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Right, I ran this one to the local group today (Sunday) and we had a blast. Some things were a bit odd though. In chronological order.
ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
ACT 2. - This was pretty straight-forward, well-written and fun, nothing very hazy. Atmospheric, definitely my favorite part of the scenario. I'd still like to see more details about the students in the classroom, and more explanation on the character of Deris Marlinchen. Destroying the spirits never popped into the minds of the characters, so this encounter is very easily avoided.
In the end though, the PCs chose to get him some help, even if forced to. They wrestled him to unconsciousness and dragged him to the nearest mental asylum, I presume.
ACT 3. - Also a good part of the scenario, and pretty clear. The monster in the pool is a bit too obvious though, but whatcha gonna do?
ACT 4. - Fortunately this encounter was made sensible by removing the allip and including a bugbear zombie. Although one of the players immediately questioned its presence in the necropolis, I replied "There may have been other routes to the necropolis. Furthermore, considering the magic looming in the necropolis, even a century-old zombie would remain rotten instead of becoming a skeleton." Also, the ring of feather falling is deviously put to a very hard location, as no one ever thought the water would wash up such a treasure. Instead, I made the zombie wear it.
I might have modified the encounter a bit. When they arrive to the room, their attention is caught by Grishan Maldris. It gives a good time for the zombie to attack the PCs by coming the way they themselves entered. See, I made the zombie stand in the corridor when the water plummeted him down the stairs. Also, I found it a good idea to make the whole dungeon flooded on lower levels.
Oh, and Bugbear zombie is on page 267, not 263.
ACT 5. - Deris takes the stage, nothing else to say. The ghouls are alright, had no problem with them. I am unclear where the Gebbite general is however, since the map doesn't really give room for him. I had the southernmost room reserved for him.
ACT 6. - The tri-tower map thingy is a bastard to draw on a battle map. After all, it's almost irrelevant on Tier 1-2, as there's only one monster to begin with! Also I skipped the wave motion thing, as it was just strenous and would have slowed things down unnecessarily.
Junia part was good. I made them roll the spot for the ring (although they were looking for it), and then a heal check (DC 10) to see she was alive.
Ah, and the mission notes have an error.
"Area 3 is also important to the Osirion faction PCs as this is when Osirian agents will attempt to scry the room using the Osirion faction PCs as a focus."
That'd be Qadiran, not Osirion. ;) Osirion is interested in Kiwu's notes.
After all, this is a very atmospheric and good scenario once you add the spice to it. Certainly a scenario that must be put into the hands of an experienced DM.
The criticism I have about the scenario are the combats; they are too easy. Having a single monster come against the PCs is doomed if they pack 2-3 melee characters. The king ghast died before even getting next to them! A dwarf fighter took a ready action with his guisarme, tripped, slashed, ready action slashed, and then on next turn turned the ghast into dust.
Anyway, 4.5/5. One player commented "Are Tim and Eileen Vampire: The Masquerade LARPers? With all this gothic horror scenery I'd be amazed if not!" Hehe.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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I ran this yesterday and thankfully I didn't have any Cheliax faction PCs but there does need to be some information about getting the brooch from Lady Dacilane. Of course the Andoran PC didn't want to go to the party and instead wanted to go over to the drownyard beforehand to scout it out.
There are a couple of errors in the scenario but thankfully I had been fore-warned by these boards.
The acts above ground definitely add to the scenario so that the final parts instead of being dungeon crawl have good roleplaying elements in them. The PCs started whispering about Deris being a necromancer so he took offence at that and colour sprayed most of them. When they came back they sneaked up on him and tied up, refused to let him into the necropolis and handed him over to an asylum afterwards.
With the allip/bugbear zombie I kept the description of an allip but used the zombie stats (so the damage reduction was just the partial incorporeality) so no questions about what it was doing there. The ring is rather hard to find though.
