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Has any table finished this scenario without PC deaths? I begin to feel like the answer is no.
I looked at that ghast barbarian 2 ... I'm baffled. Where is this ghast taken from? Frost mentioned something about some 'grotto'... what's that? The session is tomorrow, but I could manage to 'rebuild' the creature into something more sensible... maybe an Advanced Ghoul with a few extra hit dice. Presently the monster is TPK-worthy. The stench gives the sickened condition, the DC is ridiculously high (DC 20). This condition lowers the PCs chances to hit and SAVES! These saves directly count into the paralyzation DC (which effectively goes from 19 to 21). For a save or suck DC this DC 21 is suitable for Tier 8 and up, not Tier 3-4.
I'll ask the players if they want to run the scenario as written or have me do some modifications. Tomorrow's group consists of only four 4th-level characters, after all.
Edit: I actually looked up Ghast from PRD and re-checked the monster. The stats are waaaaay over what they could be.
A Ghast is a ghoul with the advanced template (+4 to all stats) and stench. Whichever way I do it, I can't get the ghast's charisma to 26. Apparently the barbarian's rage would put it up by +4, since charisma basically the substitute for constitution for undeadlies. But this type of logic is very very dubious. *shakes head*
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I ran this at 1-2 for a table of 6 which had two level 3 characters in it (Barbarian/Rogue and a 3rd level fighter).
Not too bad at all, actually. At 3-4? All bets may be off; I can't say.
I agree that Pt 3 is the high point of the series. That said, I still want to see another PFS series arc which tangentially picks up on the fate of the Bell of Obedience. I think that would be a very satisfying play experience for PFS players to permit them to continue on with some aspect of the story.
On the plus side, I can say that this series was deliberately selected as one of the series we offered to start off PFS at my new PFS event. (Yes, we also ran First Steps as well on the other table.) The Devil We Know Pts 1-IV, when played in succession, had every player back, every week. Each of those players are now regular PFS players at my event.
All quibbles and balancing issues aside, that really is the test to apply when assessing the value of an overall plot arc. On that score, The Devil We Know earned a 6/6.
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10 hours before the game. Wish the team good luck.
The group is pretty strong to be only a four-man party. The group's paladin, Angilbert Saint-Sanct, will most likely lead the group and be the best to kill both the elemental and the ghast. The bard, Theraldo Banroth, could use his defensive spells to aid Angilbert. The monk (Valax Kallionkolo) (Finnish for Crag's hollow) will probably be best at range with splash weapons, and last but not least druid Subaira will provide more melee offense and additional buffs and healing, as well as a strong animal companion...
I intend to rip the ghast of its rage. I figured giving the base monster (ghoul) +12 to strength and charisma is just way too ridiculous.
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The tier 3-4 in this adventure is just ridiculous. Our magus almost got one shot'd (ok, 2 slams 1 round) by the elemental, but managed to survive somehow. But none of the pc's could make the ghast's insane saves. Thankfully the witch finished her paralyzation and was able to run away to get help.
It looked like it could have been a good ending to a good series, but Josh had to mess with it. (see above, Larcifer submitted an advanced ghast originally, josh made it the barbarian and made the rulings that it could benefit from raging.)
The 3rd scenario in the series was my favorite until First steps 2 came out. But I'm sorry to say I'll never run this or at least I won't run the 4th in the series, unless they're over the 3-4 tier no play zone.
I was the GM for the aforementioned session and I must say that the large earth elemental is very challenging, but doable at 3-4 level. Plus it doesn't pursue as written so you can always run the hell away buy some scrolls or potions to buff and come back to smash it down. The ghast with the advanced template and levels of barbarian who's rage has been custom ruled to buff it's Cha instead of Con was just silly. How many DC 19 fort saves can your character make in a row dependably at 4th level. I bet your answer is less than 3. :P Sadly the story to this series is GREAT, but someone had to turn some of the encounters into blatant one sided fist fights for Tier 3-4. I would highly recommend this mod for tiers 1-2 or 5-6 as both have balanced encounters. If your characters are 3rd and 4th level, run far, far away unless you're all fans of anti-climactic TPKS. YMMV
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Edit: I actually looked up Ghast from PRD and re-checked the monster. The stats are waaaaay over what they could be.
