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I thought carefully before putting this thread in the GM section, although I am a player, since the comments I have here would be most relevant for GMs. Please move this guy if I put it in the wrong subforum.
I just returned from Gencon, where our group played all games possible for our level. It was an exceptionally enjoyable time--overall one of my best Gencons ever, and since I spent 5 4-hour slots of it playing PFS scenarios, this was in no small part due to PFS. So I love you guys, and I really respect the work and effort that everyone put in to give us all a great time. I want to emphasise that because this post is meant to be constructive for future adventures, not meant as criticism of PFS (with so many slam dunks and homeruns, it would be silly of me to be down on PFS as a whole just because of one adventure in particular).
It is thus with the utmost respect that I say that I think there seemed to be something off with the balance/timing of Rescue of Azlant Ridge (at least at Tier 3-4). I want to emphasise that I'm posting this with all intent to help make this very cool module run better for others and make PFS better as a whole because I know that tone is hard to convey over the internet and I realise that I'm about to post some criticism: I'm impressed with the way that our GM and the PFS staff member he asked for advice handled the way that the scenario went over time at our table--the GM didn't say who it was, but Josh, if that unnamed staff member was you, this is not the first time you helped my group with logistics at Gencon, as the player of the Barbarian had bought tickets for the wrong scenario last year and you found us a game anyway, so I owe you a drink next Gencon (or Paizocon if I can convince our group to attend next year). Our group even has a meme where whenever there's a problem at Gencon, no matter how unrelated to PFS, we just say "We should call Josh Frost and he'll make the problems go away."
So again, this is a report of my perspective and an attempt to help out, not a complaint against the GM or the scenario writer, both of whom are great. I will explain below.
First a bit about me--I enjoy mixing the roleplaying and mechanics aspects of Pathfinder and analysing both of them heavily--you can check out my guides to Rogue and Fighter (or my new ratings for the APG Druid variants in Treantmonk's druid thread) to see if you agree with any of my analysis or to see a bit of where I come from on a rules perspective. (It's important for me to mention this because I will be judging the relative level of optimisedness of party members in my analysis)
I will also warn that I tried to buy the module specifically so I could comment more intelligently on what happened, but it isn't available yet. I'll be buying it to help revise my assessment because you guys who organised and GMed the Gencon Pathfinder Society went to such an effort to make things fun for all of us that I think the least I can do is spend the $4 and be able to provide more useful advice. The GM seemed to know the module well though, and in any event I trust his decisions and calls.
Anyway, just in case someone is reading this who hasn't played Azlant Ridge, or some of the other scenarios I'm going to mention in this post (Devil We Know Parts I and II, City of Strangers I and II, Before the Dawn Part I, and Among the Dead), I'm going to spoiler the rest of this post--(brace yourselves--I went long, so prepare for a Spiceresque length block ^_~ )
Our group of four is a Barbarian, a Sorcerer, a Rogue, and a Cleric, so right away, we have a good mix. I play the Cleric, and I focus on healing and aiding others, so I usually get a very good sense of how people are doing in health. In Azlant Ridge, we had more help than usual (two extra level 3 Sorcerers were added to our group, and one of them had a fully charged level 3 Wand of Magic Missile that he was not afraid to use every single round that he didnt have a good Colour Spray available). We had only collected 2 of those awareness points for getting noticed in Part I (which I hear is quite good), without those Sorcerers, and I think we had taken something like 4 damage in that whole scenario, finishing in two hours easily. Going in, this was looking to be a good day for us. In Azlant Ridge, we ran out of time, and the GM was pretty convinced we would have TPKed if we had more time, so much so that he declared us all dead at first, which almost demoralised us out of playing our next two games of the day, which turned out to be with our best GMs of the trip out of a group of great GMs (Chris Mortika and Matt Morton).
Before I go on, I will say that two of our six party members were level 2. Thus, I feel that I should spend a short time motivating why I don't think that this was an issue in my analysis of Azlant Ridge's difficulty and length vis-a-vis other PFS scenarios (if you are interested only in Azlant Ridge, skip this paragraph). These characters are fairly powerful. They walked all over Cassomir's Locker last Gencon with just the four of them at first level, without the poor Sorcerer or my Cleric getting a chance to cast a single spell between us. In Shipyard Rats, which I have heard was pretty hard, we had some others to help, and we also resoundingly took care of it. When these four PCs (mostly level 1 at the time) and a level 1 Wizard friend cleaned the clock of Before the Dawn Part I in half the time and with almost no damage, our GM suggested that we play up next time, since all of us were level 2 after that mod. Our next game was City of Strangers Part I, and we did so. That time, it was just our four and a Bard who generally liked to anger the NPCs and rarely take actions to aid in combat, but we gave it a shot anyway. The only reason we even had a character knocked out was that the Barbarian forgot that he had Uncanny Dodge in the Collgarde house encounter, and we killed the bard before he could do anything other than scare away the Barbarian with a fear spell (we interrupted his summons). In City of Strangers Part II, the only thing that ever caused more than cosmetic damage was the scorpion, and the Paladin (one of the most interesting roleplayers I've seen in PFS, who keeps actual chronicles with the names of all his enemies and allies) shook the hand of both the Barbarian and the Rogue and told them that they didn't need his help to vanquish the evil there. In Among the Dead, Bailaset did some significant damage, but since he only had one attack, I kept up with him, blow for heal, and no one was ever in serious danger. In fact, the Barbarian's player commented, and I agreed, that all the monster encounters in Among the Dead fought simultaneously would be easier to contend with than Azlant Ridge.
So on to Azlant Ridge! Caveat--I think our GM knew the scenario well, as he had run it three times before (TPK, TPFlee, and victory, he said), but anything I say here that makes you go "Wait a minute--it doesn't say that in the mod!" might be from a discrepancy in running it. The GM was extremely fair to us throughout, and the spell hiccups in the paragraph below were consistently in our favour, so a thank you to our GM--I want to emphasise that he did a great job, and this post is all about the mod.
The flavour and thematics here are strong, and the Kaijuesque fight is a fun addition for the player type who loves big numbers and special effects. In fact, we were having a lot of fun with this adventure at most points along the way. In fact, no single encounter in the entire module was inappropriate for the PCs. The problem is that it was far too long (take that from a group that tends to finish other modules in half the time, except in mods like City of Strangers where we filled up the spare time with lots of roleplaying with NPCs) and it was way too many fights in the same day--I remember reading somewhere that the PFS mods were designed assuming you might not have a full group of 6 or even a balanced party with roles like healer filled. I've seen the signs of that design decision all over the place in other PFS modules, and as someone who notices the little things, I really appreciate the craftsmanship of mods like City of Strangers Part II which throw in healing items for the beleaguered party with no main healer even though our party didn't need them. Azlant Ridge didn't really have many of these--it did have the Fireball scroll, which turned out to be crucial, but I think a healerless party would have simply sputtered out with all the things you have to fight.
