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Although what your GM did was incorrect (the group gains awareness, not individuals), your GM also told you that gaining 4 awareness was enough to have all trade in Bloodcove shut down , the mission failed, and the Act 4 thugs arrive.
The GM didn't explain tell us anything about awareness points, only that Bloodcove was dangerous as per the flavour text.
I would say the Aspis Consortium would actually show up at the bar (GMs discretion but since Luna is a AC Captain, I think she would also be aware at that point), so I don't think your party would be able to beat both Luna and the thugs in Act 4.
Everyone in the party would be captured and tortured, so imo your GM was probably saving the entire party from failing, being tortured (losing 1 Con), and sent back to Absalom. I think this was actually a case of a GM being nice (although it probably doesn't feel that way to you). Personally, I would have torched you all. :)
I'm pretty sure this disregards the defeat condition mentioned in the book.
Imo, I would just pay the 4 PA to get the Con penalty removed (Restoration spell), and move on. You were going to get the "Tortured by the Consortium" condition whether it happenned as an individual or as a group. The only thing your GM did wrong was being too nice to the rest of the party.
Is it only 4 PA? I believe it's 16 PA - the description for Restoration doesn't clear permanent ability drain.
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I'm pretty sure this disregards the defeat condition mentioned in the book.
Let's look carefully at what the text says.
The scenario also says:
"Losing against Ichon invites mockery and derision from the crowd for any survivors. If the PCs flee or leave Ichon alive,..."
Does that means she let's you go after she defeats you? I think it's open to GM interpretation.
The scenario says Lura is violent and diabolical, and she wants to make an example of the PCs. I interpret this as meaning she will kill and/or torture any PCs that surrender. The GM was nice and didn't TPK. If Lura captures and/or tortures you and the thugs from Act 4 show up, you gain the tortured condition.
The scenario also says:
"Leaving Ichon alive and free to move about the city also risks exposing the PCs’secret identities, which automatically causes the PCs to gain 4 Awareness Points."
Again, that's not the defeated condition, that's if she's still alive (she could be alive, even if you defeat her). If she defeats you, it's open to interpretation.
Even if you interpret Lura to be kind and gentle, if your awareness is 10+, the thugs from act 4 appear (and perhaps Lura also becomes suspicious and aware herself). There is nothing saying that Act 4 MUST occur on the water front, that's just an example location, assuming you're moving between locations when you get awareness 10. Which means unless you escape, you could be captured and "Tortured by the Aspis Consortium". At least that's how I interpret the scenario.
At a very minimum, if you're defeated, Lura will send thugs to kill Senzer, and thugs (from Act 4) will stop you before making your way back to Senzer. So most likely Senzer is dead, and you've failed part of the mission.
I think being defeated by Lura and having 10+ awareness points is open to interpretation, and for the reasons above, I think your GM was being nice.
Anyway, I don't really care to sway you anymore, that's how I would rule it as a GM, and it's not as nice as your GM.
Is it only 4 PA? I believe it's 16 PA - the description for Restoration doesn't clear permanent ability drain.
Restoration works for permanent stat loses. I think that includes the Con loss from the boon.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/restorationAccording to the Organized Play Guide, Restoration costs 2 PA (4 PA if it removes a permanent negative level). Or, it costs 380g (1380g if there's a negative level). 2 PA seems like a small price to pay.
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And I glance at the AR from part 1 to see what kind of Awairness total I'll be dealing with. The DM at the last game marked us with "4"s. What the heck? I've ordered part 1 to look it over and I can't figure out what's up. We should have gotten "1"... maybe.
That is an incredibly low total for this adventure regardless of how well you played it.
It is a group cumulative total, not an individual total in part 1 and for one encounter you get awareness points regardless of which way it goes.
This is not an issue for ME - I've played part 2. But my wife's character was one of the sneaks that pulled off a great run, and now if I run this for the crew I know they will have a total over 12 (before adding in anyone not at the other "great run" table).
Part 2 uses an average of the players scores not a total.
EDIT: Besides a higher total just makes a couple of encounters slightly tougher. It's not huge and might be welcomed depending on your party.
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I ran this the other day and I added a number of details which I think added to the experience.
First of all, in general, I don't think GMs make players work hard enough to come up with their own creative solutions in scenarios. Most GMs make it too easy, and just give their players a choice of option A-E. Allowing the players to struggle a little, ask questions, and be creative is much more interesting.
