Matthew Scheele's page

Chiefly, having the big "talk to the council" list Diplomacy and only Diplomacy as an option for the check feels unusual. In general the lists of skills being asked for felt unusually short. The investigation was left very open ended, but the clues provided are really well done for hinting at the culprit. I do think it was perhaps too obvious whodunnit, however. Or perhaps I had a very genre-savvy table.

This scenario has a lot of possession effects around on enemies, and those are both somewhat obscure rules and very important, so a sidebar probably would have been good for the GM. If I run this again I'll absolutely be preparing a handout for the players on it.

Also, the boss feels somewhat unfair. He has a (nonmagical, so it can't be dispelled - it makes sense in context but it removes one of the options for dealing with it) possession ability that takes only a single action, works at range, and can be used at will? I'm pretty sure that barring a critical success this is going to be utterly miserable for a party to deal with if played to its full potential - nothing stops the boss from just spending all its time between turns inside a PC. If the party lacks anti-possession effects they're basically forced to beat each other up to whittle away at the boss while hoping nobody ever crit fails when it can fish for failures without limit. It probably should have had a cooldown or other restriction applied.

A level 6 creature with 26 AC is only technically within bounds, as 27 AC is the extreme value for that level going by the GMG guidelines. Simultaneously, his reflex save is his best save at a high value of +17. But since he also has Evasion, this is enough to render reflex saves nearly useless against him as a level PC's DC is at most 22 at level 6, so a roll of 5 or more (so 80% of the time) completely negates. Having excessively high AC and near immunity to reflex saves makes this an incredibly infuriating slog of an encounter.

The one saving grace is that while +18 is a rather high to-hit (again, the guidelines for level 6 are +17 as a high to-hit, and +19 for extreme), his actual damage is very low without sneak attack.

But overall, this is an encounter that can quickly become a very unenjoyable slog as the party struggles to deal any damage at all while he freely chips away at them.

The first encounter is brutal and definitely not "Moderate". While diplomatic PCs will get the hazard helpfully pointed out, the numbers on it are punishing. DC 26 is nasty even for level 6 PCs, and the hazard's damage is vicious - I'm very glad the players already had a success by the time someone inevitably got a critical failure. There doesn't feel like a great way to organically guide the PCs to the lower DCs (and the only really easy target being very specifically performance with a flute, which drops the DC by 4). The fact that the DCs are increased by challenge points did not help at all when there was a level 4 playing up (and they would have otherwise been the obvious choice for a crafting check). By rough calculations... a level 6 PC can only get even a 50% success rate by essentially maxing out their relevant skill against this.

The PCs managed to avoid combat with Farah (I did struggle to resolve the separate rolls for Safa there - I have to assume time spent on those doesn't count against rolls on Farah, because otherwise getting just +2 points isn't even worth rolling on it when it requires two checks already). Looking over the stat block I have some concerns about Combat Grab with bonus damage from Burning Grasp, but absent seeing it in play I'm uncertain of exactly how threatening it is.

The other aspect I find troubling is the final encounter. The reflections feel really bad. "I'm sorry, you dealt too much damage, so now you deal nothing and the boss gets another minion" is just extremely mean to players I feel. I did not feel good at all telling the fighter that their crit meant they got nowhere. The high tier version bumping his rant to dealing Frightened 2 instead of 1 is troubling as well, because as noted - 1 action, no cooldown, hits the entire room? That's a very powerful ability.

I liked some of the use of skill checks to drop bits of lore to PCs, especially at the river crossing. I think there were a few too many random perception to notice interesting details? Probably could have dropped one or two.

I'd have liked an explicit way to avoid the combat for the second Verdant Wheel sample? Though I liked my players just knocking one out and running off with it thanks to high initiative rolls.

Runt and Suhko's monologues were fun.

Being told to keep the Star Gun secret and immediately after being more or less forced to talk about it feels very awkward. I think there need to be options that don't involve telling her, or have her just already know about it (I mean, there's already a leak somewhere)?

The second thing is more general - the scenario introduces a lot of people right at the start and it feels hard to keep them straight. This isn't really unique to this scenario, but getting five names dropped on me at once quickly leads to me mentally filing them as just Person #1, #2, etc because there's no time to process them all. This isn't terribly uncommon in scenarios though, so...

That said, I do think the back half of the scenario worked well (once the cultists bumble into the party). The dream trap bit was neat. The scenario feels like it has a lack of any actual "boss" encounter, but I don't think that should be required. Enemies redirecting damage was something that I don't know if I've ever seen come up (and becomes amusing when they die to it). I'd have liked to see that with a stronger enemy being protected, but that's not a strike against the scenario so much as it giving me ideas for interesting encounters.

Incapacitation trait effects are very un-fun for players for obvious reasons. Multiple enemies capable of causing a long-lasting incapacitation effect with the spore cloud before moving in to attack feels excessive, especially as the cloud is invisible. Our monk rolled bad on his first save. Then he was essentially removed from combat for three rounds as a result of the single save (fleeing, then the second result meant he couldn't make it back to the fight on the second round).

