Murder on the Silken Caravan GM Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Doug Miles wrote:

A player at one of my tables said he was picking up one of the desert helmets from a dead hobgoblin for his own use. He anticipated that this might not be the last time he finds himself in combat amidst a sandstorm. There's nothing like this item that a player can purchase out of the PHB or the Pathfinder Campaign Sourcebook, however I have a hard time telling a player that a mundane item like this helmet cannot be retained beyond the scenario in which it was acquired. Would it be a grievious affront to any of the powers-that-be (Mr. Frost in particular) if I assigned an arbitrary GP value to the desert helmet and documented its properties on his Chronicle sheet for his future use? Is this a practice that would be allowed in the future, or is there too great a chance that such an exception would lead to abuses in the future?

Josh would have to give you the final say on this, but I don't believe that would work because the PCs can't retain anything from one adventure to the other that isn't listed as approved in the PFS Guide or specifically mentioned as a purchaseable treasure for the scenario itself. That is more of a game-balancing issue than a realism-in-the-game issue. Though I don't know of any other sandstorm encounters in other scenarios, retaining such a helmet for one would give a distinct and unintended advantage to players of different scenarios, which is really the purpose of the way obtaining new equipment and magic items is set up.

Once again, I'm not the final authority on such a ruling and don't have the inside view of all the balancing issues that Josh has to maintain, but that is the reasoning that I believe it is disallowed.

[Joshua J. Frost]

Just wanted to chime and say Greg's right on this.

[NotMousse]

I had a blast running this, with perhaps the least heroic pathfinders around.

Spoiler:

Act 1 Started with a lashing of an impetuous Andoran and involved a Van Gogh reference, several South Park references ('I'm sorry I don't speak Kenny'), and subsequent slaughter by the Mummy Touched fighter and friends.

Act 2 Disaster incarnate. After the brief introduction of the NPCs (with an Andoran saying 'Don't talk to the slave, he's beneath us') the PCs with weapons drawn implied the caravan needed 'protection', and demanded 'pay'. After contemplating TPKing the lot someone finally mentioned the mission and got on board.

Act 3 Fighter on the 'wrong' side of the battle moved to the right side and dispatched most of the goblins by the bottom of round 2. The Ranger was dropped by a goblin quartet at the top of round 2.

Act 4 Running short on time (started late, and snack issues), two attempt to climb as the cougar (Ranger female who happened to be the eldest by a lot) reigned in the boys and with some luck dropped the harpies quickly thereafter. Said ranger buys slave at the end of encounter to R rated comments. Temple was also cleaned to 2 PA status.

Act 5 PCs gain surprise (since I heard this was a killer), win init and proceed to pepper Jamila (being tied up by Gaspar) with arrows. Chaos ensues, and mod ends with a crit that nearly killed a PC, and bad guy's head detatching shortly thereafter.

[Greg A. Vaughan]

NotMousse wrote:

I had a blast running this, with perhaps the least heroic pathfinders around.

** spoiler omitted **

Awesome. :-)

[Doug Miles]

This is always a fun one. I ran it last weekend at a store gameday. One of the players was brand-new to the game, brought there by her boyfriend for her 'gamer christening'. During the end-stage of Act 4 I decided to borrow an idea I heard here earlier and have

Spoiler:

the surviving harpy abduct Atmar for a meal on-the-go. The guy's girlfriend had success using her bow earlier in the fight and decided to continue her method, rolling a crit. Then a player pointed out to me the harpy was engaged in a grapple... Crit was confirmed and the dice went against poor Atmar. Girlfriend showed a worrying lack of remorse, but then again her boyfriend picked her faction for her. Wouldn't you know it; Cheliax...

It was probably for the best because I role-played Atmar as a self-loathing child who blamed himself when Hokama beat him for failing to sell enough water to the caravaneers.

I sense how Mr. Frost feels about violence toward children so I won't go onto details...

[Doug Doug]

Wow, I'm posting again on this one and it's been four months since the thread was touched.

I ran this the 5th & 6th time on Sunday. I discovered a gaming community in another city after their organizer discovered me running Pathfinder at a local convention in February. They grew to two tables of players by the third session we ran (Sunday). The last game took six hours to get through. A couple observations:

This group is Qadira-centric. Eight of the eleven players are Qadiran. They swear they didn't plan it that way. The first table was completely Qadiran but somehow were completing the OTHER factions' missions unknowingly. Before the last act started they would have earned 4 faction points from *other faction's missions*. Wow.

The second table I ran was dice-cursed, they struggled the whole way through the scenario and the last act was brutal.

