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A couple of thoughts on this scenario:
I played it last week, our group had Druid 5, Ran/Rog 2/3, Cleric 4, Bar/Rog 2/2, Wizard 4 and a Ftr/Rog 1/2. We were a bit overpowered for Tier 3-4 but there was no way we thought we could tackle Tier 6-7. In hindsight I think we would have enjoyed the Tier 6-7. I’m not going to spend time with the details, but we spanked every encounter.
We started off with the briefing, then traveled to Deadbridge via boxed text. It all seemed rather straight-forward. As soon as the boxed text ended I asked if the Black Marquis actually had the book in the room with him. The GM said yes. I said “We roll initiative”. He’s a frickin’ pirate, why would we trust him? And he believes that the book was stolen from the Society so why wouldn’t he be prepared for the Pathfinders to play hardball? Sadly, he was not statted but after reading the scenario I think if Lady Riverbane thought she could take him, then our party would’ve had no problem. After establishing we had been thwarted by the page count, we continued the scenario.
This same crap happened with Grandmaster Torch in PFS#14. The author or the editor needs to address these kinds of plot holes by either statting out the NPCs or impressing upon the players that attacking the guy with the information is a Very Bad Idea. How about having some untiered enforcers show up to thrash the PCs afterward if they succeed in circumventing the plot? Or ignore my suggestion and I’ll keep whining about it :)
It has been stated already but I will say it again, the fights with a lot of low-powered bad guys are ho-hum. I know there’s usually a “warm-up fight”, but calling nine 2nd level warriors an EL 7 fight just isn’t truth in advertising. The fight in Act 2 was also frustrating because somehow these large spiders were all hiding in a confined area, and their vermin instincts were to wait until all the prey entered the room then seal the door? I know that these tactics don’t make sense but the author is trying to create an interesting combat situation. I think a better idea is to seal the door after *one* PC has come below. It raises the tension more. It was a nice gesture to leave the potions of lesser restoration there. I also liked the Golarion trivia sidebar. I hope to see more in future scenarios. Perhaps a reward could be attached to this trivia gem. The GM asks the question, and the correct answer grants the player a free re-roll during this Act only.
Per the Taldor faction mission it has now been established that a DC 12 Heal or Survival check is sufficient to remove a venom sack from a monstrous spider. Sadly there was no access to monstrous spider venom added to the Chronicle but I assume that within the scenario the spider venom may be applied to the PC’s weapons if the proper conditions are met? At the very least this would shut me up about the Taldan Poisoner feat being worthless. I don’t suppose Joshua would like to list the DCs for extracting poison from other monsters such as centipedes, scorpions, vargoullies and imps? (Sigh) I suppose not…
I did like the scene in Act 3 with the corpse marionette. That was cool. The players have been hosed by swarms enough in PFS that at this point everyone is packing alchemist’s fire in anticipation of this threat. Some players *really* hate swarms, like they hate undead and other monsters that are immune to a lot of attacks.
Act 4 was cool. The ettercaps are too easy to gang up on though. They have to come into melee to actually inflict damage, and that’s this encounter’s weakness. There should be more traps or some other way that the ettercaps could hurt the PCs without exposing themselves. I can tell looking at the Tier 6-7 fight it’s not even going to reach the end of the second round. Our high level group has a 6th level archer who does a d8+8 damage a hit with three arrows a round. The ettercaps have a 14 AC.
I didn’t see where Lady Riverbane’s arcane spell failure chance is noted in Act 5. I’ve got the same complaint about the number of thugs in this encounter as in the first one. It is fun to beat up on NPC mooks though. Lady Riversbane’s stats had a huge change between Tier 3-4 and Tier 6-7. But even at 6-7 she’s only going to last as long as her mirror images do.
The biggest disappointment was finding out the book was a forgery and the Black Marquis couldn’t make a DC 12 appraise check to figure this out. All in all I’m going to give the scenario 3 out of 5 stars. The plot was contrived, everyone saw through it from the start but had to go along with things to complete the scenario. The faction missions again were ‘find this item’ or ‘make this skill check’ and required little thought or role-play. The combats were ho-hum, and nothing lasted longer than two rounds before we were simply mopping up. Redeeming qualities were the ship-based combats, which everyone always enjoys. The spiders and ettercaps made for a creepy atmosphere even if they weren’t tactically challenging. The traps allowed the rogues to shine. Despite my critique I do look forward to running this scenario more than some. After playing it I understand as a player what parts were hard to swallow. I’ll make some adjustments and see if I have more fun as the GM than as a player.
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Now that this thread has finally started, I can start talking about this as well. I played this one first, and have run it one time.
I would also like to know where the book is at the moment you meet the weak Black Marquis. If this Black Marquis would be depicted as a huge burly man who could punch your teeth straight to your neck, the situation might be different. The players were kind enough to ask "Give us a reason why shouldn't we just get the book from you now?" beforing attempting an assault. I had to put the room full of burly pirates, which in turn made it hard to explain why this was supposed to be so hush-hush.
And what happens IF they just kill Black Marquis? As I recall, Lady Riverbane is in the room at the time, and wouldn't probably make a move against the Pathfinders. I might even imagine she'd congratulate them and offer a reward. Heh, even maybe tell what's there in the cave. It'd remove two encounters altogether.
But yeah, these plot holes are getting out of hand. I see them in almost every scenario. Increase the page count so there's more room for detail.
