Question:
Does anyone know what map pack set the third map on page 6 of the mod is from. The titling implies that all three are from the same set but either the third is from another set or I lost that specific tile.
Thanks
Actually, it says it's from the Map Packs City and Shops. The two on the left are from Shops and the one on the right is from City.
Ok .. so I know it's been out for a whole day or so ... but honestly I'm kind of freaking about running this at Origins .. any tips or advice from those that have either run or played this one?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm also running this at Origins. There are aspects of the adventure I like a lot. Things happen. But I've read through the module five times now, and each time I've gotten a little more disappointed.
As I say, a lot happens. Chalfon Dalsine is a nasty piece of work. There's family struggles. There's the revenge of a man who was too lazy to be a Pathfinder. There's faceless stalkers infiltrating the Lion Blades! There's the Pathfinders working with a forbidden cult of Sarenrae. But (1) much of it happens before the module begins, and (2) the PCs cannot affect any of it. This would be a great episode of a TV drama, or a chapter in a fantasy novel. But as a RPG adventure, it doesn't allow the party any opportunity to participate in the matter except as observers.
The first scene is exciting, but ... what's the crisis? It's a misunderstanding. The city guard want to bring VC Muesello in for questioning. And Muesello is perfectly happy to go with them. It's reasonable that a PC will ask, "What do you want?" When the guards answer, the situation is defused. Open the door, let Muesello go quietly, and there you are.
But what if the PCs put up a fight? There are all sorts of ways to do that which would keep Captain Porthmos from blowing her alarm: sleep at low levels, or silence at a higher sub-tier. If the party defeats the guard, then there's no rush to get the Dawnflowers out, and absolutely no reason to collapse the exit. For that matter, there's no real reason for the party to go with the evacuating cultists, who know the way home.
Nonetheless, whatever actions the party might take, for the adventure to work, the party must flee, believing the guard to be in hot pursuit.
Once the PCs accompany the cultists to their vault, they find a henchman to the villain. His job is to keep them from spoiling his boss's plans. But he foolishly launches into an explanation of everything he knows, including his boss's scheme and where the party should go to foil his plans. There's no tricks the party has to pull; no Sense Motive or Diplomacy for gathing information. He just spills the beans, deliberately, in order to stall and keep the PCs from getting to the boss in time.
If at that point the PCs continue to follow their VC's orders --the ones he gave at the cost of his own freedom-- and protect the Sarenrae cultists, the adventure is over. They leave Oppara by ship the next day. And that's a reasonable course of action; the cult has been compromised by an organization of mind-reading shape-shifters, trusting that they'll survive till the morning seems foolish.
Well, that parlor scene is quite a surprise. There's one faction leader, having just killed another. But, no matter how high the party rolls on initiative, no matter how urgently the party tries to cast dimensional anchor, she gets to make a bitter declaration, spit on his corpse, and teleport away.
But let's say the PCs expend resources to get to the manor as quickly as possible, and avoid the arguing guards and the dogs entirely. Nope: they can't get there fast enough. Let's say they take all the time they want, and get there the next evening. Hey: it's still taking place.
This particularly rankles, since the minion in the Vault was trying to delay the heroes. It seems natural that the heroes will react and say, "Hey, we can't afford to be stalled. Time must be of the essence." But time is superfluous.
So, when they see Pasha Al-jaki, the PC's say," wait: we know from the monologuing bad guy that you're bitter because your sister's dead. We raised her and brought her with us."
Or the PCs walk over to Baron Dalsine's corpse and get a raise dead for him. (I wonder how much PA he has.)
Nope. None of that works. It's just time to kill the laughing guy. If the party had chosen to sit this adventure out and let it play out without their interference, Muesello would have been captured, the faceless stalkers would continue to spy on the Sarenrae cult, and Pasha Al-jakri would kill Baron Dalsine because, um, well, because she was mad at somebody else. Trying their utmost, the PCs don't affect the major plot at all.
And, to rub your noses in it, there's an object that is supposed to give you a bonus to Bluff members of the Shadow Lodge that you're part of the organization. But the only module I've read where you're trying to carry out such a bluff requires the Shadow Lodge Pathfinders to see through the your ploy.
Oh, and, to run this adventure, the GM needs both the APG and Ultimate Magic. (I don't see how you can run the last fight without knowing from some other source how a magus works.)
