RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm intending this thread to be a resource for GMs running players through the Thornkeep dungeons for PFS credit.
A couple of questions:
1) To what extent are you using the Thornkeep hamlet as a resource? There are hints in town about the dungeon. (I can imagine a party getting stuck with the Door of Seven Stars. Without the hint in town -- not just that the red gem goes in the top space, but that the gems' colors are important in the first place -- I wonder how a party would break through that frustration.
My answer: I'm going to use the town a lot. For "The Accursed Halls", I'm going to suggest that one or two new PCs have some experience with Thornkeep, so we can skip some of the "strangers in town" experience. ("That's the cabinetmaker. You've gotten to know his son, Romaro, over the last year or so, and he's got something he's excited to show you.")
I think it would be a mistake to start the adventure at the top of the stairs into the first level.
2) To what extent are you using Thornkeep or Echo Woods as a source for adventure? Again, there are lots of opportunities, from taking part in the power struggle to fighting off were-rats and wilderness monsters. What are you planning to do with them?
My answer: not much, until I get a better feel for how fast the dungeon plays. If people are clearing a level in 4-5 hours, I'll want to make sure there are some other adventures.
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I am going to run this for the first time this weekend, and I do not plan to have the PC's mucking around in town very much, if at all. I see the thornkeep dungeon as kind of old-school lighter dungeon crawl fare. I am also not sure if I can just make s$*! up to do in town given that it is a PFS sanctioned event.
What I am planning to do, however is make the hook be that the characters are there in their capacity as pathfinders in order to investigate and if possible open the Door of Seven Stars, thus allowing the pathfinders access to the Thassilonian ruins. The door is a good cohesive goal for the level, given that the stones are scattered about, and making a briefing about it would allow me to give the information which is split into other chapters in the book itself.
Just my 2cp.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Saint Caleth,
1) Thanks for replying.
2) In the past, when the subject has come up, the campaign coordinators have asked us to run modules the way they're written, including such aspects as random encounters or other special rules not normally used in PFS.
3) They're not Thassilonian ruins. That's really important. Given the nature of seven-pointed stars in Thassilonian magic, it's important that the party understand that these are Azlanti ruins, and that Thassilonian seven-star stuff does not apply.
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Saint Caleth,
They're not Thassilonian ruins. That's really important. Given the nature of seven-pointed stars in Thassilonian magic, it's important that the party understand that these are Azlanti ruins, and that Thassilonian seven-star stuff does not apply.
Yep, I remembered that as soon as I posted. I was just thinking of season 4 so my mind went right to Thassilon as the lost Golarion civilization. My point is that by making the door the mission it gives me an easy way to work in the hints as "respearch notes" or some such that the pathfinders have about the Azlant ruins.
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I plan on running a few floors of Thornkeep later this month, and I'm planning on keeping the town interaction lower too. While I love the flavor of the town and all the people in it, I'm just not going to have enough time to let the players know the dwarven blacksmith has a crush on the dwarven mason in town among other plots given. I know after the first floor, unless they specifically ask to go back to town for something, I'm planning on having the session pick up right after the last one left off (with the allotted undefined time period between scenarios to buy stuff). It at least makes sense to me in that way, since after the town its a standard hack-n-slash dungeon crawl like Saint Caleth pointed out.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Rycault,
I'll be running "Accursed Halls" next weekend. And Jason's level a week or two later.
"Accursed Halls" doesn't look like there's much more there than in First Steps II. Certainly, it's much thinner than, say, "Godsmouth Heresy." The puzzle door may eat up some time.
(It occurs to me: if the penalty buzzer were color spray rather than shocking grasp, it might give the PCs a clue to the answer. Ah well. Water under bridges.).
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Erik's level, "Sanctum of a Lost Age," is for CL 6-8. You could plausibly play it with a group of 6th-level PCs, but it would be really hard.