Regarding the disguise itself, I made the merchant option use either Appraise or Profession (Merchant) (or something similar). Diplomacy doesn't make as much sense and is an overused skill in general. Also, this is the 3rd scenario I've seen the PCs disguised as merchants, so it's overused. If we're going to give a good benefit (-1 awareness at Cartahegn), at least award it for having a rare skill like Appraise.
I also think it's important that the scenario emphasizes the fact that the PCs are most likely not black (Mwangi), and they don’t speak Polygot. I think emphasizing those points makes it much more difficult and allows for interesting situations (and perhaps humor). More importantly, it allows PCs with language, disguise, and illusion spells to shine.
For the Mwangi, I made them have a Jamaican accent. I thought this made the area distinct and it was fun.
My players picked pirates and this forced them to use Disguise / Intimidate, which they haven't used before. At one point they also used Low Profile.
I also added some fluff to the checks when moving between locations. For example, if you're a merchant the Aspis consortium wants to tax you, and/or forces you to be part of a guild. Pirates might be asked to join a ship or kill someone. Aspis might try to trick traitors by pretending to be Pathfinders. Use your imagination. Based on their short answers, I modified their roles by plus/minus 2-4. It's so much interesting than just requiring a roll each and every time.
With the Elanzo encounter, if the PCs selected combat, I was going to add +1 awareness. If they killed someone, I would have added another +1 awareness. To me it made sense, because even under pirate law, Elanzo was justified. The PCs would be lucky not to be arrested imo.
I felt that the encounter with the ants was disappointing, trivial, and a waste of time. There's no way 3 ants would stop House Cartahegn, it's unrealistic. As a player, I expected a LOT of ants (20+), something really challenging. When I played this, we killed the ants in 1 round.
So when I GMed this for my home game, I made this encounter something special. I think PFS should allow the "main" encounters to be completed in several ways. For me, I had the following options. I used the warehouse flip map for this encounter.
1) Combat (Fighter / Barbarian solution): At subtier 3-4, I had 10 worker ants and 1 soldier ant inside. This should be able to kill PCs at this subtier. But it doesn't come close. Between a 4th level fighter and a 4th level Samurai, they kill 2 ants each round, not including anyone else. And at AC 21, they're almost untouchable. So combat is still a viable option if that's the route the PCs choose to take.
2) Distraction (rogue / monk solution): The option they selected was to coat the ninjas cloak with a goo that attracts/angers the ants. Basically the ninja would hop around the warehouse on top of the boxes, while the ants chase after him, while everyone else coats the tunnel with the poison. The ninja took a total of 10 AoO but survived. My players liked this and it felt cinematic and different.
3) Streets (bard solution :) ): The other option was to use the goo and lead the ants out in the street (to get killed). Any PC could do this option, there was no risk, but it would come with the penalty of +1 awareness point.
Although it ran the scenario much too long, this is the kind of encounter design I expect from PFS, with these kinds of options. If I had to do it again and/or I had time constraints (4 hours), I would just handwave the ant encounter altogether.
For the Lura encounter, I made sure she had Haste, to buff the encounter. She almost didn't make it out of round 1 with 2 rogues though. In the end, I dropped 2 PCs (out of 6) into negatives and it was the correct challenge level with Haste. I can see Haste being too challenging however for non-combat groups. In the end, Lura escaped. The combination of Invisibility and summoning is just too powerful, I ended the encounter (before she ran out of summoning spells) because her summons weren't enough to threaten us with our healing.
Tbh, I was hoping that with 2 rogues that they'd try to steal from Lura instead of combat, but it didn't happen. In the end, because Lura survived, we had to take Senzer and Roald with us into part 2, which will be interesting.
We didn't do the optional encounter either when I GMed or played, it's not a bad encounter, there just isn't enough time (and we didn't accrue enough awareness).
Played right, I actually thought this encounter was just as good as the Lura encounter in it's own way.
I did the following to enhance the details of this encounter:
1) First of all, you should use the correct map in the map pack. Use the correct bridge map, not the map that's printed in the scenario. Makes a HUGE difference.
2) Second, the ambush was setup as follows. The thugs would be on the side of the bridge closest to the PCs, and have total concealment in the jungle. They'd have a +22 stealth bonus because they can't be seen (which is like invisibility) and distance. Xeanja would be on the other side of the bridge, looking for the PCs, and she'd have a stealth bonus of +5 (for distance). Before the PCs cross the bridge, Xeanja casts Web on the bridge (blocks it and block LOS to her), shouts for the thugs, and then attempts to parlay with the PCs. In combat, Xeanja should be free to cast from range, making the encounter much harder.