Director of Brand Strategy
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I'm also running this at Origins. There are aspects of the adventure I like a lot. Things happen. But I've read through the module five times now, and each time I've gotten a little more disappointed.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
Hi Chris,
A lot of this scenario is an experiment to see how far we can push the metaplot exposition envelope as well as implement some of the changes that are coming to various faction "on-screen." Ultimately, there are certain things the adventure needs to happen, and it's the GM's job to orchestrate events so that the players choose to make them happen of their own free will.
The venture-captain tells the PCs to ensure the Sarenites are safely escorted from where the guard may find them, and the ultimate goal of the first encounter is that the PCs do that without engaging the guards in combat. If your players use sleep or another spell to end the combat early without risk of reinforcements, reward them for doing so. But still find a way for the adventure to continue.
Muesello also tells the PCs to get the documents captured in the massacre by Dalsine to prevent the Society from being implicated. If they don't do that, either by hanging out in the cathedral or going home, they fail the overall mission. For the remainder of this season, there's no way to enforce the completion of the primary Pathfinder mission.
As for the final parlor encounter, those events happen in a way the PCs can't prevent on purpose. We decided long ago that these faction heads needed to go, and we wanted to ensure it happened on screen. And in an exciting, surprising, dramatic way. Had there been a way for PCs to prevent it, some of them would, and then we'd hear no end to how the faction heads shouldn't have gone away because of that player's actions. As we move more into metaplot territory, players will be able to influence events—by earning prestige for their faction—even when they can't actually change something in a "cut scene" like this, in which the result of the campaign's metaplot play out.
Thanks for the feedback, and we'll keep it in mind for future story-heavy scenarios. I'm eager to hear your thoughts after you've run a group through it, especially those pertaining to whether the adventure does what it's meant to do effectively.
We also provided all the information for all three tiers of the magus so that people don't have to have UM to run him. We've been including APG content in this same manner (page callouts) for most of this season as well as in published books, so that isn't something new. If there are any specific magus abilities that aren't called out in the adventure, please let me know and I'll take a look at it again.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Mark,
Thanks for the comments.
All that makes sense to me. And I don't mind cut-scenes, as they were used in Curse of the Crimson Throne, as long as the players understand that they're in such a situation. As a player, I would be angry if my team used up scrolls, favors, 16 Faction Prestige to get an NPC raised, and only later found out that the GM wasn't going to let us win, no matter how well we rolled or what resources we brought to bear.
If things are just gonna happen, no matter what the PCs reasonably try to do, then that sounds more like fiction than a role-playing adventure. I'd let the scene fade to sepia-tone and tell the party to relax and have some popcorn while they watch the tableau play out. Then the colors come back in when its time to roll initiative.
Regarding other sources:
A character is an investigator, and has has "follow up" as well as other Special Qualities. Another character is a magus. Having read up on a magus' abilities, I understand the stat blocks, and the text explains what the character does. But the character has "magus arcane (arcane accuracy)"; without looking at Ultimate Magic, how is the GM supposed to adjudicate what that means?
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Director of Brand Strategy
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A character is an investigator, and has has "follow up" as well as other Special Qualities. Another character is a magus. Having read up on a magus' abilities, I understand the stat blocks, and the text explains what the character does. But the character has "magus arcane (arcane accuracy)"; without looking at Ultimate Magic, how is the GM supposed to adjudicate what that means?
follow up doesn't come into play in combat so it's not explained in the statblock to save space and to eliminate extraneous information that could confuse GMs looking for the info they do need. The effects of arcane accuracy are spelled out in the During Combat section of the NPC's statblock, if not by name.
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To be honest .. I borrowed the magus section from a friend so that I could create my own little magus template with spells and descriptions of the different things... Fundage isn't allowing me to get my own copy (yes I know PDFs are cheap... but I'm a hardcover girl) right now .. so making due with what I can -- there are cons to save up for lol
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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follow up doesn't come into play in combat so it's not explained in the statblock to save space and to eliminate extraneous information that could confuse GMs looking for the info they do need. The effects of arcane accuracy are spelled out in the During Combat section of the NPC's statblock, if not by name.
"Follow up", no, but "hard to fool" might, since its natural for the PCs to try and Bluff that NPC. And without the book, how is a GM supposed to know whether it comes into play during negotiations / combat or not? If special class abilities from a sourcebook the GM doesn't need to have never come into play, why put them in the scenario?
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Ok .. so I know it's been out for a whole day or so ... but honestly I'm kind of freaking about running this at Origins .. any tips or advice from those that have either run or played this one?
