| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Y'know what I think the problem a lot of people have with Haunts? Vengeance.
If a spellcaster is hiding, invisible, and whips off a fireball then runs away more than likely you'll catch up to them and carve your initials into them. If its a trap or permanent magic item not only do you have more tools in your bag to deal w/it initially but you've also got the option to beat on whoever put that whirling scythe-blade in the side tunnel.
Now in the case of Haunts, its a memory, a ghost; a shadow of what happened before. As such there's no one to blame, no one to pay for what they've done to you. In short; you feel like a victim. Congratulations; that's what a Haunt is SUPPOSED to do.
The best horror I've ever watched or read has left me feeling hollow and dead inside because of the overwhelming sense of despair and anguish it caused. Haunts are mini-versions of this given mechanics in the game.
Now there are SOME haunts that do provide closure. When they're done well and tell a story, AND the players are paying attention and not Hack-n-Slashing their way through everything then you can see what you need to do; bring the little girl up out of the well, go to the irradiated town and find your wife and daughter, willingly sacrifice yourself to the ghost-machine...whatever.
I've not ever played an all-haunt adventure nor have I played any of the AP's from Paizo. I have however run a 3-haunt 5room dungeon for my last campaign. The idea was that the monks of a monastery had one corrupt member go crazy and murder some of his brothers while he imprisoned the master in a hidden cell where the master starved to death. The corrupt brother was still stalking the halls a century later making it impossible to retrieve the master's ring (the macguffin needed to advance the plot.)
So the party shows up, kicks in the door without ANY research and takes out their weapons. One room in and one of them almost chokes to death on the burnt othur fumes from the corpse in the center of the side chamber. Of course they hack the thing to pieces (which does nothing) and ignore its whispers about the "black brother".
They bungle through a couple more Haunts where they're immolated by green spirit flame and deal with a cause fear but they're FINALLY starting to get that to end this they've got to destroy the corrupt one... and then they stumble on the hidden cells and blunder through a Feast of Ashes Haunt but as they start losing consciousness they find the ring. Party cleric uses his channel energy and even though the haunt is over, just to give them a CLUE as to how to beat one of these things as he heals enough to get them out of the room I said that the whole chamber seemed to shudder at the touch of the positive energy.
What they got from that was 1) they have the ring so lets get out of this madhouse and 2) if we use any more healing magic the place is going to come down on our heads. So they said "forget the 'Black Brother' whatever that is" and take off.
Now, I'd warned them that I was doing a horror adventure and that there would be some mechanics they weren't used to. I also suggested just before entering that they not forget that Knowledge: Religion identified differing forms of undeath. Despite all of this they had a terrible adventure and disliked the whole thing. When I told them later how to deal w/a Haunt they had the same reaction most of the folks in this thread have had: so we're just s'posed to blunder around, wait to "feel" something, and then our only weapon is Channel Energy? Despite the fact that I would've also houseruled Ray of Disruption and any other creative ways to solve them...they were non-plussed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1) Would I wish that some of them were non-damaging and just there for storytelling? Yes. (Ghost stories are creepy for a reason, and if the cleric wants to blow their resources on cosmetics only... go ahead. Adds to the creep factor).
I have been thinking about this Jason.
And as a side note, I've been sparing in my comments because I don't want to argue with anybody. I can be passionate, but I want to be professional. But I think I'm ready to say something and you just sort of made the ol' lightbulb above the head switch on. You got me looking for a way to improve the mechanic that is already there. And I got an idea.
So thank you, Jason!
*************
EXPLANATION
The dang haunt mechanic is tied to CR, which prompts them to get really deadly at higher levels.
A less deadly and more creepy effect might have the PCs do something strange / terrible / tragic with just a suggestion spell, or major image over a hazard, or just a major image that is ol' fashioned misleading and tricksy.
But haunts are built with higher level spell effects because of the CR. That's why you're saving against freezing sphere instead of hideous laughter. When you assemble a haunt you're trying to get to a certain CR level which factors in the level of the spell.
Does that make sense? Am I talkin' English? :D The CR of the haunt is in proportion to the devastating spell level.
Also, lower level haunts use spell effects that also have lower DCs. Since the DC is figured in a similar manner as you would with a magic item that does a spell effect (like a wand).
**************
POSSIBLE SOLUTION / WORK AROUND
What if we could increase the CR of the haunt by an additional +1, +2, or +3 by just increasing the Save DC of the spell effect?
Because if the haunt is based on hideous laughter than a 7th to 9th level party is going to have a pretty easy saving throw anyway, right? And increasing the CL of the spell isn't going to change anything because saving throws aren't determined using them as a factor.
But if you raise the Save DC you make it a level appropriate challenge to the party you designed it to go up against, but you're not limited to selecting high damaging 5th through 7th level spell effects?
You could use the lower level spells that often do less damage, and sometimes evoke more of a creepy role-playing vibe.
Look this over people and tell me what you think! I don't pretend to know everything and you might spot the flaws I can't, but on the surface this looks like it might alleviate some of the problems with the mechanic. I value your input!
I didn't care much for haunts from "Haunting of Harrowstone" either. They didn't feel like what an actual haunting would feel like; I didn't like how they were tied to one room, like walking through a haunted house at a carnival; each room was some completely disconnected thing, instead of the entire building being an entity en masse.
Horror campaigns are my forte, so was eager to jump into this adventure. But, after the second or third room of the prison, I was already eye-rolling and bored. As soon as the mechanical "trap" of the haunt takes effect, that's it. Nothing else is going to happen. The players have already identified the threat, and if it isn't something lethal, they'll just sprint through the room and not even sweat it.
Example spoilered in case someone here is in this adventure
The one room in the prison that gets super cold, was nothing more than an annoyance. Sure, actual hauntings are rarely lethal themselves, but when the impending otherworldy threat is exposed as "you take some cold damage each round" it stops being scary. Oooh, cold damage. Cast a protective spell or just jog through the room. Next!
