PFS#3-01 The Frostfur Captives [Spoilers]


GM Discussion

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* Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Eaghen- wrote:
I agree there is a lot of opportunity for some great fun with this one. I had a less-than-stellar experience with it. It was still fun, and I'm not faulting our GM...just pointing out a few potential pitfalls that might detract from the experience.

Eaghen,

I certainly don't want to armchair quarterback your GM either. However, I agree with you, there were some lost opportunities for fun there.

These are very minor spoilers (not much, but I'm playing it safe)

Spoiler:
The goblins were intended to always be a hassle in almost every situation, but not always in a cliche 'stab you in the back' sort of way, though certainly they're more than capable of that as well. Sometimes they're just meant to be themselves, and that in of itself causes problems. I.e they 'help' you with their bravado, they 'help' you with their panic stricken warnings of danger. Whatever their intentions, havoc is what you should get.

Yet, the hassles they create add to the encounters, but shouldn't make those encounters unmanageable. They're "spice". And if you leave the spice off altogether, the adventure could be somewhat bland- which sounds like what you're describing.

Thanks for giving it a try!

4/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

My gaming group has recently converted to Pathfinder, and I've been running PFS adventures for them to pass the time until the S&S AP is released.

I'm planning on running The Frostfur Captives for them this Saturday, and I have a question regarding the faction missions. Out of the three "get information" missions - Osirion, Qadira, and Silver Crusade - only the Qadira mission gives any description as to the information contained in the response.

What I'm asking is: is there any background information for the Osirion and Silver Crusade missions that I'm missing, or do I just make it up?

* Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

ubiquitous wrote:

My gaming group has recently converted to Pathfinder, and I've been running PFS adventures for them to pass the time until the S&S AP is released.

I'm planning on running The Frostfur Captives for them this Saturday, and I have a question regarding the faction missions. Out of the three "get information" missions - Osirion, Qadira, and Silver Crusade - only the Qadira mission gives any description as to the information contained in the response.

What I'm asking is: is there any background information for the Osirion and Silver Crusade missions that I'm missing, or do I just make it up?

Hi there!

There is no information missing,but you have identified a hiccup in my attempt to write more interesting faction missions. I didn't see these missions as a problem, but the open-ended nature of them has confused multiple GMs, so that is less than perfect. But let's fix that!

I'll talk about them individually:

Silver Crusade:

Spoiler:

What is really being tested here is the Silver Crusade's ability to have a private conversation with the goblins, while getting them to be cooperative. Sadly, what is not being tested is whether that potential information is actually useful. In that respect I somewhat defend the mission, because the Silver Crusade is doing the whole "yours is not to evaluate the question, yours is just to ask it- discreetly".

But! Does the scenario tell you what the answer really is? No, it doesn't. I don't know if the stilyagi have been in contact with the Shadow Lodge insurgents. I think its a great question, because stilyagi can defy custom and tradition in Whitethrone when no one else can (which is a type of power in the temporal and political sense).. you'll have to decide whether the two groups have spoken or not.

Sorry for the confusion.

I love Irrisen, and I was sowing seeds for future stories, but that isn't strictly helpful to the "boots on the ground" GM, so I should have called it out.

Osirion

Spoiler:

Again, I think is an awesome and interesting question!

And I don't answer it for the GM. As with the Silver Crusade, what is really being tested is the PCs ability to get someone in an insular and oppressive community (where conversation with strangers are frowned upon by the local authorities) to actually talk to them.

That being said, I do know the answer to this one. Besides traditional mineral wealth (silver, gold, diamonds), they're mining for "blue diamonds" which are a form of rare blue quartz. This is described in Page 81 of the Inner Sea Guide. Now the Ice Mines of Lost Hope are not exactly close to Harvest's End; I envision that blue Quartz can be found in more than just one mine in the whole nation. I'm not sure what unusual properties (if any) the blue quartz actually possess, but the fact that a vast majority of the wealth if Irrisen goes to and disappears in Whitethrone is canonical. If you check out Cities of Golarion, specifically the chapter on Whitethrone, you'll read about how the taxation and disproportionate amount of wealth is vanishing in the Capital- and that one of the Jadwiga Elvanna is building what seems to be a 'contemporary artifact' of massive size and unknown intent. :D These aren't hard cold facts, but they are story seeds that were left in previous publications, and I stitched them together for inspirations for more interesting faction missions.

As I said, I love Irrisen, so I was doing my homework, and I work for the King of Continuity, Mr. Mark Moreland.

NEVERTHELESS, I should not and did not intend for the "boots on the ground" GM to read my mind or following this daisy chain of tidbits from previous publications. BUT! I hope that this helps you come up with interesting answers for your PCs when they go through this adventure. And thanks for running it!

Whew, longer answer than I expected to write!

4/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

Jim Groves wrote:
**provided an excellent response**

Thanks for the quick - and very helpful - response! I don't know if any of my players are going to pick SC for their faction yet, but I know there'll be at least one representative for Osirion in the party, and tales of blue quartz with mysterious properties will have her hooked.

