RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I found that the zombies are really quite deadly in the T 4-5. I believe we're looking at a +10 (+8 with PA) to hit for 1d10+10 (or +13 with PA), on an 18-20/x2 weapon. Not to mention that it usually boils down to Surprise Round = 3 attacks on the PC that opens the door, followed by initiative. If your undead go before that already wounded PC has a chance to fall back, you're looking at an easy kill right off the bat.
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I found that the zombies are really quite deadly in the T 4-5. I believe we're looking at a +10 (+8 with PA) to hit for 1d10+10 (or +13 with PA), on an 18-20/x2 weapon. Not to mention that it usually boils down to Surprise Round = 3 attacks on the PC that opens the door, followed by initiative. If your undead go before that already wounded PC has a chance to fall back, you're looking at an easy kill right off the bat.
The threat range for the nodachi is brutal. I think I confirmed 4 or 5 critical hits that encounter. Funny thing is, a couple players and myself were discussing that very same weapon before we started the adventure. I don't know if they ever figured out why I grinned through the entire pre-game conversation.
Yes, I think this one could have a warning attached to it, a la The Dalsine Affair. The reason I like this one so much is that it lulls the group into a false sense of security. The lack of obvious foes and traps or locked doors usually puts a group into fast track mode.
"Alright, let's open up the door to the crypt."
"Where is everyone standing?"
"Whut?"
This one and Goblinblood Dead are two I recommend the group be near or at the upper end of the tier, ie third or fifth level for 1-2 and 4-5 respective. And any GM who recommends the group play up is just mean.
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I've run this 3x without a death. The first time the party was on the cusp of playing up and played down (which is a pretty rare occurance). The 2nd and 3rd time my groups couldn't be goaded into checking out the kitchen since it wasn't part of their mission per se.I'm at work, so don't have the scenario in front of me, but I could have sworn that in addition to the three specific tasks, players were to also measure and map the entire temple. This would include the kitchen.
Four tasks:
Meditation room and techniquesCatalog the Library
Map the garden
Sarcophagus rubbings
Nothing about mapping the entire temple.
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Yup. Lucky for our group that we never found the kitchen.
As Whiskey Jack said, one of the deaths came on a nodachi crit from the zombies with almost max damage (9 and 10 on the 2d10). That was actually the only crit. The rest was just multiple hits, the zombies stepping up to avoid anyone getting away, and combat reflexes to let them take more than one AoO per round if we tried to move. The GM told us all the feats the zombies had afterward, along with the immunities and resistances, and there's no way they should be CR 3 each with that many special abilities.
Like I said, I suspect the difficulty level on this one is probably good for a group of 5 or 6 averaging on the high side of the tier levels. But with a group of 4 averaging exactly level 4, including an alchemist that couldn't damage any of the demons or zombies due to immunities and resistances, we didn't really stand a chance.
But it was still a fun adventure for the role playing aspects. I just wish the combats hadn't kicked our butts so badly.
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perhaps a silly question, but why doesn't your alchemist carry holy water flasks? Mine carries 6. he get's his splash damage bonus on them.Yup. Lucky for our group that we never found the kitchen.
As Whiskey Jack said, one of the deaths came on a nodachi crit from the zombies with almost max damage (9 and 10 on the 2d10). That was actually the only crit. The rest was just multiple hits, the zombies stepping up to avoid anyone getting away, and combat reflexes to let them take more than one AoO per round if we tried to move. The GM told us all the feats the zombies had afterward, along with the immunities and resistances, and there's no way they should be CR 3 each with that many special abilities.
Like I said, I suspect the difficulty level on this one is probably good for a group of 5 or 6 averaging on the high side of the tier levels. But with a group of 4 averaging exactly level 4, including an alchemist that couldn't damage any of the demons or zombies due to immunities and resistances, we didn't really stand a chance.
But it was still a fun adventure for the role playing aspects. I just wish the combats hadn't kicked our butts so badly.
You know, until looking it up after seeing the posts in this thread, I had no idea holy water worked on demons. I thought it was only for undead. I think my sorcerer was carrying holy water I could have used, too, but didn't know I could use it against the demon, and didn't get a chance against the zombies.
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I think this scenario has a very well-made haunt. It has a seriously scary effect (one of the party uses game mechanics to try to kill himself), is relatively harmless if run properly, and sets/fortifies the creepy mood that the scenario wants established.