The root of fear is the unknown; the moment a person can identify the threat and possible ways around it, it stops being scary. The way haunts were handled in that adventure were just annoying. Maybe one specific, residual type of supernatural occurrence is more likely to happen in one specific location, but a general haunting encompasses an entire site, not just one entity per room. At least in my experience.
That, and the haunts were way over the top and hokey. At least for me, the most terrifying hauntings are the most subtle, keeping you in the dark and never knowing fully what's going on. Maybe you hear footsteps in the next room, but when you run in to look, there's no one there. You're standing in a group of fellow adventurers, and only 2 of you hear a whisper that seems like it came from right between where a few of you are standing, and from there the occurrences build and build until the entity manifests as something horrying... etc etc.
I didn't care much for haunts from "Haunting of Harrowstone" either. They didn't feel like what an actual haunting would feel like; I didn't like how they were tied to one room, like walking through a haunted house at a carnival; each room was some completely disconnected thing, instead of the entire building being an entity en masse.
Horror campaigns are my forte, so was eager to jump into this adventure. But, after the second or third room of the prison, I was already eye-rolling and bored. As soon as the mechanical "trap" of the haunt takes effect, that's it. Nothing else is going to happen. The players have already identified the threat, and if it isn't something lethal, they'll just sprint through the room and not even sweat it.
I didn't play Haunting of Harrowstone, so I can't talk about what Paizo did right or wrong with that adventure, but have run plenty of adventures including published ones with the Haunt mechanic and it seemed to work fine, fit the concept for a haunt.
Horror is my forte as well, in fact I publish a horror setting for Pathfinder where haunts are a significant aspect of the setting.
The root of fear is the unknown; the moment a person can identify the threat and possible ways around it, it stops being scary. The way haunts were handled in that adventure were just annoying. Maybe one specific, residual type of supernatural occurrence is more likely to happen in one specific location, but a general haunting encompasses an entire site, not just one entity per room. At least in my experience.
Well of course, the haunting was scary until you figured out how to deal with it. The same is true that a ghost is scary, until you figure out how to beat it, as the werewolf is scary until you stab it with silver dagger. All encounters are scary until you defeat it - it kind of goes with the territory of playing Pathfinder or any game system. Or perhaps any real situation as well.
I don't see figuring out how to defeat a haunt as taking anything away from a haunt. Nobody wants an unbeatable encounter, so once you figure it out, you deal with it and move on to the next scary encounter... that's how the game works.
That, and the haunts were way over the top and hokey. At least for me, the most terrifying hauntings are the most subtle, keeping you in the dark and never knowing fully what's going on. Maybe you hear footsteps in the next room, but when you run in to look, there's no one there. You're standing in a group of fellow adventurers, and only 2 of you hear a whisper that seems like it came from right between where a few of you are standing, and from...
Again, I can't rate the haunts of that adventure I didn't play it, but the haunts and haunted locations in The Gift, Curse of the Golden Spear: Part 1 from the Kaidan trilogy is not 'over the top', it fits the situation and history of the location, and is quite creepy.
A CR 0 Haunt with Ghost Sound (cantrip) as it's triggered effect would do exactly what you describe.
I see haunts as the spiritual recollection of some tragic past event. One haunt in one room is not a restriction of a ghost in one room, it's only the memory of one event - which occurred at a single location (a room, etc.) and manifests when the triggering activity sets it off. The whole house is haunted, perhaps by a single undead entity, but the triggered haunts at any location cannot occur anywhere except where the act that caused the haunt occurred.
It follows traditional ghost lore well. A haunt doesn't represent a different entity in each room. In fact I'd go as far as to consider most haunts in the same area (haunted house) as a single entity. A haunt isn't necessarily the entity itself, just a single event 'remembered' by such an entity. In other words, all five haunts in that house has to do with the same single entity, not five different entities.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I also truly dislike these encounters. It's way too hard to "solve" as puzzles (a few exceptions). They do not make the game interesting. They do not have interesting mechanics. They just punish characters in some obnoxious way. They are generally unkillable or cost tons in opportunity cost. They do not add to horror or atmosphere. They add to frustration and that is all. Frustration is an important part of these games--but these do not work well.
I got instantly tired of them in HoH. In Book VI of CC, they really depleted the energy of the game.
We have a group of savvy, experienced players, most of whom have written for RPGs. Whoever DMs is invariably very good at it. But I despise these both for their mechanics and the play of the thing in practice. I think they amount to a lazy punt, not an interesting twist.
And aren't they trying to simulate, you know, a ghostly spirit? Isn't that what we have monsters for? The mechanics are awkward and do not interact well with the rest of the system.
I didn't play Haunting of Harrowstone, so I can't talk about what Paizo did right or wrong with that adventure, but have run plenty of adventures including published ones with the Haunt mechanic and it seemed to work fine, fit the concept for a haunt.Horror is my forte as well, in fact I publish a horror setting for Pathfinder where haunts are a significant aspect of the setting.
I appreciate your input, but you were trying to answer things I mentioned about an adventure you didn't play, so I can't help but think you missed a few of my points.
You got me on the publishing bit; I'm just a gamer, I've never had anything published, or any writing credits(for things gaming-related). But, I had 2 years of film classes, focusing on script writing and the horror genre itself. It's all about pace and atmosphere, which can be very hard to translate into a table top game. I'm fully aware my personal sense of pace and tension-building would likely bore more casual players to sleep, so everything I say simply pertains to personal opinion and taste. Many, many gamers thoroughly enjoyed the Carrion Crown AP, so sales and positive feedback that AP and it's haunts have received far outweigh my little ramblings.