Having read through the adventure a few times, I think you succeeded in writing interesting missions - although the proof will be in the play - with my only concerns being the lack of information for those two missions (which you have kindly remedied), and the Lantern Lodge's handout suffering a little bit of disconnect with the method needing to be taken to complete it.

I'm very excited to run the adventure. Hopefully my players will enjoy the goblins as much as I will enjoy acting them out. :D

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

ubiquitous wrote:
I'm very excited to run the adventure. Hopefully my players will enjoy the goblins as much as I will enjoy acting them out. :D

When I ran this the first time, a long long time ago, I remember my favorite part of acting out the goblins was the one the party deemed as "Goblin One."

The name developed as one PC tried to control them with intimidate -- control the leader, he supposed, and you'll control them all. So he asked them: "Do any of you speak common?"
I flipped through the pages, found their stat block, and had one reply: "No... I mean...wait...crap."

From that point on the only goblin they spoke to was Goblin One. Whenever a PC suggested killing a goblin to make the journey easier, or injure them in someway, Goblin One would shove another goblin to the front of the huddled group, or translate for his comrades. "They're deciding which one of us to free! Whoever runs the fastest wins!"

When one of the goblins immolated himself, Goblin One picked up the scorched cloth remains, tied it around his head, and proclaimed that he was now their chief, as he had used his magical mind-fires to kill the nonbeliever.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you, as a GM, can have waaaay more fun than a PC in this game, ubiquitous. You'd do yourself a disservice not to live it up as much as possible with them, and, if you have the chance to, run a table of We Be Goblins! You won't be disappointed with either ;)

Scarab Sages 2/5

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I played this one before GM-ing it at Eurocon this weekend, and it turned out... well, let's just say it didn't went as expected, so I thought it would be great to try to run it to get the full experience of it. Scavenging this topic for preparation I gathered some fine ideas I tried to implement, especially Chris' descriptions of goblins. Anyway, I had four amazing players, we played lower tier and had a blast! Especially because we had plenty of time so I didn't have to rush things and they wanted to role-play.

Meet the party:

Human Fighter (Cheliax) - I actually didn't get a good grasp of the character but he was the one showing goblins who's the boss.

Half-Orc Monk (Shadow Lodge) - All quiet and insightful, and needs his dose of fighting and grappling things.

Human Barbarian (Andoran) - Young lad of Ulfen blood turned out as a comic relief at the table with his lack of experience. The player was actually new to Society and perhaps role-playing in general, not sure, so it only accentuated his behavior.

Human Paladin/ Oracle (Grand Lodge) - Character lost his paladin powers during some previous scenario and player decided to pick Oracle level(s) for role-playing purposes and flavor until he redeems/ atones himself. He had most interaction with the goblins and won their hearts in the end. ;)

Before (seriously) starting the first act I tried to emphasize how much headache the goblins will cause and that it's really important to keep a close eye on them but I had to work with some boundaries since PCs decided to cuff the goblins and to tie them together with a rope (yup, no alchemist fire for me). And funny thing, while they were in the camp, HOrc was worried about fetching the orders but it somehow ended up with paladin serving as a diversion with him questioning Ragna about mission, goblins and other things so she didn't notice a thing. :D

Act 1:

So, once they got to the towers we shifted focus down to battle grid and the front two characters who were holding the rope and leading the goblins, kinda forgot about that and rushed to the towers which led to the captives trying to discreetly change the course and escape but paladin wouldn't allow that so he tied them up to the nearest stone. Eventually, three of them were at the towers - two at western, one at eastern and the fighter was called back to keep an eye on the goblins who were now chewing through the rope. After some failed diplomacy and intimidation, and seeing they completely disrespect his authority, the fighter proceeded slapping each of them to stop and eventually punching the persistent one for six points of damage. Yes, he was staggered for some time and was about to slow them down.
At the towers, HOrc grappled one goblin, pinned and threw him from the tower while the barbarian fell the other in a single strike. Meanwhile paladin was dealing with the shaman and... after a successful fight they eventually put out the fire. Paladin panicked more of the goblins will arrive if they saw the signal so they rushed on, carrying the bruised goblin on the back.

Act 2:

Act two went with no particular problems but was so much fun nudging player's paranoia. After some debating how to construct a shelter, they succeeded and storm caught them just as they were finishing up. They took watches during the night so I had goblins do something during each watch. I can't really remember what I had them do first two watches except to look all sneaky as if planning something - someone from the party spotted it but failed at extracting more information. On the paladin's watch I had two of them attack the other so he got a serious bite wound right there and paladin separated them, tried to find out if that was what they were planning and everything. He tended to the wounded and checked on the now unconscious one who seemed to be very cold and breathing slowly so, SO - paladin gave his bedroll to the poor goblin and ended up sleeping on the cold ground.
After that, barbarian was up for the watch and since he was standing guard at the entrance, I mentioned he hears wind howling outside and after a poor perception check I suggested he might be hearing wolves howling in the distance (I intended to wait for the morning for the actual encounter) which was a nice hint at what will follow so he woke up paladin who then woke up everyone else and they went out all ready for battle and after an hour of futile search they went to sleep scared. Paladin actually accused the smartest goblin, with which he had most interaction with, about devising a plan to attract wolves by persuading another to bite the third and letting the wolves smell the blood! Hilarious!

