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Deluril wrote:

G'day James Jacobs,

I just recently played in Thornkeep: The Enigma Vaults with a 5th level Bloodrager character of mine in a party of 4, for Pathfinder Society play.

When we came up against the Visitant, the way that the GM ran the encounter was that when it performed a full-attack, it would attempt the grab on every attack that it made. If the grab was successful it would deal the eviscerate damage and then let go as a free action before making its next attack.

If all attacks would hit, this resulted in 4d4+16+8d6 damage to a single character. At minimum, this is 28 damage. On average, 64 damage (my maths could be wrong). That is how much HP my character had, while raging. This is not including the potential for 4d4 of ability damage.

Is this the correct way to run this encounter? It feels as though the grapple rules are being abused in such a way that it would max-out its damage and thus TPK with ease. My high-health 5th level Bloodrager died in two rounds against this creature, with arguably the most health you could probably get at 5th level. He had a single round to do anything, and this is while grappled. This is in a module designed for 3rd and 4th level characters.

I would like your opinion as to whether or not this was run properly, as I am disputing that the encounter was handled in such a way that it was (for the most part) against the spirit of the game (The point isn't to kill us, it's to provide a challenge). On top of this, the GM was rolling d8's for the Sneak Attack damage. I don't understand how any GM can possibly see that running this encounter in this way would be a good idea for a PFS module.

I'm hoping that I could get the Chronicle for this made null-and-void due to the inappropriate handling, and I was hoping that I could get some input from you.

I try to avoid answering questions like this, becasue my answers tend to be used as ammunition for others' agendas in "weponizing the rules" against GMs. Sorry you had a bad experience in the...

All good, I completely understand!

I must admit I've been annoyed over this for a while and have been trying to get some guidance from people on it. I also don't really know who it falls to for deciding what happens. Is it the GM of the session or is it more a Venture Captain thing?

Anyway, thanks for your time!

G'day James Jacobs,

I just recently played in Thornkeep: The Enigma Vaults with a 5th level Bloodrager character of mine in a party of 4, for Pathfinder Society play.

When we came up against the Visitant, the way that the GM ran the encounter was that when it performed a full-attack, it would attempt the grab on every attack that it made. If the grab was successful it would deal the eviscerate damage and then let go as a free action before making its next attack.

If all attacks would hit, this resulted in 4d4+16+8d6 damage to a single character. At minimum, this is 28 damage. On average, 64 damage (my maths could be wrong). That is how much HP my character had, while raging. This is not including the potential for 4d4 of ability damage.

Is this the correct way to run this encounter? It feels as though the grapple rules are being abused in such a way that it would max-out its damage and thus TPK with ease. My high-health 5th level Bloodrager died in two rounds against this creature, with arguably the most health you could probably get at 5th level. He had a single round to do anything, and this is while grappled. This is in a module designed for 3rd and 4th level characters.

I would like your opinion as to whether or not this was run properly, as I am disputing that the encounter was handled in such a way that it was (for the most part) against the spirit of the game (The point isn't to kill us, it's to provide a challenge). On top of this, the GM was rolling d8's for the Sneak Attack damage. I don't understand how any GM can possibly see that running this encounter in this way would be a good idea for a PFS module.

I'm hoping that I could get the Chronicle for this made null-and-void due to the inappropriate handling, and I was hoping that I could get some input from you.

There's no atmosphere at all on the Drift Rock, so it shouldn't be able to fly with its wings. At least that was my understanding. Similarly the Barathu in my game can't fly on the Drift Rock either and had to use the leg mutation in order to move once there was gravity.

Also, I just GM'd the fight with the Garaggakal yesterday. If I played it exactly as written, my party would have 100% wiped. No Technomancer in my group and only two characters had electric weapons on them at the time, and one didn't use his as they barely managed to even figure out what the creature was, so they didn't know its weakness. The other character with an electric weapon kept missing and went down with one bite from the creature (Barathu Envoy).

The whole encounter simply just did not feel good to run. I was being lenient in light of this and they still almost died.

The only reason they managed to survive was the soldier could outrun it and kited it around while also shooting it.

So yeah, personally I was not a fan of this fight at all.