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You're never going to get a straight answer to that question (I know I never have). Tactics are to be followed, but I think intelligent enemies should be able to adapt to the situations they are given using the abilities that were given to them in the scenario. It really depends on the scenario, too.
For First Steps Part I, I would always advise to follow tactics for the last battle. For this one, I advice to do what makes sense for him. Plus, higher level abilities tend to change situations more than lower level ones, so you may find that you need your NPCs to adapt more at the higher levels than the lower ones.
If an enemy is dumb as a brick (like an ooze, certain constructs, vermin, etc.), then they would just probably follow tactics or attack the nearest thing.
It really just depends.
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About Overland Flight:
Check his statblock on subtier 6-7. He has a fly speed of 30 ft., so he actually has overland flight precast ;)
(pssst.... It's actually in his tactics as "Before Combat")
Yiroep, do you even read this stuff??
(disclaimer: before anyone jumps at my throat Yiroep and I are RL friends, just giving him a hard time ;-))
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Do you have "Book of Fiends, Volume II"? It has a lot of demon runes on the inside front cover. I've seen a couple of GMs make the gate out of cardstock with those.
Never even heard of that book, let alone own it. Is that a Pathfinder book, or a D&D thing?
Coming up with runes isn't the issue. It's the design of the gates themselves which are the issue. When I played this, I was completely lost trying to understand the GMs description of what we were looking at, so I was pretty useless in helping to solve the puzzle of the false gate. I'm still having trouble picturing what they look like, with a written description in front of me, so how well will I explain them in a loud and crowded gaming store? I'm pretty much assuming that a visual aid is mandatory, and the lack of pictures in the scenario is a major flaw in an otherwise great adventure.
I'm running this in a week and a half, and I haven't even finished reading it yet. And I'm running Blackros Matrimony less than a week later, which also requires heavy prep, and I haven't even started reading that one yet. So I have neither the time, nor the artistic talent, to create a visual aid myself. Figuring out how to draw the map for the final encounter of this will be bad enough.
Honestly, if I can't find a picture somewhere, the gate puzzles are likely to just be glossed over with a Disable Device check and minimal description, because I doubt I can explain them well enough at the table for anyone to actually figure out what I'm talking about. Like I said, I'm having trouble picturing it in my head with the written description in front of me, so explaining it to someone else just isn't going to happen.
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I just draw out a picture of the gate on an index card. It's pretty straightforward once you get it in your head what it's supposed to represent.
Like I said, I was pretty lost when I played the adventure. Reading it, I've gotten as far as the false gate so far, and I still couldn't picture it on the first reading. I made a note to come back to it and kept reading for now. When I get a chance to read the description a couple of times and think about it, maybe it'll make more sense.
But I really hope I don't have to try and draw something. Even if I find the time to do so, I can't draw worth a damn. That's why I was hoping someone else already had pictures they'd drawn for this.
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Yeah, when I played this at gencon I had a really hard time as a player grasping exactly what it looked at. Then when I went to run it I knew I definintly needed a visual aid.
I made the 3 rings out computer paper, put packing tape on each one (ti act as lamanent) and then pinned them together, so the players and turn the rings. It has made a huge difference. My players have easily been able to figure out what exactly the false gate looks like.
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Sorry, Fromper. Book of the Damned, Vol. II.
The gate looks like three concentric StarGates contacting one another: an outer, middle, and inner ring.
Link fixed.
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Has Myron posted a picture of the one he made? That sets a really high bar for game props.
I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.
The linked folder has 2 versions of the rings I used for the ring gate, as well as my cheat sheet for this scenario. If anyone wants the custom maps that I made, please send me an email at:
To make the gate, I pasted the rings to foam core board, then cut them apart (keeping each ring intact). I had to trim off a bit more so they could rotate past each other easily. I then glued the whole thing to another piece of foam core. A few finishing touches, and it looks pretty good.
When I get home tonight, I'll dig up some images of the finished product and post them here.