Spoiler:

Gaspar was too much for them. They had many opportunities to take him down but they couldn't pull it off, their dice rolls were awful. Everyone was doing the yo-yo from unconscious/dying to unconscious/stable to conscious and back to unconscious/dying again. I admit I was a little mean as the GM when I had Gaspar stand in the same square as the unconscious tank and prevented the rest of the PCs from reviving him. By the 5th round of the fight they had freed Jamilla and the genie had gone off the map decimating the hobgoblins. I have never done this before, but I had to bring Jamilla into the fight and have her take down Gaspar. It would have been a TPK otherwise. It goes against the rules of the game to use non-combat NPCs to save the party, but I considered that these players--if TPKed--may decide to not return to the table. I'd rather relax my principles for the sake of the players enjoying a game and coming back for more.

Personally I don't mind dying, but I'm one of those guys whose characters frequently die so the grief doesn't hit me as hard anymore.

[Greg A. Vaughan]

I think that is perfectly reasonable if they were the victims of bad dice rolls rather than player stupidity. Sounds like you did the right thing.

[Doug Doug]

I just glanced through the new Qadira sourcebook and saw the Daivrat p-class. One of the requirements of the p-class is to have peaceful contact with a true genie. So the cogs in my minds started to turn and I thought of this scenario. And it begs a couple of questions:

Will the Daivrat p-class be open to Pathfinder Society?
This is an easy one since the v2.0 guide must be complete at this point.

If the class is going to be open, will the encounter with the djinni at the end of PFS#3 Murder on the Silken Caravan be allowed as the peaceful contact requirement? I'm not talking about Jamila al-Shafah, she's only a jann. I mean her friend djinni from her ring of djinni calling who wipes out the hobgoblin bandits.

[Cpt_kirstov]

Doug Doug wrote:

Will the Daivrat p-class be open to Pathfinder Society?

This is an easy one since the v2.0 guide must be complete at this point.

Josh said elsewhere that it's in layout and needs 1 more pass over from Erik and one more from himself before its ready.

[Elora]

Well, I broke a personal record running this scenario last night - 2 PC deaths in one night and VERY nearly a TPK. I knew it could get ugly with four 1st level PCs, so I played with kid gloves on...not literally, of course, and not quite enough.

The details:

We had a druid (with wolf companion), cleric, ranger and wizard at the table -- all experienced players. They did well until the harpy encounter, when everyone except the cleric and the wolf failed their saves. The cleric couldn't climb at ALL and failed miserably with her light crossbow attack rolls. I had mercy and decided that once Atmar was delivered to the eyrie, the singing harpy stopped her song (with the vague justification that she didn't want the slave boy to follow her when she went to attack the climbers). It went much better for the players after that, except for the wizard who was clubbed unconscious and fell from high up on the shrine -- luckily, the ranger snatched her out of the air halfway down. I also kept the mother harpy out of the fight until she was done snacking on Atmar in the eyrie.

After some rest and long-term care via the Heal skill, the group headed out of the pass and ran smack into Gaspar. The hobgoblins were taken down in just a couple of rounds, but Gaspar was big trouble. Max damage against the ranger with the first hit, taken down to -5. It took the cleric a couple of rounds to bring him back on his feet. Which turned out to be a great choice, as the ranger did well over half the damage against Gaspar in the end, from a very safe distance with his longbow. Then the cleric was taken down to negatives (again), followed by the wizard who was desperately attacking with her quarterstaff by this point and was quickly killed for her impudence. The druid followed her into the afterlife moments later. Leaving the wolf and the ranger (with 2 hp) still fighting. The wolf finally took Gaspar down with an AoO.

Everyone had fun, but that last fight was sure brutal!! At least Tabia No Nose and Velaria had a nice funeral in Katheer... :)

[Wraithcannon]

I'm gonna be running this on Sunday, any ideas about what to do with the beehive "locust swarm" as far as stats go?

If I make a wasp swarm, it'll kill everyone in the house.

Also, in the act 1 fight, it says that Ben Garri doesn't attack until the PCs enter the bedroom, that all of his cultists are in the bedroom, and that he uses them as a screen. So I'm assuming that if the PC's insist on entering, he should have them follow him in?

I like the mechanic of the battle but if they push their way past him, he'll be on one side and the cultists on the other. I guess at that point, I'd have the cultists on the outside of bedroom and regular mourners being paid to wrap the body on the inside. Once the battle starts, they'd cower while the PC's have their fight.

The harpy fight seems like it might be too easy at the lower tier, anyone have any idea how big a rock the harpies could drop and how damage it would do?

[Doug Miles]

The locust swarm out of the 3.5 Ed Monster Manual may be used.

LOCUST SWARM
Diminutive Vermin (Swarm)
Hit Dice: 6d8–6 (21 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 10 ft. (2 squares), fly 30 ft. (poor)
Armor Class: 18 (+4 size, +4 Dex), touch 18, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/—
Attack: Swarm (2d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (2d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., immune to weapon damage, swarm traits, vermin traits
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 19, Con 8, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 2
Skills: Listen +4, Spot +4
Feats: —

A locust swarm is a cloud of thousands of winged vermin that devours any organic material in its path.
Combat
A locust swarm surrounds and attacks any living prey it encounters. A swarm deals 2d6 points of damage to any creature whose space it occupies at the end of its move.
Distraction (Ex): Any living creature that begins its turn with a locust swarm in its space must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Skills: A locust swarm has a +4 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.