(Second) Worst Case Scenario:
1. One person goes to investigate the hanged halfling while the rest of the party watches from the door.
2. Haunt starts manifesting. No one has either noticed or has the ability to suppress the haunt.
3. The closest PC fails his Will Save. End surprise round.
4. Begin normal initiative. PCs before the haunted PC can act again, but don't know what just happened since the haunt didn't affect them. They might have noticed that the knife is a lot closer to the haunted PC now, however (the knife moving of its own accord).
5. The haunted PC picks up the knife (move action), and begins coup-de-gracing himself (begin full-round action and provoking an AoO from anyone close).
The rest of the party now has a full round worth of actions to try and stop the haunted PC from killing himself. If anyone tries to prevent him from doing so, that PC get stabbed instead (could be treated as an AoO), and the haunt suppresses itself.
The only way the coup-de-grace can actually go through is if the party either doesn't try to stop the victim, or the victim was alone when the haunt manifested.
Most likely end result? One person takes 2d4+2xStr (+1d4 bleed) damage, and the entire party walks away after experiencing an attempted suicide.
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Full round actions such as Coup-de-grace are completed during the active players inititive.
Only if you have both your standard and move action that turn to perform the full round action. Serum is saying that picking up the knife should be a move action, in which case you can only begin the coup de grace on the first turn and finish it on the second (spending a second standard action to do so). This is not the usual case for a coup de grace, as usually you have the weapon in hand and do it in one turn. Whether Serum is right or not about needing to pick up the knife, I have no idea (I don't have the pdf for the scenario yet until the Gencon scenarios are added to my account, but since I'm GMing it at Gencon, I'm reading this thread for advice now).
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but that just means if the rogue fails to beat the Haunt in init., he picks the knife up in the surprise round - and the party sees this, and needs to realize that "he's acting out of character". That would be a Sense Motive check of DC25... maybe a DC15 if you count this as a Dominate effect.
This haunt acts at initiative 0. You'd have to fail spectacularly on that roll in addition to having initiative penalties to go after the haunt. If you get a surprise round action, it's going to be before the haunt manifests, not after.
Also, even if you're going to give sneak attack dice to the coup-de-grace, the rogue doesn't get it when he attacks someone else with the knife (auto-crit, auto-hit, but the target still doesn't have the conditions necessary to allow sneak attack).
The person affected may also need to move to where the knife is. This adds yet another move action. In my game, the person affected was a witch, whose familiar realized there was a problem and initiated a grapple.
The haunt activates when you're 5ft away from the center of the table. In addition, I'd rule that only creatures that are actually able to pick up and use the knife would set it off. In general, there isn't going to be any movement involved to get to the knife since you start out within 5ft of the epicentre.
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Serum:
I have not recieved the scenario yet to prep it. but you are saying that this Haunt goes on Initiative 0? that is a change to the mechanics of a haunt ... but ok. How does that effect characters that go in the surprize round? My character when I played this was a Diviner Wizard/Rogue (3/1) - so I went in the surprize round."you get to go in the surprize round, but you don't detect anything."
"I delay until I have a target."
"roll a will save, pick up the knife" ouch! That'll teach me, don't Delay!
Damn, I just realized that the tier 4-5 haunt doesn't have the "weakness - slow (manifests at initiative rank 0)" line that the tier 1-2 haunt does. That is unfortunate, and I'm sorry for being so adamant on that part. The haunt is quite a bit worse in the upper tier just because of the initiative change.
In your case, I'd have the wizard just lose his action for the surprise round and have him start in at his normal initiative in the next round.
In tier 4-5, for the PC who sees the knife move (DC 20), has a lower initiative than the haunt's, and fails the Will save, I guess she would pick up the knife in the surprise round, then coup-de-grace herself in the next round. I would definitely tell anyone in the room with her the that the knife in her hand is moving toward her throat. They would still need a higher initiative than her to act on the sight, though. In the end, that's a lot of things that need to go wrong.
As to sneak attack dice, when I played my judge went soft and ruled that you don't get sneak dice on yourself, but ... (CRB, Pg 197)
Coup de Grace: As a full-round action, you can use a
melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace (pronounced “coo
day grahs”) to a helpless opponent. You can also use a bow
or crossbow, provided you are adjacent to the target.
You automatically hit and score a critical hit. If the
defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude
save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. A rogue also gets her
extra sneak attack damage against a helpless opponent
when delivering a coup de grace.
Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of
opportunity from threatening opponents.
it looks to me like a rogue gets her sneak attack damage against anything she can coup... otherwise she couldn't coup it. If this attack is a Coup de Grace, then rogues get thier sneak attack dice.
Sure, on herself, but if she attacks someone else with the knife (which will happen if anyone tries to stop her), it isn't a coup-de-grace (auto-hit: no, auto-crit: yes, fort save: no), so there's no sneak attack dice on that.
My wifes rogue is 5th level, so I'm figuring it's going to be a cold ride home that day... Here's hoping she scouts the room with someone else (with a good sense motive).
Or is close enough to her that they can act on the provoke.
Remember, that the first thing a PC sees when she enters the room is the hanging corpse. The haunt won't manifest until she's within 5ft of the center table. The PC who found it has the chance to call her party members before she goes to investigate the corpse if she thinks something is fishy here.
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Serum, I think there is some confusion here. Perhaps I need to wait to read the write-up on the scenario.
your statement "...I'd have the wizard just lose his action for the surprise round and have him start in at his normal initiative in the next round." makes on sense to me. The wizard has a special ability to always go in the surprise round (this is my Wiz/Rogue). He often goes in the surprize round before anyone else goes... often before he detects anything out of place. Kind of like "Spider Sense" I guess. Sometimes I ready to shoot the first moster I see (so that I can get it flat fooded), sometimes I cast Vanish, sometimes I delay to see what is showing up - but I always want to go in the surprise round. To have the Judge just say, "I've decided you lose you action" would really bother me - wouldn't it you?
The Judge wouldn't just be saying "I've decided you lose your action" in this case. It'd be more like "You've delayed? Okay, I'll continue with initiative, then. Make a Will save." If he fails the Will save, the player no longer decides the actions of the wizard, the scenario (through the Judge) does. I'm just saying that I would have the wizard, who I now control, delay until his initiative in the next round, so he can start the set of actions leading to his coup-de-grace. You could, as the GM, state that the wizard immediately stops delaying after the haunt manifests and pick up the knife, but that seems like a move a GM would make if he was going out of his way to make sure the wizard would get himself killed.
attacks on characters other than herself would not be Coups... so wouldn't do auto-crits. No auto-hit, no auto-crit, no fort save... no coup. Just a full round action - which does provoke AOOs, so they what? attack her? They would have to threaten, and then "...close enough to her that they can act on the provoke." which would be an attack. "Yes, you get an AOO on the rogue who is trying to kill herself - do you swing?" Here's hoping the player thinks of starting a grapple - wait, can you take a grapple as an AOO?
I apologize for continuing to type in the assumption that you had access to the scenario when you've stated several times that you don't and have only played it. In the haunt description, it states that if anyone tries to prevent the haunt victim from killing herself, the victim stops trying to kill herself and instead attacks the PC who tried to stop her. In addition, if she hits the PC, she auto-crits (plus bleed damage if in Tier 4-5). Once she carries out the attack, the haunt is neutralized. The preventing PC's action doesn't even need to successfully do anything. As long as the attempt is made to stop the haunt victim, she no longer tries to kill herself.
Also, while you can't grapple with an AoO, you can trip, disarm, and sunder, and in this case, if any of them are tried (even a normal attack), the haunt victim stops the coup-de-grace action.
Perhaps I am not as nice a judge as you. "I would definitely tell anyone in the room with her the that the knife in her hand is moving toward her throat." This to me is at least a sense motive check.CRB pg. 104 under the skill Sense Motive -
Sense Enchantment: You can tell that someone’s behavior
is being inf luenced by an enchantment effect even if that
person isn’t aware of it. The usual DC is 25, but if the target
is dominated (see dominate person), the DC is only 15 because
of the limited range of the target’s activities.though it does say that the time to use Sense Motive is at least one minute.
Action: Trying to gain information with Sense Motive...
I guess I'm not as definite as I think I was, since I agree that there's merit in requiring a Sense Motive check, even if the skill description doesn't really allow for split second uses. DC 15 works, but I think it could be lower, considering the haunt victim generally has a very sudden attitude change right in front of the party: from concern toward / investigating the body (or whatever other reason they would have to be right next to the table (remember that the haunt only has a 5ft radius centered on the table)), to being fixated on a knife and desiring to kill herself with it. I think at least some of that would show through to others.