I'd recemmend that PFS characters spend an adventure or two before going down into the dungeon in the first place (but leveling up to Level 2 is not necessary.) and maybe one or two Venture Captain assignments between each Thornkeep dungeon level.
Also, observe that Erik's level is for higher level PCs than Ed's level, even though Ed's is placed later in the book.
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I'll be running this for four players. I'll be helping them with their character builds and choices. Good party mix. Right now I've only run Frostfur Captives as their first mission, done as subcontractors for the Society.
The Society realises these heroes (the PCs) have some potential, and some goblin experience, and asks them to make sure things are not getting out of hand in Thornkeep, especially with the Bramble Claw tribes interest in the Accursed Halls.
Venture Captain Holgarin Smine is based in the Thornkeep and can offer the party rewards based on their prestige, and pointers to sub missions and Quests he needs completed (the scenarios inserted into the Adventure).
The party investigates the Accursed Halls, and the Mirror gives them a impression that something is not right with the Woods. From there they take on two plot reworked scenarios in the Echo Woods.
Following the Enigma Vaults, there's a big clash with the Three Daggers guild, who are looking to kill off Baron Blackshield.
Adventure Order
-Frostfur Captives (1.3 lvl) *
-Accursed Halls (2.3)
-Perils of the Pirate Pact (2.6)
-Pallid Plague (Reskinned for the Echo Wood) (3.0) *
-Forgotten Laboratory (4.0)
-Enigma Vaults (5.0)
-Golden Serpent (Reskinned for Three Daggers Guild instead of the Crowsworn) * (5.3)
-Green Market (Reskinned for Kellid instead of Shoanti tribes) * (5.6)
-Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment (One of the heroes is of Tien origins) (6.0)
-Dark Menagerie (7.0)
-Sanctum of a Lost Age (8.0)
Does this sound good to experienced GMs? There's a little bit of flexible reskinning going on, but it should be good. I hope Empyreal can be slotted in nicely.
I love the Azlanti vibe and would like to have more sub missions (scenarios) that deal with Aroden and the Azlanti, but I don't know of any.
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Dinkster - Without knowing much about Kingmaker aside from Stolen Lands, I'd say Thornkeep represents a place that your party can adventure to if they're looking for a sustained challenge. As it's primarily a dungeon, the players would have to choose to head there and deal with the threats. It would be good if you kept having your Kingmaker PCs keep hearing troubling rumours from Thornkeep, and ingrain the place as a location that has an ancient power that could possibly threaten the safety of their new Kingdom.
I think players would react well to gaining exp through 'dealing with' Thornkeep rather than rolling random encounters on the hexmap. There's more plot, more mystery and more danger that way.
I am really liking the idea of having Bloodcove Disguise and Shore to Sea inserted in there.
I will replace Golden Serpent (Don't need more dungeon crawling, need more roleplay) with Bloodcove Disguise. Instead of Bloodcove, I'll need to set it in a River Kingdoms port city. Probably Deadbridge. So Deadbridge Disguise it is.
Also, 'Sanctum of a Lost Age' is fscking brilliant. I'm talking really, really good. Seriously guys, I can't wait until my players find themselves down there. Going to have a ball.
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We played it last Friday, and had no difficulty figuring out the solution to the color puzzle without using the town at all. Unfortunately, it is a pretty easy puzzle, but mostly it's difficult not to metagame it too much (using the order of colors in the rainbow and the obvious positioning of the holes above the door.)
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We played it last Friday, and had no difficulty figuring out the solution to the color puzzle without using the town at all. Unfortunately, it is a pretty easy puzzle, but mostly it's difficult not to metagame it too much (using the order of colors in the rainbow and the obvious positioning of the holes above the door.)
I'm going to be running this soon, was there anything that stood out for you when you played it?
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I wouldn't suggest it for a group of level 1 characters. There are three very difficult encounters for level 1's. With a team of 4 level 2's who had Valeros drop in briefly to help, we narrowly avoided TPK's on two occasions...
