack with Unluck Aura, is the redirected attack made with disadvantage if the attack is under the Unluck Aura?

5) If someone fails the Unluck Aura, do they get another save if they leave and re-enter? Since you get immunity after one success, could a PC “game” the aura by just going back and forth 5 ft in and out of range of the aura until they succeed the save?

6) It says that Urbel tries Shoving people if nobody provokes his Kneecapper, but if I understand the rules correctly Kneecapper wouldn't be able to trigger off a Shove, so I don't really see the point of this? Wouldn't it make much more sense if he Tripped people?

7) (If it comes up) should Undercommon be added as a language for Stone Ghost? It seems most gremlins only speak Undercommon. I suppose it's possible he just had Kurshkin translate/manage everything for him, but this seems unlikely (for instance, it says Stone Ghost commands the gremlins in his room to attack the heroes)

8) Stone Ghost's resistance is "all damage 5 (except force or ghost touch; double resistance vs. non-magical, stone, or effects with the earth trait)". Assuming no other relevant traits/enchantments, this means 10 resistance against mundane weapons and 5 resistance against +1 weapons, correct?

9) I have a few questions on the specifics of how Stone Ghost's Stone Spirit works
a) Can he be perceived and/or attacked while in a wall/floor? The AP mentions a 25 DC Perception check to notice him when in his room, but is that to notice the ear he is sticking out, or him generally? How about when he moves around inside the wall? Is he just invisible, or should it be handled like something like a free Sneak (with (greater?) cover?)
b) Can he cast spells while in stone? Since Living Boulder has Earth Glide, could that be summoned directly inside a wall?
c) Stone Spirit says "When inside an object, Stone Ghost can’t perceive, attack, or interact with anything outside the object", which I think makes it pretty clear he can't use Entombing Grasp from within stone, but if a PC is stuck in Entombing Grasp could he retreat into the floor and attack the 'grasped' portion of the hero?

This looks really well-done! (I'm planning on GMing SoT soon, so currently trying to build upon the 'strength of thousands' of prior GMs.) I'm curious how you plan to lead (or actually led) from book 4 to 5.

As-written, it's fairly straightforward: the tree tells you where Jatembe is, so the party goes to meet him because he's *the* Jatembe. Here it seems like the hook is trying to track down and then follow Koride and the Egg.

Thinking about it on my own, I see two main possibilities: you keep both hooks, leading the party to the Doorway regardless of which they follow, or you drop the Jatembe hook, with the party going to the Doorway to follow Koride, and then there learning that Jatembe is on Akiton and deciding to go meet him.

However, I'm afraid the former idea might feel a bit too 'convenient' (both plot hooks just happen to lead to the exact same location at the exact same time the party finds both), while the latter eliminates the connection between books 4 and 5, so I'm curious what ideas you (or anyone else) has on this point.