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On a different note, as the GM, what would you do if the PCs scale the balcony in the chapel to get into Dakang's room? I don't see a heck of a lot stopping them. Assuming that the PCs haven't convinced them that Dakang is evil, do the bodyguards rush to Dakang's aid once they hear the sound of fighting in his room, what do they do when they see that the party is fighting their demon-headed holy leader, possibly along with zombies?
I think I would force the confrontation by having a worshiper cry out to the guards for help. Could the party circumvent this by convincing the worshipers that something's wrong in the temple in a similar manner to the guards? How would they go about doing that?
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This was touched on before, but I'll add another question. It's been stated that there was never meant to be a communication barrier between the PCs and the temple inhabitants, but what about the library? These are all extremely old texts and scrolls written when the temple was back in Tianing by Tien speaking natives. I don't think all of these texts were written in common.
What have you done to explain the discrepancy between no one speaking Tien and everyone still being able to not only catalog everything in the library, but even be able to pick out locations/rites/symbols for the knowledge checks?
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On a different note, as the GM, what would you do if the PCs scale the balcony in the chapel to get into Dakang's room? I don't see a heck of a lot stopping them. Assuming that the PCs haven't convinced them that Dakang is evil, do the bodyguards rush to Dakang's aid once they hear the sound of fighting in his room, what do they do when they see that the party is fighting their demon-headed holy leader, possibly along with zombies?
I think I would force the confrontation by having a worshiper cry out to the guards for help. Could the party circumvent this by convincing the worshipers that something's wrong in the temple in a similar manner to the guards? How would they go about doing that?
You are forgetting the three Aasimar Guards. They are there to Protect Dakang. They will pound you into the ground if you try to hurt Dakang.
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Considering I've said "guards" or "bodyguards" three times, I think not. If you're in the chapel while there isn't a service going on, the guards are in their hallway.
I'm pretty sure they're not going to be happy when they find out their beloved Dakang has a demon for a head.
Dakang's skin is not a bathrobe. He doesn't take it off when in his private quarters willy nilly. The tactics for DAKANG clearly state he takes it off in duress and to be able to use his burrow speed to get away.
As a GM running this scenario the Aasimar would be in the room and rolling INIT as soon as they saw your face peek into his chambers.
Side note, do you own this PDF? Have you read through it?
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Dakang's skin is not a bathrobe. He doesn't take it off when in his private quarters willy nilly. The tactics for DAKANG clearly state he takes it off in duress and to be able to use his burrow speed to get away.
I'm not talk about Dakang shedding his SKIN. I'm talking about his standard practice of blowing off his corpse head to reveal the demon head underneath when beginning combat, as stated, not only in the room description, but also in the general description for the vermlek demon in the Lords of Chaos book.
As a GM running this scenario the Aasimar would be in the room and rolling INIT as soon as they saw your face peek into his chambers.
How would they see my face peek into his chambers? They aren't in there with him, they are in the hallway outside. A hallway that isn't connected to the chapel, except via another door. They would need to either hear the sound of the party climbing the balcony (DC 0 +~5 for distance +5 for closed door +modifiers for the party trying to be quiet), hear Dakang call out or hear the sounds of combat.
Side note, do you own this PDF? Have you read through it?
Please don't suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about, when I'm clearly asking for advice about situations that fall outside the standard course of actions in the scenario. Instead of assuming I haven't even read the scenario, try considering what I wrote and comparing it with the relevant parts of the scenario before dismissing it out of hand. You connected "demon for a head" to "sheds off his skin so that nothing is left but the demon body"? When the description specifically states that upon getting into a confrontation with the PCs, his head explodes, leaving a worm-head in its place? Are you sure you've read through the PDF?
Anyway, say the party gets into his room, Dakang immediately calls out for his guards without splitting his head open and they enter the room as you said. If he wants to maintain his illusion of an obese priest of peace, Dakang can't really join in the combat, since his combat abilities are either a) demon related, or b) cleric-related, and almost all of those are associated with trickery/madness/evil, which a cleric of a persona associated with foresight/knowledge/peace wouldn't be preparing on a daily basis.
What results is a fight with the three aasimar, followed immediately by the fight with Dakang (and possibly his zombies). If the PCs manage to restrain the aasimar without killing them (grapple->pin, for example, or even a web spell), and then start attacking Dakang, I would imagine his survival instincts kick in and he starts going cleric/demon mode on them. The aasimar, upon seeing this, are shocked to the core, and stop participating in combat as they stand there stunned. I think that works to a good sequence of events.
