Blue is a hotter flame than red. :)Oh no. Not a Flame War!
no way
Now available in print.
I would like to deeply thank Paizo for participating in FreeRPG day. Sadly, I'm not terribly philosophical at the moment, so I'll have to do it shallowly.
Still.
Thank you.
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Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
STR 20: +5
A Human character can get two feats:
Athletic: +2 Climb/Swim
Skill Focus: +3
1 skill rank
Said character needs to roll a 14; sure its high but not impossible. Even with only one of those two feats its possible and a non-human character its possible.
Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
STR 20: +5
A Human character can get two feats:
Athletic: +2 Climb/Swim
Skill Focus: +3
1 skill rankSaid character needs to roll a 14; sure its high but not impossible. Even with only one of those two feats its possible and a non-human character its possible.
It is still too high.
How many characters are going to optimize their entire character to make that skill check?
Not having read this, I don't know the details (especially how tall this partially ruined tower is), but I'd say the following might apply:
Using hammer and pitons.
Using a grappling hook.
Using a ladder, or improvising one.
I'm sure there's also things that a clever party might try that would give them a circumstance bonus.
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Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoilerized for players' protection:
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Thanks, Rob! A simple solution which somehow eluded me.
Paizo is the greatest, thanks a million for the free stuff and the quick feedback. I am totally a loyal customer for life :-)
At PaizoCon, I was informed that your interpretation (0 pa as not part of faction) is correct
Not really sure where else to pose this question.
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Not really sure where else to pose this question.
** spoiler omitted **
Answer in spoiler:
Yeah, I know it doesn't matter for the adventure, but I was intrigued. I'm running this module in two play-by-posts on the boards and we're having a blast. Is there a module that would be good to continue this one with? Or perhaps another one that could be plugged into different siege tower?
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These are my thoughts on some of the slightly weird things about this module. Just some things I changed/added so that it all made a little more sense to me. Note that these are minor details and I am really impressed by the quality of this free product! Also see my review. ;)
I solved this by having the floors of room 5 fully and room 4 partially caved in and by adding broken furniture to the rubble piles. The rubble from room 5's floor has filled the room below it enough to make the doors impassable and now the party will have a kind of a climbing/difficult terrain challenge in room 5.
The rooms. Apart from the throne area on the top level and the temple it's not at all clear why the rooms are what/where they are. Also, they all seem to be empty. I added more broken furniture to show that, long, long ago, this all served some purpose that is now no longer clear. The players, not knowing that what causes all the disturbance here is external to the tower (Tasskar and his Troglodytes), also kept assuming they'd learn more about the tower's purpose because of this. Kept them interested and guessing, always a good thing.
The creatures. A giant frog, a shocker lizard, a giant spider, some dogs and bats. That's quite the menangerie. I added some mystery to the story by having the PCs hear rumors of wildlife getting weird around the tower ever since the earthquake. Then I let them discover that the dogs are more aggressive than they should be, and look kinda sick. I had them infested with some kind of flesh-eating maggot, that gave the PCs a good scare and the desire to investigate the source of it. As I see it, the „tainted druid“ Tasskar's mere presence corrupts the environment, bringing these creatures to his lair and changing them. I also made the shocker lizard, giant spider and frog seem a lot less natural through the description. Also, emphasizing the reptilian/amphibian traits of lizard, frog and troglodytes gives them more of a connection. Tasskar's spider swarm and centipede also give a connection to the spider in the ground floor.
Tasskar's weapon: Why have this amazing picture of the Troglodyte with the scythe and then give him a scimitar? I changed that to a scythe because that looks a lot more cool and lets you demonstrate trip attacks. And if he has to drop it when he fails? There's a good reason to have him cast flame blade!
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My group just played this last night and had a blast (an Orc Fighter with a strength of 22 and a Tengu cleric of weather will do that for a group), and I GMed it a few weekends before that with a smaller group. This was our first foray into Pathfinder, so...
What adventure/module would make a good follow up to this? We're a diverse group and not everyone can meet weekly, so I'd prefer somethings more one-shot oriented. (I have looked over the Adventure Paths, and while I love them, they may not work for our group because character continuity between adventures/weeks is hard for us to maintain.)
So yeah, babble-on notwithstanding, what's a great lv1/lv2 module to follow up with?
I ran this one back on Free RPG Day, and have some recommendations for GMs planning to use it as an introduction to Pathfinder Society play.
To make optimal use of this one, I recommend that new players be encouraged to use Pathfinder's iconic cleric instead of the oracle. While she has some strengths, the oracle isn't built for melee. The tower's tight confines and narrow stairway can really inhibit PCs who depend on missile fire. While an experienced group can work around that, the new players I ran on Free RPG day repeatedly got in each other's way.
Because it has several fights, the scenario's roleplaying opportunities may be neglected. Rather than just throwing the PCs into the action, I recommend that GMs develop the adventure's story hook before running the mod.