The battle with the ghast, I thought the wave motion element was quite nice. Just a reflex save from everybody each round didn't slow things down and actually meant that the ghast survived a bit longer and got to frighten the party a little as their axeman waved his axe blindly. In fact, the osirion rogue was blinded when she delivered the killing blow.
All in all, an atmospheric adventure.
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Is there a way of tracking which Taldan agents succeeded at the second mission? I think that a lot of them aren't going to be able to make either the bardic knowledge check or else the Knowledge (history) check at DC 15.
Note that I don't have a problem with this; I'm just curious.
Good point. Most Taldans (non-bard ones) will be left empty-handed. A DC 10 would have been possible for anyone.
Ask each Taldor faction PC to make a separate check and record the results. With the description of the room, I think you might get some Taldor folks who get the correct result without even rolling the appropriate check.
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Good point. Most Taldans (non-bard ones) will be left empty-handed.
I was. It's kind of a cool idea though, and one that rewards characters who have faction-appropriate skills/abilities. I'm in favour of having the second mission of a double-reward scenario sometimes being difficult-to-impossible for some characters.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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Ask each Taldor faction PC to make a separate check and record the results. With the description of the room, I think you might get some Taldor folks who get the correct result without even rolling the appropriate check.
Which is exactly what happened when I ran it.
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Ask each Taldor faction PC to make a separate check and record the results. With the description of the room, I think you might get some Taldor folks who get the correct result without even rolling the appropriate check.
I've never seen a Taldoran who was allowed to make the check. Without either the class ability or ranks in the skill then there's nothing to roll.
That said, I like the mechanic (and the difficulty), and I'll keep this method in mind in case it becomes relevant. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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I've never seen a Taldoran who was allowed to make the check. Without either the class ability or ranks in the skill then there's nothing to roll.
That said, I like the mechanic (and the difficulty), and I'll keep this method in mind in case it becomes relevant. Thanks for the suggestion!
Anybody can make a knowledge check if the DC isn't above 20.
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The Chelish faction mission has a similar problem. How is our half-orc pit fighter supposed to steal anything from Lady Dacilane? By rolling above 15 on the dice. 25% success chance on pure random rolls does not seem to me to be a good guide as to who should get a benefit.
Having faction missions decided by a direct roll of the dice is unsatisfactory in my mind. If the players makes legitimate efforts to accomplish the goals, they should get it. They shouldn't be penalised for not having a given skill maxed out. If there are sufficient bonus mechanisms to make the roll unnecesary, as was the case in Fozen Fingres to some extent, then this can be sorted out, but, in general, I feel the faction missions should depend on decisions, not 1 dice roll.
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Having faction missions decided by a direct roll of the dice is unsatisfactory in my mind. If the players makes legitimate efforts to accomplish the goals, they should get it.
But what about when there are two missions? One of Cheliax's missions was really easy (acquire some black water), and it was only the second mission that required specialized talents. Similarly, one of Taldan's missions (leave this parchment in the necropolis) was really easy and one required either a certain skill or class ability.
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Having faction missions decided by a direct roll of the dice is unsatisfactory in my mind. If the players makes legitimate efforts to accomplish the goals, they should get it.But what about when there are two missions? One of Cheliax's missions was really easy (acquire some black water), and it was only the second mission that required specialized talents. Similarly, one of Taldan's missions (leave this parchment in the necropolis) was really easy and one required either a certain skill or class ability.
This is true, but it would have to be balanced across all of the factions. Both of Qadira's were simple with no dice roll needed. The DC of getting into the strongbox for the Osirian mission was also lower (although our barbarian resorted to the barbarian lockpick approach, so that wasn't an issue.)
In the game itself, our Chelaxian never even thought of swiping the locket and used diplomacy plus carrying her daughter back to her to get a keepsake.
Where there are multiple faction missions, I can see a reason for it, but if some factions have it easier than others, my players will start getting annoyed, i.e. all factions' second missions should require the dice, or none of them should. I know to a certain extent this is going to balance across the modules, but we have rotating GMs so if he happens be GMing his 'easy' mission, he's getting screwed.