Hell, if the PCs win initiative, they'd be able to get to the door before the aasimar, and try to keep it closed until Dakang feels threatened enough to enter combat himself, at which point we're back to "how would the aasimar feel when they see Dakang is on the ceiling, with a worm-head, attacking the PCs with offensive magic that he really has no right to be using if he were really a priest of Korada". Shocked to the core, I imagine.
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I had the misfortune of playing this module this past weekend and had this been my first taste of Pathfinder Society play, I would never play Pathfinder Society play again... and this is due to the *SUICIDE COMPULSION* haunt.
1. This haunt is based off of the Suicide Compulsion (CR 4) found in Riyal's Research: Haunts (PFRPG) and the Pathfinder SRD. When I go to Pathfinder Resource Document, neither of these appear as valid sources.
2. When I open the Game Master Guide, this haunt does not exist.
3. When I build the Haunt using the rules at the Game Master Guide, I cannot arrive at CR 3 (the judge provided me with pages 8 & 9 of the module afterwards). Step 1 - Determine Base CR: I was unable to find a spell allowing suicidal commands while duplicating the description of the trap besides Magic Jar, CR 6. Terrible remorse and confusion come close causing characters to attack themselves but not the Coup De Grace this spell mentions. Step 2 - Select Notice DC 15 for -1, Reset Time of 1 hour for +1, and Slow (manifests at initiative rank 0) for -2; CR 4. Module showed CR 3, that's only 1 difference. Please compare to the list of CR 3 and 4 monsters to this trap is equivalent to; would it be okay to throw a single group of 1st level characters against the majority of these challenges? Luckily this didn't include 'Tricked by invisibility' for -1, Susceptibility to Sonic for -1, and Persistent for +2 to make it the same exact CR. It's there in the rules, why not?
4. I have to single this out the 'Slow (manifests at Initiative rank 0)' for -2 to the CR as so awesomely cheesy, I am shocked every haunt does not have it. Why? Because haunts always start on the surprise round the chances of a character able to damage the haunt making the Notice DC, having line of sight/effect to be able to identify and damage the haunt with only a 5ft step, and the right combination of item in hand or not in hand... to damage it. I am saying that a non-healer cannot draw and throw a vial of holy water (0 damage, because it can't be done even with quick draw), a healer with cure light wounds (1d8+1, 4.5 average) can't move up more than 5ft and touch it, and a cleric can not channel energy (1d6, 3.5 average and the parties best hope) and expect to neutralize this trap's 6hp (per the module, my example would have had 8 hp) before it goes off on initiative 0. This modifier just needs to be removed and ALL traps need have a low initiative of 0... Failing that 0 + spell level or caster stat modifier.
5. Haunts are so poorly written that the DC of the trap never changes. It's always DC 15. I'd actually recommend Haunts requiring the base spell the effect is designed around and making this DC scaleable like scrolls. Perhaps whatever spell the Haunt designer used would have reduced the DC down to a 13, a marginally more survivable DC at 1st level.
6. This haunt throws an effect with NO DURATION. Once the saving throw is failed, the character is done. There is no second saving throw against this compulsion. If knocked unconscious, the compulsion is waiting for the character to be wakened. There is no rule where neutralizing or destroying the haunt does not make the effect go away. It might be argued that the haunt is not Persistent, so effects can never extend beyond the surprise (enter the next round); but then why include the coup de grace's (a full round action) damage since it can never be completed in the surprise round. It might be argued that the line stating "After this attack, the knife vanishes." but this line does not appear in the Subtier 1-2 AND since the halfling father killed himself by hanging they just have to keep trying until they succeed. It might be argued that the line "If anyone tries to prevent the attempt, the haunted character instead makes a single attack against that person with the knife." but I was literally told by the person running the module that was to prevent compelled characters with multiple attacks (or fireball) from obliterating the party. So... NO DURATION. If the saving throw is failed, you try coup de gracing yourself until you succeed... this is, by the way, what happened to my 1st level character. My character eventually got my suicide right and failed the fortitude save to die. Whether it was the 2nd or 22nd attempted suicide doesn't even matter. Being first level with no prestige and no money, the judge said there was no way to raise, and that was that. Perhaps spell duration or specifically 1 or 2 rounds?