Act 3:

Next morning they had a brief fight with the wolves who didn't prove to be a match for them. Goblins actually pleaded them to spare the wolves and were shocked at pure barbarism PCs showed by killing the two of young wolves. After some more role-playing - feeding goblins, comforting them and explaining why they had to kill the wolves(!!!), preparing to move on, etc. they arrived at Harvest's End.

Act 4:

By here, we were kinda tired so this one was a bit clunky (at least for me) but they succeeded to pass Rimetusk through pure diplomacy, bluffing, and general role-playing. HOrc went in first while humans waited outside the village, and he managed to gather some information but couldn't get Rimetusk's approval to use the ferry. It was fun depicting the troll trying to intimidate them and make them show him respect. Looks on their faces were priceless when they finally brought goblins before Rimetusk and I had them scream "Help, zirr, we ahre being kidnapped, uumans treat uz badly!" Somehow they managed to speak their way out of combat by praising mighty Rimetusk and his giant axe. :D
Barbarian ended up harassing the woman in the bar while trying to complete his mission and almost got himself into trouble with the bouncer, but decided to leave peacefully instead.

Act 5:

We took a break and when we gathered again, act five followed with party approaching the forest. Goblins were obviously shaken and were tied (again, damn!) to a tree and barbarian kept an eye on them. Some time passed until their paranoia subsided and they finally approached the house. It was my fault again because I had paladin (who's haunted because of oracle class) hear a child's voice invite him in to play because it's lonely. This and goblin's moaning of the Witch Queen scared the hell out of them. So, once they approached the house, HOrc tried to burn it with alchemist fire, but he rolled a 1. Happy time! After that, fighter dared to go in and, again, the players were terrified when I described the face of the doll... ehm, fighter swung his flail at the doll lying on the chair, missed and knocked the chair over. Monk goes in, tries to punch it, and misses so he hits the floor (hilarious scene). After that, the doll decided to end them but failed after monk grappled her for good and fighter bust her to pieces.
After that, goblins were still sensing witch's gaze upon them (the doll's eyes) so the party left the forest as quickly as possible.

Act 6:

Final act was great fun too but by now we were trying to close everything. It basically consisted of barbarian and fighter trying to out-drink Enrik (he tried to keep them busy until his men deal with paladin and goblins), while chaplain was with monk who heard footsteps on the roof and went out to check. Action followed with barbarian having his great moment of jumping on the table (almost failing) and accusing Enrik for betrayal. By the end two PCs went to negative, HOrc managed to heal to positive thanks to Orc Ferocity and paladin ended up on exactly 0 HP before healing. Chaplain was the last one standing and surrendered when they healed. Oh yeah, one goblin went down and paladin gave him a potion just so he could open his eyes, say something and assure the rest of his friends he's okay.

Role-played the conclusion and that's it.

Again, it was a great game with a lot of facepalming at the goblins (which means I did good portraying them), funny moments and bursts of paranoia. I probably forgot some great moment but this is enough already.

Sorry for the long post, I just had to share it, and perhaps someone will find/ scavenge something useful for his/ her own session. This is definitely a scenario you want to run when you have enough time just so all the players could get a complete experience and enjoy themselves.

- Tenkazu

Liberty's Edge 1/5

I ran this for the first time last night.

The Party:

4 characters, all of them first level.

Castiel: Human Life Oracle (Grand Lodge)
Kilm: Human Barbarian (Taldor)
Zorff: Half-Orc Barbarian (Silver Crusade)
Raluca: Human Ranger (Taldor)

Act 1:

This battle went pretty poorly for the PCs mostly because my dice were hot. The characters didn't try to sneak up on the towers. This isn't too surprising with an archer, two barbarians, and a blind Oracle who couldn't even see the towers before the goblins started firing.

The goblins also won initiative. They pretty much all hit both rounds and there was a crit each round as well. Kilm (one of the barbarians) took an arrow to the head and dropped to 0 hp. One of the goblins took a crit, but didn't die from it. The Oracle channeled and kept the goblins alive by the Barbarian was out of range by then.

Kilm activated his rage when his turn came around so he had 2 temporary hit points for a while. He managed to get missed three times and saved against a Burning Hands, so he survived the battle with one hit point and was healed by the Oracle just when his rage wore out. The party didn't think to put out the signal fire and in fact left two goblins up there alone with it while they were working on the other tower. The unsupervised goblins stole the Cure Light Wounds Potion and the Alchemist Fires. They threw everything else into the signal fire, including the bodies of the fallen Icetooth Goblins.

Act 2:

All four party members had ranks in survival and had purchased cold weather gear, so the snow storm was a breeze. Pun noted.

Act 3:

The goblins tried to ride the wolves. One was taken out by an AoO, but didn't die. The party felt bad about killing the wolves after the goblins were so upset by it.