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I'd also like to add that we did enjoy playing the scenario. Deris Marlinchen was lot of fun, especially when the poor Chelaxian tried to use half-orc diplomacy (a punch to the head) to persuade him to leave and got colour sprayed for his trouble.
But I've had comments about the dice rolling for faction missions from my players several times now, so I raised it here.
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I'd also like to add that we did enjoy playing the scenario. Deris Marlinchen was lot of fun, especially when the poor Chelaxian tried to use half-orc diplomacy (a punch to the head) to persuade him to leave and got colour sprayed for his trouble.
But I've had comments about the dice rolling for faction missions from my players several times now, so I raised it here.
About the faction missions... the Andoran players have been very egdy about it, since they have undeniably had the hardest quests so far, all depending on rolls (well, almost). Qadira and Osirion just get away with "gotta catch 'em all" easy business, quite like Cheliax.
The second time I ran Black Waters, the Chelish party took a different route than the last party. Instead they persuaded Dacilane to give "something of personal status to them, so Junia might recognize the pathfinders as friends instead of foes (in case she had become an undead) .. like that brooch there". I thought it was an ingenious plan and just wanted a bluff check, gave it a +5 circumstance bonus for being believable. It worked.
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I had a pretty successful run of Black Waters on Saturday with four PC's. Of the factions present everyone completed their missions.
The idea of making the bugbear zombie seem more like a allip worked very well.
I was able to invoke a high "creep out" factor with this module, which is always nice. The boy lying face up in the pool and the chamber of skulls worked very well.
The water bug and the ghast were exceedingly nasty for the party. The ghast almost killed a couple of folks between "sickening" them and paralysis. The bug was just plain mean.
Good times.
CJ
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I ran Black Waters last night for my PFS players. I really enjoyed the story of the adventure, and it was a lot of fun. The players enjoyed it as well. That having been said, the adventure ran long on us (4.5 hours), and there were a few hiccups in the overall scheme of things.
One of the adventure's strengths can also be a drawback, if the GM isn't careful. The fact that you can ask questions of the venture captain in the beginning, spend time gathering information, and the formal dinner and its RP elements can all really allow time to get away from you.
The beginning is really open ended. Normally I like this in an adventure, and if I were running this at home, in a venue where I could take all the time I needed, this would be fine, but when you have your RP up front and plenty of time for the PCs to question, plot, scheme, and equip, it makes time management more of an issue, at least it seemed so to me.
There are only a few combat encounters, which should help balance the RP section for time, but then the other problem is that the necropolis under the school is a dungeon (even if a small one), that has several branches that the PCs can explore, and again, any time there is a decision to be made, it saps time. That's not to say that there shouldn't be decisions, but there are several effective dead ends in the dungeon, meaning that its very easy for the PCs to wander down hallways and make search checks and the like and not directly advance the storyline.
Finally, I liked the fact that this adventure also had two faction points available, but what I liked about the last scenario that had two faction points was that the second faction point wasn't spelled out, and the PCs could earn it by role playing their factions and going the extra mile. By spelling out, in the faction handout, that there are two objectives, the players are, from the beginning poking around and plotting and investigating everything that even potentially seems like it relates to their faction goal, because they think it might time in. And they won't leave the dungeon or assume that any part of it is unimportant for that same reason, in many cases.
I'm not saying it wasn't fun to run, and my players seemed to have a good time, but there are some places that seem to be potential time sinks for those trying to play in a given time slot, and it really seems like announcing multiple faction goals kind of looses what I liked about the original "play your character to the hilt and go the extra mile, and you might get an extra faction point" idea from Murder on the Silken Caravan.
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While some of the skill checks were hard, my players did a few things to get the faction points:
1. The Chelaxians made a deal with the Taldan rogue to get the broach, and then, oddly enough, the rogue decided to charm Lady Dacilane and promise her information on her daughter in exchange for her broach.