I would suggest if you are running your players at tiers 1-2 toning it down to 1d6 damage per round, and have the swarm disperse after two rounds of punishment. I've run this scenario 10 times and only twice has anyone messed with the hive.

This is one of those early scenarios with no map of the first encounter, leaving it to the GM to improvise. This is how I have done it in the past:

The domed structure has a walled courtyard. There's a postern door set into the outer gate. It is locked. There is a bellpull next to the gate. The mourners outside howl and beat themselves with their fists. They throw themselves on the ground, grabbing dust and sand from the ground and sifting it into their hair & face. They only speak Kelish. They are mourning the passing of a great hero, and they are also aggrieved that the feared cultists of Lamashtu are desecrating his corpse. Targos made many enemies during his career, and now that he's vulnerable some are taking revenge inside the house. The mourners are little help to the PCs. None of them want to be seen to help the PCs since that could bring the cultists attentions on them.

When the PCs ring the bellpull, one of the lepers exits the house, crosses the courtyard and opens the postern gate. Someone recognizes the description of leprosy and meta-games the answer. The leper asks the PCs their business, which he doesn't really care about. He only wants them to leave so he can go back to desecrating Targos' body. He tells the PCs that funeral arrangements are already being seen to and their services are not needed. This is the truth. Targos' body will be disposed of according to the tenets of Lamashtu.

At some point the PCs decide they are through talking and try to force their way in. The leper shouts for help and we roll initiative. On his turn the remaining lepers enter the courtyard and block for the cleric of Lamashtu. When the jackal-headed cleric appears in dramatic fashion the mourners (who are likely crowding in to see what's happening) scream and flee the scene, expecting Bad Stuff is going to happen.

I'm usually pretty tricky about the leprosy, describing the lepers trying to shove their hands into the PC's mouths or lick their eyeballs. Juvenile but fun. If any player mentions they loot their opponents without first stating they take some sort of precautions, that's a Fort save. Leprosy is non-lethal and in game mechanics not even worth rolling out. But out-of-game it's terrifying to think about the disfigurement, so I like to torture my players.

Inside the house the PCs will find Targos' body under the effects of a gentle repose, but in mid-disembowelment. The cultists have carved unholy glyphs and symbols of Lamashtu into his flesh and have removed his organs to scatter in the desert. A simple Heal check can put the organs back in place, and a cantrip can remove the glyphs. It presents a good opportunity for a devout PC to treat the body with respect and feel the weight of responsibility for delivering the body safely to Katheer.

The harpies are one of the most lethal encounters of Season 0. It all depends on how you set things up. If there are PCs who have climbed the monument and one of the harpies sings, there's a fair chance of an 80' fall. I know that there are mitigating factors, but the DC for the harpy's song is pretty tough. Unless you give the players some warning, this encounter has TPK potential.

I could keep writing all day, but I think I've given you more than you asked for...

[Wraithcannon]

Thanks for the advice and the stat block, I was thinking of using a spider swarm and just giving it a 20ft fly spd but after looking at that I think I'll use the cockroach swarm from Bestiary 2.

Cockroach Swarm CR 2

XP 600
N Diminutive vermin (swarm)
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 30 ft.; Perception +4

DEFENSE
AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 14 (+2 Dex, +4 size)
hp 26 (4d8+8)
Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +1
Defensive Abilities swarm traits; Immune weapon damage
Weaknesses light sensitivity, swarm traits

OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., climb 20 ft., fly 30 ft. (poor)
Melee swarm (1d6)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks distraction (DC 14)

STATISTICS
Str 1, Dex 15, Con 14, Int--, Wis 10, Cha 2
Base Atk +3; CMB --; CMD --
Skills Climb +10, Fly +4, Perception +4, Stealth +14; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception, +8 Climb
SQ hold breath

I don't feel bad about them being bees and not giving them poison, since the locust swarm doesn't have it, but I think this is about as comparable as I can get.

I'll tell you one thing, if the PC's don't use it, someone else will. Possibly one of the enraged mouners seeking to cast out the infidels...

As far as the harpies go, I'll reserve the rocks for when the first one dies. They can lift about 130 pounds as a heavy load, so I think a random 1-4 of d6's per rock will suffice if they're just breezing their way through the encounter.

I can't wait to describe the scene of the final battle when the djinn gets involved. I'm going to have him turn into a whirlwind, scoop up the hobgoblins he's supposed to occupy, and playfully toss them around inside himself until the PC's win or his 3 rounds expire, then he's going to toss them out the top of his 50ft cone and see how well they fly.