Rovik's page

An issue I've encountered often in previous 1E adventure paths and modules, and now in the playtest, is the scale of the maps used for battle and exploration.

Just to make it clear, I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone playing exclusively on virtual tabletops (roll20) with 'Dynamic Lighting', and our group consists of six players.

In 'The Lost Star' I tried doubling the map size. The players were really immersed in the spacious cavern, using bullseye lanters and reported feeling a real sense of dread as they moved through the dark cave. Combat felt more interesting with the possibility of ambushes and flanking maneuvers if they weren't vigilant. On the flip side some of the features like doors became unnaturally large and unrealistic.

In 'Pale Mountain's Shadow' I used the map straight out of the book, because stretching would leave it horribly pixelated. Players ended up gridlocked in all the fights inside the Tomb, especially in the elemental rooms due to the environmental hazards. Lighting never came into play despite the Tomb being mostly dark. And through no fault of Paizo, players constantly got stuck inside the walls on the diagonal hallways due to roll20 dynamic lighting.

We haven't started 'Affair at Sombrefell Hall' yet, but a quick glance at the map confirms that despite it not looking very polished the scale seems much better.

Some of the key issues for us have been:
1. Single-tile hallways. Inevitably ends up in gridlock near the entrance, leading to frustrating and static combat.

2. Diagonal/curved paths. Frustrating to path on, and tokens usually end up halfway inside a wall or over the edge.

3. Cramped environments. Tactical movement and creative use of environment is basically non-existent, especially with larger party sizes.

These are issues that can really kill the mood during a session, and should be used with caution, and only deliberately. As much as I would love beautifully rendered maps in the upcoming adventures, I much rather have low-res maps if that's what it takes to get well designed grids.

What does everyone else think? How do you prepare your maps, and is there any tips and tricks you use to improve the experience for your players?

I'm not quite sure from your description but: did you give the trapped character only one chance per round? or one chance per action, so three per round?

The athletics DC is 18, so the worst possible character is at (level 4, -4 untrained, -1 STR, -5 ACP) -6, but that is a gnome or halfling in full plate. That one has to roll a 14 to not sink.
In this case, even Aid doesn't help much, the character stuck has not enough strength to grab the rope good enough to let him be pulled out. But in that case he shouldn't have put on full plate anyway

A typical bad athletics bonus should be around (level 4, -4 untrained, STR combined with ACP ~0) +0, needing an 8 on the die to not sink.
The monk in OP's post would be around that bonus, if he trained something else than athletics and has no Strength to speak of.

Throwing a rope should grant a +2 conditional bonus, Aid a +2 circumstance bonus, so the typically bad athlete's odds increase by 20%. His chance to sink is now 15%, and his chance to swim is at 35%, so he should try multiple times a round.

The characters received as many attempts per round as they had actions available.

The monk in question has a +6 Athletics bonus, but was frankly quite unlucky. They had two people using Aid reaction (a wizard at +0 and a Ranger at +2 Athletics) against a DC 15 Athletics. Theoretically they should have an okay chance to get out, but due to Critical Failure on the Aid Reaction at inopportune moments contributing a -2 penalty, and automatically sinking on the Quicksands initiative, the monk ended up drowning.

The only alternative I could think of was allowing the player to climb the rope using the "Ordinary Athletics Tasks" on page 338, but given the nature of the playtest we decided to stay away from taking liberties with the rules.

We did not know about the +2 conditional bonus from the rope however. Where is this stated in the book? All I can find is a +1 item bonus to Athletics to Climb from Climbing Kit.

EDIT: Looking at the numbers (disregarding the supposed rope bonus)...

The Wizard has a 30% probability to aid, and a 25% to crit fail.
The Ranger has a 40% probability to aid, and a 15% to crit fail.
The Monk has a 45% probability to swim, and a 10% to crit fail.

Even if one of the Aid Reactions succeed, the probability to swim up is still just 55%. Given that you have to make two out of three attempts every round to negate the Quicksands automatically pulling you down, the most likely outcome in this scenario seem to be a slow death. If the rope actually does confer a +2 bonus then the odds are more even.

Due to vacations our group is late to the party, and have just come halfway through 'In Pale Mountain's Shadow'. After a very enjoyable stint of expanding on the exploration tactics and seeing innovative and fun creature mechanics, we encountered the Quicksand...

So with the new exploration mechanics and the story incentive to rush, I asked my group of 6 players whether they would be searching or investigating. After losing a camel to the Hyenas, no one was keen to waste time. So of course they aren't actively looking out and one unlucky player ends up walking straight into the Quicksand. Encounter ensues.

I placed one player (our monk) in the first tile of quicksand. Quicksand won initiative with a 29 total. Monk starts their turn neck deep and are faced with a DC 18 Athletics.

Throughout the encounter we had two players (wizard and ranger) with ropes thrown to the monk, using aid actions to help. I ruled that the Aid Reaction would use the 'Easy DC 10' since they were assisted with ropes.

After an hour or so of play we still didn't manage to get her out, as we figured the Aid action didn't stack (they provide circumstance bonuses), and since Aid and escaping the Quicksand is affected by ACP, we ended up rolling a lot of critical failures on both sides. She ended up suffocating after 14 rounds of unlucky rolls.

Simultaneously we had the "stupid" dwarf barbarian leap into the quicksand, and even he couldn't get out with the help of the cleric and fighter.

There was also no mention of depth of the Quicksand, so do they sink infinitely? I set a limit of 4 steps, otherwise the monk would have been ~10 steps down under at the end.

As a GM I really appreciate the complexity of this encounter and I would love to see it work. If Aid reaction bonuses stacked perhaps the encounter would be more fun, but even then I suspect it would be long-winded.

We fail to understand why there exists a shove action, but no action to drag or carry someone? Why can't my players use the ropes to pull someone instead of simply aiding? It doesn't make sense that two or more players pulling a rope doesn't actually help, but in some cases hamper the effort.

So far we're enjoying the story and ruleset immensely, and we are hopeful for the future of 2E. :-)