2. The Orisions made a deal with the Chelaxians to search for the diary, and the Chelaxians asked the Taldan for help with the lock.
3. The Qadiran made a deal with the Chelaxians to help him find the mask.
I didn't have any Andoran faction members in the group.
I gave the Taldan his faction point even though he had no knowledge history or bardic knowledge, because he kept asking the Osirion priest about the scenes, and the Chelaxian druid pointed out that he could just make rubbings of anything interesting in the catacombs.
It wasn't a problem for the group last night, but again, there were some goals that kind of conflict with the other factions, at least from a role playing point of view. I'm pretty sure that the Taldan frame job isn't going to be appreciated if anyone finds it out, and the Qadiran was worried about the Osirions noticing the death mask as well.
I know they aren't conflicting in the sense of "one faction can't complete their goal if another does first," but there was some direct RP tension in the goals.
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OK I ran this event not even 2 hours ago and I have a question.
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Right, I ran this one to the local group today (Sunday) and we had a blast. Some things were a bit odd though. In chronological order.
ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
Except once her brooch goes missing she should become suspicious. She believes there is a thief among them and would likely believe it's one of the pc.
Director of Brand Strategy
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When I played in this she offered the PCs "anything they could ask for" after her daughter was returned to her. Obviously, only the Chelish asked for the brooch, and no one asked for anything that would actually show up on their Chronicle.Right, I ran this one to the local group today (Sunday) and we had a blast. Some things were a bit odd though. In chronological order.
ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
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Except once her brooch goes missing she should become suspicious. She believes there is a thief among them and would likely believe it's one of the pc.Right, I ran this one to the local group today (Sunday) and we had a blast. Some things were a bit odd though. In chronological order.
ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
They actually thought of that. "The undead broke it". Considering the odds, it was believable, and their bluff was again quite reassuring (well above 20).
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They actually thought of that. "The undead broke it". Considering the odds, it was believable, and their bluff was again quite reassuring (well above 20).Except once her brooch goes missing she should become suspicious. She believes there is a thief among them and would likely believe it's one of the pc.Right, I ran this one to the local group today (Sunday) and we had a blast. Some things were a bit odd though. In chronological order.
ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
That doesn't explain how the PCs had it, nor does it explain why she hasn't send someone to retrieve the item. Low level spells would repair the item. Since it's an item that she goes out of her way to show off it's reasonable to assume she would want to retrieve and fix it.
All in all, even if the bard rolled over 20 there are still hefty circumstance penalties. I believe the penalties for saying undead broke it would be -20 because would it ended up in their hands if they didn't steal it.
Now in the end of the scenario when they brought the daughter back Dacilane would gladly give the pcs the brooch as payment.
As a part of Deussu's chelaxian bluffing team, I'll try to explain why Lady Dacilane's actions seem reasonable to me.
The brooch ended up in chelaxians' hands because they had previously asked for it so they might show it to the lost daughter. If she had turned into undead creature and had lost some of her memory, she might still remember something personal of lady Dacilanes'. After this bluff was succesful, it's reasonable to assume she believes the chelaxians have the trinket with them when they were in the dungeon.
I think Deussu forgot to mention that the broken pendant was left at the dungeon (I can't recall if we actually said that or only implied it, but unless I'm badly mistaken, she was left with the impression that the pendant was left in the dungeon.)
As for why she wouldn't go searching for or hire somebody to search for the broken pendant, we have to remember that she left her child there for years without getting anyone to search for her. I think her daughter is more valuable to her than a brooch. Also, the place is infested with undead. She'd have to find someone willing to brave the dangers of such a place.
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ACT 1. - I had to completely improvise the Lady Dacilane part with her skull brooch. There are no indications on how to get it. I made it so the Chelish people had to visit Dacilane after the mission and have a successful DC 15 Sleight of Hand check (I allowed untrained, though the bard had ranks and rolled 21.)
Me too had to improvise this (game ran on december 13th, 2008).