Act 4:

The party took the goblins to the inn in Harvest's End and got them quite drunk and well-fed so they were as happy as could be. When they got to Rimetusk, he questioned the Goblins on why they were with these human and the drunk goblins responded that they were best friends. The party rolled well on their diplomacy check and, with a bonus from cooperative and inebriated goblins, were able to convince Rimetusk to take them across the river.

Act 5:

The Doll got a surprise Inflict Serious Wounds in on Kilm, who took a lot of punishment because he always rushed in first. Kilm to 20 and dropped to -8, with a 10 Con. He failed his Fort save on his turn and was at -9 when the Oracle finally made it close enough to heal him with a channel. One round away from a kill. The doll doesn't have anything to do after this, so the main action of this battle was rounding up goblins who ran for their lives in mortal terror when the doll came out of the house and rose up into the air. The players were sympathetic and admitted that they were pretty scared too after the doll one-shot the barbarian and starting levitating.

Act 6:

This one went pretty much by the book. The PCs didn't catch onto what was going on until dinner and thought that Enrik and the Chaplain weren't in on it for several rounds of combat (It took them a while to get there as the buffed themselves and tried to keep their noses out of it until it was apparent their men weren't going to be to able to handle the PCs.) The goblins used their purloined alchemist fire during this battle, throwing it where ever they thought it would be the most fun.

The faction quest was a little vague for Taldor and they wasted time and money trying to convince Rimetusk to set up an audience for them with the jadwiga. Of course, Rimetusk kept bragging and overstating his influence with the jadwiga until they eventually were able to Sense Motive that he was just milking them for coin.

The faction quest for the Grand Lodge is a little vague too and players can blow it unintentionally. Fortunately, our Grand Lodgers did fine. He convinced the archer that we needed to kill any goblins if they looked like they were going to get away.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

did the Chronicle ever get fixed ?

5/5

Tenkazu, one thing I do to avoid the whole tying thing.. with the lightfoot chracter, I make a big deal about how they tried tying the creatuers, but that they grew sullen and hard to manage; and they'd found that with letting them be free, they could explain that they had to stay with the group and be quiet and the creatures were ok. As long as they got their foods and play time... I usually have them throwing snowballs at eachother.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Is there a pricing error on the Chronicle sheet I'm not aware of?

As far as when changes are made to scenarios, you'll get an email that the file was updated every time we make alterations to it. This will include a link to your downloads page to re-download the updated file.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Mark Moreland wrote:

Is there a pricing error on the Chronicle sheet I'm not aware of?

As far as when changes are made to scenarios, you'll get an email that the file was updated every time we make alterations to it. This will include a link to your downloads page to re-download the updated file.

Jim talked about it on another thread

Jim Groves wrote:

I am offering my mea culpa for Frostfur Captives.

Last night I broke out my turnover and I reviewed the rewards for subtier 4-5.

It took me a second to see what happened, but then it struck me what the deal was. Mark generously gives us a lot of support documents to aid us in developing adventures. (He really does all he can to set you up to succeed.) One of those documents has a chart with the treasure levels for Tiers and subtiers. Basically when I read the chart, my eyes didn't track the rows going from left to right, and the gold value I used was from an adjacent row (subtier 3-4, for the next highest leve tier.. so its the lowest reward for the next highest bracket). I'm positive this is what occurred because I'm with 1 gp of that other subtiers reward value.

I apologize for the error and the inconvenience, the fault is mine. I'll triple check that in the future.

the chronicle lists as a subtier 1-2 and 3-4

you had made a comment later ...

Mark Moreland wrote:
1,800 is the target value for subtier 4–5. I have changed the wealth tracking spreadsheet recently to preclude the error Jim (and I, during development, apparently) made on that particular scenario. In the end, over the course of a PC's career, the wealth discrepancy of 500 gp (or even 1,000 if it happened to the same PC twice) is well within the standard deviation for the assumed wealth of a given PC.

I am just trying to find out if I need to track down my GM from that scenario to get an updated Chronicle or not

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Wraith235 wrote:
Mark Moreland wrote:
1,800 is the target value for subtier 4–5. I have changed the wealth tracking spreadsheet recently to preclude the error Jim (and I, during development, apparently) made on that particular scenario. In the end, over the course of a PC's career, the wealth discrepancy of 500 gp (or even 1,000 if it happened to the same PC twice) is well within the standard deviation for the assumed wealth of a given PC.
I am just trying to find out if I need to track down my GM from that scenario to get an updated Chronicle or not

No changes have been made to this scenario. Readjusting wealth at this point would result in significant revisions to the entire scenario to place the requisite treasure in it. As it stands, PCs gain wealth commensurate with the equipment they face or find within the adventure, so no one's missing out except in comparison to other scenarios, but not based on the challenges actually faced during this adventure.

* Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Sorry again!

Mark has updated the writer's tools to significantly reduce the chance of this happening any more.


We had a blast with this one. Totally undiplomatic party, lots of severe abuse of the goblins, and in Harvest's End, they straight up picked a fight with the troll and butchered it (with one monk being able to deflect one melee attach each round and one magus with AC 21, they probably could have gone for the high tier even with their five level 1 character, I guess ;-) )

The encounter we enjoyed most was the one with the doll.

this is how it went:
As a monster, the guardian doll was rather silly: one really nasty attack, but after that... just a teeny-tiny knife for 1d2-2 damage? The party never was in any real danger here.
But, after that one inflict serious wounds for 14 damage (18 really, but that would have killed a PC outright, so I exercised my priviledge to fudge), the players were pretty spooked.

