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Overall I like this scenario, but I have some issues with a few of the faction missions.
Cheliax PCs have two missions at the Captive Audience theater. The first is to retrieve the script of a play. In the player’s note that’s about all it says. But in the GM notes it says that the PC is supposed to take this script without the other PCs noticing.
My first issue here would be why does it matter if the other PCs notice? This isn’t exactly a sensitive political matter. The second issue is of course that the player is not told they should be taking this without the other PCs seeing them do it. Common sense would dictate the GM not penalize the player in this case, but I just thought I’d point it out.
The second Cheliax mission involves rescuing and convincing someone to join a different theater company. The GM notes say “snapping her out of her charmed state requires the use of dispel magic or other compulsion negating magic…”
This requirement would seem to preclude anyone from the lower tiers from being able to complete it. I know that one of the faction missions is supposed to be difficult, but in this case it appears to have been made nigh impossible. Is there other “compulsion negating magic” available to low-level characters that I’m not thinking of?
Taldor also has a mission at the theater, to retrieve some books on Taldor history. Once again the player is told merely to find this information, while the GM notes say it is supposed to be done without other PCs noticing. See above for my issues with this.
I understand why some faction missions should be kept secret for story reasons. I’m guessing that others are arbitrarily made that way to add difficulty to the task (which I don’t agree with, but that’s a topic for another thread). But in either case it should be made clear to the player that they need to be doing their task secretly. The other Taldor mission in this adventure clearly states that it should be done without the other PCs noticing.
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Okay, having just run this over the weekend at Paizocon UK (tier 1-2), I’d like to add some positive comments to my above criticisms. This is a fun scenario to run, and the players all liked it as well. If you have a group that enjoys roleplaying they will love this adventure. Likewise if you’re the type of GM that enjoys off-the-cuff roleplaying of NPCs then there are many opportunities for that as well.
My group felt a bit lost initially as far as where to start their investigations, but once they got going everything moved along nicely. As a GM it was a pleasure to get to roleplay all the side characters in the initial investigations, giving them all some memorable quirks as they fed the PCs bits of information.
The highlight for me from a GMing perspective was getting to improvise Yaro, aka Senlokto Boraminder at the Captive Audience. He urged as many of the PCs as he could onto the stage and began directing them to do all manner of odd things, all in the name of the performance. Having your greatsword-weilding, power attacking fighter make a Perform check is not to be missed. And the look on the druid’s face when asked if his badger knew how to juggle was worth the price of admission.
I think that the highlight for the players had to be the council meeting, where they got to present all their evidence. We had one particularly verbose player who stood up and made an impassioned speech that was just superb. As he finished he even had people at the adjoining tables clapping for him. Having gathered every possible piece of evidence and with bonuses for roleplaying, he managed a 55 on one of his Diplomacy rolls.
I did ever-so-slightly tweak Ouidda’s tactics for the final battle. It says she drinks her potion of invisibility when she hears someone approach her door. But given that it also says she tries to avoid melee at all costs, I didn’t see how being invisible at the start gave her much of an advantage. Instead she attempted to use enthrall to affect as many of the PCs as possible right at the start before they could get into melee range.
Once the PCs had closed on her and gotten her below half hit points, she drank her invisibility and attempted to flee. This made for a very exciting few rounds as the PCs attempted to track her down. One of them ended up readying an action to attack the square next to the door should it be opened, and sure enough was able to hit Ouidda, then hit her again on the PCs turn, which was enough to fell her. A tense, exciting way to finish a fun adventure.
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The second Cheliax mission involves rescuing and convincing someone to join a different theater company. The GM notes say “snapping her out of her charmed state requires the use of dispel magic or other compulsion negating magic…”
Our solution (at tier 3-4) was to dispatch Yaro/Boraminder and then fetch someone from the nearest appropriate temple to cast the right spells for us. That said, Protection from Evil should allow the target another save.
We were in the other corner of the room at Paizocon. ;)
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The second Cheliax mission involves rescuing and convincing someone to join a different theater company. The GM notes say “snapping her out of her charmed state requires the use of dispel magic or other compulsion negating magic…”
This requirement would seem to preclude anyone from the lower tiers from being able to complete it. I know that one of the faction missions is supposed to be difficult, but in this case it appears to have been made nigh impossible. Is there other “compulsion negating magic” available to low-level characters that I’m not thinking of?
My cleric used his Honour Bound domain power, which grants the subject another save against enchantment (compulsion) effects. Metagaming, I knew this was a Chelaxian faction mission, but my character didn't know that he was aiding the Chelaxian scum, only that this was a victim of the Spider. Also, the Chelaxian PC hadn't needed much convincing to help my character achieve his faction mission of wiping out the dhampirs, so it only seemed fair.
We had one particularly verbose player who stood up and made an impassioned speech that was just superb. As he finished he even had people at the adjoining tables clapping for him.
It was pretty difficult to ignore!
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The final speech does allow a great, great opportunity to roleplay should the group have a public-speech oriented player among it. Last time I ran this I had such a player, and it was a blast.
Anyhow, for the Cheliax faction mission: Initially I too thought that requiring Dispel Magic was just too much until realizing that having it cast costs only 150gp or one PP, which any Cheliaxian PC should be able to afford even at tier 1-2 (assuming a character with a scenario or two under his belt). Much less annoying than requiring successful usage of a trained-only skill, IMHO.