The encounters are really really easy, I noticed this myself. I haven't even pulled the Tier 6-7 off, but I just know it'll be such a massacre the pathfinders are basically doing such things asleep.
And now that you mention it, the spiders indeed seem to act way too intelligently. Why would they wait for all party members to enter, and not just block the passage after the first enters? I agree with Doug^2 it would create more tension and excitement, albeit making the encounter harder. Still, using mere fire to the web would grant access to the deck below.
I really disliked the traps in the woods, they serve no cause. You fall into them, ouch, no biggie, heal up and continue. What's the point in scattering random traps around the woods? Incorporate them to encounters and they will be much better! I put both traps with the marionette, but even then it felt dumb as there's no monster trying to kill you.
On Tier 1-2 the ettercaps' encounter is hilarious, yet devastatingly easy. It all ends too soon.
And now for the greatest nitpick. A player expressed his discontent with the Riverbane and the Wild Bunch encounter. "Why a monolog?", he asked. To that I can't give a good answer, other than "It's cinematic." But it wasn't just that. He asked me a better question, to which I couldn't give an answer at all.
"Why were they waiting for us outside the cave, and not ambush us in the woods? Or better yet, just go back to Deadbridge and let the pathfinders find their own way back?"
Indeed, why aren't they just ambushing the pathfinders? In hindsight it really does seem like a hugely stupid course of action to wait outside and give a SPEECH. Also Lady Riverbane says "Black Marquis will die tomorrow", although it took as 3 days to reach this place. Even going downstream won't be fast enough to triple your speed.
I gave this 4 out of 5 stars. The main weak points are the few stupid NPC reactions (a thing that should be addressed in all scenarios) and weak combats. Good things include atmosphere and setting, those were done right.
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I very much enjoyed this mod as player and, last night, as GM.
I thought I'd drop a description here of what didn't go according to the plan of the mod, though, for other future DMs to consider.
SPOILERS BELOW:
After returning from the Hanspur's Luck, the party, having found evidence of something not quite right, wanted to seriously interrogate Lady Riverbane. This is fine and notes are given in the mod for handling this. Unfortunately, I started rolling badly for Bluff checks against decent Sense Motives and terribly against Intimidate. It became pretty clear that the party had determined correctly that she was up to no good, and it was clear that Riverbane also knew this and the party weren't just going to ignore it and carry on regardless. To have forced the Act 1-5 flow would have been wrong. So I ran the Riverbane fight there on the ship after she had a fit of pique at being talked to so insolently on her own ship.
Sightly fearing they / I'd broken the mod, a quick break showed that the mod is rich enough to cope with this early Act 5. I also didn't need to persuade the party to continue the mod onwards as there are enough reasons that the party found to push on:
- The Osirian and Cheliax faction have yet to complete their missions
- There are 2 neutral crew members who had been befriended by the party and did not fight against the Pathfinders (so making the fight equivalent to that in Act 5) who can make a go at sailing on: there is no actual time pressure in the mod though the PCs may think so
- The Pathfinder's book is found as in Act 5 because Lady R must have it on the ship - so the party know the main mission is failed but
- they still have her map to the Temple and still would want to rescue the pirates / find the treasure / are curious about the map
So the mod ended after they cleared out the temple. From there we jumped straight to the conclusion.
Hope that may be useful to future runnings.
Jason
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I GM'd this two weeks ago and the group figured out at the end of Act 1: Riffraff on the Craft that Lady Riverbane was the one who hired the River Thugs.
The fact that none of Riverbane's crew helped with the attack and the fact that she was using a wand of magic missile to finish off any unconscious River Thugs made the Cleric and the Monk in the party get really combative with Lady Riverbane.
The Cleric and the Monk interviewed the Thugs and got a description of the person who hired them, a woman named One-Eyed Farl.
They asked Lady Riverbane if she was this person in disguise. After a couple of failed Bluff checks vs. the Monk's insanely high Sense Motive checks they figured it was her.
At this point I thought about faking the roles, but after the Cleric and the Monk put two-and-two together that she hired the thugs, I had an inspiration to have the final encounter from Act 5: Pirate Double-Cross immediately right there.
After completing that encounter they had Lady Riverbane spill the beans. I didn't give them the book though, I placed the book in a locked chest in the back of Mezzmezz's Shrine. I switched up the module and said that Lady Riverbane had entrusted the tablet with the Ettercaps.
The rest of the module went fine. What was funny was the look on the player's faces when they found One-Eye Farl in one of the cocoons in Mezzmezz's Shrine!!! They even went so far as to make sure Lady Riverbane and Farl did not see each other (blind folding and gagging them).
In the end the players decided to release Lady Riverbane outside of Echo Wood so that she could continue her efforts against the Black Marquis.
After the adventure was done I told them what they did from what the author expected and we all had a great laugh.
I didn't change anything mechanically (all encounters were as written). Was this the correct thing to do?
Suggestion: If Lady Riverbane didn't kill the thugs with the magic missile wand the players wouldn't had questioned her.
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You did great harmor! It sounds like the players had fun, and that's the whole point to playing this game. Often players won't follow the script or do things that the scenario author never imagined happening. Players hate it when GMs insist they can't do something 'cause the module doesn't cover it. GMs have to think on their feet adapt and keep the game moving, which is what you did. Your players enjoyed themselves and can brag that they never fell for the ruse. I think your story is a good example for other GMs who find the plot getting derailed.