Onto the fights--we start with the encounter against the Aspis Consortium members. We got through this with only mild resources spent--a few first level spells from among the Sorcerers and some wand charges to heal from the devastating mounted charge. After this comes the ghouls--having run through Skinsaw Murders fairly recently and been frustrated with the low to-hit and DCs of ghouls, I recognised right away that these are advanced ghouls or something--they were hitting numbers higher than regular ghouls and they had DCs that were higher too. Thus, the Barbarian managed to get himself paralysed after rolling I think it was 14 or 15 on his Fort save in a spot in those ruins where the ghouls moved up so that literally no one could enter the room without an impossible Acrobatics DC (through a square threatened by five ghouls and then through a ghoul's square that was also threatend by two others). Chalk this up to GM tactics, but it was a damn good tactic. To avoid Coup de Grace action, we had to use up the Fireball scroll at this point and then eat the AoOs to enter the area. A lot of others got paralysed in the rescue op, but other than using up the Fireball scroll and one of my Channel Positive Energies to clear space to get in, this didn't take other resources (we healed with the wand and avoided ghoul fever narrowly). At this point, we tried various skill checks on the item found within, but we got no result from rolling things like 28 UMD and 25 Knowledge Arcana / Spellcraft, so we guessed that we needed to bring it to the glowing orb (I'm still unclear if we did or not). As soon as we walked outside, the final battle waves begun--fortunately, I had used my entire spells-per-day list on minute per level or longer buffs just before this, so we were as prepared as possible, and I had three wands of CLW and most of my luck touches and Channel Positive Energies left (and the Sorcerers were all at higher than half their spells remaining):
The waves seemed to be something like a level 3 or 4 Druid with the highest DC of Entangle that I have seen at this level range, with his Tiger companion and two (later 4) ape mook buddies. A giant kaiju Girallon also appeared and started trashing the place. There was a description of an ongoing fight with the other people in the camp against other apes, but no indication of generally how many more waves would happen. Before we could act, the Druid cast Entangle on us all, and a 16 failed the Reflex Save, thus entrapping over half the party, many of whom would have serious trouble making the DC 17+ Escape Artist / Grapple check to get out. The Barbarian happened to make his save (one of two characters who did) and had 40 foot move, so with the difficult terrain, we sent him to bring the glowy box to the orb, taking him out of the fight in exchange for the giant kaiju golem (if we had known this would happen, we would have sent in a Sorcerer instead, but it still was fine for us, we just used more charges of wands and such this way). I checked up on Entangle after the game and the GM forgot part of the rules (or was being nice) and didn't have it reentangle us each round, which would have made the effect even crazier, considering the high DC to break out. Another thing that the GM did that was nice was that he rarely had the Druid take other actions while it controlled its Flaming Sphere to move around. And a third--he had all the spell effects of each Druid vanish with the Druid's death, which I don't think is standard but was very helpful. Now here's a part that's a head-scratcher based on casual talk with others who played this scenario--most other players spoke of the golem taking out the Girallon quickly and easily, in just a few rounds. When it comes to not having enough time to play, the amount of time it took to take down that Girallon was pretty crucial--the Barbarian had the golem move at maximum speed in the best way each round and he never missed with any attacks. Nonetheless, it took seven grueling rounds of combat (this is once the titans clashed, not starting from when he woke up inside the golem) to finish the thing off. I've heard that we may have had to fight extra enemies because of this (we killed two waves of Druid, Companion, and two apes during that time but were told that it was only wave 1). So we had killed in that day a mounted fighter, four archers, five ghouls, two druids with companions, and four mini-apes, not counting the Clash of the Titans. It wasn't easy getting out of the Entangle--everyone but the Rogue (and the Barbarian who was in the golem) had about a 25-25% chance of escaping, and in fact several character only escaped when the first Druid died and the GM had the effect end. The Sorcerers did their best to conserve magic, and the guy with the wand was spamming it to take out the first Druid, but we still were running low on Sorcerer spells by the end, and I was down to three Channels and three Luck Touches. And that was wave 1.
Wave two came and we got back our Barbarian--we tried to demoralise them with the fact that we killed their boss, but it didn't work. We managed that one too, but this burned out two of the Sorcerers, and I was running critically low on luck touch and channel positive energy. The wand-wielding Sorcerer still had some Colour Sprays, though, and he could hand the wand to another who had no better action. Everyone was at full health, and our CLW wands were doing fine. Then came wave 3, and another Entangle. At this point, time ran out. The GM told us that there were so many waves left (I think he said there were three after that) that we would all definitely die, but he allowed anyone who made the Reflex save or could escape in one round to flee into the locked door and barricade ourselves in there, which seemed pretty fair to me--his rationale is that we would do well until the enemies got a lucky crit on the Barbarian, which makes sense, though I wish we could have played it out and potentially emerged victorious against all odds (the wands gave us a fighting chance). However, this still killed off two of the PCs with insufficient funds for Raise, and since they didn't die onscreen, this demoralised us and might have made us skip out on our next adventures (which were our best ones in all of PFS), but the GM saved the day by checking up front and telling us that since time ran out, we just lose all prestige for the mission and nobody dies. Everyone was very happy with that result except the player of the Sorcerer with the expensive wand (who wasn't part of our group of four). Whoever was at the desk and made that call (plus our GM)--you are part of what made our Gencon great, so I want to thank you again. And I also want to help as best I can because I anticipate that this mod may cause issues for other groups as well.
So my thoughts--how is this supposed to finish in four hours? Our GM was not particularly slow, but the sheer number of encounters in this adventure is daunting. It's seven by my counts, and if the fact (heard from another player at another scenario) that more apes spawn during the girallon part is true, then the one with the kaiju is more-or-less guaranteed to take a certain number of rounds to finish (the number of rounds to activate the golem + walk the golem down to the girallon + ~7 to kill the girallon assuming no 1s or 20s rolled). There is also a reasonable amount of RP going on in the camp itself, as the PCs have missions that involve talking to the NPCs, and in the case of the Andorens at least, the Taldoran VC took a lot of convincing to acquiesce. Other scenarios tend to have four encounters on average, five when we're running well on time and do the bonus encounter. Also, and I guess we don't know this yet since it was a Gencon premiere--are people playing with less optimised groups (or groups of 4 characters) actually beating this module on 3-4 tier? For instance, without a healer, this would have burned through more than one CLW wand for us, and it didn't provide many one-shot healing items. It's not that I think the scenario is necessarily "too hard" by an objective scale--I think we might have been able to win if we had more time to play it out. I do think that by the scale of comparing to all other PFS scenarios that I have played (which is admittedly only 10) that this one stands out as much much more difficult and will likely blindside and TPK / TPFlee a good number of groups. I'd place better odds to send our party through any two other scenarios we've played before (back to back with no time to rest) than the odds we had at Azlant Ridge that day.