3) Don't forget to pickpocket the PC with the key with her lizard. I made it so that her vision of the PCs included a vision on who had the key and where is was. Anyway, this detail (the lizard), makes a typical encounter even better.
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Im not harping about scenario changing, cause Ive done it as well to make the encounter more enjoyable. In the last encounter you mention, if line of sight TO Xeanja is blocked by the PCs, then in almost any case line of sight from Xeanja to the PCs should be blocked as well, which would seriously hamper her ability to be effective. No LOS, no target.
Also, the way in which you changed the lizard stuff gives it a seriously increased chance of succeeding at its mission. Not that thats a bad thing, but still, BIG increase in chance of success.
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Im not harping about scenario changing, cause Ive done it as well to make the encounter more enjoyable. In the last encounter you mention, if line of sight TO Xeanja is blocked by the PCs, then in almost any case line of sight from Xeanja to the PCs should be blocked as well, which would seriously hamper her ability to be effective. No LOS, no target.
I agree, but she's not standing on the bridge, so she could move to the side when she wants to cast and then gain LOS. A lot of her spells are medium range, so it shouldn't be a problem.
The truth is, 1+ PCs are going to burst through the web (that spell was nerfed to the ground). Then it's 1v1 with Xeanja, which is fairly interesting.
I'd use the tactics listed, but they're just bad and doesn't lead to a good play experience. When I played it, my 2H fighter charged Xeanja and basically ended the encounter. Which is why I give this scenario 3 stars. Almost every encounter lasted 1 round.
Also, the way in which you changed the lizard stuff gives it a seriously increased chance of succeeding at its mission. Not that thats a bad thing, but still, BIG increase in chance of success.
I think the lizard trying to steal the key is actually the unique aspect of this encounter, and without the lizard having a chance of success, it's boring.
I figured if Xeanja was good enough to get a vision of the key, she was good enough to see the location of the key. /shrug
When I was a player, I had no idea a lizard even existed, so this unique aspect of the encounter was lost.
On average it takes the lizard 4 rounds to perceive the location of the key. In most cases the combat won't last 4 rounds.
In practice, the lizard still has to Stealth to the PCs, which is unlikely because someone always has a high Perception. (And according to "the rules", even though the PCs aren't facing the lizard, Stealth always fails without cover).
Then, he has a 35% chance of success (which means an average of 3 rounds) to pick pocket it. During that time, the PC gets perception checks (opposed Perception against a +6 Sleight!) to detect the lizard.
So if Omb doesn't know the location, it's going to take him an average of at least 8 rounds to complete his mission (1 round travel min). This fight isn't going to last 8 rounds, even with my changes. I don't mean to be critical of the scenario design, but the writers should consider things like this.
My PCs killed Omb with an AoO because he failed his Stealth check. And that's how it goes. At least it was cool that he tried to pick pocket.
Also, there's no real penalty for losing the key. In part 2, the Aspis army has the key on them anyway. So if the lizard gets crazy lucky and gets away with it, it's just part of the story.
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Actually - when I played this the judge just had the lizard pull it off. No rolls, no timeing - oh, and she got away (running thru the jungle - even though we tried an Entangle to slow her down.) Was VERY depressing. We were short on time, so just Judges handwave. Oh, and the person the lizard lifted it from invisible at the time, surrounded by other PCs, on top of a wagon.
LOL! Wow, that's bad.
I guess you didn't encounter or kill Xeanja the witch?
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She was a witch? we never knew. only saw her for 2 or 3 rounds, before she ran off thru the jungle (faster than we could follow) as her lizard disappeared with the key. (at tier 3-4). We figured it was "boxed text".
Nope, it wasn't boxed text. As you've seen, the lizard needed to make a +14 Stealth check (opposed by player Perception), followed by a +1 Perception check (DC 15), followed by a +7 Sleight check (DC 20), followed by a Sleight check (opposed by vs victim perception).
The probability of doing that in 3 rounds is... low. Just the Perception and Sleight checks, it would be 14%, then add in the opposed Stealth and Sleight checks. Actually, the probability, since the target was invisible is 0% (rolling a 20 wouldn't even make the Perception check). Yeah... LOL. GM god mode! Not sure what your GM was thinking. I guess he really liked that particular storyline. :)
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If it makes you feel any better, my group was running short on time when we got to the encounter, and had grown tired of fighting the same group of 3-4 grunts over and over in the scenario. I skipped the encounter altogether, explaining what was supposed to happen, and had the one PC who had the key roll opposed checks with the lizard to see if he noticed it 'during the fight'. He did, so it didnt get away with the key. The players were all fine with it.
