Zyphus rot is an homage to the zombies from #7.
Beautiful artwork on the cover btw. Kudos to your art dept.
Jay H
Yup! On my list to correct in the next day or so. :-)
You don't need to provide the chronicle sheets. I'll have those at HQ.
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OK I usually will not despairidge a chronicle, but this one was absolutely no fun. There were so many issues with this chronicle I am wondering about running it. It is a PC killer and likely TPK if run correctly at the lower tiers. Understand my table was 5 4-5th level characters who are elite players. Our GM was a master level with 3.5 and knows the pathfinder rules better than the rest of us combined. I am a firm believer that good players can outweigh missing a class, I stand corrected. Here are the issues I had.
1. This module should state if you do not have a rouge YOU WILL ALL DIE. If you do not have at least +8 on all saves and consistently role 17+ on a D20 YOU WILL ALL DIE.
2. Why didn't this cult use the million or so gold it had laying around to build a new temple, instead of making all these elaborate and expensive traps to kill each other.
3. Apparently all cultists are idiots(see above)
4. If you could not fly this chronicle was nearly impossible.
5. Once again we find an undead with BARBARIAN LEVELS, this is the third or fourth time this type of creature has been encountered, it is no longer unique or special, but becoming common place.
6. My party had little issue with the creatures, but placement seemed kinda odd. Why is a giant zombie in an area where he is squeezed so much based on the map and tactics. He never even swung his weapon our archer cut him to pieces.
7. Was this chronicle play tested? It was so long with intricate maps and just numerous delays, it bogged down allot. The only way I see this run in a 4 hour slot is if the party is killed by the clerics of misfortune.
8. The skill and save DC's were just ridiculous Perceptions of 30 and saves of 25+ on a regular basis, Seriously? Even 6 and 7th level characters will fail those regularly.
PFS has been given a great opportunity for a Living Campaign with the issues 4E is facing, bringing in those players is a priority. I love most PFS chronicles and run them whenever I can, but this is the kind of chronicle which will send new players away due to frustration.
Just some of my opinions on this one.
I play-tested most of this scenario in my home game (Tier 1-2) and non-optimized, non-Pathfinder Society players breezed through it. When I GMed it again in Tier 3-4 at Paizo Con it was challenging (and I killed Doug's donkey) but we were able to finish in time and no PCs died.
There's a sidebar on page 4 called "Too Many Traps?" that deals with the issue of not having a rogue in the party.
As for the undead barbarian thing ... hrm. Yeah, I'd made up my mind to stop pulling that trick right after I finished development on this one. So, good point. I have now taken it to heart. :-)
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I play-tested most of this scenario in my home game (Tier 1-2) and non-optimized, non-Pathfinder Society players breezed through it. When I GMed it again in Tier 3-4 at Paizo Con it was challenging (and I killed Doug's donkey) but we were able to finish in time and no PCs died.
There's a sidebar on page 4 called "Too Many Traps?" that deals with the issue of not having a rogue in the party.
As for the undead barbarian thing ... hrm. Yeah, I'd made up my mind to stop pulling that trick right after I finished development on this one. So, good point. I have now taken it to heart. :-)
Our GM may have missed the sidebar, your barbarian comments made me chuckle..allot. I wish I could be at Gencon for ya Josh, have fun see you at Neon.
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I played this one under Josh at the 3-4 tier, then I ran it cold a week later for an overflow table at Origins. I never had a decent opportunity to read through it, but today I ran it twice at our gameday. I noticed a couple of things.
In the first Zyphus test there are bat swarms (2) at the 1-2 tier. A lone bat swarm is CR2. Two bat swarms are CR4. I believe there should only be one bat swarm at the 1-2 tier. I threw just one at the 1-2 table I ran and it was more than enough to challenge them.
If there is a bat swarm in the room, shouldn't there be more evidence of them? Like a floor covered in guano and a warning from Hustivan to tread lightly? I'm just thinking...
In the coffin barracks there are two dead cultists who succumbed to poison, but none of the poison in the room is lethal. No one dies from Str or Dex damage.
I disagree with the tactics of the surviving cultists. They were told that the survivor of the 'deathmatch' will replace Bustrani and rebuild the cult. I had the last cultist standing flee from the battle in the tunnels, seeking to reach Bailleset and crying "I win! I win!". This drove the players to pursue him (on both occassions) down the sinkhole and into A12 usually via the express elevator when they discovered that the Aura of Misfortune affected their climb checks.
It was difficult to come up with ideas for the Calamitous Mishap on the fly. I took the collapsing ceiling from Josh when he ran my table at PaizoCon. I also described the cultist stomping his foot in frustration and opening up a steam vent in the floor that blasted him and his opponent with hot vapors (2d6, save DC 15). I also described him hurling his short sword at the floor on his downswing, only to have it richochet off the stone and spin up to strike him in the face. The more I run this one the more creative I will get, but I encourage you GMs to think about some mishaps before you actually run this scenario.