So what can be done? I really like the setup for this scenario. I'd like to help with some potential edits that I think would help a lot, and I hope others reading will join me--your ideas are probably better than mine. First is stuff that GMs can do without modifying the adventure at all:
1) Tip Off About the Golem Item with good skill checks--maybe a DC 20 Arcana, Spellcraft, UMD or something can give a sense that the item projects your consciousness somewhere. This wasn't as bad as it could be for us, but many PFS parties will have only one of some crucial role, and if that character is lost, it could be pretty bad--if I had become the golem, that would have been scary for them, since the best they could do was down the few potions they had and then pray for a successful UMD on the wands. Surely losing the Barbarian (and thus the flank partner for the Rogue) was the second worst thing that could happen.
2) Let Them Know How the Ape Army is Looking--"You may have killed their leader, but about 90% of the apes remain and they seem completely undaunted by their loss and ready to crush you after a quick regroup" would help--after we had time to seal up the breach, the situation gave off the sense that the army was at that point scattered and disorganised and somewhat shocked that we killed their incredibly powerful leader and that what would be left to strike us would possibly be a last gasp of powerful troops. Give your players a sense of how much is left each wave so they can budget accordingly--even with perfect budgeting this will still be tough.
3) Give time to rest--I know the whole thing is packed in as far as time goes, but there's a few time skips where there could be a rest. The most convincing and easiest possibility (but also least useful for conserving resources) would be to have it take another day by caravan to reach the site after the Aspis Consortium fight. Another idea is to have the item to wake the golem fail to activate until the Girallon comes no matter what the PCs do and then let them make it out with the item and rest (possibly RPing with the saved Aspis Consortium agents if there is any time) only to have the monkeys attack later that night (but after the spellcasters had a chance to recover spells).
And here's some that require minor adjustments:
1) More healing--this wasn't an issue for our group because my cleric is pretty dedicated to healing and we had three wands of CLW, but I think other groups would benefit a lot.
2) Standardise the monsters--If it is the case that the big boss spawns unlimited numbers of his minions as your party blows through them during the fight with him, consider eliminating a wave for each time they do that. The only difference between a set of his minions and a full wave without him in it is two of the really mooky apes, and you're down a character at the time for the golem. If a party spends lots of resources and somehow takes down three groups of these guys while the Girallon is out, they won't have much left for the coming waves, but they had no way to know that those apes counted for less than the ones that were to come--I suggest making them count.
3) Lower the Entangle DC--This may not be necessary because none of the people I talked to who passed the scenario even had the enemies use Entangle on them, so maybe this should be in the other section above and have it be advice to not have them lead with Entangle? The DC is very difficult to break out of, and with Entangle's full effect, few characters will be able to get out of the area, all the while taking a penalty to Dex and attack rolls for a total of -4 to hit with ranged attacks. I know those mooky apes aren't dynamite foes, but with the -4 to Entangled PCs, the apes had a respectable ranged attack bonus compared to a level 3 to 4 PC and the thrown rocks seemed to do 1d4+3, which is at least comparable to the damage from a non-dedicated archer. And difficulty notwithstanding, Entangle significantly slowed down the fight and contributed to running out of time.
And a big change, but also the only one other than Entangle that will help with the time issue:
1) Think about lowering the number of waves--The GM implied that there were five waves. If everything was normal in our game, the first wave will take at least 11 rounds (1 to wake up the golem, 3 to get him over to the girallon assuming no interference from Entangle, 7 to kill the girallon). With 6 players and a GM, let's assume each round takes 7 minutes (I think this is a significant underestimate, since it assumes the GM can muster all the monsters in a single minute). That's 77 minutes right there. Thanks to Entangle delaying a lot, our group took a while to kill the other apes too. I think killing each new wave in 3 rounds is an underestimate as well, and that's 84 more minutes right there for the other four waves. That's already over 2.5 hours for the epic ape war with super-fast GM and players who efficiently slaughter each wave with little difficulty. Add to that at least four rounds for the Aspis Consortium and for the ghouls and you now have less than half an hour for roleplaying and doing other faction missions. I suppose that also means it's doable if you make sure to run very quickly and you streamline the RP of the faction missions (which seemed to have us split up and talk to people a lot), but if your PCs are having trouble and taking longer (or if there are Entangles and other things to slow things down), even if they would be able to win, I just don't think it will finish.
Last word--I'd love to hear other opinions, corrections in places where I'm wrong (as I often am!), or other suggestions for helping make a really cool mod more streamlined and more in line with other PFS mods in difficulty and length.
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When I get some time to respond to your pretty healthy post, I'll do so.
You're not out of line, but there were some discrepancies in how you said things ran vs. the way I saw them being run (and ran them myself). The adventure took my group a solid four hour and fifteen minutes, but a group of friends of mine that played said they were done in three. It could have just been GMing style.
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I read through your post and I don't want to throw your GM under the bus, but I am interested in hearing your thoughts after you read the scenario (when it becomes available).
Hey Doug Doug--glad to hear from the 5-Star GM himself! I have to say I'm a bit unnerved though, as it sounds from the way you phrased your post that the way the GM ran it may not have jibed with the scenario. Personally I thought the GM did a good job and I wouldn't want to second-guess his decisions or playstyle (as per page 19 of the guide), but if he really did run things differently and people think it's OK for me to do so, I'll be happy to point out my new perspective once I've bought the module. I just want to help in whatever way I can (and if there's really no issue and the best way to help is for me to be quiet, I'm happy to do that too ^_^ ).
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Interesting to read. I played this at Gen Con also, and had an opposite result. I was in a group with 3 level 5 and 3 level 6 characters, and not only did we finish in 3 hours, but it was the biggest cake walk of an adventure I've ever played. My suspicion is that despite telling the GM several times that we were playing in the 6-7 tier, he used the 3-4 tier monsters. Not sure I want to buy the scenario to verify this, but the AC of the mook apes was 14, which seems pretty low for the tier.
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Interesting to read. I played this at Gen Con also, and had an opposite result. I was in a group with 3 level 5 and 3 level 6 characters, and not only did we finish in 3 hours, but it was the biggest cake walk of an adventure I've ever played. My suspicion is that despite telling the GM several times that we were playing in the 6-7 tier, he used the 3-4 tier monsters. Not sure I want to buy the scenario to verify this, but the AC of the mook apes was 14, which seems pretty low for the tier.