Off topic, I dont know who the author of the scenario is or if they are in charge of designing the stats for the bad guys in the scenario they write, BUT I find it extremely annoying and lazy that the same subpar stats were used for each and every generic grunt in the scenario. At least change something, anything so each fight with a group of guards is a bit different than the last set of guards.
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Off topic, I dont know who the author of the scenario is or if they are in charge of designing the stats for the bad guys in the scenario they write, BUT I find it extremely annoying and lazy that the same subpar stats were used for each and every generic grunt in the scenario. At least change something, anything so each fight with a group of guards is a bit different than the last set of guards.
Grunts aren't supposed to have great stats imo. Considering they're grunts, a 15 str is very good (I would expect a 12-14 in the prime stat for a grunt). But sure, they could have had different tactics. The grunts are basically cannon fodder anyway, dead in 1-2 rounds.
The unfortunate part of the grunts was that the scenario didn't actually reuse the same stat blocks for the grunts, which mean they were reprinted again and again for no reason. 1st/2nd/5th level warrior fodder. It was kind of a waste of word count, which could have been used for other things.
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Restoration will fix the Con loss. It was answered by VC Bob Jonquet on the bottom of page 1.
As written, they can't (logically) do the 2nd mission. It says they're tortured for 2 weeks and then sent back to Absalom by boat (which would take a long time). In Rescue, they *barely* make it to the camp in time. If you're following the story, they're too late.
You could revise the story and let them play Rescue, but they'd be taking the +15/20 awareness with them, which will make it a lot harder for the new group. In addition, if no one in the new group successfully played part 1, they have no key. If it was the same group from part 1, it makes absolutely no sense why the enemies in act 1 would have the key.
Also, if the group couldn't handle the combat in Bloodcove, they definitely can't handle it in Rescue either (especially with everything being harder because of no supplies and awareness), so it's probably best to stay away.
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There's nothing stopping you from playing part 2 if you failed part 1.
There's nothing stopping you from playing part 2 if you haven't played part 1.
While I agree the adventures make the most sense back to back, and the second adventure implies that is happens right after the first, there's no such restriction on players and I feel it's bad to try and add extra here in an attempt to maintain verisimilitude. Especially if it means you "have bad news for some new guys."
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Ha! I played them in the wrong order. and didn't really have a problem with the timeing - it was the change is judges style that seemed to effect it more.
I also played them out of order and you're right, it isn't a problem playing them out of order, but you can potentially get a crappy Awareness score playing them out of order (which happenned to me, which can make Rescue a lot harder.
There's also nothing (technically) stopping you from playing Rescue after a failed Bloodcove, but since you already have a bad awareness score, the combat challenges are going to be very difficult, more difficult than Bloodcove. But it's still possible to succeed.
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Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I ran this last weekend, and I was shocked, the group of 5 only failed about 5 checks, and with them posing as merchants and killing the ants, they finished with 5. I think they would have done better in the first round of checks if they had listened better and realized that some of them could use appraise instead of diplomacy. (hmm lets see -1 diplomacy or +4 appraise...)
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Hate to bring up such an old thread, but I had a question about the boon: Favor of Cartahegn. Since characters do their shopping between mods, can they just declare that their always shopping in Garund now? And get the 10% off with everything that's bought between mods?
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Here's the text of the favor:
"The Favor of Cartahegn: While in a settlement of 5,000 people or more anywhere on the continent of Garund, you may purchase mundane equipment (but not weapons or armor) through your favorable connections with House Cartahegn at a 10% discount."
Here's my rationale for why it can only be used while you're in a scenario and you're in a settlement of 5,000 people or more: Because that's when the favor says it can be used. It doesn't say "You may use this favor except when you are on a mission outside of a settlement of 5,000 people on the continent of Garund."
I disagree that unlimited time means you can travel anywhere in Golarion to shop for equipment. The unspecified amount of time that occurs between missions is a sidestep by the Campaign to address the travel time and recuperating after missions. I don't think the intent was free personal travel anywhere you want.
Does my interpretation of the favor make it next to useless considering how often those conditions are met? Yes. However, I'll point out that the vast majority of favors that Mr. Frost crafted from Season 0 until halfway into Season Two were also next to useless. It follows that this was his intent.
once per scenario.
(with a 60% success rate). When you have used this ability, check the box to the left.
Thistledown, if you don't like my reasons there's nothing to prevent you from exploiting a gray area. You don't play at my tables, and that's the only place where my opinion carries weight. I'm just explaining it how I see it.