Everyone running this should read the sidebar on page 23 before starting to run people through it. Excerpt:
The dungeons were all designed with a group of four PCs in mind, though even with that many, they’ll want to be well equipped with both sturdy gear and a good backup plan. Simply put, this is a tough dungeon, and it might be fair to assume that not all who go into the perilous halls that lie beneath Thornkeep will return safely from their journey.
So yes, it's meant to be a tough dungeon. I would NOT run a fresh pack of four level 1's (with no wands of CLW or consumables) to aid them.
Remember, Thornkeep was not built with PFS "in mind" and parties are expected to be more cohesive than some PFS groups can be. Authors probably expected a good mix of healing, arcane spellcasting, rogues and melee beefsticks in a given party, and that is not always available at a random game day or con. So YMMV. I would warn your players ahead of time it's a tough mod.
However, I expect a well-equipped party of level 1's (with a scenario or two), a party of level 2's, or a party of six level 1's to have no big troubles for Accursed Halls.
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Regarding the "re-skinning" ...
I think it would be fine to use other PFS scenarios to form a mini-campaign for Thornkeep, but you would have to keep the scenarios as-is. If you can somehow put an envelope around the scenarios to fit them into the Thornkeep campaign that would probably work, but I don't think we'd be allowed to change names or places within the scenarios. Unless it wasn't going to be a PFS game of course.
Also ...
I just ran The Dark Menagerie [5-7] on Sunday. It took just over 5 hours, but the party was really moving. I'd give it at least 6 hours to be safe.
I didn't use any extra material. I set it as an exploration of the dungeon for the Pathfinder Society.
I had 7 players with a few power gamers and the module was hard pressed to give them a challenge. I'd recommend limiting that level to 5 players if possible. We were thinking it was more 4-6 than 5-7.
All-in-all I think the players enjoyed The Dark Menagerie.
I couldn't quite figure out how the clockwork gear trap was supposed to trigger.
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The Dark Menagerie struck me as the laziest level of the entire book. Any clown with graph paper and a 2b pencil can create a dungeon where every room is a different biome with a different bestiary monster in it.
I was expecting something totally different from Ed Greenwood, I read that level and was like 'That's it?!' Just my opinion.
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Seeing as there's so many goblins in the Accursed Halls, I had to write a goblin song for them to sing as they work.
"Goblins dig and goblins break,
Goblins eat baby and cook up snake!
Smash the pots and take shinies,
headbutt humans and stab their knees!
Murgmo make magic and lick the frog.
We look up, look down, for sword of Zog!"
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I noticed when you report the session, there is an option for The Forest Stronghold and The Echo Wood. However, there are no chronicles for them, and I really don't see much of a story in both of those chapters in the book. Is that a mistake, or can those be run somehow?
My guess is those are in error. Those are the names of the two chapters to aid GMs who are running this in a home campaign for background and RP purposes. My best guess is the tech person in charge of adding these in was told "Here, take this book and make an entry for each chapter in here" and so he did :)
Just the 5 chapters with chronicles should count.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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Well, ran Accursed Halls on Monday. It was brutal. Half-elf Gunslinger 2, Tiefling Rogue 2, Elven Druid 2, Tiefling Fighter 1. My players decided they needed to 1) climb to the balcony 2)go through the arcane locked doors before going through the easily accessible open stairways.
They fought the shadow hitting two of them for 5 strength each. Thankfully the druid had magic fang, and the rogue had holy water. There was a bit of metagaming, but without it, there was no way they'd have survived. They decided to run back to town to see if they could get healing. I didn't notice the town stats beforehand, but saw that the apothecary/alchemist could use 2nd level extracts. I figured as an apothecary she'd certainly have infusion, as well as know the restorative formulae. So, after 80g each, they had lesser restorations. They rested a night, and tried again... I had rolled a 1 for the shadow... After the second shadow fight, they decided to scout ahead. I had given them the hook for the missing adventurers, and the scout saw the three bodies so they decided to check them out...