The "over the top/hokey" haunts I'm referring to, are the kind that have all the subtlety of a Fireball spell in a china shop; that probably works for some players, but for me specifically, it's about as bad as cheap slasher flicks that use genre cliches in place of actual plot, atmosphere, etc. I don't know what kind of haunts you used in your adventures, but the kind in Haunting of Harrowstone were less spectral, more like getting blasted by an invisible, evocation-focused wizard.
It didn't feel like some kind of supernatural entity, it felt like we were fighting a permanent spell trap. That's it. The idea that a cleric can just walk room to room blasting his/her channel energy ability to insta-win just makes haunts suck for anyone not playing a cleric. Might as well just have those players wait outside while the cleric cleans out the dungeon. The idea of a holy-person "cleansing" a haunted site is not unknown, but how often in stories does this ever actually work? It just angers the more malevolent spirits, more than anything.
I like the idea of a haunt mechanic, but the implementations I've played first-hand, came off pretty poor. In my opinion. Maybe there are some better examples out there, I just haven't seen them yet.
Look at #30 Haunts for Kaidan. There are 9 'chapters' each it's on story, its own set of hauntings, and ancilliary content. Placing haunts in the same style and build up as the haunts in this supplement will definitely bring the horror back into haunt mechanic, that other publications seemed to miss with.
I'd say the first haunted location in the The Gift, Curse of the Golden Spear: Part 1 is a very iconic and scary complex encounter that involve dream sequences, a powerful ghost, several related haunts and some ghouls making one of the scariest encounters you'll see in any publication.
Yeah I'm definitely not a fan of hack/slash type horror movies - I'm all for atmosphere. The Haunting of Hill House is a scary concept for a movie, Halloween, not so much.
Look at #30 Haunts for Kaidan. There are 9 'chapters' each it's on story, its own set of hauntings, and ancilliary content. Placing haunts in the same style and build up as the haunts in this supplement will definitely bring the horror back into haunt mechanic, that other publications seemed to miss with.
I'd say the first haunted location in the The Gift, Curse of the Golden Spear: Part 1 is a very iconic and scary complex encounter that involve dream sequences, a powerful ghost, several related haunts and some ghouls making one of the scariest encounters you'll see in any publication.
Yeah I'm definitely not a fan of hack/slash type horror movies - I'm all for atmosphere. The Haunting of Hill House is a scary concept for a movie, Halloween, not so much.
I'll definitely check that out. I think we're coming from similar places of inspiration. :) Hill House was a huge influence on me as a kid.
What if we could increase the CR of the haunt by an additional +1, +2, or +3 by just increasing the Save DC of the spell effect?You can already do that by using heightened spells. :)
Yes but then they would still be really easy for their CR.
I'm hearing a lot of negativity about haunts, but how to fix them? Would they be better just as monsters?
You walk into a room and an invisible gnome with Ghost Sound whispers "boo" and then runs away; from the player's perspective they hear a voice on one side of the room and footsteps into the hall. Creepy.
Maybe they'd be better if you could interact with them more. Walk into a room, the temp drops, you take damage...boring. Walk into a room, the temp drops, and then writing appears in the hoarfrost saying "get out"...a little better. Walk in, frost thing, then you get to make a Diplomacy roll or role play trying to communicate with the thing, maybe use Calm Emotions or Charm Person...some OTHER way besides the clerical Insta-Win Josh talked about...much more fun for us old schoolers!
C'mon, let's not throw the baby haunts out with the bathwater. Lets put our heads together and make them better. As for the creepiness vs cheese of these things...well, I play with some very non-committed rp'ers. As such nothing phases them. A mother dryad sacrificing herself to an angel so as to receive a Wish and her one wish being that her Forlarren daughter be "cured" of her demonic side, whereupon her daughter weeps tears of joy of knowing the true love of her mother, complete with me actually letting my voice tremble a bit as the dryad utters her final words "a mothers love is for always little one. Never forget that..." and I got NOTHING out of these stone golems. So no matter HOW creepy I've made my Haunts, or built the tension around them, I've never gotten much more than "great...but how do we ATTACK a bloody wall?"
'Course, I don't have all those fancy credentials you big boys do. I sit at the kids table of gaming.
So with all our accumulated knowledge and skills, lets make Haunts better.
|
I understand the OP's point of view and why Haunts bother him. But for me and my group those are the things we most likely about haunts. As some others have said, haunts are things that make you a victim and sometimes your learn about something horrible that happened before. I personally like the haunts where you can kinda figure out what happened before and perhaps be able to put them to rest.
rouge
Rogue. Sorry it bugged me today.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with the OP, haunts are pretty non-interactive from the player's POV if the GM is at all slavish about following the rules as presented.
My work around was just to start saying "yes" whenever players asked me if they could do something to affect the haunt.
PC: "Can I slap it with disrupt undead?"
Me: "Uh, sure, as long as you tell me what exactly you're targeting."
PC: "Can I scare it off by pretending to be [NPC name redacted]?"
Me: "Uh, sure, just give me a bluff check."
And so on. This isn't at all hard to pull off so long as the module gives adequate background information as to the nature of each haunt.
I felt that this approach was more fun for the players, and more in tune with the actual in-game purpose of haunts.
What if we could increase the CR of the haunt by an additional +1, +2, or +3 by just increasing the Save DC of the spell effect?
I suppose, but you're thinking about this from a purely mechanical aspect. What about the story? What about creative problem solving for the players? That's what I'm interested in when I play.
Maybe they'd be better if you could interact with them more. Walk into a room, the temp drops, you take damage...boring. Walk into a room, the temp drops, and then writing appears in the hoarfrost saying "get out"...a little better. Walk in, frost thing, then you get to make a Diplomacy roll or role play trying to communicate with the thing, maybe use Calm Emotions or Charm Person...some OTHER way besides the clerical Insta-Win Josh talked about...much more fun for us old schoolers!