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Make sure that if you can't do the advanced template on the fly, that you stat up the worgs ahead of time for the high tier. They actually did the most damage of any one encounter, and being so close to the last one just made the last one that much tougher
for the first encounter, everyone had a requisite skill, and all ut the wizard helped so they cut it to 4 rounds, making the door come down as the last cultists got down, but before the PCs. but the wizards who didn't help the cultists was ready with a color spray, catching most of them in it.
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Yeah, when I was initially prepping I missed adding the advanced template to them and had to do it on the fly... at least its pretty easy to do** spoiler omitted **Lol ... I have my widdle stat cards already to go
For me that when my OCD level of prep comes in handy .. as I'm going thru and making my initiative cards I take the time to read over the stat blocks... personally (and I know why it's done this way) I hate when advanced NPCs aren't statted out in the scenario...but that's me.
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follow up doesn't come into play in combat so it's not explained in the statblock to save space and to eliminate extraneous information that could confuse GMs looking for the info they do need. The effects of arcane accuracy are spelled out in the During Combat section of the NPC's statblock, if not by name.
Since Pathfinder Society Scenarios are only PDF products and not print products (at least printed by Paizo), wouldn't extraneous information like this potentially be very useful to DMs? Sometimes players decide to do very odd things and having more of the stat block can help.
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** spoiler omitted **Yeah, like i said be careful playing up :PI haven't run this yet, but...
** spoiler omitted **
I actually found it quite refreshing. We were finally challenged. My table played tier 6-7 so it may have been a bit different, but the fighters and barbarians in our area typically have around a +8 or +9 to hit at level 1 which is a 30%-35% chance to hit, meaning that he should be lasting three to four rounds on average.
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I just ran this mod on Friday,
This was a Tier 4-5, and the first few battles, the PC's walked all over the mobs, while as you seen what happened in the last.
Just make sure you are familiar with the abilities of the Magus and that you have read over the mod a few times.
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I just ran it a few hours ago, and here are my complaints:
1: Needs more box text. Roleplaying is nice, but it helps the gm a ton to remember everything. Except at the beginning; I think it should be trimmed a bit because it seemed to get really long.
2: PCs set the lodge on fire, which meant that the Venture Captain ended up escaping with them. There really isn't much help within the module for what to do in this instance.
3: If you don't have a Qadiran, you miss the actual reason why it all goes down until after the fight with Chalfon ends.
4: Box text involving the death of Baron Dalsine would have been REALLY nice.
5: No maps for 3 encounters. The spider encounter, the guard encounter, and the encounter with the dogs. None of these encounters were particularly terrain based, but it was still a pain.
6: More information for having Akkuret accidentally reveal himself; I used a pretty useful ploy (the Osirian wanted in to the catacombs for the rubbing, and Akkuret sent a child who barely knew his way around to lead him in, which led to the PCs wondering why he'd send a 12 year old instead of going himself or at least sending an adult in). Akkuret's bluff is huge, so it is fairly unlikely that anyone will succeed, unless he rolls really badly. Muessello asking that the PCs find the stuff "Immediately, tonight if possible" would be a good way to force Akkuret's hand.
Overall, I and my players had fun with this module (especially the first part, we all really liked that), these are just my little nitpicks.
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5: No maps for 3 encounters. The spider encounter, the guard encounter, and the encounter with the dogs. None of these encounters were particularly terrain based, but it was still a pain.
For the spiders, I ended up using the caverns from the Ambush Sites map-pack, the guards (from the manor, I'm presuming), I used the town gates from the Town map-pack, and had the dogs attack just outside of the manor with the Pathfinder Lodge flipmap.
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1. Most of the encounters arn't strict enough in thier outcome to warrent box text.
2. Shrug, then he's another criminal, and would most likely leave with the cultists. I don't see him allowing the lodge to be lit ablaze, and would have had him order the PCs to put it out if it were me.
3. Akkuret tells them everything in the introduction but his kind's involvement, this SHOULD explain everything
4. um, there is boxed text that includes his death. Major spoiler:
been thrown about, and a growing pool of blood escapes from
a crumpled corpse at the foot of the wide, carpeted stairs.
Unless you're talking about the second paragraph of the creatures section:
Pasha Muhlia al-Jakri stands in a pool of blood over Baron Jacquo Dalsine’s beheaded corpse, twirling her twin kukris around her nimble fingers. As the PCs approach, she bitterly declares that with Khismia’s death, she’s “done with this whole ‘shadow war for Absalom,’” and they can keep scouring the world for useless treasures and risking their lives for delusional fame and worthless fortunes if they like. She spits on Jacquo’s corpse, then taps her left toe to her right heel, activating her boots of teleportation and vanishing from scene of the crime.This can be read straight of the section as box text, it just doesn't actually have a box around it.... I highlighted it, worked fine.