I considered using an alternative opening: After the Pathfinder Balenar Forsend didn't come back to pay for his lodging, his grasping landlord seized the property he left in his chambers. He offers the items to the PCs for a fraction of their apparent worth, criticizing "that deadbeat vagabond Balenar Forsend" all the while. The PCs' purchase includes maps and descriptions of the Fallen Fortress and its rumored treasures. After the party buy the items, Venture-Captain Adril Hestram shows up and begins loudly arguing with the landlord. The portly venture-captain demands the items Balenar left in his chambers and becomes incensed at the landlord's passive-agressive refusal to explain what happened to them. The landlord hints that he could reveal the truth for the right price, but Adril Hestram refuses to pay the exasperating man one "shaved Qadiran copper".
Of course, the PCs likely have no idea who this massive, apparently violent man might be. Either they decide to sneak off and investigate the fortress on their own or they confront the venture-captain. Impressed by PCs who show some chutzpah ("You lads have stout hearts! I like that!"), Adril suggests that they should check out the fortress, asking them to keep an eye out for Balenar.
Once the PCs find him during the adventure, make Balenar a colorful, quirky character. When I ran the scenario, I modeled him on my sixth-grade teacher, a WW II veteran who had apparently defeated the Japanese single-handedly. He had dozens of unlikely anecdotes of his wartime adventures.
To keep the tower's fights from growing repetitive, I made the shocker lizard a bit less hostile, but very skittish. Its reaction to intruders was to nose forward, looking around to see if they brought food. The PCs took it with them, only to discover that it let out a jolt every time something attacked the party, injuring most of the PCs. They especially enjoyed trying to coax the lizard into fighting the tower's other inhabitants.
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Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoilerized for players' protection:
** spoiler omitted **
DC 15 is still too high for level 1 characters when only 1/3 of them will have a positive bonus to the skill check (most will be negative due to encumbrance/armor), the check is required for the meat of the adventure to even take place at all, and the consequences of two failed checks in a row can mean death for almost any level 1 character before the adventure even really starts. Imrijka has a flat 21.6% chance of death just because she's Imrijka before the game even really begins.
DC 15 is still too high for level 1 characters when only 1/3 of them will have a positive bonus to the skill check (most will be negative due to encumbrance/armor), the check is required for the meat of the adventure to even take place at all, and the consequences of two failed checks in a row can mean death for almost any level 1 character before the adventure even really starts. Imrijka has a flat 21.6% chance of death just because she's Imrijka before the game even really begins.Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoilerized for players' protection:
** spoiler omitted **
There are things characters can do to improve their chances of making the check. A knotted rope is DC 5 to climb, and only one character has to go up to run a rope down. The character who goes up first can doff their armor and extra gear before going up.
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This is way after the fact, but I want to point out a small error:
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This is way after the fact, but I want to point out a small error:
** spoiler omitted **
That is not an error.
That being said, it is a tough encounter for 1st-level PCs, but that's why both doors to the room are locked with high Disable Device DCs. But you could certainly add more healing magic to the tower if you feel PCs need more help.
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This is way after the fact, but I want to point out a small error:
** spoiler omitted **That is not an error.
** spoiler omitted **
Ahh, my mistake about the CR then. I misunderstood the CR progression system. I run the adventure under the Society rules which doesn't allow for adding items to the adventure.
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No problem - I didn't view it as an accusation, but I wanted to be clear that there wasn't an error.
Master of the Fallen Fortress was written primarily as a standalone module that could be run as a Pathfinder Society scenario (which is different from a Pathfinder Society scenario that can be run as a standalone adventure). It's a small, but significant difference — there are specific design parameters regarding the difficulty of encounters that are used in building a PFS scenario, but not in other modules or APs. So in this case, Master of the Fallen Fortress may be slightly more difficult than other PFS scenarios.
But I'm glad to hear people are enjoying the adventure, and feedback like this is important, to help us do better the next time we try something like this.
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I'm running this module as a PBP game, and my party is close to finishing it. However, I need some advice:
Any thoughts?
(By the way, this is not a Pathfinder Society game.)
I'm running this module as a PBP game, and my party is close to finishing it. However, I need some advice:
... the chest of Tasskar's treasure, which has fallen to the ground 60+ feet below. I described the chest (containing two flasks of acid and two potions) as being banded with iron, to give it a fighting chance of survival, but I am not sure what treasure would cope with that fall. I suspect the metal items, gem, and wand, but none of the liquids.
Well, depends a lot on what you *want*. Do you want it all to survive the fall? Have it all wrapped in cloths in the chest, thus cushioning the fall. Do you want the acid flasks to break and damage everything else in the chest? Then they will.
What is going to happen to the treasure depends on how you portray it - you're better off selecting the result you want and justifying that rather than trying to do an analysis of what "ought" to happen, since what ought to happen will be determined by your preconditions.