One negative level later they returned to town. They got some more lesser restorations (three of them had more str dmg from the shadow this time) Though I had made the alchemist make one of her infusions into a potion which no one bought. They spend more resting time, and the rogue failed her save vs neg level even with a re-roll. They decided to take the stairs this time, and easily cleared out the skeletons. The druid said not to touch the water, so no one did. When they found the wight room they quickly turned around as they had some strange fear of the next room...
Back in the main room, they once again decided to take the locked door... Straight into the EL 5 encounter. The crawlers didn't give them quite as hard a time, but they really didn't like the step-up feat for the bad guys. They took out the goblins easily, and the stirges swarmed the fighter all attaching themselves to him, but the rogue threw an alchemist's fire on him, and that was that. They spotted the ceiling trap, and figured out the doorway without a problem, though they had to go collect the ceramic bits, and had missed the yellow crystals, even when I mentioned them strongly twice.
All in all, they had fun, it was quite a challenge, considering you're supposed to gain three levels out of it if you were 1st level going in. I think we finished in about 7 hours, but we had a few interruptions, and didn't start right on time, so maybe 5.5-6 hours (and fighting the shadow a couple of times didn't help the time either...)
Anyone else think the scale on the map is wrong? It says 1 square equals 10 feet, but some of the descriptions seem to assume 1 sq = 5 feet...
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I'm sorry/pleased to inform you that Murgmo is dead...They took out the goblinsWhat this mean? Murgmo and Garble rule Zog together!
No! Me save Murgmo from purple mist. Garble wrestle Graalsk for tribe, but Garble and Graalsk both win, so Garble take Murgmo to form new tribe and rule over Zog.
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Garble is correct; this adventure interacts oddly with goblin PCs.
Garble, you aren't ... writing, are you?
I beg your forgiveness, M'Lord. I was merely translating and transcribing my Lord Garble's responses to the absurd accusations that Mistress Murgmo, Chosen of Zarongel, was murdered by a bunch of hapless Pathfinders. She is indeed alive and well and sharing the close company of our very own Hero of the Licktoads.
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Indeed, Master Garble and his new companion have demanded their privacy as they attempt to repopulate the nation of Zog.
*whispers* Disgusting business I know. What the decemvirate could possibly want with such a creature, no one knows. I thought my cousin Kormiggon was fool for training those goblins then, and I still think of him such now, even after his death at the hands of The Society.
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Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I think you meant to say that for a scenario that counts as three scenarios (one level advancement) not three levels...
Nope, I said exactly what I meant. I wasn't talking about PFS at that point (should have made that clearer). From the Xp that a normal game would gain, its 9000xp. That takes a 1st level character to 4th level on medium speed.
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I think you meant to say that for a scenario that counts as three scenarios (one level advancement) not three levels...Nope, I said exactly what I meant. I wasn't talking about PFS at that point (should have made that clearer). From the Xp that a normal game would gain, its 9000xp. That takes a 1st level character to 4th level on medium speed.
And you do know that that 9,000 XP is the XP for the whole party, not just a single PC, yes?
At normal advancement, that would be just enough to take 4 1st level PCs to being 2nd level.
7,360 XP total for creatures, plus 2,000 XP total for traps, so 9,360 XP, if I am calculating encounter XP correctly, by XP per creature, not encounter CR XP. That comes to 2,340 XP per PC for a 4 PC party, and medium advancement is 2,000 XP to reach 2nd level. Even at fast advancement, that would leave them shy of 3rd level.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Although, if a beginning character can solo through this dungeon, she probably deserves to be 4th level.
--+--
What's the climb DC for a marilith statue? I'm assuming that all those arms and weapons make it easier than, say, a stone pillar.