I'd have to agree with Joel. I thought the scenario was a cakewalk. The Aspis Consortium mercenaries were nerfed by their lack of trained horses at 1-2 and 3-4. Even adding more mercs on account of awareness didn't phase most groups.
The undead were nerfed by their 0 intelligence meaning they did not use tactics, they just came straight at the PCs and mindlessly attacked. They had the standard DC 13 vs paralysis. The entangle was a nuisance and the DC 14 wasn't hard to overcome. The girillon was dead in two rounds. It had a 5' reach [typo] vs the golem's 15' reach. It had no defense vs the golem while the golem got to take 15 off the top of whatever the girillon could dish out.
My table's only player death was when a PC forgot to move out of the way and ended up standing between the two titans. I figured I'd teach him a lesson and take a bite out of him. I rolled a nat 20 in the open, couldn't help but confirm it and he went from full to dead in one hit.
I almost had another PC death when the mercenary captain charged a barbarian with a 10 constitution at tier 3-4. But a player pointed out I had forgotten to make the ride check for him and he failed it to everyone's relief (including mine).
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Hey Doug Doug--glad to hear from the 5-Star GM himself! I have to say I'm a bit unnerved though, as it sounds from the way you phrased your post that the way the GM ran it may not have jibed with the scenario. Personally I thought the GM did a good job and I wouldn't want to second-guess his decisions or play style (as per page 19 of the guide), but if he really did run things differently and people think it's OK for me to do so, I'll be happy to point out my new perspective once I've bought the module. I just want to help in whatever way I can (and if there's really no issue and the best way to help is for me to be quiet, I'm happy to do that too ^_^ ).
Hey all, Friendly GM that ran the scenario here to add to the discussion. I'm not afraid of a little criticism as it helps me grow as well. Wanted to clarify a few points.
GM fumbles:
#1. DC for the FIRST entangle spell i accidentally looked at the DC for the tier 6-7 druid rather than the tier 3-4. I realized i had made that mistake a few rounds later and let it go for consistency sake. I did correct it for the future entangle spells. (Its the reason i let the entangle go away when druid died).
#2. I forgot to add in the -1 to the ghoul's attack for lack of intelligence.
Hey, we all gotta own up to our mistakes right? =)
Points of clarification:
#1. The average group awareness was 4.8 (two added sorcerers had a awareness of 12 and 9 bumping the average up. One had played before and the other rolled badly for his since he hadn't played first part) I bumped the average to 5, which only affects the 1st fight.
#2. Clarification for players who read this. It was designed for there to be 3 WAVES of guys, with 2 groups of guys per wave. Extra groups of guys if the Golem helps parties kill monkeys. This group fought 3 groups of badies. First group was fought while big guys went at it, second group after big guy went down, third group (start wave 2), then fourth group appeared when time ran out.
#3. I did extend the life of King Kong by two rounds on purpose. Felt it made the fight more epic to let the player control the golem longer and didn't feel that two round would affect time overly much.
I may post more later. Wanted to keep this simple and just point out these specifics.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts when you see the actual setup. I appreciate your kind words on my decisions and choices and your enthusiasm to make Pathfinder the greatest game available. In the end, all we GMs want is to make the games as exciting as possible for the players and as successful as possible for Paizo. =) I hope to see you again next year, and your continuing thoughts on the forums.
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Interesting to read. I played this at Gen Con also, and had an opposite result. I was in a group with 3 level 5 and 3 level 6 characters, and not only did we finish in 3 hours, but it was the biggest cake walk of an adventure I've ever played. My suspicion is that despite telling the GM several times that we were playing in the 6-7 tier, he used the 3-4 tier monsters. Not sure I want to buy the scenario to verify this, but the AC of the mook apes was 14, which seems pretty low for the tier.
I have two friends that may have played in that game. They came back to the room and told me what they had been up against and I can absolutely confirm they got tier 6-7 rewards for playing the 3-4 adventure.
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I'd have to agree with Joel. I thought the scenario was a cakewalk. The Aspis Consortium mercenaries were nerfed by their lack of trained horses at 1-2 and 3-4. Even adding more mercs on account of awareness didn't phase most groups.
Interestingly, this was the hardest of the fights if the group didn't have much in the way of melee. The bad guys didn't have to suffer through their untrained horses if nobody is entering melee to fight them. I also skewered a cavalier with a CON of 10 on the first round of combat, but that's what he got for riding off by himself in a charge against one of the bowmen. He nearly died if it weren't for the brave cleric who got close enough to stabilize.
The undead were nerfed by their 0 intelligence meaning they did not use tactics, they just came straight at the PCs and mindlessly attacked. They had the standard DC 13 vs paralysis. The entangle was a nuisance and the DC 14 wasn't hard to overcome. The girillon was dead in two rounds. It had a 5' reach [typo] vs the golem's 15' reach. It had no defense vs the golem while the golem got to take 15 off the top of whatever the girillon could dish out.
Exactly. If you do the math behind the Gorillion and the Iron Golem it wasn't even a challenge. The Iron Golem dished out enough damage in an average round to take the big ape down in three. Even rolling minimum there wasn't any way for the fight to last much more than that.
My table's only player death was when a PC forgot to move out of the way and ended up standing between the two titans. I figured I'd teach him a lesson and take a bite out of him. I rolled a nat 20 in the open, couldn't help but confirm it and he went from full to dead in one hit.
I saw the mighty Doug Doug running his tables without a GM screen. It made me feel better that I ran mine without one too. It made everything feel more legitimate to a group of players I don't know.
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Hey Doug Doug--glad to hear from the 5-Star GM himself! I have to say I'm a bit unnerved though, as it sounds from the way you phrased your post that the way the GM ran it may not have jibed with the scenario. Personally I thought the GM did a good job and I wouldn't want to second-guess his decisions or play style (as per page 19 of the guide), but if he really did run things differently and people think it's OK for me to do so, I'll be happy to point out my new perspective once I've bought the module. I just want to help in whatever way I can (and if there's really no issue and the best way to help is for me to be quiet, I'm happy to do that too ^_^ ).
Hey all, Friendly GM that ran the scenario here to add to the discussion. I'm not afraid of a little criticism as it helps me grow as well. Wanted to clarify a few points.
GM fumbles:
** spoiler omitted **Points of clarification:
** spoiler omitted **...
Hey, great to see you on the boards! I just downloaded the module, and here are my thoughts--
(edit: eliminating spoiler since most of this stuff is here in the open anyways
I think the biggest thing is that we got the wrong impression from you of how much was left to do when time ran out--if I'm reading the mod correctly, we only had to beat the wave we were beginning to fight as time ran out and then a final gasp of four leaderless apes that were humorously being crushed by their allies. I'm 80% confident that we would have won that, given the time to play it out. This assuages much of my concern, though it's still a long module, and to do justice to the RP aspect, as you did when we played, I think it is very tight on time. Are most people seeing this run much longer than Devil We Know, Among the Dead, etc?