Lady Dacilane is wearing her broach when the party first visit her, but she is not during the second visit.
I have set 3 possibilities:
1) Ask Lady Dacilane for the broach during the first visit: "to help us find your sister Junia". Because this is only partially true, it requires a Bluff vs Sense Motive check.
During the 2nd visit, the broach is standing on a "mockup head" holding also other jewels, in view of the Lady.
2) a Trained Sleight of hand could do it...
3) The Chelish must provoke a distraction, and then roll a Bluff vs Sense Motive Check, with a bonus depending upon the quality of the distraction provoked.
The Cheliax player at the table tried only the 3), but I allowed 2 trials (both of them did fail).
I did consider Lady Dacilane as a Noble more trained with her tongue and ears than with a sword...so I gave her 5 ranks in sense motive and a +2 WIS bonus
Another funny thing: I changed the description of the Bugbear Zombie (no reason to have a Bugbear down there) to simply a difform humanoid zombie having only one arm!!! not changing the stats however
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My only complaint with this scenario is the lack of stat blocks. I see it as helpful to have stat blocks provided for all enemies in the scenario. I didn't have a 3.5 MM available to reference for completion the stat blocks which made prep difficult.
With all due respect, a 3.5 PHB, DMG and MM or equivalent (refer http://www.d20srd.org) are assumed required resources for running any D&D or Pathfinder adventure, it just goes with the territory. You shouldn't be attempting to run a scenario without access to these.
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With all due respect, a 3.5 PHB, DMG and MM or equivalent (refer http://www.d20srd.org) are assumed required resources for running any D&D or Pathfinder adventure, it just goes with the territory. You shouldn't be attempting to run a scenario without access to these.
I would agree with you, I was able to make due and finish prep using other resources.
I just would like to see stat blocks included in the scenarios. Reference to page XX in MM isn't helpful if I need to take over quickly during one of our local game days, and run a different scenario than what I have prepped. This has happened twice to me, but the stat blocks were included in those scenarios, thankfully.|
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for my players this one scenario was pretty much letal :S
I play it on my normal camapign so we have Andoran Barbarian wielding a two handed bastard sword, a swashbuckling bardess, a dexterity guard fighter and a Beguiler...
the fighter said that without a cleric he was not going anywhere... actually know the bardess agrees with him...
the bug with its hard exosqueleton and a critical when surprising the barbarian got him down to almost helf his healt... when they were down with it the bardess and the barbarian were a bit hurt...
still they followed... the bardess used detect magic when they found Malgriss... soI left the feather fall ring close by that way with an simple percepton roll they found it... the zombie surprised them
the Beguiler and the Bardessbarely did any damage to the thing, hurting the bardess to the point where she cast her last cure light wounds... the barbarian cut the zombie to pieces... but the other 2 almost finished their spells and did little damage (Beguiler used Magic Missile)
still they have a while to go... and the bardess already want to go away (and the player is pretty much frustrated :S)
If the monster exists in the MM (or in the case of our eventual switch to PRPG, the Bestiary) we will include page references always. It saves on word count and space and gives me less to develop and edit.
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I was talked into running this as a slot 0 with about 30 minutes notice. So I'll be doing things differently next time for sure.
And what's with putting the handout in the middle of a page you need to run the mod? Silent Tide did it well by tossing it with the faction handouts.
Act 2 slowed down quite a bit as I played up the 'caretaker' as being creepy and not all there. The monk took the time to offer counsel to the noble, who insisted that nothing was amiss. The classroom itself caused a ruckus as most failed their DC 10 spots, to which I reasoned that they look fairly normal till you look down and notice their legs blend into a wispy tendril near the ground. How the madman spoke with the 'headmistress' had most of the party waiting for him to go bonkers and drop necromantic hell on the them.
