Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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My thoughts...
The first round was... weird. The whole thing seem to throw the characters into situations where they had to guess at a lot of things with no real direction. It was a blast figuring out the trailer run, but our GM mess up the last bit with the waves of monsters, only discovering how to do it after we thought we had finished.
However we did, "The Annoying Investigators" made it to the second round. (Forsythia is my character, the said Investigator in the group (Rogue archtype))
We were confused from the start and only realized the whole scope of the thing after we had ran to safety. (We didn't die, thank the Gods) From the first, two of our team had leveled to three, so our tier was bumped up, with one of us still being first level. (The Fighter, of all things) He almost died getting branded, thankfully he was healed as that happened. Forsythia, a Tiefling, handled it from there, gaining a bothersome brand in the process. (DR Fire... good.)
So we could not make it past the room past the nicely described door. We actually tried twice. (Those pipes couldn't have that many hp, right?) After the second try, we scedaddled.
The Dragon, in three-four tier, would have cooked us if we had of made it to him, so it was just as well.
Three things could have made things better. The groups that made it should have been locked in the tier they played in the first round, the second round should have had all the tables wait (making a later night, I think) until all was ready, and the ending block text mentioned at the beginning of the thread should be taken out of the module.
It is one thing to have a character die, it is another to have the DM thumb come from nowhere and squish it.
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and the ending block text mentioned at the beginning of the thread should be taken out of the module. It is one thing to have a character die, it is another to have the DM thumb come from nowhere and squish it.It's apparently forewarned in the adventure, which isn't intended to run again, ever. You're NOT somewhere you have an unlimited amount of time. It's just the same as being in an underwater adventure and staying down a hundred feet after you're out of water breathing time.
I half expected water in part two, I thought that Tim always put water into his scenarios, and since I didn't see any in part one I felt assured to see some in part two.
It's apparently forewarned in the adventure, which isn't intended to run again, ever. You're NOT somewhere you have an unlimited amount of time. It's just the same as being in an underwater adventure and staying down a hundred feet after you're out of water breathing time.
While your right, it is "Apperently" forewarned.
If you read back over this thread you will see that several GM's thought that the players did not die at the end until HQ told them to go back to the table and read the "Box text O' Death"
If the GM did not think the players die at the end, how the hell are the players going to know?
As one of the players of the second round I will recount how ours went. (again)
After starting nearly an hour after some other tables we did not make it out in the 5 hour window (4 hour window?)
Our GM told us that tho we did not make it out on time, we all lived.
He then went to report and came back with a look that said "Man, I really don't want to do this" and said "Yeah..... about that Living thing?...." Box text O' Death.
So again, while the author may have thought that it was forewarned, if even the GMs are supprised then what chance did we have?
Also to restate, saying its a 5 hour limit, then calling it at 4 and change (for the tables that started late), followed by TPK via text is not a fun way to end.
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Was also a player at the annoying investigators table, and was one of the 2 players that due to the way things fell bumped the table up to the next tier on part 2.
I actually enjoyed the special a lot. It was tough but after playing other specials before learned how to keep rolling with the punches.
Biggest problem was having to continually as the GM 'what did you say' or 'what did the person on the stage say' as the room was too loud.
On the second part we did almost die but through luck, quick thinking, and a ton of wands of cure light wounds we made it. Still the quote of the evening was 'Oh come on the tube can't have that many hit points....'
Given that we were told many many times that this was a deadly adventure I think the difficultly was fair.
As for the insta-kill at the end I think I remember something in the GM intro text about 'be back in time', but didn't pick up on it as we really could only hear every 3rd word the GM said.
I'm not against a text block kill based on time, but their should be a double redundancy to make sure the PCs hear it. Maybe have the NPC ask, "You got that right? If your not back in time the portals close?"
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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Yes, the pathfinder's life is a bit hectic, but the overall feeling in the first part is "run with it." Not the usual pathfinder way, though there are some characters that use that philosophy exclusively.
The burning question I have is about the pipe room, but it would contain to many spoilers for those that may go into this special (hopefully revised) in other cons.