7. And now my biggest objection with this particular Haunt named *SUICIDE COMPULSION*. This game is played by a lot of teenagers who use it as an escape from the rest of their lives. If one of them were to play this module, encounter this Haunt, have an adult GM they respect tell them they should kill themselves. If they succeed and spend the next 3 hours thinking about that, while being unable to play the game everyone else at the table is playing... <shudder> What do you plan on telling the parent when they find out? What do you plan on telling convention security and coordinators when they find out? I think, whatever and wherever the line is; this crosses it. Remember back in #3, step 1 when I was looking at spells close to this? I think this could very well be the reason that all those charm spells, suggestions, etc specifically mention what they do about suicidal commands. Something someone else besides me should be thinking on.
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I take it your character died in the kitchen?
Yes. As did one off the halfling NPC children, and then... It doesn't matter. My point is that I think haunts are a half baked idea which is being used as a vehicle by writers and judges to ignore the rules and spirit of the game. The trigger for this message to be written when I had better things to do (like sleep) was actaully when I found out that haunts were the new swarm; that they are destined to be used in other Paizo products. The icing on that cake of discovery... that suicide compulsion haunts have already appeared in multiple modules.
Is it really okay to have an adult tell a 14 year old girl at a convention playing her first pathfinder character.... YOU FAILED THE SAVE, YOU KILL YOURSELF; then proceed to ignore her for the next 3 hours being mostly ignored assuming she bothered to stick around?
I tried being very specific about why I dislike haunts in general and this specific haunt in particular. I made constructive suggestions for the haunts in general when possible. This one haunt, suicide compulsion; it just needs to be banned from the game.
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I take it your character died in the kitchen?mine did not, and I agree - though I had not (until now) considered point #7....
(after 2 attempts, she was unable to do enough damage to kill herself... I tend to run PCs that aren't very good in combat).
I am due to run this in two weeks at a local Con - this one encounter has been bothering me A LOT while I prep this scenario.
I think if you subtly encourage the other characters to help and play it carefully with the required actions as described upthread, it should almost never result in an actual character death.
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I take it your character died in the kitchen?mine did not, and I agree - though I had not (until now) considered point #7....
(after 2 attempts, she was unable to do enough damage to kill herself... I tend to run PCs that aren't very good in combat).
I am due to run this in two weeks at a local Con - this one encounter has been bothering me A LOT while I prep this scenario.
My character had a -2 str modifier. Its why the spent so many rounds saying "Its your action and you try to kill yourself again.", it was just a matter of time before I failed the DC 11 to 16 fort save. I was happy it was over when I finally rolled poorly.
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My character had a -2 str modifier. Its why the spent so many rounds saying "Its your action and you try to kill yourself again.", it was just a matter of time before I failed the DC 11 to 16 fort save. I was happy it was over when I finally rolled poorly.I take it your character died in the kitchen?mine did not, and I agree - though I had not (until now) considered point #7....
(after 2 attempts, she was unable to do enough damage to kill herself... I tend to run PCs that aren't very good in combat).
I am due to run this in two weeks at a local Con - this one encounter has been bothering me A LOT while I prep this scenario.
Why did the other characters just stand there? It's pretty inconsiderate of them.
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I think if you subtly encourage the other characters to help and play it carefully with the required actions as described upthread, it should almost never result in an actual character death.I take it your character died in the kitchen?mine did not, and I agree - though I had not (until now) considered point #7....
(after 2 attempts, she was unable to do enough damage to kill herself... I tend to run PCs that aren't very good in combat).
I am due to run this in two weeks at a local Con - this one encounter has been bothering me A LOT while I prep this scenario.
Help how? I really want to know how. I thought I covered it all in 4 and 7. What am I overlooking?
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Help how? I really want to know how. I thought I covered it all in 4 and 7. What am I overlooking?I think if you subtly encourage the other characters to help and play it carefully with the required actions as described upthread, it should almost never result in an actual character death.I take it your character died in the kitchen?mine did not, and I agree - though I had not (until now) considered point #7....
(after 2 attempts, she was unable to do enough damage to kill herself... I tend to run PCs that aren't very good in combat).
I am due to run this in two weeks at a local Con - this one encounter has been bothering me A LOT while I prep this scenario.
So even if you read the haunt as causing more than one coup de grace, which I think is an incorrect reading but I can see how it's slightly ambiguous, the haunt unambiguously states:
"If anyone tries to prevent the attempt, the haunted
character instead makes a single attack against that person with the knife."