+1. This is exactly what I'm saying. It would be so much more interesting if there were different ways to solve them, or learn from them. To have them be something more than traps.
The main way to deal with haunts is "to run". However, in horror movies, aren't the people that run the most screwed? Don't they usually get separated from everyone else and probably run into another haunt or a creature/ghost? Or hurt themselves (with some help) with their environment? Stick around isn't always the best idea, but panicking and running away... usually someone dies. :)
|
Hm, what is lipstick doing in an adventuring party?
Haunts. I like the idea, hate the mechanic. So i invent new haunts that are not simply fluffed up spell effects. Unfortunately, later i realize that it is still very similar.
I like the idea of keeping the same effect but simply increasing the save dc.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The main way to deal with haunts is "to run". However, in horror movies, aren't the people that run the most screwed? Don't they usually get separated from everyone else and probably run into another haunt or a creature/ghost? Or hurt themselves (with some help) with their environment? Stick around isn't always the best idea, but panicking and running away... usually someone dies. :)
Hey gang, let's split up and search for clues!
But seriously, never split the party. On the one hand though Fred and Velma had absolutely the right idea and I think we could learn from them, especially when dealing with a haunt. 1) search for clues: that's all a haunt is after all is just a ghostly, angry way to get attention and tell the horror story; why not oblige it, listen, and try and glean some clues from it. 2) Teamwork: the Mystery Inc gang split up a lot but they were always working together. Haunts shouldn't be "the cleric auto wins, the rest of you sit in the corner in the fetal position". 3) Sticktuitiveness: inevitably the first attempt to capture the ghost/monster/creep de jour is foiled in Scooby Doo. But they keep at it and players should too.
As a GM I have this fantasy that my players will try EVERYTHING on their character sheet. I had a player tell me, EVERY time I asked what he was carrying, that among everything else he had a bell. I designed an entire trap bypass around hanging a bell on a hook. When he got it he beamed. That's what I freaking live for!
So looking at the haunt mechanics that's my dream. I love NotaHobbit's mindset and its one I'd follow if the players did those things. Imagine for example the haunt of a lonely child that just wants a playmate. As it's throwing a ghostly tantrum and your paladin is unconscious you cast your eyes at your sheet and realize "wait a minute; I'm a bard!" your best skill is entertaining people. You whip out a couple juggling balls, tell some jokes, roll a couple performances... suddenly it all stops and goes away. From the manifestation you can clearly see it's a child; broken dolls, blood writing with letters written poorly or backwards, it cried out for it's mommy, etc. So now that it's molified for the moment you need to figure out what it needs so that it can rest. You drag the paladin out in the hall, plan out what to do based on the clues you've picked up and execute.
That's the other thing with haunts; they tell a story, but not always a complete one. Unless the haunt is thrown in for flavor as a one shot, then it's part of an ongoing narrative that you as a player have to assemble which is very challenging for a lot of players. You walk into room 1 and a ghostly image of a woman appears in the fireplace; suddenly the entire room erupts in ghost flames. 2 rooms later a similarly dressed woman sobbing in the corner, clutching her throat; you're all poisoned. Next room is a similarly dressed woman, with an evil grin, a handful of matches and a bottle with a skull and crossbones on it staring at yet ANOTHER woman hanging from a noose; you're all feeling strangled. What you get from all that is that there was a killer who stalked the nunery, killed the sisters and did so with relish; it doesn't tell you what to DO about any of it.
This is why the GM's job of storytelling is so important with haunts; you have to fill in the blanks, give the players the tools to move from victim to participant. In the example above, after the party resolves the immolation in some way they find a half-charred journal in the ash of the fireplace still smoldering. It is a crazed girl writing about how she hates the matron mother, and the darkness...
In the in-between rooms before the second haunt there's portraits of all the sisters; one has been removed. As well a letter to a local engineer thanking them for building the "quiet room" below. After the final haunt they find the missing portrait, the face torn. If they hang it back in the gallery it opens a secret door to the "quiet room" where the party faces a final haunt of the girl being locked there and the "darkness" that threatens to consume them. But the only way to end all of this is suggested by the girl sobbing over and over as the darkness attacks them "where am I? Why can't I find my way out? I'm sorry matron mother please! Please let me out!" And now you know you've got to find her body in the darkness and get her out of the chamber.
Maybe its a dark world; it was all a trick, she's a vampire, and now she's finally free. Maybe its a light world; once free she truly repents and she thanks the party with a kiss that gives them a permanent +1 vs fear. Who knows? But that at least gives the party the whole story.
Like the other poster said; it's only scary until you KNOW what's going on. That's what a haunt adventure should evoke; you don't know the story, therefore you're scared. Once you've got it all, even if it leads to other possibilities, well now you're not scared anymore and since the haunt's effects are all fear-based, they are now ended.
I'm hearing a lot of negativity about haunts, but how to fix them? Would they be better just as monsters?
You walk into a room and an invisible gnome with Ghost Sound whispers "boo" and then runs away; from the player's perspective they hear a voice on one side of the room and footsteps into the hall. Creepy.
Maybe they'd be better if you could interact with them more. Walk into a room, the temp drops, you take damage...boring. Walk into a room, the temp drops, and then writing appears in the hoarfrost saying "get out"...a little better. Walk in, frost thing, then you get to make a Diplomacy roll or role play trying to communicate with the thing, maybe use Calm Emotions or Charm Person...some OTHER way besides the clerical Insta-Win Josh talked about...much more fun for us old schoolers!
I like this idea. Actually applying situational spells/interaction and trying to connect with the haunt; much better then just channeling energy and blasting it away.