A Ghast is a ghoul with the advanced template (+4 to all stats) and stench. Whichever way I do it, I can't get the ghast's charisma to 26. Apparently the barbarian's rage would put it up by +4, since charisma basically the substitute for constitution for undeadlies. But this type of logic is very very dubious. *shakes head*
The original encounter submitted by the author was an advanced ghast (advanced, advanced ghoul?). During in-house editing it was changed to an advanced ghoul with class levels. It's gets +4 all stats from the advanced template, +4 to Str and Cha (total cheese) from raging, and since it has class levels it was given the elite array stat increases as per the rules in the Bestiary. This gives another +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and -2 to modify the creatures stats. Guess where the -2 went? Yep, Con since it doesn't have any. Which is about how much respect I have for whomever did this. :P So, the ghast in the module has stats that are +8, +8, +6, +6, +4 over what is listed as the bestiary ghoul. I wonder why all my 4th level PC's dropped unconscious by round 4?
On a positive note, I'm pretty sure that Mark Moreland had nothing to do with this fiasco. Shame on your predecessor...
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I ran this and finished about 15 minutes ago. Tier 3-4, four PCs.... and miraculously no one died. They beat every adversary and came out victorious.
The fight against the elemental was a hard one. The group's paladin had to use four of his five Lay On Hands, and even then managed to fall at one point, later saved by the group's monk.
I downplayed the ghast, not granting it its idiotic "+4 str, +4 cha" rage at all. Even with that they would have beaten the undead, since the strong druid dealt a critical hit with a falchion, almost killing it with one blow.
The derros were a laugh. Darkness wasn't enough to grant them advantage.
Overall a nice scenario. With six characters the elemental fight might be possible for a not-so-whacky party.
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I'll be running this game (the rules of the swift) next week at Tier 3-4
My question is about the monsters' weapons and equipment.
During the battle with the wounded Derros at tier 3-4, the text states that the Derros have lost their crossbows, poison bolts and aklyses during their fight with the mites (thus reducing the Derros CR to 2).
Do these Derro have short swords or will all their melee attacks made during this encounter be treated as unarmed attacks?
Any insight would be appreciated.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I would STRONGLY advise against running this for 3-4. It is incredibly difficult at that level. The Ghast is extremely broken (you can thank Josh Frost for that).
Our group were almost all experienced gamers (14+ years for all but one of us) and had fairly powerful characters prior to playing this, and it practically wiped us out. If you still want to run this, I'd suggest waiting until 6-7 when the DC's are possible at that level. As it is right now, if the chars haven't focused on Fort saves, they'll pretty much have to roll a 18-20 to save against the Ghast.
As for your question, they'd still have their short swords.
Hey guys author of the scenario here.
1) the derros have their short swords.
2) I made it an advanced HD ghast (not an advanced ghast) there is a difference. Here is what I submitted. The developer had their reasons for changing this and I respect them.
Tier 1–2 (CR 2)
DALIRIO TEPPISH CR 2
Advanced Ghoul (Ghast) (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 146, 294)
hp 17
TACTICS
During Combat Dalirio targets heavily armored foes first, and once a victim becomes paralyzed he moves to the next. Once all of his targets are paralyzed, he focuses on the PC who presents the biggest threat, usually a cleric.
Morale Dalirio fights to the death.
Tier 3–4 (CR 4)
DALIRIO TEPPISH CR 4
Advanced HD ghoul (ghast)
NE Medium undead
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +12
Aura stench (DC 16, 1d6+4 minutes)
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 14, flat-footed 14 (+4 Dex, +4 natural)
hp 42 (5d8+20)
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +8
Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2; Immune undead traits
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee bite +7 (1d6+4 plus disease and paralysis) and 2 claws +8 (1d6+4 plus paralysis)
Special Attacks paralysis (1d4+1 rounds, DC 16)
TACTICS
As tier 1-2.
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 19, Con –, Int 17, Wis 18, Cha 18
Base Atk +3; CMB +7; CMD 21
Feats Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (claw)
Skills Acrobatics +9, Climb +12, Disguise +8, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (arcana)+8, Knowledge (religion) +11, Perception +12, Stealth +12, Swim +9
Languages Common
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Disease (Su) Ghoul Fever: Bite—injury; save Fort DC 16; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1d3 con and 1d3 Dex damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Charisma-based. A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life, but it hungers for the flesh of the living and behaves like a normal ghoul in all respects. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
Tier 6–7 (CR 7)
DALIRIO TEPPISH CR 7
Advanced HD ghoul (ghast)
NE Medium undead
Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +17
Aura stench (DC 19, 1d6+4 minutes)
DEFENSE
AC 20, touch 16, flat-footed 14 (+5 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 natural)
hp 85 (10d8+40)
Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +11
Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2; Immune undead traits
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee bite +12 (1d8+4 plus disease and paralysis) and 2 claws +13 (1d8+4 plus paralysis)
Special Attacks paralysis (1d4+1 rounds, DC 19)
TACTICS
As tier 1-2.