So if they tried to restrain your character, for example, that would have been that (well you might have hit them for 2d4-4).
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I have not researched this as much as you have, but the way I read it was a single attempt. If you survive the initial manifestation, then there are no further effects until the Haunt resets, one hour later. So your character does not attempt to kill himself a second or third time, just once.
What specifically brings about that conclusion? When I wrote #6 on my previous post, I tried to find anything in this that indicates this and I could not. I honestly want to know how you arrived at that conclusion.
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I have not researched this as much as you have, but the way I read it was a single attempt. If you survive the initial manifestation, then there are no further effects until the Haunt resets, one hour later. So your character does not attempt to kill himself a second or third time, just once.What specifically brings about that conclusion? When I wrote #6 on my previous post, I tried to find anything in this that indicates this and I could not. I honestly want to know how you arrived at that conclusion.
The haunted character must make a DC 15 Will save.
Failure indicates he moves over to the desk and attempts a
coup de grace action on himself with the jagged length of
wood, dealing 2d4 (plus twice his Strength modifier) points of
damage to himself. He must make a successful Fortitude save
(DC 10 + the damage dealt) to avoid being slain by this suicide
attempt.
It says that on a failure, you move over to the desk and attempt to coup de grace yourself with the jagged length of wood. It doesn't say that you do so again. There's no duration listed because the effect is instantaneous--the same as if the haunt smacked you for damage (it wouldn't keep smacking you every round until you die).
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Help how? I really want to know how. I thought I covered it all in 4 and 7. What am I overlooking?So even if you read the haunt as causing more than one coup de grace, which I think is an incorrect reading but I can see how it's slightly ambiguous, the haunt unambiguously states:
"If anyone tries to prevent the attempt, the haunted
character instead makes a single attack against that person with the knife."So if they tried to restrain your character, for example, that would have been that (well you might have hit them for 2d4-4).
To reiterate point 6 specific to this... This haunt throws an effect with NO DURATION, not even instantaneous. Once the saving throw is failed, the character is done. There is no second saving throw against this compulsion. If grappled and tied up, the compulsion is waiting for the character to be wakened. There is no rule where neutralizing or destroying the haunt does not make the effect go away. It might be argued that the haunt is not Persistent, so effects can never extend beyond the surprise (enter the next round); but then why include the coup de grace's (a full round action) damage since it can never be completed in the surprise round. It might be argued that the line stating "After this attack, the knife vanishes." but this line does not appear in the Subtier 1-2 AND since the halfling father killed himself by hanging they just have to keep trying like he did until they succeed. It might be argued that the line "If anyone tries to prevent the attempt, the haunted character instead makes a single attack against that person with the knife." but I was literally told by the person running the module that was to prevent compelled characters with multiple attacks (or fireball) from obliterating the party, and had nothing to do with the effects duration. Literally no end to it.
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To reiterate point 6 specific to this... This haunt throws an effect with NO DURATION, not even instantaneous. Once the saving throw is failed, the character is done.
Once the saving throw is failed, the text of the haunt is followed. And the text says:
"Failure indicates he moves over to the desk and attempts a
coup de grace action on himself with the jagged length of
wood"
Bolded for emphasis. The text does not say that the haunted character continually performs coup de graces until he is dead. It says "a" coup de grace action.
but I was literally told by the person running the module that was to prevent compelled characters with multiple attacks (or fireball) from obliterating the party, and had nothing to do with the effects duration. Literally no end to it.
Suicide haunts aren't my favorite either, but in this case, the GM was to blame. The GM was incorrect in a way that was excessively cruel. I've been there, though not often. I've only played three times in all of my PFS experience with GMs who either bent or honestly misinterpreted the rules in ways that were extremely deadly compared to the actual scenario, and it was never pleasant, no matter what scenario they were running.
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Why did the other characters just stand there? It's pretty inconsiderate of them.
I was in another room, around multiple corners, on the other side of a curtain (and possibly a door), from the party. What could they have done in a surprise round they were completely unaware of before the haunt dropped an effect with a 15 will save on a 1st level character? They might as well have been 600 miles away instead of in the next room. Once that on will save is failed... Sigh. Commence suicide attempts to infinity like the poor Halfling father of two children suffered. Knife disappears, that's fine apparently hanging works. What would you have had them do?