By the way, the fleeing cultist never got to Bailleset on either occassion, but the players had a ball during the pursuit.
Last, the wight was more bark than bite. Once the PCs finally engaged him, he was revealed as a glass tiger. Even at the high tier, the fight felt anti-climactic when compared to the Zyphus zombie or the bat swarm. I am curious about the Con drain. Was the wight's Con drain attack supposed to be swapped back with the negative energy attack at the higher tiers? I appreciate that a PC at tier 1-2 could be slain with a single blow if they take a negative energy level, but at the higher tier slapping someone with an average of 13 damage and a point of Con isn't that scary, especially when there're 4-6 PCs ganging up on his unimpressive AC.
Aside from my criticisms, after being prepared to run this scenario today I feel better about this scenario. The players all enjoyed it, and one said he thought it was better than Among the Living which is a compliment considering how popular PFS#7 has been.
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I ran this scenario in NYC at the top tier with six PCs, none of whom had ANY rogue levels. They smacked hard into all of the traps, but none of them were deadly, thanks to the fact that half the party had cleric levels. Actually, none of the encounters were a serious danger to the party (and they were even "playing up" as most of them were level 4-5), even though one of the traps critted.
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Ran this over the weekend...
The party was running at Tier 3-4, so they had the poltergeist in the trial room. They didn't trust the bridge, so they roped the gnome rogue and sent her across to check it out. Once on the far side, the poltergeist dropped the bridge, then yanked the rope, dropping the gnome into the pit. After many rounds of keystone cops (including the gnome back on top of the platform when the poltergeist managed to push the anchor-person off the platform, pulling the gnome down after them), the alchemist in the party used acid bombs to destroy the door into the next room and the gnome was able to get into the gallery.
Earlier in the adventure, the Taldor mentioned that he was looking for a painting and the Qadiran gnome immediately went searching for it to steal it (cause she certainly wasn't going back into the trial room). Suspecting something amiss, the Taldor made it up into the gallery just as the gnome was rolling the painting up and trying to tuck it away. The Taldor warlock charged the gnome and tried to grapple her to get the painting away, but the gnome was able to slip free and back away from the warlock...into the flame trap. The gnome deftly evaded (and saved the painting in the process), but the warlock ate the full brunt of the flames.
Now with the gallery in flames, the rest of the party was making it up into the room. The cleric fought the flames using create water while the rest of the party spread out thru the room trying to loot the paintings before the room was consumed. Once the party could rest again, the gnome was apologetic and gave the warlock the painting he desired.
After this the adventure was kind of anti-climatic, with the end boss going down before he could even act due to a horrible initiative roll. However, the first three rooms were a great comedy of errors.
Note: I know that interparty conflicts are poo-poo'd on, but I'll allow them so long as they don't go too far. All of the players involved are regulars and I trust in their ability to rein themselves in.
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Ran this over the weekend...
** spoiler omitted **...
As long as the players were having fun and there were no hard feelings I wouldn't condemn you for allowing the quasi-PVP. That encounter is the best part of the scenario, although players can get frustrated by the nibbling away of their HP & resources. One of the tables I ran this weekend was at the low tier. When they saw the rope bridge they all tied themselves together. At the low tier they get the bat swarm, and only two of them had any equipment that could damage the swarm and one of those was the cleric who was focused on keeping the PCs on their feet. They couldn't break away from the swarm since they were all tied together. A couple of them untied themselves and ran into the painting room. After several tense rounds everyone was clear of the room save for the cleric (he had untied himself but had not fled), who then was dropped by the swarm. A PC had to hustle out of their shelter and pick the cleric up, which ended her turn. The swarm kept attacking the cleric and his savior for another round before they could escape. It was the toughest encounter of the entire scenario for those guys. The worst part was I only threw one swarm at them, when the scenario calls for two (which I think is a typo). Come to think of it, I never made them fight the swarm to get out of the dungeon--oops.
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Thanks for the compliment, Zac! :D
I agree with you, but that cleric would've had a rough time fighting my +5 Cha... ;) (they usually do).
The "problem" is that 90% of the tables you will run of this will not have a character twinked out like mine specifically for that purpose and use the same spell over and over (I barely cast anything else during the adventure).