The monk succeeded (after two high rolls with the d20) to pull a burlap sack over the doll, preventing it from levitating away. I loved that action, especially since I did not see the point of the doll levitating: its tactics description both says "fights to the death" AND "tries to stay outside of melee range". and note that at low tier, it does not have ranged attacks.

So, who was I to ask where in the world the monk dredged up that burlap sack, and how he, apparently, had it readied- in effect he saved the encounter from becoming a bit of a dud.

In the burlap sack, the doll cast prestidigitation to create a small cloud of green, foul smelling fog. That kept the PC's, frantically trying to prevent the "stinking cloud" (heheh) from the bag, busy for a while. The monk stepped on the bag to make sure it would remain closed- way to catch him flat-footed, for a whopping one point of damage ;-)

Then, the teeny-tiny little knife cut through the burlap, and up levitated the doll, with a maniacally evil look on its face. The players' cries of horror were exquisite :-)

And fortunately, the next round they managed to inflict a ton of damage on it, so the "battle" ended on a nice and heroic note.

But still: to DMs who are planning on running this scenario, I'd advice changing the guardian doll a little- give it 2x inflict moderate wounds instead of 1x inflict serious wounds, make the dagger mildly poisonous (fort save 12 or 1d3 dex damage?), and maybe give it 2x/day dimension door and 1x/day mirror image to give the illusion of several dolls appearing from under the foliage, or something like it.

5/5

Erai wrote:
But still: to DMs who are planning on running this scenario, I'd advice changing the guardian doll a little- give it 2x inflict moderate wounds instead of 1x inflict serious wounds, make the dagger mildly poisonous (fort save 12 or 1d3 dex damage?), and maybe give it 2x/day dimension door and 1x/day mirror image to give the illusion of several dolls appearing from under the foliage, or something like it.

Or maybe not, since that's exactly the kind of changes we're specifically not allowed to make.


Patrick Harris @ SD wrote:
Or maybe not, since that's exactly the kind of changes we're specifically not allowed to make.

Aw, who's going to know ;-)

And as long as the challenge and balance remain unchanged, I wouldn't feel guilty about it either (although it is, admittedly, a thin line to walk). And in this case, it would just add to the atmosphere, nothing else, really.

5/5

Erai wrote:

Aw, who's going to know ;-)

And as long as the challenge and balance remain unchanged, I wouldn't feel guilty about it either (although it is, admittedly, a thin line to walk). And in this case, it would just add to the atmosphere, nothing else, really.

Are you serious? You had to fudge the attack to avoid killing a player outright, and you're recommending that it get to do that twice.

"Run as written" exists specifically to prevent GMs from doing exactly what you are describing.

Mike Brock in http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pmxp&page=2?Run-as-written#82 wrote:

If you want artistic license, play a home campaign. I can't stress this enough. You've advised the same thing several times and it is time to move on. It isn't going to change,

PFS has a stricter set of guidelines. I have a weekly home game I GM and we don't use PFS. I like to use creative license to give my home players a challenge and experience. I don't use that same creative license in PFS. It isn't fair to players and other GMs.

Mike Brock in http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pmxp&page=2?Run-as-written#93 wrote:

People have not offered a solution that is workable around the world, with both GMs who have 20 years of experience and GMs running their very first game. If you are going to have rules in place for "wiggle" room for GMs to make adjustments on the fly to make the game "more fun," then it has to be applicable to all GMs across the board for Organized Play. Since you think that is a workable option, what are your suggestions since you have posted no suggestions here, and only argued the debate with no solutions to how to fix this problem in this entire thread?

Are you willing to allow a first or second time GM some wiggle room, to run your characters in an adventure, when that character may not have enough for a raise dead and be removed from play permanently? If your character was removed from play permanently because the GM decided to "make the game more fun," are you ok with that decision and consequence without any complaining to me, a VC, or anyone else? You are just going to take it in stride? What if it happens three times in a row, and three different characters are removed from play because of permanent death, all due to GM fiat to make the game "more fun and interesting"? Something tells me the answers to all of those are probably not. I know it wasn't for one player who sent me a series of four emails over three weeks 15 months ago.

And guess what? When you allow just "a little wiggle room" for GMs to make things "more interesting and fun", it drives players away from the game. It doesn't bring them into it. I have proof of this. I have emails from players in 11 different countries. What proof do you have to offer that allowing GM fiat is going to help bolster the number of players? If GM fiat would help bolster numbers more than double in a year as things currently growing, I certainly would consider it. But your "plan" (amd again nothing has really been presented by you yet), would almost certainly make the player base decrease, not increase.

Again, what you are proposing is exactly what that rule exists to prevent.


Patrick Harris @ SD wrote:
Again, what you are proposing is exactly what that rule exists to prevent.

