Here is why the high-tier TPK'd or almost-TPK'd players in the previous reviews. Take your level 10 or 11 character, the one you wish to use in this scenario. Look at the hit points. Now, subtract about 20 or 30 HP. That's because the TPK fight will damage you a little, at first. OK? Character still fine? Now, subtract 140 points of damage. Is your character still alive & conscious? If so, you can survive the monster's special ability, which does a flat 140 points of damage if you fail the save. AND the saving throw DC is high. So the odds of failing are real. If
you don't fail, an ally or two (or three!)
will. Can you solo the fight against a creature that does 140 points of damage? If not, you're going to be part of the TPK.
Now, let's say your character is awesome, and let's say you meta-game against this issue and you all have protection, because you cheated. You'll still lose. Why? Because there are NPCs within range of that special ability that cannot survive it, and that means that even if you live, you'll lose all your prestige and essentially "fail" the game.
This is why people are upset with this product.
However, my games never had this problem. Why? Because we heeded the prior reviews and we all agreed to play low tier (both for the game in which I was a player, and the game in which I was the GM). Low tier has exactly zero problems! The monsters are tough, but not unfair. And the monsters have no guaranteed way to insta-kill the NPCs you are protecting. Much better!
Now let's get into some comments from previous reviews:
Quote:
"this one doesn't allow you to prepare at all, and you're thrust in unprepared into a deadly encounter."
...and...
Quote:
"There's an investigation bit earlier, but it has little to no bearing on the outcome whatsoever."
So this is where I started to mutter, "huh?" as I read the previous reviews. The investigation, which supposedly does no good, is specifically there to give you information so that you can prepare for the deadly encounter.
When a reviewer says this:
Quote:
"Nothing significant comes of the investigations and it doesn't help your prison encounter at all."
...I have to wonder what in the world they did during their investigation. Listen, previous reviewer, this may bum you out to hear this, but I think your GM might have not read the product fully. I think you might have been ripped off.
The module specifically calls out that PCs can learn of the wards inside the jail, including an evil summoning circle!!! AND the PCs can learn that the jail is supposedly haunted. If PCs cannot put together that ghostly/incorporeal monsters are being summoned in and/or controlled by a magic circle, then the fault is not with this product. It borderline bangs you over the head with these hints.
The only issue? The hints are explained in the many paragraphs of text about the jail. So GMs have to actually read the paragraphs and know this, or highlight the text, or do something so that they know what they can convey to the players. Skimming means you'll miss this and ruin it for your players.
I want to make that more blunt: if you are the GM and you skim this product, you will miss a ton of stuff and ruin it for your players, and that will be your fault. Don't do it.
As another reviewer wrote:
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"there’s at least some chance that you can figure out what’s coming, and if you make the right preparations then the fight is significantly easier."
So, do a real investigation, scope out the jail, learn what you can, and prepare.
GMs, this next bit is for you: stop hiding/withholding information. When I first read the product, I saw that the PCs could learn about the magical wards, and I thought "There is no way. Even if they can, they won't." Think about this. If the jail is reinforced stone WITH LEAD LINING on the inner cells, as described in the product, and if Detect Magic/Evil/Undead is foiled by thick stone and/or lead lining, then what player on Earth would ever think to say "I scan with Detect Magic"??? It's useless. So nobody will ever learn of the wards and magic circle.
But here's the tip for GMs, which makes it more plausible. First, the lead is lining only the walls of the cells. The magic circle is outside of that. So Detect Magic and other things should be able to pierce the outer "normal" walls and see that evil magic, by one of two ways -- either the walls aren't thick, or there are tiny barred windows high up (say, 7' up) to allow airflow & sunlight inside. Also the exit door is made of wood which won't seal air-tight. A Message spell should absolutely wind its way through the door cracks.
You could ask for a Spellcraft (or Knowledge Arcana) check to know that Detect spells might work. No need to keep the players in the dark, if their characters might be very shrewd and might notice details about the construction.