It really was a case of right character in the right module. Run it again, you will hurt a lot of people, and chuckle at their pain. I know I will be hurting people here when I run this. :)
Katharan would've rather burn most of the place down... :)
JP
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I ran this one for the 4th time last night, did the high tier. Wizard had Control Undead as well. The fire giant was helpful with crossing the collapsed rope bridge and lifting PCs over the half moon cliff but never contributed to the combats. Being squeezed and only having partial actions diminished its value to 'trophy minion'. They never got more than a scratch though, and they were playing up. Now that I have gotten more familiar with this scenario, it seems way too easy at the high tier. Baillaset isn't nearly as scary as he should be. He would have been better off as the ghast from PFS#48, at least he'd have more attacks and a chance to paralyze some PCs. However, the players really enjoyed the story and felt the scenario was very appropriate to the setting.
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Played this yesterday at the high tier.
Our party consisted of : a lvl 6 fighter, a level 7 monk, rogue, shadow dancer(only lvl 2 rogue), a level 4 wizard(3)/fighter(1), a lvl 3 Barbarian, and a level 3 Wizard (necromancer) (me!)
The bad: The traps quickly got tedious. It didn't help that our demi-rogue could not make the DC for any of them, and the fighter or barbarian had to trigger them the hard way. (I think over 20 cure light potions were consumed and a couple dozen hits from a wand of cure light also was used.
The fight against the zombie giant in the catacombs was actually boring. Him having to squeeze made him not a threat and easy to kill.
The good: Interesting side missions. I like the Osirioni ones ( my faction) I bought a scroll of Unseen servant who carried the body I had to find out of the dungeon for me as we continued to explore.
My moments to shine: First- when we had t cross the bridge vs. the poltergeists- I made a save to notice one pick up a rock to throw. My command undead ability actually worked for once, and I commanded him to attack another of the PGs so the remainder of the group could get thru the room.
Second - Second - I had a scroll of Floating disc and also on my spell list (usually use it to carry loot) Sedn a light character out on the scroll to reconnoiter the acid pool room, then cast one my self to get the Andoran PC over the acid to destroy the altar.
Third - I had a scroll of command undead on me when we hit the red wight. It failed its save. So I had it stand on the far side of the room while the other wizard used the ring of sustenance he had to regain his spells. I then commanded the wight to stand in the middle of the room while we loosely surround him buffed ourselves up and attacked.
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about to run this in a week, so preparing. i too will have a pc with control undead. will be fun. thanks for feed backs. it helps.
In the game I GMed at PaizoCon (tier 1-2) one of the players had Calm Animal and Speak Animal as spells.
The dogs are now hunting elsewhere and never bothered the party - nor was there any need to kill them.
Thod
I was one of the players in Thod's (3 Cleric) party. Fair enough we were T1-2 but we didn't have much issue with the traps, aside from the poor Taldan's painting going up in flames. At least it was his own fault ;)
As my second Society game, I enjoyed it greatly.
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In the game I GMed at PaizoCon (tier 1-2) one of the players had Calm Animal and Speak Animal as spells.The dogs are now hunting elsewhere and never bothered the party - nor was there any need to kill them.
This was my character. Calm animal is one of her domain spells(nature). The other option was Bless(community), but with a bard at the table she prepped the other. Speak with Animals is the nature domain ability. Didn't expect either of them to be useful, certainly not in an adventure named Among the Dead! :-)
I was one of the players in Thod's (3 Cleric) party. Fair enough we were T1-2 but we didn't have much issue with the traps, aside from the poor Taldan's painting going up in flames. At least it was his own fault ;)
My cleric isn't much of a fighter, but she is an excellent trap spotter. Luckily there were some brave men that could do the fighting. And let us hope that the Taldoran bard learned his lesson!
And Thod has the most amazing scenery! That really added a lot to the scenario!
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Absolutely, I've been looking into the Dwarven Forge stuff since I got home. Expensive, but looks so cool. A lot of folks took pictures of his barricade from TYOTSL and I'm sure there shall be pictures up soon enough.
Certainly has me thinking that I'm going to invest in some myself. Who knows, I might even take the SocietyCon DM plunge myself next year. Definitely planning on DMing home games with a local group I have uncovered, which reminds me that I need to email DM Wellard!
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Auke
Your spells really came as a surprise. Why would a player like you have prepared these spells. Your nature domain does explain a lot. Congratulations for well played spells to the best possible effect. And yes - your perception helped the group a lot. It probably would have prevented the fire trap as well - but the Taldoran can only blame himself for losing his PA.
John
I'm lucky that I started collecting nearly 9 years ago. I did have my own camera with me - but being a GM with 6 players at the table and taking pictures doesn't mix very well. I do have a few - and certainly some of the barricade - but not enough to do justice to all the scenes built up.
I still need to sort out the barricade. All the small stuff tends to be nicely sorted into themes 1) barrels and crates 2) Doors 3) Pedestals and Pillars 4) Beds 5) Tavern pieces etc.