I do get your point (as well as Mike Brock's), in general, GMs arbitrarily winging it will -and I, too, have seen that happen all too often- create a mess more often than not (and in most cases, GM fiat will severely damage a home game as well)

And I certainly would not do something like it at a convention.

But.

In this case... it's an old scenario that will, most likely, never be erratta'd at this stage, and that probably was only playtested properly for the high tier, resulting, for the low tier, in an encounter that could be absolutely wonderful, but probably won't be (as written), since it will just consist of meaningless posing on the part of the monster.

And in such a case, my opinion is that our responsibility to provide players with entertaining situations outweighs the need to stick to rules.

(But again, situations should not become more challenging than described, for precisely the reasons that Mike mentions, I totally agree with you there)

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

About the snowblooms on the chronicle sheet. I don't see a quantity with it, so I could borrow as many as I like? After any scenario?

5/5

thistledown wrote:
About the snowblooms on the chronicle sheet. I don't see a quantity with it, so I could borrow as many as I like? After any scenario?

You can buy them with no limit according to the Chronicle sheet as printed. I am not aware of an errata that would contradict that, although it may exist.

1/5

Erai wrote:
And in such a case, my opinion is that our responsibility to provide players with entertaining situations outweighs the need to stick to rules.

No...no...no.

I would strongly urge that you disabuse yourself of that opinion. PF is fun as written. More to the point, the people who run PFS decided that requiring that GMs stick to the rules is more beneficial to the game than allowing individual GMs to arbitrarily decide when the rules/scenario instructions should be set aside.

The inherent problem with your approach is that your opinion on what makes the scenario more fun will not always coincide with the players. I've seen many a post of GMs who thought it was more fun to do this or that and I as a player would have been appalled. The last thing I want is the GM increasing the difficulty without increasing the reward...and you can't increase the reward.

Stick to the rules. If that's a problem for you, Mike Brock and Mark Moreland have posted stated that PFS might not be right for you.

You might have missed this in the PFS Guide:

PFS Guide wrote:

As a Pathfinder Society GM, you have the right and

responsibility to make whatever judgements, within the
rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to ensure
everyone has a fair and fun experience. This does not
mean you can contradict rules or restrictions outlined in
this document, a published Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
source, errata document, or official FAQ on paizo.com.

What it does mean is that only you can judge what is right
for your table during cases not covered in these sources.
Scenarios are meant to be run as written, with no addition
or subtraction to number of monsters (unless indicated
in the scenario), or changes to armor, feats, items, skills,
spells, stats, traits, or weapons.

Emphasis added.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Played this one last night and really thought it was fun. My group kept the goblins (represented by the four WBG character minis) in line with a combination of intimidate checks, salted fish, and the promise of tindertwigs for good behaviour. Basically, we treated them like preschoolers on a field trip to the zoo (there were many jokes about holding on to the rope and knowing where their buddy is).
Most of the violent enounters were trivialized by the ragecleavesmash barbarian with the earthbreaker, and the kitsune bard rocked the social situations. We decided to sleep in the shelter at the first combat site, so the storm was a non-issue. It was also nice to be able to use the WBG and the Frozen Fingers boons to effect.

The Exchange 1/5

Hi all
I have noticed discrepancies or have some questions listed below:

Why is the troll at a -1 to hit in both tier groups?
T1 - Str + BAB = hit bonus should be 5
T2 – Str + BAB + magic + focus = hit bonus should be 11

That’s cool that it lists night or day encounter mods, but what are the circumstances that would make it one or the other when there aren’t travel times listed?

If the party doesn’t have any members that require doll parts, and they keep the doll - such as a charm monster or something, shouldn’t that adjust the party wealth? Since they are worth 6600gp

thank you much

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Size large is -1 to hit.

The Exchange 1/5

awesome!

thank you, obviously I completely missed that

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

So, one of the best parts of the adventure, when I ran it, was the goblins, who had "befriended" specific PCs, wanting "hugs" when they were given something... supposedly in thanks.

Of course, each of those times was accompanied by the theft of something. Especially from the poor gunslinger. Over the course of the adventure he had two alchemist fires stolen from him (one was retrieved successfully, the other went BOOM while the gobbo tried to "retrieve" it). That, and the potion of CLW that the gunslinger was carrying. As I recall, he was asking around for a prestidigitation spell to clean the retrieved potion. The funny thing was the PCs debating on whether the goblin was at risk of dying upon a failed "retrieval" of the swallowed potion. After all, it would heal 1d8+1 HP, more than the damage it would cause by shattering in the goblin's nether regions.

That, and the little evil guys just sitting down, eyes HUGE, saying as one...
"HUUUUNNGGGRRYYYYYYYY!!!!!!"

* Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

I am always delighted to see this scenario still has legs after all this time.