I've done similar things in my old horror campaigns, and it's worked really well! The players feel much more involved, especially if the spirit is not necessarily malicious in and of itself; maybe it's just frustrated and scared, trying to contact the material plane and has become resentful. It's built up a grudge against the living, but at it's core doesn't actually want to hurt anyone.
C'mon, let's not throw the baby haunts out with the bathwater. Lets put our heads together and make them better. As for the creepiness vs cheese of these things...well, I play with some very non-committed rp'ers. As such nothing phases them. A mother dryad sacrificing herself to an angel so as to receive a Wish and her one wish being that her Forlarren daughter be "cured" of her demonic side, whereupon her daughter weeps tears of joy of knowing the true love of her mother, complete with me actually letting my voice tremble a bit as the dryad utters her final words "a mothers love is for always little one. Never forget that..." and I got NOTHING out of these stone golems. So no matter HOW creepy I've made my Haunts, or built the tension around them, I've never gotten much more than "great...but how do we ATTACK a bloody wall?"
Unfortunately, this is the really, really tricky part to pulling off good horror gaming; the players have to be open to the idea of fear, and be willing to RP their characters immersed in the atmosphere. To put it bluntly, if your players want nothing more than to hack and slash, grab the loot and get rich and powerful, then horror gaming just isn't going to work. Any campaign can just have horror trope monsters tossed in for flavor, but to actually get an emotional reaction from your players, they have to be willing to give you that reaction.
I've run at least 5 campaigns just in Ravenloft, for a few different groups of players, and the results have been different every time. The players who came to the game ready to role play, and interact with a story, had the most fun. The "hack-and-slash, kick in the door" style players quickly got bored. If I'm running a horror game, I tell my players ahead of time that there might be entire sessions with no combat, sometimes even with very few die rolls, but something IS always happening(I once got griped at for not giving a moments rest to stop and buy supplies).
My point being, for haunts to actually "work," players need to be open to the concept of their characters actually being afraid. Considering this is a mostly a game of super-heroic fantasy champions capable of waylaying entire armies, the concept of fear is pretty foreign. I think this is why the haunts in PF APs are so over-the-top cheesy; in case the players don't get scared, just beat them with HP damage.
It's a gimmicky way out, but an understandable one. Horror gaming isn't for everyone, but PF APs should be. It's a give and take, I guess.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
[long list of cool encounters]None of those cool encounters make use of the haunt mechanics. Literally none of them. Not once is there mentioned a single way in which those encounters are made more mechanically interesting by using the codified rules for haunts.
Sure, you could use narrowly-defined haunt stat blocks for those encounters, but there wasn't a single point at which I read one of your cool encounter ideas and said, "Good thing we have this complex, non-integrated haunt sub-system so I can finally pull something like that off."
The phantom shift mechanics from AD&D 2nd Edition were much more robust than the haunt mechanics. A phantom shift was an effect sometimes found near a poltergeist's lair that created an illusion of a past event. If the PCs attempt to attack the illusion or it attempts to attack them, the illusion ends. The PCs are otherwise free to interact with the past event as if they were actually there for as long as the phantom shift lasts. That's it. No additional rules. No stat blocks. Just something creepy cool that non-hack-and-slash PCs can interact with in an open-ended manner. Now that's a mechanic with some serious storytelling potential. Haunts, by comparison, not so much.
But a haunt containing a programmed illusion as it's triggered effect will do exactly what you describe above, and still constitute a valid haunt. A haunt does not have to be a harmful spell. The programmed illusion might show clues as to the manner of malevolent activity that caused the larger evil where such haunts manifest.
And not all haunt effects can be 'positive energied' away. Say the haunt effect is 'Bestow Curse'. No amount of healing or positive energy is going to make the curse go away. It still takes a Remove Curse of the appropriate DC. The positive energy could prevent the haunt to cause the curse by preventing it from manifesting, but does nothing as an after effect.
Spells and cantrips like ghost sound, animate object, excrutiating touch, summon spells, walls of fire - while some of these could cause damage (fighting a summoned monster, walking though a wall of fire), all are viable effects for a haunt, and none of which can instantly kill. All can be effective for telling a story and revealing clues.
It seems to me, that most of the detractors only consider killing spells as viable haunt effects, thus all haunts are "PCs lose now" effects and that just isn't so. Look at the spell lists, there are plenty that do not kill and all are viable haunt effects.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I personally like haunts - not all the examples presented and exact execution but I like the thought process behind them.
I come from a horror gaming background (1st and 2nd ed Chill, Call of Cthulhu, etc) as much as starting out with AD&D (Chill was my second game I go into) and I think the Haunting mechanics as a base concept are an excellent tool for a DM who wants to add some horror aspects to his game (without exclusively relying on a creature to do the trick).
That being said I don't run them exactly as written.
The way I run them in my game:
-All haunts are beatable by mundane means. The Means may require some research or investigation to figure plus risk of being exposed to the haunt, but theoretically you above average commoner can beat a haunt (or a Fighter or Rogue for that matter).
So while they are all are potentially defeated by mundane actions it doesn't mean that those actions are going to be easy - or even possible. Also if a haunt has a semi-corporeal form/manifestation (Headless Horseman) then that form is fightable with stats (this is where the party Fighter can shine). Killing the manifestation doesn't defeat the haunt, it just sets it back a bit.
-Haunts do not need to only do damage. They can slowly curse, sicken, disease, weaken, make sleepy, more fearful, slow polymorph/transform, etc, with each trigger or successive trigger (more on triggers next).
-Haunts should not be binary. They don't need to trigger as off (no effect) and on (take damage), but haunts cant trigger and have incremental power or effects (based on time or successive triggers). Triggered effects can start off small and then escalate it without letting on the party that it's a haunt or that steps are being followed.