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 20, Con –, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 18
Base Atk +7; CMB +11; CMD 27
Feats Dodge, Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (claw)
Skills Acrobatics +15, Climb +17, Disguise +17, Intimidate +12, Knowledge (arcana) +12, Knowledge (religion) +17, Perception +17, Stealth +18, Swim +14
Languages Common
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Same as tier 3-4.
I hope this helps those who are curious. But I think this creature had an issue from the get go and I take full responsibility and hope I have learned from it. Also I would not be surprised if I had several errors here as it was one of my earliest scenarios.
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Arguably, the thief-takers (in their Sickened condition) would be more easily intimidated by the PCs and could be convinced to follow orders. Also, a successfully grappled ghast could not make attacks of opportunity, thus allowing PCs to use acrobatics to move through his space without risk. I wish we had Thief Taker stat blocks available. Thoughts?
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Now you've all got me worried. I've been running this series for my group with new low level characters. The 3rd level cleric in part 1 almost TPKed the group of 1st level PCs on their first adventure.
Now, they're a combination of 2nd and 3rd levels, from playing this and a few other things along the way, so we were talking about running the final part at subtier 3-4 this Saturday. And our group isn't known for optimized characters.
I've read the adventure, but haven't had a chance to go through the monster stats in detail yet, so I wasn't sure how tough it would be. Reading this thread has me thinking that we're probably best off sticking to subtier 1-2.
I am no one official, but we are encouraged to reward creative solutions, so I do not see why not.
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I am proud to say that I was one of the players at Silverhand's table last night - we finished the scenario at tier 3-4 with only four players, and no character deaths. Huzzah!
For the record, two of the characters were clerics, and between us we had 13 channel positive energy uses. They were all gone by the end of the scenario.
Our gunslinger rolled about four critical hits... all on the druids and rats. Really?
I had a blast. If one of our clerics hadn't been around... well, a different story, methinks. Still, in the circumstance, I appreciated the difficulty. Thanks for trying to up the challenge a little bit, Larry.
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When Bruno saw Large Earth Elemental, heart sunk. Even strong-as-ox Bruno know stupid rockface could smash APL 4 party to bits.
Then tiny smart Gnome Bard cast grease, rockface fell down and Bruno go all tetori and pinned elemental! Haha stupid clumsy rockface!
That was scariest part.
Stinky deadface ghast was very nasty too. Paralyzed Samurai. Almost dropped Magus.
Bruno very happy no one die. Bruno very very happy that party were veteran players with solid builds who play smart. Bruno very sad for stupid players or bad rollers.
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Here's a partial recap of what happened at our table.
The fight with the Earth Elemental was a slugfest. The PC used touch attacks quite a bit to whittle down its hit points (The Gunslinger had 55 rounds at the beginning of the session and ended up firing 33 off by the end!). Suffice it to say, the gunslinger’s ability to hit Touch instead of AC helped the PCs greatly. And as Jeff said (above), the spell-buffed, defensive fighter was a great foil.
The Crazed Painter was a highlight for me. I played his personality somewhere between The Joker and Liberace – I had a blast with it.
When the Players got down into the sewer, they decided to reduce the risk of falling-in by bringing some furniture down and laying it across the debris where possible. Pretty creative thinking.
The battle with the Ghast was nasty. The defensive fighting by the spell-buffed meat-shield was the right tactical choice for the tight fitting tunnel. The fighter took a lot of damage, was sickened and paralyzed once. One of our clerics had Remove Paralysis and that saved the fighter’s bacon. Arguably, this move saved the party. If the Ghast killed the fighter, two clerics and a gunslinger would likely have been sickened and paralyzed having very few ways to escape.
The Derro encounter was more fun than I expected. The Derro’s first move was to cast Darkness on their clothes, but the PCs had another rabbit’s foot. One of the players, a Dwarf Cleric, had darkvision. This allowed him to get a full appraisal of the situation and fire his crossbow from a safe distance. As for the other players: they were the target of Derro sneak attacks!
In short: having a highly tactical group of PCs possessing just the right mix of qualities and weapons made this a challenging, hard-fought scenario. Having two clerics casting buff and heal spells/channels made the fighter very hard to kill allowing him to protect the other party members by standing toe-to-toe with the Elemental and Ghast. This also allowed the Gunslinger to be a mobile and effective second front.