Years from now, the Frostfur gang will still be the happy memory for me about how I got started freelancing. My pardons for the flaws, it was the very first one. :)

Grand Lodge 3/5

Greetings everyone,

I know that this thread has been dormant for a while, but I wanted to share something I did for anyone in the future. Everyone talking about the goblins and how important they are to the scenario made me decide to give them personalities and "classes". I made the goblins think that they were adventurers, but in the same mentality that you see 5 year olds thinking they are "Ninja Turtles" or "Power Rangers". I came up with 7 different personalities, so you can take which ones you like, you don't like or make up some new ones.

goblins:
Barbarian - Bonebreak - He gets angry easily and always wants to fight, especially if you tell him no. If you stop him, he "rages" and throws a temper tantrum.

Bard - Sicksong - Loves to sing and his songs are twisted to the point that they don't fit into polite goblin society. (No examples I can provide for songs.) Also, a bit oblivious to everything going on.

Cleric - Deathtongue - (Saw someone's suggestion and this is what sparked this whole train of thought) Thinks he can cast Speak with Dead by licking the recently slain. Side effects, gets very hungry.

Druid - Itchyrash - Loves being out in nature, but can't figure out what's poisonous and what isn't. Currently wearing a wreath of poison ivy. Also, his animal companion is his pet rock, gravels.

Paladin - Helmhead - Won't go anywhere without his helm of bravery to help him smite his foes. His helm is just a bucket that falls over his eyes so he can't see. There's no line between bravery and stupidity for this guy.

Rouge - Kidneyhole - Likes to sneak and scare people and has a fork (I treated it as still being unarmed) that he uses on his foes.

Sorcerer - Wigglefinger - Thinks he can cast spells and his favorite spells are magic missle (thrown rocks and twigs), mudball (more mud throwing... sometimes more disgusting stuff), and stinking cloud. (Use your imagination on that one.)

And, just so everyone knows how my party last night kept the goblins in line, they used a rope and the goblins had to hold onto it to keep them safe and if they did, they got extra rations. They used prestidigitation to make the rope sparkle to make them believe it would protect them.

Goblin Antics:
Finally, I loved your little line about a goblin eating an alchemist fire, so my rouge goblin got his hands on one and swallowed it without anyone seeing. Leading up to the point of camping, they all noticed that he was oddly quiet the entire time. While camping, he "had to go potty" and since I knew it wouldn't kill him, had the alchemist fire go off. Talk about explosive diarrhea. (Facepalms from everyone at the table.)


I'm about to run this one and have a couple of concerns that haven't been very well addressed IMO.

A) What's stopping the goblins from running at the first chance they get?

B) The fact that Act 1 involves an attack by goblins is too coincidental to ignore. As a player, I assumed that the goblins were there to rescue their brethren.

So, did anyone else deal with these issues? I think I'm going to tell my players at the beginning that the goblins don't want to escape because they are in Icetooth territory and they would kill Frostfurs...

Shadow Lodge 4/5

1) Fear. These fellas are former Shadow Lodge shock troops/cannon fodder. Naturally the insurgent agents didn't treat them well, but they were fed and disciplined often. The goblins’ starting attitude is indifferent, as they do not quite differentiate between PC Pathfinders and the Shadow Lodge agents they served until very recently. They march where directed without requiring a Diplomacy check, so long as they remain at least indifferent. While they’re not the smartest of creatures, the goblins know they’re caught in a power struggle between “bosses,” and that no one has their best interests at heart. So yeah, confused, frightened, but ready to obey if they get to eat, etc.

2)The Frostfur goblin prisoners want to join the PCs in the fight, making themselves additional targets. In other words, they are crying for blood and mayhem and want to fight these attackers. If the players feel confused, mention that the arrows seemed to target the Frostfurs as well. I'm sure that'll be enough.

Great scenario choice, btw.

Sovereign Court

Jim Groves wrote:

I am always delighted to see this scenario still has legs after all this time.

Years from now, the Frostfur gang will still be the happy memory for me about how I got started freelancing. My pardons for the flaws, it was the very first one. :)

I know this thread is old but I just ran this and was one of my favorite ones so far. (ran at tier 1-2)

My only gripe is the doll. This could have been an awsome encounter and instead I had to fudge the one attack and then as written the doll basically does nothing else. I dumbed down the inflict serius wounds to inflict moderate (2d8 vs 3d8). I don't give a [censored] what the PFS rules are in this case if I rolled the extra d8 it would have been a player death (and they were at full health). As it is inflict moderate was enough to take them into the negative in one shot forcing stabilize rolls and the party to immediately respond to prevent that player from dying. Oh sh!t moment was fully accomplished without a needless player death.

Despite the doll being rather dull the spellcaster in the group succeeded the spellcraft check and identified the first spell spell the doll cast after it was floating around in the air. The total look of confusion after they had just seen the doll take out the one character with inflict wounds and start "flying" around the battlefield only to be followed by casting a prestidigitation was priceless.

For anyone running this I strongly recommend using inflict moderate if the target is lvl 1 and only using the inflict serious wounds if they are level 2. Again I know this is contrary to PFS rules but oneshotting a lvl 1 character at full health is just bad GMing PFS or not. Now if that same level 1 didn't heal in-between encounters and the inflict moderate kills them when combined with previous damage, well then they learned a valuable lesson about healing after every encounter and that's fair game in my book.