Lesser points:
Your monster tactics were excellent--as a GM who enjoys using good tactics myself, I appreciated that a lot. Seeing the suggested tactics, though, I wonder if part of the way Josh balanced the adventure and its timing is through the tactics of leading with Summon Monster, a spell that the party can easily disrupt and then dogpile the Druid, as I heard another player tell me: "Well we just all killed the chieftain--didn't you know to attack the spellcaster" to my reply "We knew, but we couldn't get over there because we were Entangled". If the Druid didn't lead with Entangle, we would have definitely been able to finish faster, since Entangle by nature slows the fight down.
For the Entangle DC, it wound up hurting us additionally to just the initial Reflex because the DC to break out with Strength or Escape Artist is equal to the Reflex save DC--Seeing how it's laid out, it's a completely understandable thing to do to accidentally read the wrong block, and kudos for thinking of having the spells end on the Druid's death as a creative solution to balance things back up. From what I see here, though, the Tier 6-7 Druid seems to have the same save DC on Entangle as Tier 3-4.
As for the King Kong versus Mechagodzilla fight, I'm surprised at how much the golem rips apart the girallon by the module as written, and I can see why extending that fight made it feel more epic. It definitely did slow us down, though, since we lost the Barbarian, our primary damage dealer and the flanking partner for the Rogue. It might be interesting to extend that kaiju fight longer based on remaining time, kind of like the optional encounter.
So my main suggestion for future GMs running this mod in their PFS games--For time's sake, I recommend not using Entangle as a lead-in spell for the Chieftains and instead sticking with the listed tactics (with the lower DC, this is less necessary than I had originally thought, though).
Anyone else have any thoughts?
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I'd have to agree with Joel. I thought the scenario was a cakewalk.
I remember reading the threads on Devil We Know I and II after playing them last year and hearing a consensus that they were tough, but we found them very easy and this one hard.
The Aspis Consortium mercenaries were nerfed by their lack of trained horses at 1-2 and 3-4. Even adding more mercs on account of awareness didn't phase most groups.
In our game, they were unmounted except for the leader, and he didn't have to roll ride.
The undead were nerfed by their 0 intelligence meaning they did not use tactics, they just came straight at the PCs and mindlessly attacked. They had the standard DC 13 vs paralysis.
The ghouls didn't bother us while we loudly messed around in the area--they waited in ambush at a chokepoint, outstealthing our perception (they lost that skill too right with 0 Int?) and attacking the Barbarian in a surprise round when he entered the square with the 8 over it in the B8 (thus leaving space for them to attack him but none of us to enter the area). A 14 failed the save versus their paralysis which is why I thought at the time maybe they were advanced (and thus +2 to DCs for DC 15).
The entangle was a nuisance and the DC 14 wasn't hard to overcome.
I'd say DC 14 is quite reasonable. Most characters should take at most a round or two to break out of that even if they fail their save.
The girillon was dead in two rounds. It had a 5' reach [typo] vs the golem's 15' reach. It had no defense vs the golem while the golem got to take 15 off the top of whatever the girillon could dish out.
Looks like. Our GM explained above that he extended this to make it more cinematic.
My table's only player death was when a PC forgot to move out of the way and ended up standing between the two titans. I figured I'd teach him a lesson and take a bite out of him. I rolled a nat 20 in the open, couldn't help but confirm it and he went from full to dead in one hit.
Ouch!
I almost had another PC death when the mercenary captain charged a barbarian with a 10 constitution at tier 3-4. But a player pointed out I had forgotten to make the ride check for him and he failed it to everyone's relief (including mine).
Whew!
I think all those changes would have made it much easier. If we could have fought the ghouls one square to the east of where we fought them and they were mindless, we could have taken them one at a time and saved the Fireball, which would have saved time in the gorilla fights.
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So my main suggestion for future GMs running this mod in their PFS games--For time's sake, I recommend not using Entangle as a lead-in spell for the Chieftains and instead sticking with the listed tactics (with the lower DC, this is less necessary than I had originally thought, though).
Technically, as Josh has stated in the past, the listed tactics are often to bring the module down to a difficulty Josh feels is appropriate. We're not supposed to modify the tactics (although I realize this isn't always easy to do, and often due to creative tactics by the PCs, following what's written would be suicide for the bad guy).
I think Azlant Ridge is the module that is supposed to make the players feel like they're involved in an epic siege. As a GM that's where I'd focus my efforts. A lot of good roleplaying between their arrival at the camp up until the point they enter the underground area can go a long ways to providing this ambiance. Fortunately the module provides an opportunity for this with the various faction missions.
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GM fumbles:
** spoiler omitted **Points of clarification:
** spoiler omitted **...
If you read through these messageboard posts long enough you will find plenty of examples where I fumbled too. The important part is to own up (like you did) and learn from mistakes. Bottom line is that if the players had fun, all is forgiven. If a player dies because something got tweaked then you get something like this even if the GM only meant to entertain. I may come off as critical but I am still far from perfect and may be defending my own actions if one of my own tables comes onto the boards with concerns like Rogue Eidolon.
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So my main suggestion for future GMs running this mod in their PFS games--For time's sake, I recommend not using Entangle as a lead-in spell for the Chieftains and instead sticking with the listed tactics (with the lower DC, this is less necessary than I had originally thought, though).Technically, as Josh has stated in the past, the listed tactics are often to bring the module down to a difficulty Josh feels is appropriate. We're not supposed to modify the tactics (although I realize this isn't always easy to do, and often due to creative tactics by the PCs, following what's written would be suicide for the bad guy).
I think Azlant Ridge is the module that is supposed to make the players feel like they're involved in an epic siege. As a GM that's where I'd focus my efforts. A lot of good roleplaying between their arrival at the camp up until the point they enter the underground area can go a long ways to providing this ambiance. Fortunately the module provides an opportunity for this with the various faction missions.
Hmmm, I thought that might be so, as I mentioned above. I've played with GM Erik (SarNati on the boards) twice in PFS scenarios, and they were my most difficult scenarios in PFS (the other was Murder on the Silken Caravan). From my two games with him, he's a talented tactician who keeps you constantly on your toes with his use of monster tactics, and also, both times I got to see some of the best faction mission-based RP in our PFS scenarios between my Andoren Barbarian companion and the NPCs (in Silken Caravan, the Barbarian posted 95 theses of freedom for slaves and was captured, questioned, and publically flogged)--he really makes you feel you've earned the prestige point and not just rolled the appropriate check (in fact, I have perfect faction prestige except for from games he GMed).
