I ran a table of Ghosts last night.
Questions if I run this again:
1) What happens if a possessed Jaohd is caught in a positive channel energy to damage undead accidentally or intentionally?
a) Nothing
b) Damage directed to Jaohd's body
c) Damage directed to Tzur-Vaal soul
d) If b) or c) is there any outward appearance that would alert the party. I'm not sure if I've ever heard anyone describe what it looks like while its affecting an undead.
2) What happens (if anything) if holy water is thrown or splashed on a possessed Jaohd?
3) Does the hazard that was previously clarified to only affect walls not floors, affect doors?
4) Does the allip's babble break fascinate on creatures currently fascinated by a different allip? For example, allip1 emerges from the silence area and some PCs are fascinated. Allip2 emerges, what happens:
a) All fascinated by allip1 freed and all make a new will save to against allip2?
b) All fascinated by allip1 get a new save against allip1, and all free after that make a new will save to against allip2?
c) Only those free make a will save to avoid allip2 fascinate?
d) Only those free make a will save to avoid allip2 fascinate, but when those fascinated by allip1 are freed then they save against allip2?
e) All make a new will save to avoid allip2 fascinate and track the babbles concurrently?
f) something else?
Notes from my session:
1) This is a prep monster, do not underestimate it or you will fail your GM fort save against exhaustion. Looking back on the session with 20/20 hindsight I see I made a few mistakes both in favor of and against the party so at least the oops went both ways. But the short list of prep: Possessed NPC (potentially possessing a PC) and all the "what if"s that come with that, incorporeal monsters (note: the subtype and the ability grant different complementary effects), gaseous monsters, haunt and ecoplasmic monsters in the same encounter, hazards, environmental effects (unnatural fog), monsters that fascinate/age damage/energy drain/stat damage, multiple enemies with caster levels, etc. It was quite the mix.
2) This ran long... We finished at the max time for our gaming room at 5.5 hours. We could probably have used another 30 minutes to wrap things up properly, and even more as we went light on the role playing with the paladin trying to get through the encounters without running out of time.
3) Outdoor combat took a long time at high tier, the fog played a good part limiting visibility and the PCs focus was split with all the sailors.
4) The multiple allips could be deadly with the 60' babble range. With only two PC's and two minions free, they chose to engage the allips and paladin instead of freeing the other four PCs. This drew out this fight a lot longer then it could have been with most of the party active. IMPORTANT: In addition to tracking HOW LONG a PC is fascinated for you need to track WHICH allip has them under fascination. Per the fascinate condition, "...taking no actions other than to pay attention to the fascinating effect, for as long as the effect lasts." Therefore, I would assume the effect ends when the particular allip is dead as did a PC. When the first allip went down the question arose around the table of "Was that the one that fascinated me?" The PC's were all tracking their fascinate rounds ticking down a die, but I forgot to record or have them record which allip.
Comments to Dev Team:
1) Stat Blocks - Looking past the one that was just left out noted earlier in the thread, there was a significant amount of page flipping necessary due to some stat blocks being published at the end, while others being published inline. I understand it saves pages if there are multiple encounters with creature X and the stats are just printed at the back. Is there a reason the custom ones get put in-line instead of at the end with the rest? Otherwise it's almost necessary to re-compile them like some kind soul does on pfsprep.com.
2) My high tier players lamented that while the wand had a boosted DC, but the scenario did not specify a boosted caster level too. This meant it was unlikely to be useful against high-tier Tzur-Vaal due to his high SR, even with the 50% incorporeal errata above in the thread.
3) The awesome wall hazard never came into play. None of my players voluntarily wanted to touch a wall after the description given in the text block starting the labyrinth. I had previously asked if it affected floors and the answer was no, but I forgot to ask about doors as each room on the map has one.
4) Atanda - Low tier she's basically another slightly special sailor, high tier she's a halfling druid who's tactic is to wildshape into a huge triceratops. I believe the general feel from the table was "Did that just happen?" This just felt completely random.
5) The map is AWESOME, but ONLY if you print it or have a way to show the players. Printing it provides an artistic way of showing that this is a huge maze, without having to go to the nitty gritty having a huge map and worked well with the travel mechanic.
6) Tactics - Some of the encounters in here were much more devious then I'm used to for PFS. The dancing haunt + ecoplasmic rogues who try to flank and have combat reflexes for AOOs... Whew... <insert evil grin here>