Act 3 went surprisingly well considering the party treated the black water as undead lava, keeping well away whenever possible. A Chelaxian went so far as to have a 'hireling' collect a sample of the waters. Again the group were leery of Deris asking him to stay back a safe distance (just within a full run of the pond). Spotting the arm in the distance our monk throws a grappling hook to it, causing the bug to try and eat him (0 HP). The monk thought of struggling briefly before I said 'are you sure you want to do that?' as the bug went to drag him away. Bug dies next round and prepare for entry after questioning the madman. He tells the party it's the school mascot, sparky, and that he was just rowdy.
Act 4 started with a misfire. Reading over the area hastily I thought the Bugbear zombie was for another room and promptly forgot about it later on. Exploration went quickly as the group went into 'greyhawk' mode searching everything till nothing was left of it, including monsters. Our monk spoke to Deris upon finding his deceased daughter and talked some sense into him and he wandered off.
Act 5 I'm going to rewrite this encounter to have the wave come on the monster's turn for simplicity. I'd forgotten about it every round but the one the monk ran into the room.
Act 6 meh. Had to wing the jewel, and didn't like that much.
Overall, fun, but the adventure needed some cleanup.
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Relating to the discussion on scenarios having faction missions that can only be completed by certain characters: I think this is entirely fine as long as it isn't the only faction mission. Scenarios that make use of this should always have one faction mission that can be completed by anyone, such as picking up one choice piece of loot.
On the other hand, the "alternate" faction missions shouldn't always support the iconic representative of said faction: faction missions that obviously favour Andoran Rangers, Taldor Bards or Qadiran Rogues will only make players whose characters are more left-field feel left-out and not achieve anything other than make the players feel like their characters are being shafted.
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were the allips supposed to be removed from that room? we fought two of them at the high tier of the mod, and the 380gp cost for getting restorations for several party members after the game was a big gp hit. very sad to spend our hard earned gold only to hear the allip shouldn't have been there.
Originally the lower tier (1-2) had an allip, a near impossible monster for the tier. The allip was removed from that tier, but the two allips in the higher tier were left untouched. Having a high charisma cleric with you when you go dwelling to a necropolis is a good idea. ;)
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I just went through this with my party, a paladin, cleric, bard and wizard. The party had a pretty good time with the scenario, it was creepy and weirded them out in a couple of places.
I played up Deris and the teacher's walk, a jerky almost stop-motion type movement. Later, after the bug was dealt with the players ascribed a great amount of cunning manipulation to poor Deris. Believed that he'd contrived the whole scene just to get somebody to deal with the bug and open the way.
Later, in the ghoul room is where things got truly crazy. Deris was with them and rushed in to embrace his daughter, sobbing and babbling to her and fully convinced she was talking back. The players milled about, trying to figure out what they should do when the party wizard hears something. Lo and behold, the players turn to discover ghouls about to descend!
By fortune's chance, the cleric got his initiative high and promptly raised his holy symbol to turn. Being somewhat focused upon turning, he successfully turned all of the undead. Including, sadly, the circle of spirits that the group were all around. Deris flipped and fired off a colour spray, which took down everybody but the bard. Fortunately, the ghouls were all turned (I'd forgotten about their turn resistance) and thus the bard occupied himself with trying to restrain the deranged sorcerer.
What followed was an epic battle of grappling, as the bulk of the party lay unconscious for 7 rounds. The bard was able to get the grapple established but Deris kept struggling out of the pin. He'd throw spells, utilizing his nice concentration score, while the bard repeatedly tried to establish the pin. Deris had some fine rolls, the bard resisted just about everything that the guy threw at him. 3 daze spells, a charm and 3 colour sprays while the rest of the party struggled to win free of the first colour spray. Finally, after a full minute (3 rounds after the initial seven) they were all able to act.
The paladin took up a watch for ghouls to return from the turning, while the cleric and mage moved to assist with Deris. The dice went south for the party, and they were unable to establish a decisive pin. The ghouls shambled back towards the party, but as they had to climb the stairs the party had time. The cleric moved back over and once again turned them, and this time the paladin set off in pursuit. Deris fired off another colour spray and drops the bard and cleric back into unconsciousness for five more rounds.