It sounds like keeping the tactics consistent with what Josh has up there is important for organised play like PFS, though, to keep the timing and challenge standardised, which is a shame in one way because it staves off creativity but in another way it helps prevent unexpected difficulty levels blindsiding a group (as he told me, by the time we played through with him, we were the second Total Party Flee, and he had one TPK and one success out of four games). For something like PFS where a TPK is so devastating and potentially demoralising, I can definitely see the advantages of the standardised approach.
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If you read through these messageboard posts long enough you will find plenty of examples where I fumbled too. The important part is to own up (like you did) and learn from mistakes. Bottom line is that if the players had fun, all is forgiven. If a player dies because something got tweaked then you get something like this even if the GM only meant to entertain. I may come off as critical but I am still far from perfect and may be defending my own actions if one of my own tables comes onto the boards with concerns like Rogue Eidolon.
GM fumbles:
** spoiler omitted **Points of clarification:
** spoiler omitted **...
I think that the players of the other Sorcerers who I don't know personally looked more discontent than our group of four--I hope the player of the Infernal Sorcerer in particular finds out about this and still feels good about PFS and continues to play. He seemed like an interesting guy with a flavourful portrayal of an Infernal Bloodline Sorcerer, and it would be a shame if he got demoralised and quit.
I think that all talk of whether to tweak or not aside, SarNati made the fight and the siege feel epic for us, and even with all the changes that wound up against the team, I think if the only thing that he had changed was his assessment of how we would have done if we had more time to be more positive, it would have helped a lot. Instead of at first saying we would TPK even with more time available (and calling for a retreat with the stragglers picked off), if he had said that we were really close and would have surely triumphed had we but more time to play it out, it would have made us all feel more like heroes and kept us with a higher morale.
Granted, it's a little sad for our Sorcerer's player (the most items minded of our players and most eager to break the 18 prestige barrier and get a +2 stat item) that he didn't get the prestige after doing the missions and will have to wait longer, but that's minor, and no further harm than that was done--we all enjoyed the PFS experience at Gencon quite a lot.
I do fear for groups less optimised than ours, however, like the group that TPKed earlier in the day, so overall I'm going to go with MisterSlanky on this one and say that I think it's probably better not to tweak it.
Tangential Sidenote--I'm thinking of possibly GMing for PFS as well to spread the love, and this thread has been great food for thought for me, since in home games I tend to share SarNati's tendency to have enemies use devious tactics.
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From what I got from the mod, once the PCs reach the front door after getting the magical Wii remote, basically the Girillon (spl) comes in, the sphere lights up, and whoever has the Wii remote falls unconscious. It is written that for every round that the construct doesn't move to intercept the Anazhazi (spl) another wave will come on. I think your GM had far too many waves. There are two waves with Druids and then the last one with the falling monkeys. If there are more, then the construct didn't move to intercept the Girillon (spl) and he added more waves appropriately.
I always made the Wii remote look that much shinier to either the arcane caster, rogue or extra cleric that always seemed to be at the table, so that there was a tank in the final battle.
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The Problem we had with this was that as we were about to enter the Dig, the alarm went off that an attack was about to happen again, so being good Pathfinder Society Members instead of going through the door we went to protect the Camp not knowing that we needed what was behind that door.
Don't ask me how we survived against Girallon with out the construct, It was a mixture of good luck, a Paladin that could go through DR and do a lot of Damage and us being able to keep that Paladin Alive!
We had no hint what so ever that we should have gone through that door first. At least no hint we noticed.
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From the scenario, Juliet Dias actually orders you through the door, so I'm not sure how your GM allowed that to happen.
She never Ordered us.
When we brought this up at the end about not knowing about going through the door, he said usually she would Order th PCs to go through the door, but since we did such a good job at Charming her and getting her to like us, she gladly accepted our help. He went a little off story I believe. I am getting this Scenario soon to run for my own group so I will take a look at it. Luckily in the end we survived.
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Apparently there was a group that went in (as ordered), went through the ghouls, checked out the glowing orb.....
...and left it right there, walking out to help the camp out instead.
Poor group went outside, and got TPK'd along with all the tents.
Win for King Kong and barrel of monkeys.
And personally, I thought that mod was one of the best yet -- I loved the epic feel of the siege.
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Our group ran the Saturday night Tier 1-3 session of Azlant Ridge with Erik and had a blast. We barely finished in time but Erik did a great job of presenting an epic siege and he is the best tactical GM we've encountered so far in PFS. My barbarian has the battered kneecaps to attest to it!
The adventure definitely lived up to it's reputation as a meat grinder. We have a large and pretty experienced gaming group and this scenario really pressed us (my character alone went through SIX poitions of Cure Light Wounds in the finale... this is at 2nd level, mind you). By the end, the PLAYERS were a bit tired and cranky as it seemed like the waves of ape men would never stop. :) It stretched the limits of our ability but in the end we had a great experience and an epic tale to retell at future Gen Cons.
Overall though, it was a great challenge and we feel like we really accomplished something as we saw most of the tables around us clear out much sooner than we did. We got a little confused towards the end when the ape men kept coming after the Girralon went down and the Iron Giant deactivated... we thought maybe we had "missed something" with the sphere that would call off the horde, so we wasted some time running around trying to figure that out instead of concentrating on wiping out the last wave or two... but in the end we prevailed and even managed to wrap things up and attend to faction goals.
Anyway, many kudos to Erik. We had a great time and were talking about it for quite some time afterwards. Thanks!
I think that the players of the other Sorcerers who I don't know personally looked more discontent than our group of four--I hope the player of the Infernal Sorcerer in particular finds out about this and still feels good about PFS and continues to play. He seemed like an interesting guy with a flavourful portrayal of an Infernal Bloodline Sorcerer, and it would be a shame if he got demoralised and quit.
Well I am hardly at the quitting phase. I did mention I might not play PF at Gencon again. As a casual player I only played three slots of PF and the rest of the time was playing a ton of other events with friends (none of which play PF unfortunately).
I never liked mustering at Gencon, and while PF at this year's con was loads better than the horrible mess that was LG mustering there is still a tradeoff going on. I was frankly amazed at the speed of which the mustering was accomplished, which was great, but at the same time that very speed can generate suboptimal tables. Having three low-level Sorcs in one party for example, and one front-line damage dealer (and a non-heavy armor wearing Barbarian at that) is not a good recipe for success. Especially when the Barb was the one off playing Giant Robot and two of the Sorcs are color-spraying controller types. I was using my Wand of MM so much because no one was doing much damage (or could). The day before I was in a group where 5 out of the 6 people could heal, which was amusing for us but probably not as much for the other tables.