My character has a brand now, something that will be rare to see, so that in itself is a unique reminder of the event.
overall, The Annoying Investigators were a bit outclasses because none of use really could afford the items that would have helped against the pipes. (Kraford, my 6th level monk, just got the particular item after coming against golems)
To me, though, the great thumb of death was really to close to the 1st edition stomps that no one ever liked, with the exception of gleeful, vindictive DM's.
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We ran 13 tables of Race4RunecarvedKi past night at Pacificon and after making some small adjustments in Act/time allotments (based on input from Baird and previous GMs from GenCon), I believe it was a successful run. We had more than a few deaths, no TPKs, and lots of laughs. The took our time and tried to enjoy it. We had it scheduled over 2 slots....and we used all 9 hours (1 hour dinner break).
-Pain
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I played in the level 15 game at Pacificon. Nasty. We had a Fighter 15, Summoner 13 (new to our party), wizard 15, eldritch knight (don't know all his levels) 15, Cleric 1/Wizard (diviner) 1/rogue 13, and my barbarian 2/fighter 13. we had 3 deaths (wizard, rogue, summoner) but all recovered in game with limited wishes > breath of life. Some of the monsters were pretty scary if we let them live more than one round.
Great Game, would have been interested to see the second part. :)
Thanks to all the judges (go Brent!) and organizers at pacificon for a really fun special.
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What I dont understand is the scoring system.
How did my table that was one of the last few to sit, being we could bid 75 (from what our GM told us) as well as having completed the chase scene, not been able to advance.
Our GM was someone running us cold, without any idea of how the chase scene worked, and yet we still managed to get out of the cathedral in less than 2 rounds, get the guy before he left square 7, and we completed what seemed to be a rather large amount of scenes to be able to bid (70k?).What and how were tables scored that got to advance to round 2, and were we somehow disqualified from advancing because of our judge who voulenteered to run us so we could have a chance to play?
What do you mean when you advise people advanced to round 2?
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Mike, here's a couple of suggestions:
2) The muster captains were disinclined to give me my table number until they had a group of players to send with me. The GameMastering 101 talk included the advice, "It's terribly unprofessional for the players to get to the table only to see the GM just start to unpack." The current muster system requires that GMs can't get to the table ahead of the players.
Chris, not sure who your marshal was, but as a GM for both parts I was sent to a table before the clipboards even went out. I was well and truly in place for Round 1, but was one of the GMs who got moved around for round 2 - still set up and ready to go before the bell rang though.
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Despised despised hated despised
It is a game. And I call BS, because there should be a line between your character and whether or not they would participate in the events of the evening, and you as a player "leaving the special". If you cannot draw a line, maybe it's time to take a breath. Or a break. Or both.
Join Silver Crusade! We have (and according to the tentacle machine in Part II of the special, we taste like) cookies!
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I absolutely despised it, and the only way I can have fun playing other Pathfinder Society scenarios is to completely block it from my memory, forgetting what the Society technically stands for, apparently.
You realize you're not your PC right? Just because I had a hard time with my Paladin in a scenario, doesn't mean I hate PFS. It means I had a hard time with my PC concept in the scenario of a neutral campaign. If a scenario mission bothers you that much, you can always not play it, or play it with another PC. You can also decline faction missions.
This is still valid feedback for M+M though. People want more heroic scenarios.
Other than that, all I can advise is that you pick a different PC concept that can adapt to PFS better.
I'm not sure if you know, but almost all PFS scenarios you can take the moral high ground, it's your choice. I guess the special was a little different.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The muster captains were disinclined to give me my table number until they had a group of players to send with me. ... The current muster system requires that GMs can't get to the table ahead of the players.
Chris, not sure who your marshal was, but as a GM for both parts I was sent to a table before the clipboards even went out. I was well and truly in place for Round 1, but was one of the GMs who got moved around for round 2 - still set up and ready to go before the bell rang though.
Wes,
My comments above were for Gen Con in general. I was usually mustering at Door B, and my comments stand.