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So I'm preparing to run this, and I've given some thought about how to deal with the fireball/bridge dilemma. The dilemma is that burning the bridge out from under a PC and having them fall 100 feet after taking fireball damage seems like a cheap way to kill a PC (or several, if they're on the bridge together). So most GMs don't want to do something this mean to their players, but Aglorn is smart and evil enough to do it.
Thinking about it, I realized the past discussions of this dilemma have overlooked two logical assumptions about the scenario.
1. Aglorn needs those bridges. He can teleport from the Diamond Gate to the platform at the base of the stairs, but he knows most of the other Aspis agents working for him can't. Destroying those bridges and having to rebuild them would be a major pain in the butt for him and his organization.
2. Aglorn is arrogant enough to think he can kill the Pathfinders without resorting to such cheap tactics. See page 15 of the scenario: "With his mastery of summoned creatures, planar binding, and control of outsiders, Aglorn was instrumental in the Aspis Consortium’s initial taking of Areshkagal’s temple and he is confident that a team of mere mortals will be no match for him." By the time the Pathfinders get the clear upper hand against him in this fight, it should be too late for him to fall back on this cheap trick.
Based on those two assumptions, I think Aglorn would make a point of avoiding hitting the bridges with his fireballs. He thinks he can kill the Pathfinders without such a cheap trick, and he wouldn't want to lose any more useful Aspis resources than necessary. So he'd avoid hitting the bridges for the same reason he'd avoid hitting his own archers, at least until things seem really desperate, at which point, he should already be out of fireballs.
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Has Myron posted a picture of the one he made? That sets a really high bar for game props.I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.
The linked folder has 2 versions of the rings I used for the ring gate, as well as my cheat sheet for this scenario. If anyone wants the custom maps that I made, please send me an email at: ** spoiler omitted **
To make the gate, I pasted the rings to foam core board, then cut them apart (keeping each ring intact). I had to trim off a bit more so they could rotate past each other easily. I then glued the whole thing to another piece of foam core. A few finishing touches, and it looks pretty good.
When I get home tonight, I'll dig up some images of the finished product and post them here.
Thanks, Myron. I'll take a look at that while prepping more over the weekend.
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I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.
Ooh! Can we post these on the shared prep google doc?
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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Has Myron posted a picture of the one he made? That sets a really high bar for game props.I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.
The linked folder has 2 versions of the rings I used for the ring gate, as well as my cheat sheet for this scenario. If anyone wants the custom maps that I made, please send me an email at: ** spoiler omitted **
To make the gate, I pasted the rings to foam core board, then cut them apart (keeping each ring intact). I had to trim off a bit more so they could rotate past each other easily. I then glued the whole thing to another piece of foam core. A few finishing touches, and it looks pretty good.
When I get home tonight, I'll dig up some images of the finished product and post them here.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Myron, you're awesome! :D
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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So I'm preparing to run this, and I've given some thought about how to deal with the fireball/bridge dilemma. The dilemma is that burning the bridge out from under a PC and having them fall 100 feet after taking fireball damage seems like a cheap way to kill a PC (or several, if they're on the bridge together). ...
1. Aglorn needs those bridges. He can teleport from the Diamond Gate to the platform at the base of the stairs, but he knows most of the other Aspis agents working for him can't. Destroying those bridges and having to rebuild them would be a major pain in the butt for him and his organization.
Let me argue the opposite side, Fromper.
Aglorn is tasked with maintaining this base securely. His superior demands that he hold it, at all costs. He must know that Pathfinder agents have already raided Aspis outposts in the Tapestry. Losing a rope bridge may be inconvenient; losing the base is disastrous.
The party has passed through the temple and is deep within enemy territory by the time they encounter Aglorn. I think they should realize that this is a play-for-keeps battle.
I would make sure the party understands the dangers. You could highlight the unsteady nature of the bridges, and the depth of the canyon below. Give them a chance to cast fly, grab a feather fall potion, or toss a rope to someone standing on stone.