1)First Trigger: (enter room) Smell of animal musk (DC check to notice, stays throughout encounter)
2)Second Trigger: Searching room for more than 3 rounds or only one round if they search a specific area - large stuffed chair. Smell of pipe smoke, and then after some time the sounds of various animals (as represented by the trophy game animals) come from outside the room.
4)Third Trigger: Remaining in room 2 rounds after Second Trigger. Outside room (windows) and hall are filled with fog/mist.
3)Fourth Trigger: Staying in room 2 rounds after Third Trigger. Sounds of various animals howling and screaming increases causing panic, damage, insanity, etc (as the GM sets it up), until people leave the room for a few minutes. May reset at second trigger and skip first or second trigger if room is returned to before 24hours. That is, the haunt is on semi-active or alert mode. Triggering the Forth Trigger may set off another haunt located near the room.
Hook: Party must find a keepsake that the vicious lord (the hunter) has hidden in the room.
Defeat: various spells (not going to specifics here, GM can set as appropriate for CR) or take all the mounted and stuffed heads out of the room and burn or bury them.
A mix of spells (multiple silence spells – not on the heads but cast on the PCs) and mundane actions may be facilitated by smart players who do not have all the resources (the spells needed or levels) to defeat this haunted room. It shouldn’t be Spell A or Power B defeats this; it should be detailed enough so that alternate spells can be used or mundane equivalents if spells are not available or prepped.
I think that Haunts are a good mechanic overall, but like many aspects of 3rd edition based rules they are too simplistic and far too binary in function. Each haunt should be a well thought out and customized job, with a few standard (and mundane) tropes for the beating the more common ones.
If a DM wants to add more details and workarounds (and turns off the binary aspects) I think Haunts can become a viable tool in the DMs arsenal. Anyway, that's my take the matter.
In everyone's favorite Dave N Buster's shooter arcade game, House of the Dead, you encounter, well, a house of the dead. Now the game might explain these as virus experiments, but lets steal the idea and use it as a haunted house.
Nearing the front door you're attacked by some zombies and a ghoul hound. However, as you finish them and they fall to the ground, they disintegrate into sickening stains on the ground rather than remaining as corpses. Weird.
Getting to the front door you fight more undead and realize the house is full of them; each room you enter has some variant of the standard zombie or ghoul. This is not because of an endless supply of corpses; they are being summoned.
I don't know what the story of the haunt is, but the actual chamber is a grisly pit in the cellar that is spewing out corpses from a persistent haunt using the Summon Undead spell. It's triggered by, say, a creature that's actually STILL ALIVE in the house of the dead but can't escape this madness.
You could drop a stat block on that in a heartbeat. You could run it as a hack n slash game easily. Or you could add additional haunts with ghost sounds, haunted fey aspects and other stuff to really horrify and limit the undead.
I think what I'm hearing from everyone, my own players included is "just give us the chance to DO something about haunts other than wait for them to go off and blast them with positive energy."
So here's something: dispelling a haunt. With a triggered trap spell, an item shooting a spell or a caster targeting you w/a spell you have the chance to 1) free action Spellcraft to recognize said spell then 2) counterspell with either dispell magic or the same spell. Well, what if you had something similar; 1) free knowledge: religion to recognize the haunt and sense what it's going to do to the party, then 2) have the option to either attack as normal in the haunt rules, counterspell with say a 3rd level version of Dispell Evil... Lesser Dispell Evil, or you can target the symptom of the haunt and dispell that effect.
Ok, that's ONE attempt at a mechanic. There's the non-mechanical "interacting with a haunt" thing. I really like that because not only does this get the PC's more involved but it also focuses them more on the story behind the haunt and therefore they have more of a chance of figuring out how to resolve it completely. I like the phantom shift idea for this. Instead of having the haunt just explode then go away, maybe pepper in SOME haunts that do nothing aggressive. This brings me to my third suggestion to the GM's out there...
Different Haunt Types
For my current game I've got these "revel echoes" that work like haunts in that they're tied to a location, reveal a glimpse of the past and throw an effect via spell on the pc's. Now I'm using them with the PC's at 1st level, so the effects won't be TOO devastating; touch of fatigue, ray of sickening, and hideous laughter to be precise. But the main difference is... they have nothing to do w/the undead, so there's no real way to attack them. But they will be interactive, all about compulsions (in theme w/the fey revel idea); the echoes WANT you to come join the fun, despite the fact that it may tire you out or do some minor damage to you. Initially you get a will save; failing that you're sucked into a scene that feels totally real. You interact w/the scene for a round, but must partake in whatever the dominant activity in the scene is: dancing, uproarious laughter, a drinking contest w/a satyr; whatever. At the end of the surprise round you suffer the effect and are released from the compulsion.
Another type of change you could make would be to create Extended Haunts, Benevolent Haunts, or even Possession Haunts
Extended Haunts: the effect is always neutral to the party and purely informative; ghost sound, mage hand, breeze or prestidigitation. They last for a number of full rounds equal to the CR each time they manifest; you walk into a room and the only evidence of the haunt is 3 rounds of a woman, quietly sobbing over something swaddled in bloody rags in her arms (major image). Over and over you hear her say "Just one little cut, she promised, just one little cut..."
Benevolent Haunts: in an act of supreme good a haunt is created that actually bestows positive effects; resist fear, bless, heal, whatever. This change uses all the original haunt mechanics except that it takes negative energy to destroy.
Possession Haunts: instead of you suffering the effect, the haunt channels the effect THROUGH you to others. While it is "riding" you your psyche comes in contact with it, therefore putting you INTO the scene it's playing out. Example: the PCs enter a bedroom where a father used to beat on his son. The haunt isn't the boy though; it's the dad. He needs to feel powerful over someone to feel alive so...