For the Special, there was a whole different type of FUBAR. I was assigned Table 23. I set stuff out, and made ready ... for over an hour. Two people came to my table, and were then moved to different tables. Marshals came by a couple of times, saw that I had an empty table, commented, and moved on. It looked very likely that I wouldn't have players at all. Eventually, I was standing on my chair, trying to attract the marshals' attention.
Shortly after the event began, I got my players.
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Having played it at Pacificon, I had an absolute blast. Played at 10-11 despite being lvl 9 (Didn't get the GM credit I had planned).
I had an utterly fantastic time. The opening act, we clobbered it. Oracle of Lore made it silly easy to get the dirt on our foes (Kn: anything = 37...yeah...). In the take the caravan job, we buffed and went in like a friggen SWAT Team. And then got stupid and Breath of Life'd the big nasty critter. Who promptly poisoned me, leading to the dreaded con spiral of doom. Saw the invisible Wizard, who for some silly reason thought his globe of invulnerability would save him from a big angry librarian with a nasty sharp sword. Finished him, then took a quick trip to the afterlife, despite the best efforts of no less than 3 clerics. Thankfully, the Osirions were willing to give me a hand, aiding me in becoming "Alexander Damocles, the Holy Risen Librarian of Abadar". And the 15+ even brought me a Jub Jub Bird dinner!
The various missions we did pretty well. Damocles' favorite adventuring companion, Sarai (gnome sorc of diplomancy and perceptomancer extraordinaire) was able to handle most of the talking with some pointers for her friendly local librarian. Only thing that gave us trouble was the job to deal with the warehouse. We had no clue what our goal was. Damocles wasn't in a "wreck the building and set fire to the rats" mood, and then we later screwed up the check. Got em out of the auction....but that wasn't the point. Whoops. Ran the hellknight right out of town, having a librarian with a bag of rare books was quite helpful in dealing with a museum curator.
Now then, after we win the auction (SUCK IT ASPIS!), the fun really began. Windows blow in, and for once in his life Damocles made his save. Promptly is hasted by Sarai, enlarge persons, and the next round just bails out a window. Playing out of tier, first one out, "Just sayin". Sarai and the Zen Archer Monk get out the next round. Lady Ophelia and Kazreh, however...yeah. Bone devil Wall of Ice's the windows, leading Opheilia to fireball my church ("STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY CHURCH!"). Bone Devil counters with wall of stone around the two clerics and himself, and then a wizard d'doors in and cloudkills. Then bounces back out. 5-6 rounds later, the bone devil drops, they bust out, the rest of the party can move on.
Chase scene? Uhh, sure. Fly. Expeditious retreat. Any questions, bub? This is where it kinda hit the fan. Two players start the fight with the running bugger. Paralyzes the Zen Archer. Oh, great, its just Damocles...against two casters and a nasty rogue. Manages to stop the CDG, gets con poisoned *AGAIN*. Sees one of em start a full round cast, flies over, whacks em. Gets the cast off anyways, aaand its a Bone Devil. Who is then stopped with a Hold Monster from a timely arriving Sarai, and CDG'd by Damocles (faster than Lady Ophelia could handle hers. Again, just sayin...). Stays up in the air, keeps the rogue honest (see invis, fool!). Rogue gets pinned into a corner, Damocles handles one caster, gets the poison removed (5 con left, oh joy!). Then, suddenly.....portals. ****. I won't wimp out on the group, so I hover away from the monsters and throw spells (glitterdust, ya silly invisible critters!). First set wasn't so bad....and then 2 bebiliths. Right behind me. Where if I take 27 damage I'm visiting Pharasma for the 2nd time this week. Heart rate? Tripled. Damocles fortunately was able to get across the street before they acted, and stayed out of combat with a wand of lesser restoration so he could hypothetically get back in combat later. Round before the wand pops, time is called. Damocles made it out with but a brief brush with death, earned his cash, his bragging rights, and *serious* desire to go find the Lissalan church and burn it to the ground.