The visual of a fireball, followed by the burning embers of the rope bridge falling away is memorable scene.
The fall, on a completely unprepared character without ranks in Acrobatics, will do 10d6, or about 35 points of damage. That's a blow to a 5th-level character, but it shouldn't kill anybody outright. If the PC is also completely unprepared for Aglorn's fireball, and if she doesn't have any temporary hit points, then she might be in trouble.
But honestly, if the PCs are that unprepared for the fight, if they run across a gorge without any thought about surviving a fall, they should be in trouble.
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It's not level 5 characters I'm worried about. It's level 3 characters. Fireball damage + 100 foot fall = death for just about anyone at subtier 3-4. And those are PCs that players have enough investment in that they don't want to lose them, but they don't have enough PA for a Raise Dead. Plus, the tactics specifically say that Aglorn only throws the fireball when he can catch multiple people, so you could easily end up with 2-3 people falling off a bridge.
Not to mention that without those bridges, players at that level going to have a heck of a time getting to Aglorn and the real gate. How many level 3 PCs have you seen that can fly? Or even have feather fall, other than wizards with an arcane bonded item they can use to pull it out of their spellbook when needed? Yes, there are a couple here and there. There are also ranged focused characters. But most of the damage dealing in any level 3-4 PFS party is going to be from the barbarians, fighters, rogues, etc who have spent all their low level money on good armor and weapons, not potions of fly.
Like I said, I think Aglorn's arrogance is key. Look at the quote I posted from the adventure. At the start of the fight, he thinks he can beat anyone. By the time he realizes otherwise, he'll be out of fireballs.
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Ooh! Can we post these on the shared prep google doc?I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.
I just posted them there. I also included my custom maps.
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I think Aglorn using his fireball on the bridges is perfectly in character, especially if someone is about to reach him.
And I say that as a 4th level Rogue that that Myron fireballed in the last 5 feet of the bridge next to Aglorn. Didn't begrudge him a bit - if I'd made it across, that sucker was going down. If it had been me on the other side, I don't think I'd have made a different decision.
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One time I had a group at 3-4 that looked at the rope bridges, looked at the caster, and went "No way I'm getting on." The archer just stayed back firing while the others were jumping across the bridges. There was one person who didn't think they could make the acrobatics check, so they just stayed back and pulled out a bow, readying actions to fire at the guy. They also had a cleric. Aglorn didn't really stand a chance against them.
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I'm the author of this scenario, in my play test he fireballed the bridges.
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For what its worth:
When I played this scenario in the 3-4 sub tier Agalorn fireballed the bridge with two or three PC's on it, but didn't manage to do enough damage to destroy it. I don't remember the damage dice for his fireball at that tier but I don't think it was a terrible roll. Thus the bridge being destroyed is perhaps not a foregone conclusion at that level. Still we definitely got lucky.
I thought that while it was a scary incident there was nothing inherently unfair about it. Deadly... Yes. But the party had definite cues that we mostly ignored while sallying forth. Overall I thought it was a nice addition that got everyone's heart pumping and left you with a "lesson learned" type of feeling.
Thankfully, our party was pretty beefy and made short work of Agalorn shortly thereafter. I think I remember a summoner or druids (I don't remember) raptor jumping from the first platform to the main platform and having Aggy's face for lunch. Good times.
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My first character death (had enough to res him) came from the last fight of this scenario (last night). It went like this: enter large dark space, see rope bridge, grapple grapple explode grapple, die. Not much you can do when you need to roll a 17+ to escape the black tentacles and you get fire-balled on top of that. The level disparity between my lvl 5 witch and the BBEG (APL 6-7) was just a too much. The common theme of the night was Black tentacle just doesn't care. Us three, low CMB/CMD players never even got to see the BBEG. In the end we won but the black tentacles killed 3 players (a witch, a bard, and a gunslinger).
Well played Aspis...well played.