As a GM, you must be prepared for players to find ways around the wards of the jail. And I don't just mean the lead-lined walls. One PC turned into an earth elemental. Well, the jail has nothing to protect against earth-glide. You could say that the lead lining is impassable, or that the reinforced masonry includes so much metal that an elemental cannot get through, but an elemental can punch right through lead, and can also dive down underground and then back up through the floors (note: the reinforced masonry is the walls not the flooring, so some plausible methods of entry may exist for earth-gliding or burrowing creatures). Earth elementals, tiny birds (if you agreed that there are small barred windows to allow air & sunlight in), incorporeal creatures, invisibility, and spells like Gaseous Form -- they all allow for entry/exit in various ways, so figure out how to deal with it. And "deal with it" might mean, "the players did something unexpected and invalidated the enemy tactics." That's OK. Figuring out what happens when the players get creative is very fun.
My players simply came into the jail with the key and a Gray Gardeners mask, acting like a guard with a prisoner. I was inclined to force this to fail, until the prisoner found a way to annoy the guards into throwing him into jail. The PCs had Message running, so they were able to stand outside the jail and get a detailed report of the layout and how freaked out the guards were about this magical/evil summoning zone.
The GM's job is not to bar stuff like this and force everyone onto a railroad. The GM's job is to use as much of the module text as possible, and stay on the rails when the players stay on rails, but if the PCs do something unusual that should work, then the GM should make sure that it plausibly does work.
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"They were able to escape with the prisoners and the final blade when there was only 1 door and we had the prison surrounded, and a spy network setup in the city. An entire mob gathered at the execution site before we even KNEW about the execution. Ridiculous."
YES, this is true. This is what I was saying. This problem is not with the product so much as it is with GMs who are too rigid or who are scared to do anything other than exactly what the product's author mentions. If a GM is so nervous about this that they force the players actions to be invalidated -- even though PFS rules talk about the opposite; the players being able to invalidate the module text -- then that GM is not following the spirit of the rules. The rules say "don't change monster stat blocks," but they do NOT say, "players can only choose 1 path and no other ideas will work."
Also, to address the quote that I just... quoted... I would like to note that in my game, the players put a spy into the jail long before morning. The correct answer to this is not, "No," but instead, "Okay, time to figure out what happens." They got to see Colson getting moved. They got to see the Final Blade being loaded onto a wagon in the dead of night. The module doesn't expect this, of course, but it also doesn't bar this. So now the PCs went on a raid against a wagon moving down the street, and ended up fighting both the final fight and the guards of the jail at the same time. This is allowed in Pathfinder Society. GMs, do not be afraid to deal with your players coming up with cool ideas that circumvent the expected "normal" play through.
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"And then we had a finale where the success is based on one die roll."
Just.. FYI... this isn't in the module. I'm looking at it now and the final fight can be solved a lot of ways. Yes, you can indeed do a battle of speaking (your Diplomacy to counter the enemy's speech) and try to disperse the crowd. In some sense, that would be simple skill checks to win. However, you have TEN rounds to make this happen,¹ and if it's not working, you can certainly do anything else you think up! Fireball every damn citizen that comprises the mob. Murder the evil leader who is working them up. Even try to destroy the Final Blade! (Note: there is a post on the GM forum that suggests that the PCs are not supposed to be able to destroy this blade. However, previously Final Blades were artifacts that had 200 HP and 20 hardness. While that's VERY sturdy, it's not impossible to break.² A GM might consider that as an option too. Conveniently, when a Final Blade's hit points reach zero, it releases all the souls it has captured, including some that attack. This is a perfect time to trigger the banshee jail monster fight, if the players managed to bypass that! Or just say it broke and call it good.)
¹ = It is possible that a GM would see "you have 10 rounds" and, knowing that Diplomacy takes 10 rounds to activate (your character "must speak for at least 1 minute" before getting to roll a Diplomacy check), give the players just ONE check to avert disaster. However, the product does NOT follow that rule. It's a mini-game in which you can make a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check as a standard action. You get ten tries to talk down the crowds, ten skill check rolls, and that's per person. Or, cast spells, start fighting, attack the guillotine, whatever.
² = Actually, this is pretty difficult to defeat. Your player with the adamantine weapon will cheerfully suggest that the weapon ignores hardness, and go to work destroying the Final Blade. However, adamantine weapons ignore hardness of 19 and lower. The moment an item has hardness of 20 or more, the adamantine is outclassed and can no longer ignore the hardness. So the PCs in your game will need to do a TON of damage on each hit, to bring this monster of a machine down.