5. Do you really need a map for a 20 foot wide hallway with a 10 foot wide side hallway that has nothing in it? Remember, art and maps are both expensive, would you rather this map, but no art of Chalfon? The dogs can't really have a map, as you don't know how exactly the PCs are going to enter, so you don't know where they are going to be, it could be anywhere on the grounds. And the guards are in an open area with a wall, gate and one carrage, not much to map out - one line and one square, took less than 10 seconds to draw (I actually just used one of the map packs cards upside down as the wall, and drew a square for the carriage, and was done)
6. I just had him wave the group over to the fire, listen to the cultists account of the attack on the lodge, and ask for their account with a cultured accent. Depending on what they said, he offered any relevant information on the topics, and then 'relized he was rambling' and asked for questions
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Director of Brand Strategy
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In general, we try not to include any creatures in read-aloud text, even if they're involved in a "cut scene". Since every GM's style is different, I like to give them all as much room to customize rollplaying encounters as possible; after all, not all GMs are good at reading out loud, and for many, a long narrative readaloud box may actually slow down play. If you're more comfortable reading something verbatim, you can often just read directly from the running text in these sections, but if you prefer ad libbing, they should provide you all the information you need to make the encounter your own without going off script.
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I player this at Phoenix Comicon and then ran it last Saturday for the game day. I ran teir 6-7 and the PC's thought things were easy until the final combat. Some advise to make it really fun.
1. Make sure your PC's understand the urgency of the situation. My table sat on their butts for too long listening to Akkuret, had to poke them with a cattle prod. One of the things that may help this is if a PC investigates the tunnel from the lodge, have them make a Knowledge Engineering or Disable Device test to realize the collapsed tunnel will only DELAY the militia not stop them.
2. The final encounter leads to allot of role play. One critique is that they say the PC's see the carriage of Baron Jacquo in the courtyard, thorugh the 12 foot wall and closed gate???? The One thing my PC's enjoyed was the arguement between the guards for Dalsine and the Pasha at the gate, I used the scene from MPTHG with Arthur and the French as a referrence. The PC's loved it.
3. Once the PC's opened the door to the house I also had the head of Dalsine roll to their feet with a surprised looked on his face, the Taldoran PC's really like this one. I also limited the Pasha's speech after this since many PC's would take immidiate action. Her quick exit also leaves the PC's more confused. I put the invisible Chelfon on the second floor balcony in the middle, since his actual location is not listed. This means the melee PC's must go up the stairs to him and gives him maximum spell LOS.
I should point out two PC's met final death on this one, he is very nasty at 6-7.
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1. Make sure your PC's understand the urgency of the situation. My table sat on their butts for too long listening to Akkuret, had to poke them with a cattle prod. One of the things that may help this is if a PC investigates the tunnel from the lodge, have them make a Knowledge Engineering or Disable Device test to realize the collapsed tunnel will only DELAY the militia not stop them.
It isn't until they listen to Akkuret that they know where to go, so they need to listen to him carefully.
2. The final encounter leads to allot of role play. One critique is that they say the PC's see the carriage of Baron Jacquo in the courtyard, thorugh the 12 foot wall and closed gate????
I read it as the gate is a wrought Iron gate, see This picture you could see a carriage through that gate
3. Once the PC's opened the door to the house I also had the head of Dalsine roll to their feet with a surprised looked on his face, the Taldoran PC's really like this one. I also limited the Pasha's speech after this since many PC's would take immidiate action. Her quick exit also leaves the PC's more confused.
Talking is a free action. I figure she talks as a free action and activates her boots as a move action in the same round as she beheads the count (Which was she had readied/delayed for when the door opened).
I put the invisible Chelfon on the second floor balcony in the middle, since his actual location is not listed. This means the melee PC's must go up the stairs to him and gives him maximum spell LOS.
The actual location is on the map on page 18 (marked with a C)
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As far as a free action that involves six words not a speech.
Actually, it's a few sentences that doesn't have a hard limit. It's up to GM's discretion what to allow for speaking as a free action really.
Speak
In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn't your turn. Speaking more than a few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.
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What bothered me and the table was that two people were killed in a noble manor full of guards and that no one cared in the mod. The characters even got to search the place...
BTW: Where were Jacquo's magic items?