Challenging module! The veteran players at my table were feeling their necks more than once but they seemed to enjoy the high level of risk.
Thanks Larry, for an exciting climax to The Devil We Know.
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Just ran this again yesterday. The first time I ran it, we had a Master Summoner at the table (before they were banned from Society), who kept putting walls of ponies between the bad guys and the group, and that's how they won. This time, I was running at a convention, so I wasn't sure what to expect, who was playing, or what subtier until I got there. We had a 6 player group at subtier 6-7, and they kicked this adventure's butt.
They used a globe of invisibility to completely bypass the first fight. So I've run this twice now, and both groups have managed to skip that fight. The first time, they just walked around the buildings the right way to miss running into the druids.
I thought the elemental might challenge them, but both wizards hit it with Scorching Rays in the first round, plus some solid hits from a couple of other party members, and it was down in the first round, before the last party member even had a chance to act.
For the raging ghast, one of the players cast Clairvoyance to see what was on the other side of the door before opening it. That was hilarious, because it showed him the small room between the two doors, but not the actual room with the ghast. So he used his arcane bonded item to get it from his spellbook and cast it again to see beyond the second door, which is when he spotted the ghast preparing to surprise them. So they buffed like crazy before going through the second door, including putting invisibility and spider climb on pregen Kyra, and having her invisibly crawl on the ceiling past the ghast and channel as a surprise attack to start the fight. They finished him off pretty quickly after that.
Oddly, the derros provided the biggest challenge, mostly because the leader cast darkness, so they had a hard time finding her to kill her. The two derro mooks fell into a Spiked Pit, then had a large ape companion animal with a climb speed go half way down, hang upside down just out of their melee reach (but within its own 10 ft reach), and pound them into paste.
All in all, it was an entertaining, but not even remotely challenging, session.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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We played this scenario last night, as the culmination of the series.
The biggest problem I had was with the mission briefing.
The briefing doesn't have an accurate synopsis of Nefty's story, he doesn't have anything to say at the briefing, and he didn't have anything to say at the jail when we asked him if there was anything we should know. As a result there is no where in the scenario where the PCs are told "the derros took everyone underground and they are going to sacrifice them to some stone." All we took away from the briefing was "Volunteer to help the guards. Go into the prison. Find the bell. Determine that it is the bell we are looking for. Investigate. But really what we care about is that bell, and your investigation is cover for that."
So we got to the bell, we looked at it, we said, "yup it's a bell." (Okay we detected magic, confirmed it was the right bell, rang it, just for fun.) Found the dead derro and rust monster. (By the way, the complete lack of leashes, etc made it look like the rust monster had found the prison independently and ran into the derros there. Which had us pretty confused.) And were like "Okay, um we investigated, the derros seem to have been killed by a rust monster, We did our mission, We could just go home now. I guess we'll go explore more, just because there has to be more to this, right?"
The second problem was with the foreshadowing from previous adventures.
It seemed like at the end of each adventure, you find a document laying out the plans for the cult to make their next steps. Each time you hand it over to the pathfinders, and get told they will investigate it. And then you show up for the next session, and they tell you "Oh, we thought you beat them last time, and suddenly there's an unexpected crisis." and we are left going "what unexected crisis! We told you this was coming! Why didn't you stop it before it happened? Or send us in earlier at least!"
It really left us feeling Hestia was incompetent at best, complicit at worst.
The earth elemental
How the heck were they controlling that earth elemental? It was a rude surprise. It also revealed that our spell casters had chosen their spells poorly. (And I really need to start insisting that we stagger our marching order.) As a result, my bard(2), grenadier(1) riding a gecko was the only one who could hurt the elemental, and ironically the only one the elemental could not hurt. (We went back to town and rezed the witch, and redistributed gear, because the alternative was for me to sit there kiting and bombing the elemental to death with alchemist fires while everyone else sat out of range)
The ghast
Enough has already been said about how broken the ghast is. Aside from the *rediculous* saves, again it's lack of ranged weapons made it a very minor threat once we got out of melee with it. (it chased us out into the sewers, but only because the alternative would have been getting hit by AoEs while in hiding.) Lesson learned: I really need to just start prepping crypts with holy water before entering. There was a lot of GM charity there, but ironically, in retrospect, some of it was unnecessary. (I thought I almost died, but then it turned out that I had counted one of the hits twice, so I wouldn't have died even if the GM hadn't been kind.)