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I'm pretty sure I'll be running this at lower subtier. We have six signups, and all of them are level 4, except one at level 5. If it stays that way, it'll officially be APL 5, but I'll make a point of scaring them into playing down. But there's still room for one more GM and six more players to sign up before Monday, so we'll see how that works out.
The one thing I'm most dreading in prepping this is just drawing all the maps. That and making sure I know how all of Aglorn's spells work.
I'll be curious to see how this group handles this adventure. I've played with enough of them before to have some idea what to expect. That final fight is likely to be epic, though.
Developer
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I would give at least one round for PCs on a burning bridge to move off before the bridge collapses. While rope is flammable, it's reasonable that the bridge wouldn't completely disintegrate into ash in 6 seconds. If someone stays on a burning bridge instead of moving to solid ground, then I don't think the resultant fall is unreasonable.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I'm pretty sure I'll be running this at lower subtier. We have six signups, and all of them are level 4, except one at level 5. If it stays that way, it'll officially be APL 5, but I'll make a point of scaring them into playing down. But there's still room for one more GM and six more players to sign up before Monday, so we'll see how that works out.
The one thing I'm most dreading in prepping this is just drawing all the maps. That and making sure I know how all of Aglorn's spells work.
I'll be curious to see how this group handles this adventure. I've played with enough of them before to have some idea what to expect. That final fight is likely to be epic, though.
If you have D&D Dungeon tiles, they work really well for the upper level. The lower level has to be drawn (though I took inspiration from Myron and did my own 3D terrain). If you draw the lower level, do it on two separate battlemats; one for the upper portion and another for the lower. That way you can maintain the fog effect and mystery, and still have things laid out relatively quickly to react to where PCs are.
Also, be sure to reserve at least an hour for the final fight. All the summoning equals one encounter in itself, then you have a flying/teleporting wizard using his familiar as a spotter, making for a very long drawn out fight. Skip the optional to save time, unless you can really get the hints across to the players so that they bypass the graven guardians.
Finally, don't be afraid of fireballs and bridges. I've run this five times, both high and low tiers, and lost only one PC to death. This encounter encourages players to think outside the box, and they respond well to it and become very creative at keeping each other in the fight. I will say I've consumed a lot of rerolls (both shirts and boons). Nothing wrong with that, though; makes players feel like they used them on something worthwhile.
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The riddles are unsolvable.
If you were playing a character with a strict alignment code the GM should really give you a heads up before the character attempts to solve a riddle.
"The tablet depicts grotesque torture and methods of dismemberment. The subject matter appalls you. Are you sure you want to solve this riddle of the flesh?"
When I ran this, my party was TEAM CHAOTIC NEUTRAL so they didn't need to worry. They kept on reading til they hit
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I'd think the whole thing would radiate magic, due to the fact that you get the profane bonus if you try to answer the riddles; there has to be some kind of magic there if that's going to work. So, no, I'd rule that detect magic wouldn't necessarily find the explosive runes.
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Ok, call me stupid. Just double checked, and the scenario addresses that specifically.
All of the intact tablets radiate a moderate transmutation aura, while the tablet containing explosive runes also radiates a faint aura of evocation.
I think that's how our group probably avoided it when we played. Someone made the knowledge check to recognize what caused the earlier blasts, so we just avoided the runes that radiated evocation, while examining the ones that radiated transmutation.
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Last minute question, since I'll be GMing this evening: How do you treat the light situation in the final area? The room description mentions the glowing red gems, but are they bright enough to provide low light throughout the entire area? Or do they just provide atmosphere, and don't shed enough light to be useful? The description also says the PCs can't see how far down the chasm is under the bridges, so whatever light exists doesn't extend 100 ft.
And it doesn't mention Aglorn and the archer having light sources, but I'm assuming they weren't just sitting around in the dark waiting for the Pathfinders to show up.
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I've always ran it where there is indeed no light at the bottom, and therefore unless you have a PC with 120 ft. darkvision they cannot see Aglorn if he is standing down by the gate. Which should give him time to summon critters as he should not be targettable with ranged attacks to interrupt casting. Red gems were just atmosphere.