So we have the 8 strength mage squaring off with the 8 strength sorcerer in a bizarre grappling battle. Three rounds of back and forth, the mage calling for the paladin who figured his three companions could handle one deranged 'old' man. Deris manages to win free enough to cast one of his two remaining spells, and the mage fails that will save to drop into unconsciousness.
The paladin has turned at this point and runs back, just in time to see Deris drag his dagger across the unconscious mage's throat. Alas, the fortitude save against the coup de grace failed and he perished, which prompted the paladin to unload with the butt of his spear. Two rounds of bludgeoning later, and Deris lay unconscious upon the floor as the other two staggered free of the effects of the colour spray.
Ultimately, I don't think I've ever seen somebody with an 8 strength engage in such a prolongued grappling battle.
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Wow Winteraven, that was brutal! Nice job though. It sounds like they would have been lucky to make it through the scenario no matter what, with only four first level PCs (and one a bard, no less). At least you gave them something to talk about. Black Waters was once my least favorite to run, but a skilled GM (like yourself) can certainly make it come alive and burn it into the players' memories. I have to know, did they try to finish without the wizard or did they return to their nice, safe day jobs?
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Wow Winteraven, that was brutal! Nice job though. It sounds like they would have been lucky to make it through the scenario no matter what, with only four first level PCs (and one a bard, no less). At least you gave them something to talk about. Black Waters was once my least favorite to run, but a skilled GM (like yourself) can certainly make it come alive and burn it into the players' memories. I have to know, did they try to finish without the wizard or did they return to their nice, safe day jobs?
Weeelllll, actually we were second level and we pressed on. As a Mwangi Pathfinder Paladin creeping about a necropolis, destroying undead, and searching for lost things is my day job.
The Bugbear zombie wasn't that much trouble (though he hit really hard) and the final fight wasn't much due to a well timed turn (a cleric with Improved Turning is your friend).
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Indeed, the party was second level and pressed on. Once Deris was dealt with the players really had little trouble finishing things off due to the aforementioned cleric's turning ability. With a fantastic turning roll the final encounter was a cake walk and the discovery of their prize was a nice surprise for them.
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Tsk, I jerked the moment I read "the paladin ran away!!". A dire, dire tactical mistake. Then again it was a paladin, so nothing new. ;)
Paladin ran away? Hold your tongue! The paladin chased the three ghouls, figuring the other THREE party members could take one pinned old man (with a -1 to his grapple check).
Unfortunatley, they lost roughly 6ish grapple checks in a row. I could not account for their suckage.
The ghouls appeared to be the bigger danger.
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Surprisingly it was the one armed zombie (apparently a bugbear zombie in the normal adventure from what I am reading on this thread, I like our DMs interpretation better) which nearly wiped out the party. The mist spray in the final encounter and the crazy gardener were the highlights of the module.
I'm definitely not surprised if your DM described the monster as a long lost guardian of the necropolis yet used the stats of the bugbear zombie. It works very well that way.
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It's been awhile, but I thought I'd add my two cents for any GMs considering running this one.
I ran Black Waters last night. It went fairly well all things considered. The group was acting with a lot more ADD than usual and the creepy theme devolved in to pedophile/necrophilia jokes between the players most of the night. Not what I expected, but sometimes it's hard to control what your players do.
The adventure itself though was better than I expected (and I expected it to be nothing more than "that's okay."
The dinner with the noble went well, and I played up several of the ideas the other GMs have given. The painting was not in the dining hall, it was in the child's playroom, which I described as having a large pentacle carpet, and decked out in macabre toys. It really started setting the theme for the mod early on.