An additional obstacle here is that this is combined with a trap disarming situation - getting ambushed by this effect is awkward and the shrieker mushrooms inhibit the party's movement more.

The other issue loops back to the incapacitation trait - the enemies are level 5, so it feels like this has potential to be extremely swingy based on party levels - four level 5 PCs could easily get completely destroyed by the effects while four level 6 PCs probably shrug it off entirely.

The night ambush on its own would have been fine I think, it's perfectly valid. The party starts at a disadvantage, but the enemies aren't deadly enough that the party can't rally and win. It's following that with the second encounter that starts to make the scenario feel like it's really out to get the PCs.

The final encounter wasn't terrible, but when the boss opens with mind control magic (yes, this is totally thematic for a vampire boss) after the other stuff it feels like perhaps too much? I doubt I'd have even given it much thought without the mushroom fight though.

In the third event, my players managed to complete everything I had for them to do before round 5 thanks to very good rolls. The scenario doesn't really account for this. It also could have had some explicit handling for "what if the PCs are trying to talk down Crookscale" - he has nothing given, since his rolls are all for after he falls in (which is scheduled for after my players had cleared everything else... I just had him fall in right then but).

In the fourth event... I was at a loss at how to lead my players into confronting Efrith. In the end they just kept talking to Crookscale to ask him to leave and I couldn't think of a way to lead them to the investigation without just telling them it was there.

Spider fight worried me, but went fairly smoothly. Multi-day treks make it much easier to handle these fights as casters can go nova on them, and our party was very well balanced. The mechanic of having to have someone keep Urwal from wandering into the fray was a good touch, and it plays nicely with the action economy, especially of spellcasters (easy for someone ranged to hang back to handle it)

The fires encounter. Trample is scary, but this was probably the one that went fastest of the night due to brutally effective martials. The second trample provoked two AoO and took him down, the remaining enemies were mopped up easily. I like the constant threat of the fires, I'm slightly concerned about that plus the trample but as they only hit one PC per turn it didn't prove too dangerous.

The final (and optional) encounter. This is the big one, and I think there's a risk of heroism getting people killed here, as some people will assume the scenario expects them to do the heroic thing as a default and it's hard to make it clear enough that this is an optional challenge? This isn't anything against the scenario so much as it's a difficultly in putting this kind of fight in at all. (Perhaps it would be easier if it wasn't clearly the end of the scenario - PCs may be more inclined to bypass and avoid risk)

The monsters are relatively simple for a good party to put down, though the metaplot up to this can discourage preparation of big fire spells. Thankfully, the ritual option makes short work of the dragon rot, and martials can cut down the oozes in short order with a focused assault (it's a rare enemy where third attacks are reliable, but this encounter has them). But this absolutely calls for a smart party with balanced roles, as the continual onslaught of enemies requires constant damage output to keep up. There is definitely a risk of TPK here if the dice turn nasty though with breath weapons and other area attacks flying around, but both enemy types also have glaring and exploitable weaknesses to exploit. It absolutely meets the goal of being a hard but winnable fight... but some parties are stronger than others.

First... the secondary success condition is a single roll. By a single PC. At the very end of the scenario. No retries. It's far too easy for a bad roll to cost the party the secondary condition here. I feel like it should have been a bit more lenient, and it's disappointing to come into it having nailed everything leading up to it, all the bonuses... and then the die shows a 3. Kind of ended on a downer from that.

Second, I feel like condition riders on attacks were excessive - the party was 5 level 5s, so in the middle of high tier. But in the second and third encounters basically everything required you to make a save if it hit you, which slows things down, leading into my third downside.

The fights feel like they run a bit too long - mainly on account of it feeling like everything's a big pile of HP, combined with needing lots of saving throws. This one could be partly on the party, definitely a group with a cleric is going to have an easier time of it.

I both liked and disliked the first encounter. The radius on the difficult terrain when the leshies died was far too big - we dropped one and basically now the whole area is difficult terrain for the rest of the fight. The explosions were interesting since it did friendly fire, but... also kind of big? I did like the main enemy having entangle and wall of thorns, and the GM played them smartly using the wall to cause problems for us (but entangle was pointless because of the mushrooms). If the other fights hadn't dragged I think I'd be less annoyed with the everything is difficult terrain.

The mists sequence was very cool, and I love how it played into the following encounter with buffs and debuffs based on the result. The various skill challenges in the barrow were nice.

The last boss gets points for having a non-AoO reaction, grabbing is a nice variation over straight damage.

The issue is that it has a 30' cone blind attack, with a 1d4 round duration on fail (and basically the rest of the fight on critical fail). At level 1, blind is crippling. We were fortunate that 2/3 blinded players could get around it to still fight (animal companion that wasn't blinded and share senses with a familiar). Being forced to make DC 11 flat checks on every attack will result in a lot of misses and doesn't lead to having fun, and I can think of only one way to cure the issue at level 1 (Hyperfocus from the Delirium domain). I feel there's also a real risk of a GM misplaying this and requiring Seek checks at -4 to even find it.