I gave the party information about the three adventurers. ("They came back last week all excited and making plans. They were sick with some sort of fever at dinner that evening. They never came downstairs for breakfast, so we looked in on them, and their bodies were dead, all distended, like they died in agony. By the time we got a cleric to go up to their room, someone had moved their bodies. We don't know where they are. The mercs think we made it all up.")
I did this for two reasons. First, I wanted the Accursed Halls to be more than just a series of rooms without narrative structure. And two, the party -- particularly a first-level party -- needs some fair warning; a wight's attack is guaranteed to kill a first-level PC, and the wight is smart enough to know about the unhallow spell.
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Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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Meh. I didn't actually go through and add things up, just saw the totals they had in the intro. And to be honest, its been so long since I've run anything that hasn't been PFS, I didn't even think about the totals. Don't even notice the XP sections anymore...
Its still insane that they think a group of 1sts could take on an EL 5. That's one problem with trying to cram that much xp into one short module, I could see this easily becoming a TPK.
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i will be running this later today. i won't be spending a lot of time in the town, but i will give the PC's a chance to gather some possible helpful information (the hook about recovering the signet ring of the missing noble and his guards, especially). since there's not really a lot of other "helpful" information other than the scroll (already covered, see below), there doesn't, imo, need to be a lot of RP time in town. part of this is time consideration, but i'll be using the town as a backdrop and the dungeon itself as the main set piece.
the hook i'm using is that a pathfinder ally (or spy) within the mage's guild has had a look at the scroll fragment that contains the only known hint about the door of seven stars. he has passed this information along to the society, and they are sending the PC's to investigate the dungeon, and figure out the riddle of the door and find out what's inside - hopefully, for the society, easier access to the lower levels of the dungeon. so, the pathfinders actually have to be pathfinders instead of just a murder hobo squad.
Yeah, I hadn't planned on spending any time in town either, but my players had other ideas. And the fact that the dungeon is square in the middle of town didn't help either... ;)
The easiest way to avoid a lengthy town portion, and get right into it with enough story and information about the town, is two let them roll gather information checks for a week and drop in whatever parts of the story/side quests you want. Then you just have to provide a narrative, last second shopping, and start them off at the accursed halls entrance.
(obviously non-PFS) I also came up with a specific story encounters based on who they decided to share their knowledge of the Accursed Halls with. For example, if they talked to Barask at all about an underground dungeon they trigger extra encounters throughout involving the Three Daggers. It gets even better for them if they hire a rouge NPC from the Three Daggers.
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Ran the Accursed Halls today with 4 Level 2's - it went pretty smoothly with te exception of the PC's simultaneously fighting the Wight and Shadow at the same time. Luckily they used the magic short sword found in the dungeon and only one of their mounts was severely drained of strength.
Total time it took to run level one was about 5hrs.
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I just ran the Enigma Vaults, and something happened that was terrifyingly bad and yet strangely funny in a horrible way. The PCs were doing just fine for a while, but then they split the ooze a few times. The frontliner took a bunch of damage, and the cleric for some reason decided to just use a charge of CLW wand, rolling a 1 for 2 healing. This caused the frontliner's death in the next round from constrict. That wasn't the bad part--they haven't had a death in a while and could easily afford it. No, the horrible part is that the frontliner was the only character in the party with over 10 strength, so since they couldn't carry her, they then tossed the body into "that nice bag of holding we just found". Yes. They threw the "paladin" into the Bag of Devouring. If I played it just as the item description says, it was lights out the character for good.
I ruled that since she was dead as a doornail before being thrown in, that the rules governing the 50% chance of not coming back from the dead wouldn't apply. Furthermore, after winning the module barely without the frontliner (every encounter except the mi go was really easy for them), when they discovered what happened, the magus got the idea to look for dissolved pieces of flesh, hair, or bone that were inside the ooze, and the detective bard rolled really high on perception, so I said they found some. If you want to be a bit nice to someone in a very bad spot, you can use any of these ideas in the unlikely event that your group also throws their dead comrade in the Bag of Devouring. I figure the ruling is fair, since the death happened before the devouring this time, which is not typical.