I have yet to see a party that doesn't trigger the hallway alarm, so he should know they are coming. If he had a light spell going down there, he can easily dismiss it before the PCs get to the main cavern.
PCs may be able to hear spellcasting down there though. just remember the -10 (100 ft.) for distance (maybe more, -10 is just for the vertical distance).
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Here's another question. I've never thought about how the rules apply if one person is in the dark, shooting at someone surrounded by light. ie The bad guy archer shooting at the party. If the party is more than 100 feet away, but carrying light that gives them normal light (torch, sunrod, light spell), can he target them normally?
Also, Aglorn doesn't have light prepared as one of his cantrips.
Hmm... looking for light sources, I just noticed that the archer at lower tier (where I'll probably be running) only has 26 arrows. I'll have to count them as he uses them, as that could be a limiting factor. Of course, the first 6 are seeking, so that will negate the miss chance from low light, if that applies.
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Ran this last night.
The group set off the trap in the first hallway, which was fun. Then, they avoided the statue guardian by wearing the amulets, and figured out the false gate on the second try. They befriended Teenoch, and we decided to skip the optional fight, due to time constraints. So they only had two fights the whole adventure - the guards at the start and the epic final battle.
When the players went down the stairs to the undershrine, I had them identify their light sources for me, and we put dice on the table to represent those light sources. Half the party had darkvision or low light vision, so they could see farther than the torches illuminated anyway. But given the size of the cavern, I still covered up parts of it at first, and told them they couldn't see the floor beneath the bridges.
Aglorn managed to hit all 6 party members with the fireball (despite having been moving around for two rounds while he was summoning before he torched them), and set one of the bridges on fire. Half the party missed their saves, so there was a lot of damage spread around on that one. I described the ropes supporting the bridge burning, and they all moved off that bridge pretty quickly, and I had it fall the following round.
One thing that made this make a lot more sense, which I missed when I played it because of how my GM had drawn the map, is that the plateaus really are close enough to jump between them and skip the bridges. With the way my GM had drawn it when I played it, that really wasn't possible. But I drew the map in advance, making a point of being accurate with the distances between plateaus, and the two monks in my group last night didn't even have to roll half their jumps, due to high acrobatics bonuses and ki point expenditure by the level 5.
The party played some pretty smart tactics overall. A first round pyrotechnics spell blinded the archer for maximum duration, so he was out of the fight for 5 rounds. In the end, Aglorn was barely touched before he failed a save against permanent blindness from one of the players. Once they got past the summoned critters and finished off the archer (by grappling him and tossing him off the cliff), I didn't make them play out beating up on the blinded wizard who was out of spells and could no longer defend himself (though he didn't willingly surrender).
And I still haven't killed anyone as a PFS GM. I came really close with this one. After the fireball, Aglorn blasted the group's only healer with a Magic Missile. Because he's a half orc, I didn't realize I'd taken him down to negative HP until his turn, when he cast a spell, then fell over. I think he got as low as -8 before someone else poured a cure potion in his mouth.
All in all, we had a fun time with this one. I may have to keep this map drawn, because I think I'd enjoy running it again, and I wouldn't want to have to go through drawing it again.
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When I played through this with my rogue, it was at the higher subtier and we had a lot of fun with the description of my rogue walking past the Explosive Runes that the guy next to me set off upon reading the tablet. I made my Reflex Save with my Improved Evasion, so I took no damage. I said that my rogue just kept walking without even looking back. We played it off as the whole 'cool guys don't look at explosions' bit.
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When I played through this with my rogue, it was at the higher subtier and we had a lot of fun with the description of my rogue walking past the Explosive Runes that the guy next to me set off upon reading the tablet. I made my Reflex Save with my Improved Evasion, so I took no damage. I said that my rogue just kept walking without even looking back. We played it off as the whole 'cool guys don't look at explosions' bit.
Heh.