All in all: holy mother of all the pantheon of Golarion, amazing job to the authors and the GMs. Will Johnson, thank you for scaring the ever loving **** out of me all night long, keeping it entertaining, and playing nice with Sarai's player. If this is the quality of specials, I want more. Would be interesting to have 2 per season as a way to advance the metaplot, but I know that is asking for quite a lot.
As to the morality issues, Damocles is LN in the school of Abadar, and had few issues with his job. And is now LG, and still doesn't. There were *quite* a few ways to be LG and get the job done without combat (in fact, its evidently better if you do that). We handled it with no alignment infractions with LN Oracle and NG cleric, and 2 other clerics besides. Be creative, be sneaky, be *crazy*.
TLDR: Friggen awesome. I want more. Lots more.
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Lady Ophelia and Kazreh, however...yeah. Bone devil Wall of Ice's the windows, leading Opheilia to fireball my church ("STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY CHURCH!"). Bone Devil counters with wall of stone around the two clerics and himself, and then a wizard d'doors in and cloudkills. Then bounces back out. 5-6 rounds later, the bone devil drops, they bust out, the rest of the party can move on.
*points at Alexander* Hey! Hey! If you want me not to blow holes in your church then you should have got your butt back in there and helped me and Kazreh. I did what needed to be done to survive and make sure the society succeeded. And I paid the proper tithes to your church in the form of gold and the legal hiring of hirelings to fix it. And I didn't hear any complaints from you (instead I heard the opposite) about that Breath of Life before I casted it, so don't start moaning about it now.
All in all, this was a painfully but wonderfully fun adventure. But I firmly believe that Kyle Baird and Tim Hitchcock should never write an adventure together. It should be one or the other. Ironically, we also ran a "Last Chance" run of Blood Under Absalom, written by Tim and it was brutal! So there is no need for the two of them to write one insanely painfully fun adventure together. They can each do the work for us seperately! Thanks to everyone for putting their time in to run the adventure and for making our game one to remember!
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If the Pathfinder Society is not good aligned, why are evil people not allowed to be a part of it? If the Pathfinder Society is run like a thieves' guild, why would a Lawful Good character ever choose to have any association with it whatsoever?
Now that you have seen the true face of the Decemvirate and the atrocities that they (and their cronies such as Sheila Heidmarch) ask of we Pathfinders, perhaps it is time for you to consider the Shadow Lodge...
We have a newsletter I could sign you up for if you are interested. :)
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I have two problems with the special at Gencon. My table, one of the 12+ groups, had an easy time with all the encounters and never had to resort to combat on any of them until the chase. My first complaint is the chase. While it is fun for level 2, it does not stand up to higher level play. Teleport, fly, or any other creative movement breaks it.
The other problem I have is with the tactics of the assassin fight. Once he disappears, if he doesn't attack, you will not find him. We had true seeing, scent, perception rolls in the 50s, and none of it mattered.
So despite no one in the party getting injured, accomplishing all goals before the auction, throwing in some of our own money to "buy" some auction power, we walk away with nothing. All because we didn't get "bonus" points for fighting waves of Demons that I think we wouldn't have had a problem with.
*I have not read the scenario, so all the above is pieced together from talking to players who were at other tables.
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Wow Eric, that karmic boomerang is hysterical!
I just got back home from Dragoncon and had participated in this scenario as well. Despite all the chaos that organizing specials are, the Atlanta lodge handled it exceptionally well. Our table was mustered and running very quickly. Nani Pratt ran it for our group (Hydras aren't that heavy) in the 10-11 Tier. I really have to commend her DMing abilities. During the last act our monk and myself triggered the chase while the cathedral fight was going on and she was forced to run both simultaneously. The combats were challenging and fun, but we had to skip almost all the social encounters due to the nature of the party.
The scenario itself was an absolute blast throughout the whole slot, but we seemed to run out of time a lot due it being run in a 5 hours period. I would also like to see more cooperation between tables in these interactives. I have only played in Blood Under Absalom, and Race for the Runecarved Key, but I have heard they are mere shadows compared to what Year of the Shadows Lodge was in this respect.