The party's bard walking across the ice singing along while jumping clear of collapsing areas... that was great to watch. I love that you have a negotiation section with hazards like this.

How much fire do you have? I had no fire spells prepped on my witch (in retrospect, I can't recall if the topic of "trolls" had come up, and I left myself with a default spread of electric arc and telekinetic projectile). The scenario provides a fair amount of fire and acid weapons for the three troll type enemies, but this party only had one person proficient in them, since rogues and bards aren't proficient in martial weapons by default.

On the other hand? Once the fighter started lobbing the bombs (at point blank!), the enemies started dying fast thanks to their very high weakness value making the splash devastating to them.

If the fighter had gotten hit more though, we might have been in real trouble, since I'm not sure anyone else could have reliably avoiding critical misses on the bombs. As is he did go down once, but the enemies missed a lot too.

As has been noted, the one treasure bundle is perhaps a bit too hard.

My bigger concern is the DC on the spider venom. I think I ended up needing a 14-15 on the die for a success and I was playing a barbarian. I am very glad nobody else got poisoned by them and that poisons have a max duration. Because that DC is definitely too much, especially when it ends at paralysis.

A haunt activating with the boss fight is... potentially really, really bad. Haunts are not nice. Not sure if this is just how it was run though, considering point 2.

Sanctuary is a bit of tricky spell - though I think this is more a lack of an explicit "this is the definition of a hostile action", and I think this definitely ends up more an issue of how it was run vs written for my experience. But why sanctuary is on an enemy who is going to take hostile action every turn once people get anywhere near him confuses me.

Now, that aside? The dancing zombies are great. I absolutely love the mechanic of them all stepping in sync. I also like how their size works against them here - it's easy for them PCs to be in the entryway where they end up with a couple unable to fit in. And too dumb to do anything about it. I like the pipe organ being weaponized against the party (the free action may have been too much).

The initial overworld travel type phase should have been more of the meat of the scenario I think. It's been noted that aside from one area it's basically just walk to point A and roll a skill check, and I think that squanders it a bit. I'd have put most of the encounters in this area, basically a mix of minor skill check points and major areas with encounters and a map.

Also, dear god that trap. 30 damage to the whole party. I don't know how much it hits for in low tier, but taking 150% of max HP as a level 2 paired up (...19 or 20 CP iirc) is unpleasant! That still seems excessive as that can easily drop a level 3 outright, so having it hit the whole party is a bit much. (I feel like party-wide traps need to be used very, very judiciously because of the impact on party resources. An encounter directly after one has real potential to take multiple party members out before they can act, which is very un-fun. More single-target traps, seriously. This isn't as ridiculous as the other scenario I ran yesterday, but still)

The fungus encounter isn't particularly memorable to me... but our GM had his macros really messed up (flat 3 damage per hit) the whole time. So... yay us? Some of the other reviews raise some real concerns about it - Darkness is a nasty spell to throw out. Poison should be used in moderation because it's brutal to low fort chars (don't think this was particularly significant there - as I said, I'm not really remembering much of this part a day later)

The research section. The party was fortunate to have multiple int characters. But I have two qualms here. First, stone tablets and some ancient machinery degrading rapidly really doesn't make much sense. Second... it's a lot of complication for little gain I think. The concept of the encounter (including the surprise boss fight) is sound.

I can't judge the boss itself much. It was a lopsided party (2,2,4,4) and we were fortunate enough to have a level 4 fighter who rolled well to hit. Having it surprise you and smash out of the mural was a nice touch.

The third room was a mixed bag. I thought it was very cute that the obvious blade trap was actually broken and instead a fight occurred (so much for mage hand). But the fight felt a bit rough. Primarily the reaction of the severed hand was extremely punishing, and I think the scenario overdid it with inflicting sickened.

The real issue with the scenario is the fourth room. From what I can tell, there's nothing written in the scenario about using skill checks to solve the puzzle... which resulting in my party having to reason it out ourselves. Needless to say we failed.

This is a problem for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I am of the opinion that nothing should ever rely on players figuring it out - characters should always be able to roll something to puzzle through. From a later discussion with the author it sounds like this was not the intent, so I'm putting this down to unclear writing and a lack of the scenario explicitly stating that skill checks are usable (and taking this as a lesson for myself to try and look for ways to use skill checks anyways)

Second, I think the failure penalty is very steep - the scenario up to this point had gotten very damaging due to the difficulty of the hand encounter (in retrospect, it's basically the boss fight in terms of alloted difficulty). Party-wide damage from traps is punishing, so having it happen repeatedly is rough, especially given the prior issue. I think scenarios should be careful with this, as it's easy to burn through tons of the party's resources quickly this way. As is, we basically had to take a healing break after each failure.

Third, the trap springing right into a fight is rough. Since it's party wide damage there's a real risk of people getting further dropped if the monsters roll high on initiative. I'm not a fan of combining the two - it would be significantly less problematic if it was a single-target trap that hit whoever was working the puzzle alone.