I go to lots of cons where Warhorn is used and will probably stick with PF at those. I realize that for the vast majority at Gencon the current fast mustering is great (especially for those that come with 6-party tables already), I just don't want to take a chance when there are so many other great games to play.
And I thought our GM was great - very fast (even though we weren't) and really knew the system. The players were great too, and as a bonus our rogue was very cute ;-)
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I made a miniature of Kong for my session of PFS 2-02, but unfortunately left him on my desk rather than bringing him to Gen Con. Very easy mod to make for anyone interested. The base is Gakura from Monsterpocalypse minus the train cars. Add the second set of arms from his Ultra counterpart and a quick repaint. The result is - Kong
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I made a miniature of Kong for my session of PFS 2-02, but unfortunately left him on my desk rather than bringing him to Gen Con. Very easy mod to make for anyone interested. The base is Gakura from Monsterpocalypse minus the train cars. Add the second set of arms from his Ultra counterpart and a quick repaint. The result is - Kong
I found a Mattel action figure set Batman vs Gorilla Grodd on Amazon. The gorilla is just about the right size, but too expensive for me to justify buying two of them, cutting the arms off one and adding them to the other like I wanted. I wish I had seen yours before I bought it. How tall does it stand?
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Kong stands about 4 inches tall at the top of his fists. I have him mounted on a standard 70mm base typically used for 40k. I have another image that shows the scale better - kong2
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Anybody know if another sequel is prepared for this series...?
Methinks there will be no sequel. I'm OK with that. The less that we look behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz) and understand the mechanics the better. I prefer my scenarios like early seasons of The X-Files. I'm looking forward to the Heresy of Man series. And maybe another series where we some real closure with The Devil We Know (get working Larry!).
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I found a Mattel action figure set Batman vs Gorilla Grodd on Amazon. The gorilla is just about the right size, but too expensive for me to justify buying two of them, cutting the arms off one and adding them to the other like I wanted. I wish I had seen yours before I bought it. How tall does it stand?
C'mon, Doug Doug -- if you wanna keep that 5-star rating, you gotta work all the angles! ;-)
For future reference, may I suggest shopping at your local Hobby Lobby or Michael's? Believe or not, they almost always have a small kids section, and I have found numerous animal toys/figs there that work extremely well as oversized animals (compared to our character minis)
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I'm planning on running this weekend and I think I may have found a typo...
** spoiler omitted **That is not a typo. All three waves at Tier 3-4 are listed as CR 6.
Two charau-ka would be a CR 4 fight, while four of them make it a CR 6 (page 398 of Core Rules). It's not such a bad fight :)
Actually Wave 1 has:
2 charau (CR 2) & 1 chieftain (CR 4) + kitty (CR -) to yield CR 6Wave 2 has:
4 charau (CR 2) & 1 chieftain (CR 4) + kitty (CR -) to yield CR between 7 and 8.
Hence my thought it could be a typo...I'd assume wave 1 is correct.
I agree not a bad fight...just worried if due to awareness it jumps to 6 + chieftain...it could be a blood bath.
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Actually Wave 1 has:
2 charau (CR 2) & 1 chieftain (CR 4) + kitty (CR -) to yield CR 6Wave 2 has:
4 charau (CR 2) & 1 chieftain (CR 4) + kitty (CR -) to yield CR between 7 and 8.Hence my thought it could be a typo...I'd assume wave 1 is correct.
I agree not a bad fight...just worried if due to awareness it jumps to 6 + chieftain...it could be a blood bath.
Right you are. I overlooked the chieftain. I never noticed that when I put a 3-4 tier table through the ringer last weekend. They only had four PCs so it was...interesting.
I'll be sure to let Josh know about the typo.
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... I overlooked the chieftain. I never noticed that when I put a 3-4 tier table through the ringer last weekend. They only had four PCs so it was...interesting.
I'll be sure to let Josh know about the typo.
Doug Doug, didn't you send 4 Charau in both wave 1 and 2 at us? "Through the ringer" is right! After our six player party made it through part 1, one player (cleric ?) had to leave. Doug Doug didn't think part 2 would be challenging enough for our party of 5 so he banished another player (arcane) off to DM land. Now a table of 4: two bashers, a gnome bard, and ranger archer (me). The gnome and I spent most of wave 2 running around invisible with happy sticks trying keeping our two bashers on their feet. Both were close to dead at least once. I think I only rolled one To Hit in double digits during the entire siege.
Also, FWIW, I think the entangle was effective in the adventure. I think I used it effectively in the ambush, and the chieftain restricted movement and prevented charges during the siege.
The siege battle was great! The batman monkey was great. We all had fun ... and survived. An adventure to remember.
Thanks Doug!
-Swiftbrook
Just My Thoughts
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So I heard that a table at GenCon was able to defeat the Angazhani Champion without the use of the Azlanti golem. I had a similar experience at Dragon*Con when a player saw the golems from the stairway and used his golembane scarab to destroy them at a distance because he thought they were a threat. It was a classic moment from the con when I thought that karma had come full circle and the metagamers would get what they had coming. They were playing tier 6-7 with seven players at the table. They dealt with the wraiths and bickered other over the now-useless cube. One player speculated out loud that he hoped they weren’t supposed to need the golems to finish the scenario. When they exited the complex and the Champion came through the wall I handed that player the golem’s stat block to let him see what they had missed out on. I counseled them that I had heard a table at GenCon had defeated the Champion without the golem, so they shouldn’t give up. They began to pelt the Champion from range while the rest started to buff. They strategized they could withdraw into the complex and make it squeeze to come after them. It D-doored right into their midst and severl players were cut off from the entrance. The anxiety level crept even higher. There was a gnome bard at the table who tried a Hail Mary hideous laughter on his turn at which point the rest of the table yelled ‘it will never work’, ‘stop wasting your actions’ and less kind things. I told him “You never know what might work, roll against SR”. He succeeded on the SR check and I rolled without even needing to look up the Champion’s Will save. When the die came up a ‘1’ the bard’s player literally fell out of his chair. The spell bought them nearly 2 rounds, with which they gave a good account of themselves. They ended up with a narrow victory, but the gnome bard was the real hero.
I have long felt that the Angazhani Champion was not statted properly so Kyle worked it out on our trip home. He’ll likely post his figures later this week. It would have changed the outcome at my table significantly, and made previous battles against the iron golem less of a one-sided beatdown. I still enjoy running the scenario but it would be a better fight if the Angazhani wasn’t at such a disadvantage.
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I definitely heard the fight that was going on, and only later found out what happened.
I also was really disappointed by the Anghazani Champion as he wasn't able to kill a single Cold Iron Golem after four attempts (the first watching as a player, the rest as the DM). Since the players have four of the golems, I think it would've been great to have created the fight where at least one golem would surely die in the process.