With my group last night, they only detected magic on the first tablet, then assumed they were all the same. They were slowly walking up the hallway, taking notes on each and every one of them (the Osirions thought it might be related to their faction mission). So I had them position their minis as to where they were standing as they examined them, then slowly move them up the hall as they looked at each one.
As luck would have it, the one guy who was 10 feet back from the rest of the group had gotten up to go the bathroom. When they set off the explosive runes, everyone was in range except him. When he came back and asked what he missed, we told him, "One of the tablets exploded. You were the only one outside the blast radius."
Of course, that was the same guy who later hit -8 HP during the final battle.
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So I'm planning to DM this scenario this Sunday. I'm playing with a group that isn't necessarily fully optimized. Planning on four manning it, although it is open to the public. I'm a new DM, and was wondering if you guys could give me some specific prep for this scenario?
I've read through most of it, but don't have the time to make the 3D map, and fear even if I did it would be woefully lacking. Is there anything else I should be especially prepared for?
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So I'm planning to DM this scenario this Sunday. I'm playing with a group that isn't necessarily fully optimized. Planning on four manning it, although it is open to the public. I'm a new DM, and was wondering if you guys could give me some specific prep for this scenario?
I've read through most of it, but don't have the time to make the 3D map, and fear even if I did it would be woefully lacking. Is there anything else I should be especially prepared for?
Map doesn't have to be 3D for this scenario to be awesome. I ran this 3 times at GenCon '12 with hand drawn maps and the tables still seemed to have a great time. I would recommend to predraw the last room if at all possible though to make it as accurate in terms of distances as you can.
Make sure to keep in mind the lighting in the room (dim light throughout the last room), the bridges are difficult terrain, the bridges take 25 HP to destroy IIRC (so fireball on low tier is unlikely to take out, but you can scare the players with it), keep in mind jump DC's (it can be the easiest way for some to cross the room sans flight), make it memorable.
The author gave Desimire a number of tools to use...make sure to keep them in mind as you run him. He's an intelligent, evil, ruthless villain willing to lay down his life, and the lives of those around him, to protect the portal at all costs.
Lastly, have fun. This scenario is one of my absolute favorites, and definitely my favorite from season 3.
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Ran this last night for a table of 4. We got a little tripped up on the false rings, looking back at the thread I see a lot of folks had the right idea with the prop. The party understood what to do pretty straight away, but without a prop it was a shade confusing as to the order. But they managed to not blow themselves up.
The final fight was brutal, if more then four had been there, or if there were rules for four like there are from season 4 on it would have been less close. But I think the party is going to remember this one for a long time. In the end the cleric and bard were unconscious but stable for the last few rounds, and the barbarian and fighter were both hovering around 4-8 hp, while the conjuror was down to slinging acid bolts, and bleeding dexterity to the imp's poison. In the end the barbarian put the conjuror down, and he and the final archer made an uneasy truce (the archer having see the barbarian turn her partner into red mist.)
The scariest moment for the party was probably when the barbarian was on one of the bridges when he was hit by a fireball. He took around 50 damage in the one round (only falling 100 feet not the full 200.) But was basically one luck role away from a TPK.
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Okay, so I am confused on the number of spells Desimire can cast (for the low tier).
Based on the Table: Wizard (found here: http://paizo.com/prd/classes/wizard.html) A Wizard casts 1 3rd lvl spell, 2 2nd lvl spells, and 3 1st lvl spells. Because of Desimire’s IQ of 18 he gets an additional spell for each of those levels and his arcane bonded ring grants him one more spell.
So based on the tactics, he runs out of spells. Here is how I see it going:
Before Combat he casts mage armor and false life reducing his available spells to 1st:3, 2nd:2, 3rd:3
During combat he casts two summon monster III spells and one summon monster II spell reducing his available spells to 1st:3, 2nd:1, 3rd:1
Then he casts a fireball using up his last 3rd level spell.
Then he casts dispel magic, which is also a 3rd level spell….how is this cast since he used his last 3rd level spell with the fireball?
Can someone tell me if my thought process is correct or how I messed up my math?