At the Tri-Towers yard itself I played up the storm as already arrived. The weather was terrible and the characters were wet and miserable. Their first encounter with the "groundskeeper" almost ended with the bard shooting him with an arrow before they even talked, but the never quite believed he wasn't undead. I tried playing up his crazy, yet fairly upbeat demeanor the best I could. The encounter in the headmistress' office couldn't have gone better. Two characters refused to enter until well into the searching, and even then most played the entire session with paranoia I haven't seen in awhile.
The water-bug encounter was set up well, and the players continued with their paranoia about the groundskeeper and the school in general. It served them well as nobody was willing to enter the water and they devised a plan to snag the arm with a grappling hook. Unfortunately, after rolling initiative and planning out everything, one single crit by the ranger with his greataxe on the first combat roll of the night dealt over 40 damage to something with far less hit points than that.
I played up the walk into the darkness and led them into the first room. This was the first switch-up. Firstly, I continued with the theme suggested that the zombie only had one arm. The bugbear factor made no sense to me, so I just played the man up as a fairly burly looking man in overalls, probably a custodian. Secondly I filled the room with corpses, of which the zombie rose from the corpses when approached. A good perception test later and the party made short work of it while only receiving a couple light blows in return.
The next change I made was to remove most of the side tunnels. While the illusion of exploration was good, due to the time constraints noted with the RP encounters (the noble woman and the groundskeeper), we just didn't have time for the exploration. Rather than removing the side rooms entirely though, I simply put them down sets of stairs and submerged in the black brackish waters. That in itself made most of the players think twice about exploring further.
The room with the circle of children was perhaps one of the biggest changes. First of all, my group is sick and tired of encounters with three ghouls. We are now at a 50% play rate of modules with 3 ghoul encounters. I also knew that the party cleric would turn undead and that Belkin would fly into a rage when that happened giving them another opponent. So I left in one ghoul and added in three fast zombies. The result was a fairly entertaining fight. The ghoul was last, so by the time the fight started the players were really surprised to find a ghoul (expecting only zombies since that's what they fought like). Unfortunately for them, the barbarian was paralyzed, the monk was knocked unconscious and then the cleric did channel for turning. Enraged, the grounskeeper let off a color spray on three of those that remained standing. Taking down the bard the party somehow missed him with everything they threw at him. This gave him a chance to respond with a charm person on the group's ranger who promptly shot one of his fiends with his bow and received a greatsword to the face in return. Of course the fighter/rogue's next hit on the groundskeeper wound up being a crit, and the groundskeeper went down at -15 hit points. The party was fairly battered and bruised at that point but still had plenty of resources to continue adventuring.
As noted before, the fresco for the Taldans went virtually unnoticed with poor checks and rolling. It took the Andoran saying, "Wow, those Chelaxians sure were wimps when Taldor invaded" to get them to notice the frescos.
The last change I made was to the final fight. Knowing that even with the wave action the fight would be over before it began, I tossed in the two ghouls from the previous room turning it into a two ghoul and a ghast party. I also let the wave action roll initiative each round to see when it occurred. This worked out very well. Half the players were blinded, and this kept them from wiping the floor with the ghouls for at least three rounds. They wound up finishing the last fight with most of their spells still unused and the cleric with two channel attempts left.
The last room got frustrating. The cool story element is located here, but there's so much going on with Qadirans and Osirions trying to finish up their faction missions that it was hard to keep the group focused. Some wanted to keep exploring the room. One wouldn't take a "you're unable to open the sarcophagi" comment to heart, even after rolling a 20 on the strength check, and even though I described my absolute best that she was pale but breathing, half the group refused to believe the girl wasn't undead.
Overall things went better than expected, but had I run the module as written, it would have been a total dud at the table. The story is fantastic, the ending is great, but the stuff in the middle is some of the worst I've seen in a mod so far.
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As a player, I was a little angry with the permanent ability score damage from the 2nd fight. We had a large low level party and had to tier up. Only to face creatures that had to be hit with magical weapons and stole all of your wisdom permanently. Luckily we saved Lady Dacilane's daughter and hung out at her place until she had healed her daughter's wisdom drain :)