All is still in one big pile in a box - will probably take me half an hour to sort out - but it was worth it. It was especially good when the first fighter tried to get up the barricade and missed his perception for traps. A little bit of wiggle and he was buried under a landslide with a door and other rubble on top of him.
If at any time you have questions in regard to DF - drop me a line. You should find my contact details by searching for games in the East Kent area using the Event Finder.
Thod
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Hi
I'm another player from PaizoCon last weekend.
Played in the Tier 3-4, with my Taldor Sorc 3/Pal 2. Glad I used this one - would have been lethal for my 1st lvl Rogue.
The Bridge wasn't a problem - got a wand of Magic Missiles. Just made sure we crossed one at a time. The room after that wasn't too difficult - the Cleric just dropped continual 'Produce Water' at 6 gallons a try....
The Zombie, was another story. 17 HP damage in one hit! I kept my Smite Evil for the end of scenario showdown. Ah well.......
Lastly - those 3D layouts were awesome. Really did make a difference to the 'playing experience'.
Thanks again...
Paul H
With a party of 1x5th,1x4th and 5 x 3rd levels including a summoner and a conjurer we had to play up to tier 6-7 with Josh as our GM...the first three fights were enough..we ran away after the bridge. However Mr Frost did maintain his record of never having killed a PC in Society play(though he came close a couple of times)
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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I ran the game the Tim was referring to...
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I played this one at Paizocon UK with the ever-impressive Rob Silk GMing.
Best part of the adventure was the massive snarking going on between the Osirion and Qadiran factions at the table. (The Osirians won the snark-off, in my utterly unbiased opinion...)
However Mr Frost did maintain his record of never having killed a PC in Society play(though he came close a couple of times)
Oh sure, rub it in. ><
However Mr Frost did maintain his record of never having killed a PC in Society play(though he came close a couple of times)Oh sure, rub it in. ><
Well ..we were lucky in the extreme I think and, after reading the scenario when I got home, if we had gone on I have my doubts as to whether we would have made it .
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I played this at GenCon. We had a rogue, but she never checked for traps! Anyway, there was no TPK and we all did fine.
I'm going to GM this on the weekend and have a question about Area A2: Crypt Entryway:
Those are the correct DCs for those traps per the trap section in the Core Rulebook.
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Whenever you hit 0 in a single stat, you fall unconscious, permanently, unless your stat goes above 0. The exception is Constitution, when you hit 0 CON, you die, permanently. The only way to raise your body is to immediately cast Lesser Restoration, Restoration, or Greater Restoration immediately after casting Raise Dead, Resurrection, or Greater Resurrection. Lesser Wish, Miracle, or Wish also can restore a body to life that is at 0 CON.
Or wait a day.
I suppose in this case, presuming there were infinite doses of poison present (or that some invisible mechanic prevented a character already at 0 from absorbing more poison) they'd just become re-poisoned each day and return to 0 after healing their 1 point. But they'd still simply be unconscious, not dead. If they died from starvation or thirst due to being unable to eat/drink, then they died from starvation or thirst, not poison, but the scenario says they are dead (not unconscious) and they died from poison (not starvation/thirst).
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Problem with that is that when they are raised, they'll be at 0 Con. 0 Con = dead, so they never live long enough for the healing to kick in. Once the lesser restoration kicks in, then the natural healing will bring the PC back up to full over time.I can't remember where, but there's an exception to this rule. It read something like this:
If you raise someone with CON equal to or less than 0, you may immediately cast Lesser Restoration, Restoration or Greater Restoration to remove enough stat damage so that Constitution rises above 0. If you fail to cast both spells, or the result of the spell does not raise the target's CON score above 0, the target remains dead.
Also, you can use Lesser Wish, Miracle and Wish to remove stat damage of a dead body before you do a raise/rez.
You're in the PFS forums, and those spells are not typically available at any of the tiers of this adventure.
Since the poison does strength damage, I would just assume that the constitution poison has been used up, or that it's weakened over time. Don't stress on it; the trap isn't meant to kill a player, just weaken them.
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Problem with that is that when they are raised, they'll be at 0 Con. 0 Con = dead, so they never live long enough for the healing to kick in. Once the lesser restoration kicks in, then the natural healing will bring the PC back up to full over time.I can't remember where, but there's an exception to this rule. It read something like this:
If you raise someone with CON equal to or less than 0, you may immediately cast Lesser Restoration, Restoration or Greater Restoration to remove enough stat damage so that Constitution rises above 0. If you fail to cast both spells, or the result of the spell does not raise the target's CON score above 0, the target remains dead.
Also, you can use Lesser Wish, Miracle and Wish to remove stat damage of a dead body before you do a raise/rez.
See bolded text ;)