Total time was about 6 hours, though the mi go fight took a good amount of that. Most other fights were over quickly, even though the party had very little damage-dealing capacity aside from a dervish dancing magus, and the monsters seemed to be immune to their crowd control spells. The magus alone could have won most of the encounters.
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Well I have yet to run the module so I don't know how far the town is from the dungeon. Couple of things.
1. When they found the bag nobody stuck a hand inside to see if there was anything in it? 90% chance to ignore it from the bag.
2. When they were stuffing the body in 60% chance for the bag to sense LIVING flesh is inside of it and close around the person who is stuffing the corpse inside of the bag and then trying to swallow them.
3. With a dead body inside of the bag. There is a cumulative 5% chance for the bag to swallow whatever is inside of it per hour.
1st hour 5%, 2nd hour 10%, 3rd hour 15% so on and so forth.
4. The bags 50% resurrection chance thing would as rogue said would probably only kick in if you were devoured by the bag while alive.
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Well I have yet to run the module so I don't know how far the town is from the dungeon. Couple of things.
1. When they found the bag nobody stuck a hand inside to see if there was anything in it? 90% chance to ignore it from the bag.
2. When they were stuffing the body in 60% chance for the bag to sense LIVING flesh is inside of it and close around the person who is stuffing the corpse inside of the bag and then trying to swallow them.
3. With a dead body inside of the bag. There is a cumulative 5% chance for the bag to swallow whatever is inside of it per hour.
1st hour 5%, 2nd hour 10%, 3rd hour 15% so on and so forth.
4. The bags 50% resurrection chance thing would as rogue said would probably only kick in if you were devoured by the bag while alive.
The very first time they even opened the bag was to stuff the paladin in, so it had the 90% to ignore initial intrusion. However, the body placed inside was consumed in 1 round, as happens to all creatures with living flesh (objects only are spat into other planes at the 5% cumulative rate, the bodies it eats).
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The very first time they even opened the bag was to stuff the paladin in, so it had the 90% to ignore initial intrusion. However, the body placed inside was consumed in 1 round, as happens to all creatures with living flesh (objects only are spat into other planes at the 5% cumulative rate, the bodies it eats).
Dead bodies are not living flesh, a paladin is covered in armor with maybe a head exposed if they don't own a helmet. A bag of devouring(mouth of a crazy undefined beast) may or may not notice the lovely piece of flesh wrapped in a a full suit of Iron as something tasty. I am not questioning your call(I don't care really), I'm giving people who run it information on how the bag may work with the situation you presented.
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Dead bodies are not living flesh, a paladin is covered in armor with maybe a head exposed if they don't own a helmet. A bag of devouring(mouth of a crazy undefined beast) may or may not notice the lovely piece of flesh wrapped in a a full suit of Iron as something tasty. I am not questioning your call(I don't care really), I'm giving people who run it information on how the bag may work with the situation you presented.
The very first time they even opened the bag was to stuff the paladin in, so it had the 90% to ignore initial intrusion. However, the body placed inside was consumed in 1 round, as happens to all creatures with living flesh (objects only are spat into other planes at the 5% cumulative rate, the bodies it eats).
She was only in a breastplate, with no helmet. You're right, sorry, I shouldn't have said living flesh, that was silly. I meant that she is a creature, and should be treated as such. Honestly, given that the chance per hour is cumulative and that the characters were far from somewhere they could purchase a raise (Thornkeep would not have been a good option), the only real thing that would have come out of treating it otherwise is that they would have additionally lost treasure and maybe another character with a 60% chance if they stuck a hand in to retrieve something (since the paladin's disappearance clued them in and they left the bag alone at that point).
