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?

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. :-)