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The Husk of Xhamen-Dor's unspeakable presence worked awesomely at our table. The players nearly all failed the save. Having half their actions taken up by complying with a Great Old One's horrifying will (i.e., moving towards it) and the other half fighting against it made for a perfect lovecraftian horror RP experience.

"I must destroy this thing! I must move towards this thing!"

Fantastic!

I have a question I failed to get an answer to by googling on "Unspeakable Precence" do you get one save on this ability ? and If you failed are there any ways to get rid of the effect !! Also, If you succeed at the save is the effect ongoing and require a new save ?

GayBirdGM wrote:

Moximus wrote:

Oh yeah, Chapter 4 is all dungeon crawl and combat! After the party has been focusing on skill use and de-escalating combats, this chapter is brutal in comparison!

The Fiendflesh Siege happened a few years ago, an was played out as a Gencon, multi-table Society Scenario.

https://paizo.com/products/btpy9tld?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-900-Assault -on-Absalom

Link!

Thank's Moximus! I was going to ask the same thing.

I absolutely love the random Dark Tapestry creature in the catacombs. Eldritch horror? I'm into that. More please.

Speaking of the Dark Tapestry creature, its stat block says it has 320 HP?! Is that correct? Most other level 10 creatures have below 200 HP. It seems really high.

This monster looks seriously like it's much larger than what is listed (LARGE) , it seems like atleast huge by the look at that picture I have changed it's size to match the picture to HUGE

Do Dr. Henri Meirtmane play a roll in the AP?

No, but one of my players has been one of he's students At Sincomacti School of Science, so I had one book written by Count Lowl's to shame Henry in he's backpack. They talk about this book in "rule of fear"

“The Stars Are Not Among Us: An
Undeniable Refutation of the
Works of the Doomsaying
Pseudo-Scholar Dr. Henri
Meirtmane”

So later when they find books witten by Henry Meirtmane in Lossandro's Office He remembers he has seen this book in he's backpack..

I know.

The fear aura wasn't what got them. (I misspoke on the post above about that combat).

Frightful presence does cause the frightened condition on a failed save, or panicked if they're 4 HD or fewer. The Tatterman attacked during the surprise round, which triggered the frightful presence ability on everyone in 30 feet. The DC on the save isn't high, but a couple players just rolled very badly. The nightmare template does not explicitly say that the frightful presence only works within the 30 foot radius (unlike the fear aura), so I went with the default 5d6 in the universal monster ability description.

Next, he moved on to cause fear, which he'd use as people got over their panic, in between ripping up the more courageous PCs and regenerating what little damage managed to get through his DR.

I will have him use Vanish instead of cause fear to snuff out all candles in the room , felt like a real scary thing to do, then they may also be able to follow him trough the room as all candles blows out then he will use "Shadowwalk" with one PC..

From what i can gather reading trough your immence post is that ..

1 the gobblins in the long hall is SUPPOSE to charge your group recklessly, not cleaverly hide and shoot from darkness. This room offers some great places to hide and there is ALOT of opertunity to get cover. Much of the rest of the discriptions follow the same harch penalties etc etc.

Also it seems you misunderstood alot of the games rules and guidelines,
Like the exploration mode.

From what i can read you are trying to WIN against the players by not letting them do anything but dying .

The last boss seems difficult but what about running away ? Take another aprouch there should be atleast 4 players 3 if he downd one with aoo.

Its a playtest , sure, but its a playtest of a roleplaying game not a miniatur combat game where you are supposed to slaughter your players. You didnt read the rules properly and the scenario.. Goblins are no tactical masterminds they charge screeming..

Honestly, silver is classic anti evil creature material, so thats not really that meta gamey. And its plausible to identify unique creature's weakness with knowledge check even if they don't know what creature precisely is. YMMV though I guess

What kind of Knowledge Check would that be ? A creature that is not mentioned anywhere, how could anyone notice that a creature has a particular weakness without actually trying, this is also a very poor solution and a flaw in this game , if this is the only way to do it. Besides, If they mid fight actually succeded in a knowledge check with I guess super high DC and found it out, they would most likely be dead already.

Yes, for you and the players it's just that, a "Classic anti evil" material thats just why it is a poor clue and even meta gamey, Hey now we have found 3 silverdaggers and Silver Sheen , maybe we will encounter a warewolf soon, better equip these more/less useless weapons so that we are prepared.

They atleast could have made some other beeings Before Tatterman require silver weapons, that way they would have had them ready more naturally, maybe :)

My players didnt even remember that they had those daggers, since they had better weapons like Red Destiny for example..

Well you get the idea, It could have been done so much better.

WARNING SPOILERS

We finished the first book "In search of Sanity" this weekend and here are my thoughts about it.

The overall adventure is VERY good, maybe abit to railroaded but ok..The CREEPINESS IS A TOTAL BLAST.

But there is ONE HUGE complain thou, and that is TATTERMAN not the characther or the idea of a Freddie Cruger like villain , that is awesome.

BUT..

Hes just impossible to beat without cheating as GM or metagaming as a player.

And yes..I could let the players roll a knowledge whatever, but..this is a unique characther and remember the charachers are lvl 1 when they enter with a fugue state, It makes Little to no sence at all that the characthers would be able to know anything at ALL about this mythic beiing. Once they all got all the stupid silver weapons up from their backpacks mid fight they would be dead.

1 I could have made him easier as a GM, but why ? , isn't this suppose to be an adventure for 4 Characthers , I played it with 5 but I'd argue that hes still impossible, Hes at AC 20, most of the time they wont even hit him, and when they do he will just regenerate it back. And he also has DR 5, and flying ...

2 Yeah I know you get silver daggers and silver Sheen etc etc, but thats metagaming, infact it's rather silly having the cultist running around with silver daggers, just because this is the loot they need to kill the last boss. As an experienced Pathfinder player you would probably see this as a hint/clue ..but thats just a stupid clue/or matagamey since the characthers has no WAY of knowing that they should have changed their own weapons against a silverweapon that i worse than what they are carrying to beat a boss, It's daggers after all and silver.

AS a GM you could certainly ADD hints, books or other such thing and in this case the best way you could have hinted about how to beat him in the Dreams, but for that to happen you would have to be very experienced as a GM, this should have been done BY THE Authors of the adventure.

Finally they could flee , but to where ? Seriously :)

It's a cool concept to figure out how to kill a Nighmare Creature like Tatterman, but when half of the team has been running away like scared rabbits and the rest is trying to beat him with waterguns it's not fun, just frustrating. and I absolutly didnt wan't to TPK the party after the first episode because it's just poorly thought trough, did they even playtest this ?

My team was also composed of classes recommended from the players guide, like Gravedigger , detective, cleric, inqiusitor. and a rouge type

I'm getting ready to run this AP next weakend and it's seems very good :)

However...

One thing that I find odd is that there is monsters in this AP has extremly low damage like the Pickled Punks attack, Im guessing its just to see if they attach ? or activate their abilities ?

1d3-4 is even negative damage, whats the Point of this ?