Surprise round, Init 10 the fighter fails a will save and hears a voice behind him whimpering "no more daddy, please..." The rest of the party just watches him wheel on them and begin shouting "You wicked little BRAT! How dare you speak out of turn! You'll get the BALL for that!" and he hurls a Battering Force spell in the form of a bloody spiked ball, like the head of a flail. To the rest of the party it's instantaneous, but the fighter watches in impotent horror as the whole scene plays out from the father's perspective; he uncoils a bloody-headed flail from a clenched fist, giggles with the anticipation of the pain to come, smells the boy's fear sweating out of every pore as he tries desperately to shrink into the corner, and finally feels every sickeningly satisfying snap of metal shattering bone as blood showers across the room over, and over, and over...
Still not very interactive, but at least it solves the storytelling aspect of it. So, critiques?
easy way to add an alternative means to deal with haunts.
treat haunts as magical traps for all intents and purposes. this allows the trapmonkey classes to shine, allows them to be sought out with the perception skill, and fits in a series of appropriate comparable rules.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok... I got seriously distracted by a flood of stuff so this has been neglected.
Rather than reply to things one at a time, I'm going to post a few more thoughts based on what I've read.
If the goal of a haunt is to communicate a message; the effect should never outweigh the message. If the effect is big, the image is forgotten in dealing with the mechanics of the image.
Example
One haunt I encountered had the image of someone being killed as the party was hit by an effect that exhausted the entire party. Instead of thinking about that image, our party spent the next 10 minutes dealing with the effects of exhaustion. The impact of the message was drown out by the effect.
Another Example
*something happened* I don't even recall exactly what the image was. Then a character in our party was killed. I don't think anyone in the party remembered anything about that message... whatever trauma or creepiness that was supposed to portray was completely forgotten.
Rather than emphasize the creepiness, the severity of a haunt seems to take away from it.
|
I think if I run any haunts in the future they're going to have their interactivity played up, both on the victim's end and any others who avoided it. Rather than playing them a straight-up damage dealers, keeping the mechanical effects more subtle(both negative and rarely even positive).
Overcoming a haunt would likely depend more on roleplaying than quick and easy mechanical options like channelling. Something that makes it possible for any class to have a shot at overcoming a haunt, making it more dependent on that character's personality and such. Something thematically appropriate at the very least.
Silent Hill 3 spoiler
C'mon, let's not throw the baby haunts out with the bathwater. Lets put our heads together and make them better. As for the creepiness vs cheese of these things...well, I play with some very non-committed rp'ers. As such nothing phases them. A mother dryad sacrificing herself to an angel so as to receive a Wish and her one wish being that her Forlarren daughter be "cured" of her demonic side, whereupon her daughter weeps tears of joy of knowing the true love of her mother, complete with me actually letting my voice tremble a bit as the dryad utters her final words "a mothers love is for always little one. Never forget that..." and I got NOTHING out of these stone golems.
You used my favorite fey in almost exactly the same way I've always wanted to see them used. Would have loved to RP the hell out of that scenario.
As far as subsystems go, Haunts are extremely simple.
1. A perception check to notice to prevent/detect an untriggered haunt.
2. If triggered, a spell goes off (with unusual visual effect for fear factor).
3. Make your save against the spell effect.
4. A haunt has HP, a trigger, and area of effect, and a method of destruction.
That's it - is that so complex a 'subsystem'?
I don't know if it's RAW, but most parties without a cleric has wand of CLW, and since healing is positive energy, using up charges from the wand should serve the same purpose. Lots of monsters (especially undead and especially ghosts) are difficult for non-specialized characters to hit. So a haunt is no more invulnerable than a typical ghost. Parties can still fight ghosts and not have a cleric, though it's easier with one.
Many encounters are best fought with specialized opponents, haunts are not unusual in that way.
My two cents:
I dislike traps as a rule (I call them "speedbumps to fun"), and haunts-as-traps (e.g. Phantasmal Killer in a can) would fall into that category.
Having said that, I'm playing through Haunting of Harrowstone and some of the haunts are kind of neat and I'm finding they really do add a bit of atmosphere (well, maybe not the
Boy, these guys must've hated sanity checks. :P
I'm still working around the "trigger" thing. If it's a residual haunting, okay, that's more like a memory of a past event replaying. But a sentient, intelligent entity isn't likely to have a trigger, other than the PC's just being in the house/building/etc. The "trigger" part makes it feel just like a magic spell trap, not an interactive story element (unless your story is about setting off magical traps).
Semantics, I know.
|
|
Boy, these guys must've hated sanity checks. :P
LOL
-
Yeah, both San (CoC) or Willpower (Chill) checks could easily take your guy out of action. I think the thing here is that the players need to know going in that they are playing a horror scenario. Works well in most modern/Earth type settings, not so much in fantasy gaming. It also doesn't help that there are not strong default fear mechanics in PFRPG.
In other words players saying "oh cool, I'm supposed to be scared....ok, I swing again at the wall weeping blood, where's my d20?"
You can't really place aspects of horror or a horror themed sub-mechanic into a game that at its core does not support horror role-playing.
I'm not saying you can't creep out the players (I do it all the time) or even use tricks from the horror genre (be it from a book, move or rpg). I'm just saying there is little to reinforce the horror genre in the current core rule set.
Rules for fear or reacting to truly horrific situations would also need to be in place –and I’m not talking about a loss of a few points of will or san, I’m talking full on leaving-friends-behind-in-the-face-of-terror sort of systems.
These rules would have to be put into place from day one of a horror campaign and the DM would have to define what qualifies as "horror" in their own campaign. This goes back to the commonality of creatures and races in his game. In a mostly human, low fantasy, low magic game a simple elf can be enough to trigger off some small levels of fear or discomfort. On the flip side in a high fantasy game where characters encounter all sorts of monsters only the truly horrific encounters may trigger Fear rules. Demons, Devils, undead, Dragons, or powerful mythos type creatures may be the only monsters which use the Fear rules.