Thanks to all the awesome people down in Atlanta that made this special so fun to participate in. I plan to make the drive down from Pittsburgh again next year.
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The other problem I have is with the tactics of the assassin fight. Once he disappears, if he doesn't attack, you will not find him. We had true seeing, scent, perception rolls in the 50s, and none of it mattered.
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I played round 1 of the special. Some thoughts ...
I liked the special and the variety of activities. As has been previously stated, the sandbox and role-playing aspects of the adventure were thrown out the window with the competitive structure and time constraints. That significantly diminished the fun of the adventure and removes a lot of the effort the writers put into it.
Mustering at 10-11 I thought went as well as could be expected. We self mustered as many tables as possible, keeping real and generic tickets separate. It still took a long time to get seated.
** spoiler omitted **
I had a good conversation with Dan L. and our original GM later. HQ took extra time to check our score to make sure that we would get into the second part if we earned it. It turns out we had an average score and didn't move on.Overall I liked the special but not the time constraint factor. It basically wasted a lot of hard work the authors put into writing the scenario.
-Swiftbrook
Just My Thoughts
Hello Swift,
I was at your table for the Special (Nathan Meyers, aka Nard, oracle of stone). Is your table reported in your games played? Mine isn't. All my other Gencon tables are reported. I was wondering since we had the GM change over, maybe it did not get reported?
Thanks.
Nathan Meyers
NYC Player/GM
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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We played in this at Pacificon (and in "Blood under Absalom" two days later, but that's a story for a different thread).
For RRK we were playing in low tier, at a pickup table that may have been a little light in front-liners (and had no real divine spellcasters). Despite that we managed to handle everything that was thrown at us. We did pretty well in the run-up to the auction (doing well enough to still be in after the Aspis consortium ran out of funds, and being one of the last two tables to drop out with the same total). The table that scored better than we did was a higher-tier table made up of a group of players I've had the pleasure to play alongside at andifferent convention - all good players in their own right, and ones who work even better together to make up a well-balanced and efficient team. Nobody who knows them would be surprised to see them coming out with the highest total.
For the final confrontation we also fared quite well. Exactly how well isn't entirely clear - from talking to some of the players at other low-tier tables it's apparent that there was some GM confusion in just how the encounters progressed. But, in any case, I think everybody had a reasonably good time. The chase scene was still an annoyance, IMO; at low tier it's too easy for this to be all but impossible for several characters. Fortunately we had one character who breezed through it at full speed, so it didn't last very long (and I have been told that there are rules for this chase to stop characters falling too far behind; if that is true, I'm glad to hear it.)
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I played round 1 of the special. Some thoughts ...
I liked the special and the variety of activities. As has been previously stated, the sandbox and role-playing aspects of the adventure were thrown out the window with the competitive structure and time constraints. That significantly diminished the fun of the adventure and removes a lot of the effort the writers put into it.
Mustering at 10-11 I thought went as well as could be expected. We self mustered as many tables as possible, keeping real and generic tickets separate. It still took a long time to get seated.
** spoiler omitted **
I had a good conversation with Dan L. and our original GM later. HQ took extra time to check our score to make sure that we would get into the second part if we earned it. It turns out we had an average score and didn't move on.Overall I liked the special but not the time constraint factor. It basically wasted a lot of hard work the authors put into writing the scenario.
-Swiftbrook
Just My ThoughtsHello Swift,
I was at your table for the Special (Nathan Meyers, aka Nard, oracle of stone). Is your table reported in your games played? Mine isn't. All my other Gencon tables are reported. I was wondering since we had the GM change over, maybe it did not get reported?
Thanks.
Nathan Meyers
NYC Player/GM
Email Mike Brock that you're not showing credit. I will vouch if the session sheet got lost that you played that scenario. Gods, do I know you played that scenario. :P
Was your table "Too Many Bards"? (I think that was the name.) One of my friends ran that group thru the 1st part. He had a blast with that group.
No we were not, but I think I remember them being on the list of tables that advanced to round two.