However, it's likely that the potions and acid flasks were packed safely. The iron bound chest would provide some protection for the contents, and the smaller travel chests would provide further protection for the potions and acid, so why not keep it simple and give each of them a 1 in 4 chance of breaking - and a broken acid flask would just seep into the treasure chest but not outright break anything (though it might damage it).
But that's just me.Edit:
- They collapsed the floor, which fell 60 feet including the iron bound treasure chest. The treasure chest with hardness 10 and hp 15 takes 6d6 damage (average 21) and survives the fall, taking 11 hp damage.
- Since the chest was in rubble that fell 60 feet, I'd ad hoc say it would be equivalent to a 40-foot fall for the stuff in the chest.
- I'd say the potions and acid would be packed in separate smaller, lined boxes inside the chest, and a small chest has hardness 5 and hp 1. They take 4d6 damage (average 14) and break outright, failing to protect the flasks and potions.
- However, just because the small chest broke doesn't mean it was pancaked. As with the treasure chest, I'd take 20 feet off the fall, and I'd say the protective interior would give an ad hoc DR 5 to the flasks and potions.
- The potions and flasks (of an unspecified material, but the potions are probably ceramic and the flasks probably glass) each are subjected to 2d6 damage, with an additional DR 5 on top of whatever they've got.
- Thus, the potions (probably DR 2, hp 1) take 2d6 damage against their effective DR 7 and have about a 50-50 chance of surviving. The acid flasks (probably DR 1, hp 1) also take 2d6 damage against their effective DR 6 and have about a 5 in 12 chance of surviving.
But that's just me :) (and that is why it takes me so long to prep for games)
I modified this adventure a bit, made entry easier, monsters nastier and the intro to it more of a stumble upon the place in the southern Isgerian wilderness.
They kept going into the unknown, so I threw this at them. It has gone quite well, although they took a lot of injury.
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With the recent updates to the Guide to Organized Play, has there been any though to allowing a 1PA award for this module? It seems fair, considering conditions, death, and expended items now carry over when they didn't before. It also fits the Season 3 precedent of 1PA for successful completion of the scenario and 1PA for the faction mission.
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There are things characters can do to improve their chances of making the check. A knotted rope is DC 5 to climb, and only one character has to go up to run a rope down. The character who goes up first can doff their armor and extra gear before going up.DC 15 is still too high for level 1 characters when only 1/3 of them will have a positive bonus to the skill check (most will be negative due to encumbrance/armor), the check is required for the meat of the adventure to even take place at all, and the consequences of two failed checks in a row can mean death for almost any level 1 character before the adventure even really starts. Imrijka has a flat 21.6% chance of death just because she's Imrijka before the game even really begins.Because I'm not sure where else to ask about this:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoilerized for players' protection:
** spoiler omitted **
The problem with this fix, though, is that the characters are pre-gens and they come pre-equipped. None of the characters in the party we chose had any rope at all in their equipment lists. I believe we went with Balazar, Alahazra, and Imrijka. Neither Balazar nor Alahazra would've been any help with pulling Imrijka up even if they did have rope.
Lol, adventurers without rope and grappling hooks.
Is there any reason the Campaign Coordinators haven't re-conned the chronicle for this one to be 1 fame/prestige? I thoroughly enjoy running this one (and playing it originally with Baird), but I hesitate to schedule it for my local gameday because 0 fame is a very rough way to start a character.
I'm running this tomorrow evening at our PFS lodge. So there's no prestige/fame for playing this one? Whats the reasoning for that?
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Having just read through the updated guide to PFS, this is in fact a Tier 1 Sanctioned module, and gives 1 XP and 1 Prestige/Fame for completion. The only trouble is that I cannot seem to find the square to check it under the GM events section... tricky. I thought it would be alongside We Be Goblins, but no luck. I might hold off on this one until I can properly report it.
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Having just read through the updated guide to PFS, this is in fact a Tier 1 Sanctioned module, and gives 1 XP and 1 Prestige/Fame for completion. The only trouble is that I cannot seem to find the square to check it under the GM events section... tricky. I thought it would be alongside We Be Goblins, but no luck. I might hold off on this one until I can properly report it.
Ctrl + F is your friend. It's under the Pathfinder RPG modules between Masks of the Living God and The Midnight Mirror.
Can brand new PFS characters run through this module or are players required to use the pre-gens? I'm about to GM my first PFS game and would like to run this, but my players will want to bring their own PCs. Thanks in advance!
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Can brand new PFS characters run through this module or are players required to use the pre-gens? I'm about to GM my first PFS game and would like to run this, but my players will want to bring their own PCs. Thanks in advance!
As long as they're no more than level 1, then this is fine for them. I've ran it a few times now. The pregens were just to introduce new players at the time. That said, the iconic pregens are of no actual value as they are 15-point buy, not 20-point buy. Hence why the APG pregens are no longer available for regular PFS.
Thanks for the speedy reply! I've been looking to do some PFS GMing for a while yet and this module is a perfect entry point.