Like I said before, I think Haunts are great – I do take issue with their execution but the concept of a supernatural trap/reacting pseudo-creature has great potential. I would like the people at Paizo to put out a full hardcover genre book to cover a slew of alternate mechanics for a horror game in a separate book to help run a proper horror based fantasy game from the ground up but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.
I'm still working around the "trigger" thing. If it's a residual haunting, okay, that's more like a memory of a past event replaying. But a sentient, intelligent entity isn't likely to have a trigger, other than the PC's just being in the house/building/etc. The "trigger" part makes it feel just like a magic spell trap, not an interactive story element (unless your story is about setting off magical traps).
Semantics, I know.
It really is actually a case of semantics.
Think of the Haunt as an incorporeal creature that is:
-Insane/fragmentary intellect
-Limited in perception
-Limited in its world/range
-Limited in its sphere of influence
-Follows a routine based on an anniversary, day/night schedule, etc
-Gets more agitated when people are around, aka the "Trigger"
-Very Focused on one thing, also the "Trigger"
This creature doesn't get regular stats - it gets "Haunt" stats. Theoretically you could give it an Int and Wis score, and even a perception score (to detect life), but given the list I just mentions the options for a haunt creature are limited to its single trick (mostly). That is why I like a variety in stated manifestation of multiple triggers or sequences. This can reflect a minor interaction of the haunt just sort of stirring (moving some pots and pans) to a full on class 5 free floating vapor.
Having multiple sequence or triggers (my method) makes something which is very mechanical act sort of like a creature that is manifesting things based off of some choice (when in fact it's just satisfying criteria). If it's a complex haunt and the players start to figure aspects of it out they (using logic consistent with the source of manifestation) I think it turns out to be a very rewarding gaming experience.
I'd go as far as saying that a haunt is never an intelligent entity, it is only a memory (always).
The assumption is that haunts aren't existing and doing things when nobody is around to see it. So haunts become active only when someone enters it's proximity, touches it, hence 'triggering it'.
There are no intelligent haunts.
I agree, and I like the idea of what the haunt mechanic is supposed to represent in PF, but the execution just feels flimsy and sloppy. I just wish there was more attention to what was behind the haunt, not just watching the equivalent of a cutscene and having the cleric blast it.
My #30 Haunts for Kaidan does that to some extent... but don't believe me, believe a recent review.
Here's a review of that product from RoleplayerChronicles.com - review just released yesterday!
I'm thinking I've just confused the terminology, so haunts are really just like "residual" paranormal activity?
I'm thinking I've just confused the terminology, so haunts are really just like "residual" paranormal activity?
Yes.
|
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
"This fireball counts as a mind-affecting fear effect."
Which also means fighters should be able to use their bravery class ability, halflings get a +2 on saves, mindless undead are immune, etc. I read that and knew it, but didn't think about it much. It's a good point and I imagine one of those things a lot of people overlook.
Quick poll: How many posters were previously aware that there's a clause in the haunt mechanics stating that the effects of haunts, even physical effects, also count as mind-affecting fear effects, and are therefor unable to affect creatures with immunity to mind-affecting fear effects? (I didn't realize that until I reread haunts just now.)
I was aware, but I've ran Runelords, Carrion Crown Chapter One, and I recently studied up on them carefully recently (not suggesting I am the haunt guru or am infallible).
I learned that from Jim Groves.
|
|
All primary effects created by a haunt are mindaffecting fear effects, even those that actually produce physical effects. Immunity to fear grants immunity to a haunt’s direct effects, but not to secondary effects that arise as a result of the haunt’s attack.
I think this means that if there is a 'Rain of Blood' type haunt that the 3rd level pally is not affected any fear/scare/etc effect from the raining blood, or even be covered by the blood for that matter (while everyone else in the party looks like Sissy Spacek at the end of "Carrie"). But he is in fact going to have to fight the small puddles of blood ooze that coalesce and start attacking the party after a few rounds of rain.
…or something like that
The Haunt examples (as written) do not do a very good job of delineating Primary from secondary effects.
Which also means fighters should be able to use their bravery class ability, halflings get a +2 on saves, mindless undead are immune, etc. I read that and knew it, but didn't think about it much. It's a good point and I imagine one of those things a lot of people overlook
I think in this case you are either totally immune the core effect or you get hit with the full effect (and need to make save).
Of course if you are talking about adding the Bravery bonus to Will saves for any these effects I would say YES to that!
|
|
To be honest, that makes it more confusing. It's a fear effect, but bonuses against fear don't apply? I see where you are coming from but this just makes it more irritating to me.
I would say that if there is a save roll called for then yes, the Fear based bonuses to Will saves would apply to ALL generated effects (fireball, scare, etc).
I am having a bigger problem defining Primary and Secondary effects (which are not really detailed in the Haunt samples I have seen).
I personally would dump the Immune to Fear = Immune to Haunts aspect for the mechanic in my home game.
I think the high will save characters who are focused on fighting this kind of stuff already have strong will saves (pally, Cleric) so the fear immunity negating Haunts isn't really required. I would say that it's still a mind effecting though ability, so unintelligent creatures or someone using mindblank type of effects are not affected.
This looks like faq material.
I am having a bigger problem defining Primary and Secondary effects (which are not really detailed in the Haunt samples I have seen).
The way our group interpreted it:
If your paladin is immune to fear, then he doesn't have to worry about a haunt that creates a fireball. But he does have to worry if that fireball sets the room on fire.
Wait...haunts have secondary effects? Is this a houserule or something? Cause if so I'm stealing it. I'm also stealing the haunt with multiple building effects thing too.
I've never been a fan of horror films that just have a 3 second flash of something creepy and thats the scare. For that reason I've tried lots of ways to make haunts more than that.