The final encounter
The GM goofed and added the derro commander to the final battle. It was still the easiest fight in the whole module. (Partly because the commander couldn't roll a decent stealth check the whole fight. Partly because we were overprepped for darkness.) Again the relative lack or ranged weapons meant my character was close to unthreatened.
It was totally anti climactic.
conclusion
Sorry, the bad guys got away. We'll take care of the clean up. (Just like we did the last three times.) No special boon for doing all four. Nothing.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Running this Thursday.
By the way, I'm amused that the ghast is supposed to be Delario. After they defeated Delario last session, they got extra oil and reduced the body to ashes. (They are really, really tired of the Teppish brothers.) So I guess for them it is going to have to be Delario's predecessor.
Also, are there two moving rooms? Or does it go up and down as well as rotate. In part 3 it is something like 300 feet below ground. In part 4 it is part of the sewers, about 40 feet below ground?
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If they grow suspicious of Nefti enough to detain him, kudos to them. It doesn't change the outcome or reward. It just avoids a dumb ending that Hestia Themis herself set up. They still have to go after the captured prisoners and fight all the encounters. I would not work to prevent the party from this course of action. I'd even give Nefti some stats, like the wanderer out of the Gamemastery Guide. If your players catch the punk, they'll be avenging every other table that howled in outrage after the conclusion was read. I hope they waterboard him.
I'm not sure the ghast is supposed to be Delario. It's just in another one of those pivoting rooms with cages so it feels like deja-vu. So yes, there are several of these Ismaco chambers underneath Cassomir.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Look upthread.
Larcifer's origional submission read:
DALIRIO TEPPISH CR 2
Advanced Ghoul (Ghast) (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 146, 294)
That was apparently part of the bit that was dropped when they made him a barbarian ghast instead of an advanced HD ghast
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I again bring this scenario up, as I have a problem.
The team that's playing this at the moment (it's an online PbP game) has chosen to go through the place differently and instead of going through the front gate chose to climb up the wall, thus bypassing the chapel altogether. They are now with the crazed painter, and asked about the mural he's painting. And that's where the problem starts.
The painter speaks thusly:
was taken. They have such plans for it.”
Spoken in the past tense this would mean that the bell has been already removed from the chapel.
TL;DR: Does visiting the painter first make the bell disappear from the chapel?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Two options:
1. The bell is gone. Kind of a messed up option. But legal. They should find the note in it's place.
2. The painter is more than a little mad. He is also prescient. The Bell has not yet been taken, but the painter has seen it be taken, so in his mind, this is part of the past.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Just played through this tonight, was rather miserable. Party was a 1st witch, 3rd oracle, 2nd paladin, and me at 5th rogue(ish). Which put me in the odd position of party tank. I also thought my +7 init mod was decent, but apparently not. APL 2.75 goes to subtier 3-4.
First encounter was on the annoying 10' grid. GM let us re-size it as 5', but still kept a lot of it as difficult terrain. The party started the fight in the wrong orientation, so it caused a bit of trouble, (witch got attacked first) but we managed it.
We get around to the front of the building and find the guards waiting there, and they wave us is. We check out the bell, and I want to take it for the Dark Archive faction card, but the GM won't let us because it's too big and heavy.
The elemental showed up and won initiative - dropped the Paladin before anybody got to act. I'm useless because it can't be crit or sneak attacked. Immune to color spray, so the oracle can't help. I yelled at the witch to go get the guards from out front. I tanked it 2 rounds then the GM had the guards show up and put the thing down.
Then down to the ghast. Which isn't flat-footed for my sneak attack because of barbar. And we can't get it into good position for flank because of annoying map. Still, I managed to hit it a few times (Yay for unchained rogue with dex to damage), and the paladin got one weak smite attack. Then it managed to crit and drop me, then hit and paralyze the paladin. GM allowed the Color spray from the oracle to work, and it failed its save so the fight was over.
When we freed the captives here, we warned them (based on the painting) that the Aspis would try to steal the bell. But apparently warning them doesn't do anything.
The last fight was a non-issue. I had been scouting the room while stealthed, so the rest of the party took a bit to catch up. They won initiative, and I was alone, so yet again, no sneak attack. But I tanked a bit, did some damage, and color spray again ended the fight.
Overall - way overpowered monsters for a tier 3-4. And 10' grids that should never be used. The only redeeming thing in the scenario was the painter showing up again.