Shrug, its a manorhouse. all of the guards are outside dealing with the qadiran guards, and there is plenty of room for guard dogs to reach the paty before they make it in, no matter where they enter from, so the gate is a decent distance from the house proper. Jacquo didn't scream when he died... I don't think the guards would be alerted right away.
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My only real question regarding this is purely mechanical question regarding Chalfon.
Even in tier 6-7 he only has a single Fireball (don't you dare mention that burning hands spell)
I'm strongly tempted to swap it out for the +2 to Concentration Checks feat so he can actually benefit from it.
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I haven't run this yet, but...
** spoiler omitted **
I just ran it today at sub-tier 1-2.
Very tough fight.
Probably a bit too tough. He basically one-shoted every PC he attacked. Not just unconscious, but -18hp dead like.
Granted the party was weak and had lost their only warrior to Akkuret (a nasty crit). Still I think players thought it was refreshing to fight an enemy that meant busines.
The one surviving PC ran from the manor house hearing Chalfon yelling at him "YES, LITTLE PATHFINDER! RUN BACK TO YOUR DECEMBIRATE AND TELL THEM OPPARA BELONGS TO THE SHADOWLODGE NOW, AS WILL THE GRAND LODGE SOON. HA HA HA-HA!
I haven't run this yet, but...
** spoiler omitted **
I just ran it today at sub-tier 1-2.
** spoiler omitted **
I was in that group and no i didnt survived that magus. The way the session was running was VERY different from what i am used to but overall i had some good laughs with my oracle :D
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My only real question regarding this is purely mechanical question regarding Chalfon.
** spoiler omitted **
Personally I would not have given Chalfon Spell Focus, but since scenarios should be run as written I will not change the feat.
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I was in that group and no i didnt survived that magus. The way the session was running was VERY different from what i am used to but overall i had some good laughs with my oracle :D
I am happy you had a good time. For a first time PFS player you did well. In my experience most players have to change their mindset a bit when playing PFS compared to traditional PRPG or 3.5 campaigns.
It was extremely unfortunate that both your oracle and the summoner where out of spells by the time you left the Vault of Sarenrae. With the paladin dead and two bards making up your martial front you where in for one hell of an up hill battle.
I was in that group and no i didnt survived that magus. The way the session was running was VERY different from what i am used to but overall i had some good laughs with my oracle :DI am happy you had a good time. For a first time PFS player you did well. In my experience most players have to change their mindset a bit when playing PFS compared to traditional PRPG or 3.5 campaigns.
It was extremely unfortunate that both your oracle and the summoner where out of spells by the time you left the Vault of Sarenrae. With the paladin dead and two bards making up your martial front you where in for one hell of an up hill battle.
Well, im used to having my back against the wall, so for me it was second nature. Besides i did get to make some rambo action! :D
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** spoiler omitted **My only real question regarding this is purely mechanical question regarding Chalfon.
** spoiler omitted **
Valid point and I can see how using flare could be a good idea in that situation.
Also, finally had a chance to run this one over the weekend and...
Chalfon pretty much one shot everyone he hit and he ALWAYS hit. Fortunately the Alchemist was the feral brawler type and would only drop to negative 7 or 9 each round with the invisible wizard force feeding him Cure Moderate potions every time Chalfon would run to the fountain to put out the flames he was dealing with.
Explosive bombs are so OP.
Most fun was hitting the 1st lvl evoker with Acid Arrow and watching him run around the yard looking for the water fountain while slowly dissolving from the acid.
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** spoiler omitted **My only real question regarding this is purely mechanical question regarding Chalfon.
** spoiler omitted **Valid point and I can see how using flare could be a good idea in that situation.
Also, finally had a chance to run this one over the weekend and...
** spoiler omitted **
2 1st lvls and 2 6th lvls should not sit at the same table.
The players with lvl 6 characters should have roled up new 1st lvl characters or layed pregens.
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** spoiler omitted **My only real question regarding this is purely mechanical question regarding Chalfon.
** spoiler omitted **Valid point and I can see how using flare could be a good idea in that situation.
Also, finally had a chance to run this one over the weekend and...
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
The danger is compounded by playing the game with the table you had.
2 1st lvls and 2 6th lvls should not sit at the same table.
The players with lvl 6 characters should have roled up new 1st lvl characters or layed pregens.
i was actually hoping they wouldn't do that. With as nasty as that final fight was and the tactics as written I knew the only way they'd survive is if someone there had the HP's to suck up that kind of damage.