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I definitely heard the fight that was going on, and only later found out what happened.
I also was really disappointed by the Anghazani Champion as he wasn't able to kill a single Cold Iron Golem after four attempts (the first watching as a player, the rest as the DM). Since the players have four of the golems, I think it would've been great to have created the fight where at least one golem would surely die in the process.
Looking at the stats on the two of them (in particular, the champion's damage and the golem's DR), the golem would pretty much have to sit there for the entire siege doing a dance or something and letting the champion full attack before the champion would actually kill it. Honestly the golem would have still almost certainly won even if every subwave had an extra Anghazani Champion to come with it.
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I'll finalize the stat blocks later this week (after I catch up on sleep), but from memory, the Champion, if correctly converted to Huge and Advanced should be at a +25 for all attacks (while power attacking) and deal 8d8 + 2d6 + 200(!) if it hits with it's bite and all 4 claws (including rend damage). Attacking a level 7 player with 27 AC or less should be insta-kill (barring a natural 1).
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I'll finalize the stat blocks later this week (after I catch up on sleep), but from memory, the Champion, if correctly converted to Huge and Advanced should be at a +25 for all attacks (while power attacking) and deal 8d8 + 2d6 + 200(!) if it hits with it's bite and all 4 claws (including rend damage). Attacking a level 7 player with 27 AC or less should be insta-kill (barring a natural 1).
Good to know. The Champion never looked quite right, and those fights against it were pathetically one-sided. I'm running this again next week so I'll look forward to your updated, corrected stats.
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I think the intent of the scenario is that the golem essentially takes the champion out of the equation, with the meat of the adventure being the rest of the PCs taking on wave after wave of ape-men. I've only played the scenario (and at Tier 1-3 to boot) so I may be wrong, but I don't think the champion is supposed to be a challenge for the golem. That's why the golem shuts down when the champion is defeated... it's sole purpose is to "cancel out" the giant monkey.
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I think the intent of the scenario is that the golem essentially takes the champion out of the equation, with the meat of the adventure being the rest of the PCs taking on wave after wave of ape-men. I've only played the scenario (and at Tier 1-3 to boot) so I may be wrong, but I don't think the champion is supposed to be a challenge for the golem. That's why the golem shuts down when the champion is defeated... it's sole purpose is to "cancel out" the giant monkey.
Yes and no. The module is written specifically stating that the golem(s) are there to defend the camp, and it directly states the instructions of how to handle the situation where a golem is "taken out." I think the key here is fun. It's one thing to get to play the giant robot, it's another to do so knowing that there's absolutely zero challenge, which becomes painfully obvious the first round the PC does 100+ damage, and the giant ape barely beats past the 40 mark due to the DR. If on the other hand you have to work through 3 other golems before you land that killing blow, it really makes things feel a lot more epic for the players.
Here's the thing:
I didn't want the Anghazan to kill everyone. I wanted a PC to have the experience of a CR 14 battle. Yes, the Anghazan is fighting a monster optimized to kill it (almost like the Azlanti planned that ...) and yes it is sometimes a quick fight with the Anghazan going down fast. I've also seen the Anghazan go through two golems (grapple) before the PCs were able to bring the big ape to his knees, so it's not an every time thing.
The Anghazan is properly advanced using the Bestiary advancement rules, though he's a little low on the AC and a little high on HP for CR 14, but I felt those things balanced out.
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Here's the thing:
I didn't want the Anghazan to kill everyone. I wanted a PC to have the experience of a CR 14 battle. Yes, the Anghazan is fighting a monster optimized to kill it (almost like the Azlanti planned that ...) and yes it is sometimes a quick fight with the Anghazan going down fast. I've also seen the Anghazan go through two golems (grapple) before the PCs were able to bring the big ape to his knees, so it's not an every time thing.
The Anghazan is properly advanced using the Bestiary advancement rules, though he's a little low on the AC and a little high on HP for CR 14, but I felt those things balanced out.
I am still trying to figure out how we killed it with out the Golems!..
I am assuming due to a lot of luck and a little bit of GM intervention.
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I ran this one again Sunday. After the player with the cube fell unconscious and then emerged as a golem, another player ran over and picked the cube up out of his hand. The player was thinking, There's four of us, there's four golems, and that's a big four-armed ape. We need reinforcements! He was hoping that each member of the party could control one of the golems, and they'd need all four to beat the champion. There wasn't a mechanic for this type of action, but I had the original controller wake up and his golem powered down. Then a second golem powered up, until the original controlled grabbed the cube back and said "Don't do that again!". Kind of comical, from the GM's perspective, as the players want to experiment in the heat of battle.
... until the original controlled grabbed the cube back and said "Don't do that again!". Kind of comical, from the GM's perspective, as the players want to experiment in the heat of battle.
LOL
NICE. :-)
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So I'm using this module to playtest the Magus. I noticed a mistake in Captain Calgredine's statblocks--he has +4 Will save at Tier 1-2 and is down to +2 Will save at Tier 3-4. In fact, both are wrong, and he should have +3 Will save in both cases.
Also, not a mistake but an unclear statement from later on--the non-Druid charau-ka have a morale that states that they flee when the champion falls. I'm going to guess that means that all the mook charau-ka in the *current* wave will flee as they watch their champion smashed to a bloody pulp, but with the retreat of the golem, the chieftains manage to get the remainder collected enough to participate underhindered in future waves.
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The assumption I was going to go with, though I haven't read the module closely in a couple of weeks, was that once the Big Champion goes down beating up the leader of each wave will send them back again, but the leaders know this and will try to stay out of direct combat.So I'm using this module to playtest the Magus. I noticed a mistake in Captain Calgredine's statblocks--he has +4 Will save at Tier 1-2 and is down to +2 Will save at Tier 3-4. In fact, both are wrong, and he should have +3 Will save in both cases.
Also, not a mistake but an unclear statement from later on--the non-Druid charau-ka have a morale that states that they flee when the champion falls. I'm going to guess that means that all the mook charau-ka in the *current* wave will flee as they watch their champion smashed to a bloody pulp, but with the retreat of the golem, the chieftains manage to get the remainder collected enough to participate underhindered in future waves.
Hmm, that makes flavour sense, but then sometimes there aren't any chieftains (Tier 1-2 or the final wave). Since the golem pretty much goes to town on the champion in only a few rounds, the morale line is probably relevant for most of the waves.
LATE EDIT: I just ran the Aspis Consortium Tier 6-7, and the mooks have their damage listed incorrectly. It should be 1d8+1 rather than 1d8, as they have magic bows. I also feel pretty sad for them that they still don't have Precise Shot yet at level 5, with a leader who likes to charge into melee.