Ranting aside this is an excellent one to run and if the doll encounter had been more exciting this would be rated #1 for me. (as a side note the higher tier defiantly looks like it does this. I may have to run it again when I get a GM star or even run it without credit because it was that good.)

Grand Lodge 4/5

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Just a couple of points you may have forgotten:
CL3, so 3d8+3 points of damage, average: 16.5 before the save.
Save DC is 12
Doll is tiny, and this is a Touch spell, so it has to provoke an AoO just to reach the range to try and touch the target, as it has to go into the target's square.
It's touch attack should be only +1 to hit vs Touch AC, too.
As far as I can tell, it has to cast, move, then touch, as it has only a minuscule chance of casting it defensively (DC 21 vs a Concentration of +2)

I know, when I ran it, I was concerned, especially since the target was a first level PC, but I rolled low damage, so he was unconscious, rather than dead.

And there are plenty of other things that can easily kill a first level PC if their luck turns bad, especially if the PC has some less than stellar build choices. I once one-shot a PC because he: Dumped his Con to 8, was playing a Witch, and took his FCB as a skill poitn. Then he moved up to an enemy to cast a CLW to heal an ally that was down by the enemy. AoO was a confirmed crit, since his AC was also low. Damage was 17 points on the crit, PC had 5 hit points, and an 8 Con...

Sovereign Court

dumping con is choice so I don't consider that a valid point [not trying to be a dick just don't see that as relevant].

3d8+3 is just too much damage from a single attack to throw at a lvl 1. The character had at lest 10 hp which is pretty good for a lvl 1 (d8 with 12con) and i still knocked him to negative 4 with inflict moderate wounds. The average damage on 2d8+3 is 12. Unless your playing a con based character this will nuke any lvl 1 character but wont kill them (most of the time). The potential for a oneshot kill is just to high on 3d8+3.

one thing i did forget was the doll would have to move into the targets square but they had already taken an AoO when the doll cast and missed so it would not have mattered.

3/5

I am with Kinevon. Every time I have played this, I feared about the inflict damage, but in the end it was not that serious danger. In order to inflict a killing blow it should survive the AoO, hit the touch attack with a low to hit, roll nearly maximum damage and the player failing the Will save. Well, disasters happen, but that is part of the risk of the game, what gives it some emotion.

I would not recommend changing the spell. That said, if you know that player is new to the game or the Organized play, knowing there is a danger, better chose a different target for the spell, and just in last chance allow for a Will save reroll or fudge the damage if you feel comfortable with that.

Consider an AC of 14 which is pretty low even for level 1.
Probability to hit: 40%
Consider 10 hp and 12 Con which should be a sort of a minimum for a front liner.
Probability to roll 22 damage with 3d8+3: 10.9%
Probability to fail a Will DC 12 (assuming +0 bonus to the save): 55%

So, all in all, probability to perform a killing blow: 2.4%
(I have not considered criticals but that applies to much other blows)
That 2.4% is a pretty high probability, but still, you can cope with the risk I think.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

When I played this, my pally managed to get caught flat footnoted, and then fails his save. This left him a two from dead. But he did survive, note this was pretty much a worst case, too, given how he had a 14 CON. I have run It twice, and no kills. So worry not too much.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Silbeg wrote:
When I played this, my pally managed to get caught flat footnoted, and then fails his save. This left him a two from dead. But he did survive, note this was pretty much a worst case, too, given how he had a 14 CON. I have run It twice, and no kills. So worry not too much.

Also remember that the PCs with the lowest hit points are also usually the ones with the best Will save, so, barring that rare roll of 1, it is not as bad as it sounds.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

kinevon wrote:
Silbeg wrote:
When I played this, my pally managed to get caught flat footnoted, and then fails his save. This left him a two from dead. But he did survive, note this was pretty much a worst case, too, given how he had a 14 CON. I have run It twice, and no kills. So worry not too much.
Also remember that the PCs with the lowest hit points are also usually the ones with the best Will save, so, barring that rare roll of 1, it is not as bad as it sounds.

It is also likely that the PCs with the most hit points and CON will be the ones moving in to attack...

Max damage from 3d8+3 = 27

CON 14 Barbarian => 28 until dead (w/o toughness, FCB)
CON 16 Fighter|Ranger|Paladin => 26 until dead (w/o toughness, FCB)

It is an ability meant to scare more than kill. Of course, should she manager to crit that touch...

But... crits happen.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

The two times I've seen this scenario run(mine and my VC's), the doll has been identified as a possible threat and shot full of arrows, bolts or molotov cocktails. It's about as dangerous as the fall in Master of the Fallen Fortress or the shadow in Crypt of the Everflame: scary but unlikely to kill you.

Sovereign Court 2/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Alaska—Anchorage

I was just played this scenario. The group was me lvl 3 cavalier, lvl 3 barbarian/cavalier, Lvl 3 inquisitor, lvl 2 brawler.

We did a fair to good job and didn't loose a goblin and made thru the all the acts minus the last act with little to no issue.

Act 6 we accepted Enrik's hospitality and while doing so failed booth Perception and Sense Motive rolls which ended up having all our goblins killed.

0 prestige do to failing 2 rolls.

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