RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Steel-Forged Games,
The first time you GM a module (including a Thornkeep level), you'll get the full gold, 3 XP, and 4 PP that a successful player would receive. You need to assign those rewards to a PFS character (new or existing) immediately.
Also, every time you GM a module, you'll receive two table-credits towards your star ranking. (Run all five levels of Thornkeep, ten times each, and you'll be a 4-star GM.)
Some people may be confusing Fame points with GM table-credit.
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... The first time you GM a module (including a Thornkeep level), you'll get the full gold, 3 XP, and 4 PP that a successful player would receive. You need to assign those rewards to a PFS character (new or existing) immediately. ...
For GM credit, the Chronicles must be assigned immediately (to the character number), but if the character is not within the level range of the module the sheet may not be added to the character's stack of Chronicles until the character reaches the lowest level of the module's level range (ie. Tier).
And you may not assign a chronicle to a character already above the level range of a module (or scenario).
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...managed to tag the paladin with the wight but he made his save and didn't get a negative level...Just an FYI, if the wight hits, he gives a negative level each time. The save is done 24 hours later to try and remove the temporary negative level and it becomes permanent on a failed save.Yup, so the paladin should have died instantly if he was level 1 (hence why it's so brutal).
They moved through everything with little problem except for the Visitant. He almost one-shot one player when he popped out of invisibility after he used the scrolls, and it just went downhill from there. Has anyone else had issues with him being brutal?My relatively-weak 7-player table took him just barely down 1 paladin from foolish choices involving the ooze. The magus did most of the work on big V himself, with some big healing from the cleric and an important grease from one of the sorcerers, while the other sorcerers kept the summons occupied. Basically the magus's high AC was the only reason they lived.
Just a couple questions on how your players did things.
1) how did the grease spell prevent grapples?
2) how high was the magus's ac?
Also what was the characters levels if you remember.
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The magus's AC was 22 with Mage Armor (Elf Kensai4 with 18 Int and Dex), and I think they tossed something else on him at some point, perhaps Shield of Faith, for 24. Other than the 5th level cleric, we had two 3s and the rest 4s (although the paladin was dead for the fight). Rob is spot-on about grease.
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1) how did the grease spell prevent grapples?
A creature wearing greased armor or clothing gains a +10 circumstance bonus on Escape Artist checks and combat maneuver checks made to escape a grapple, and to their CMD to avoid being grappled.
Pretty nice use of a spell. +10 would have given most fighter types around a 50/50 to break free.
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The magus's AC was 22 with Mage Armor (Elf Kensai4 with 18 Int and Dex), and I think they tossed something else on him at some point, perhaps Shield of Faith, for 24. Other than the 5th level cleric, we had two 3s and the rest 4s (although the paladin was dead for the fight). Rob is spot-on about grease.
Thank you. I'm just gathering info and comparing how groups did against this tough mob.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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The magus's AC was 22 with Mage Armor (Elf Kensai4 with 18 Int and Dex), and I think they tossed something else on him at some point, perhaps Shield of Faith, for 24. Other than the 5th level cleric, we had two 3s and the rest 4s (although the paladin was dead for the fight). Rob is spot-on about grease.Thank you. I'm just gathering info and comparing how groups did against this tough mob.
What happened when I ran it last...
The setup:
Earlier in the game, the party had decided to return to town to restock and rest, before continuing on. I rolled for two random encounters, one on the road and one within the keep (I assumed that some new baddies would move in on the available real estate). They returned to find a forest drake perched on the far end of the main chamber. It was only a CR 4 creature, but nobody in the group had the skills to identify it. So as it reared back to start rampaging, the party oracle quickly spoke to it in Draconic. He explained that they were entirely subservient, and would love to be loyal subjects to the drake. Believing them, he sat back down and proceeded to continue eating the tiefling bodies. The party continued adventuring, occasionally bringing tokens of goodwill to the drake as offerings.
The fight:
When the party engaged the Visitant, the Drake had wandered off screen. They made a huge racket before opening the door, and moments afterwards a lion dropped in the middle of their group. As they were dealing with that, a dretch appeared and dropped his stinking cloud. My invisible Visitant moved adjacent to one of the vomiting characters in the cloud, a poor ninja that was in a corner. On the subsequent round, the Visitant revealed himself, taking four attacks and eviscerating the ninja.
The remaining three party members started to back away, entirely unprepared for the nasty that was this creature.
Visitant repeated his process on the fighter as his summons went down. Fighter went down. Their oracle healer had been hit by the cloud and was still vomiting, so had done the only thing he could -- run. He was several rooms away now, and was no longer nauseated. He turns to me, "From this room, do I see the drake?"
The third PC, a barbarian/ninja, dropped shortly after being grappled. The Visitant lets loose a victory roar, as he picks up one of the PCs bodies and holds it, bloody, like a trophy over the others. His roar is muted as a very angry forest drake with oracle buffs smashes through the far door and bellows in rage.
While the two monsters clash, the oracle channels a couple of times and brings the entire party back to the fight. They regroup, just in time to see the Visitant deal some 80-odd points of damage to their 42 hit point forest drake meat-shield. He explodes in a shower of gore as the Visitant rips him limb from limb.
Round two begins.
It goes much better than the first. They have consistent support from the oracle, two flanking and vanishing ninjas, and a fighter keeping the beasts attention. The Visitant stacks on some nasty Con and Str damage to the fighter over the few rounds that follows, but it proves to not be enough as the ninja with a nodachi crits and drops the Visitant.
The Enigma Vaults: 0 -- PCs: 1
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I was one of two GMs running Thornkeep (levels 1 - 3) at Winter War this weekend. For level 1, my table of six included three negative-energy clerics of Besmara. All of them had Command Undead, and all of them were wearing full plate and carrying a tower shield. So, when they get to the reflecting pool, and see the skeletons shooting, they all yell to the rest of the party, "Don't hurt them!" and they start running to get within range of their command powers.
Did I say "running"? Yeah, about that. Full out, striaght-line, no-dex running, they were making about 50 - 60 feet a round. That's a single move action for the party's samurai / monk. You could hear the theme to "Chariots of Fire" in the distance.
Of course, they weren't hit by any of the arrows. Not when you're a walking siege tower.
They each got to take a skeleton archer as a pet. (The party's fourth cleric, a servant of Sarenrae, just shook her head in disgust.) Of course, when they opened the door at the top of the stairs, that was another story...
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They have a VC briefing them.
Iliara Starcloak in the Goldenfire Order is highly intelligent and would know the background of the area.
Same with the elderly female druid, if your party is more nature-based.
Don't let your party start the game at the entrance of the dungeon. Let them interact with Thornkeep first - it'll make more sense that way.
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There is a lot of background contained in the first three levels of Thornkeep, seemingly without an obvious way to communicate to the players. Do you guys have some good ideas on providing the ancient background information to the PCs?
KestlerGunner hit some of those on the head. The other thing I would suggest is to have the party roll some Knowledge (history) checks while they adventure in the dungeons. This tactic worked well in the Forgotten Laboratory, because much of the original contents of the Laboratory are present and simply being repurposed by the current occupant. They did this again in areas of the Enigma Vaults (the two astrology-themed rooms), but it didn't come up as frequently in the Enigma Vaults because so much of that level has been modified by the Visitant.
To some degree the onus is on the party to go out and seek that information if they're interested. Some adventurers (like some players) just don't care about the history of the place, they care about the shiny objects they find and take back to town. Among the iconics, the obvious examples would be Valeros and Merisiel. Others will be motivated to go in knowing as much as they can, perhaps because of scholarly interest (Ezren) or following the line of thinking that forewarned is forearmed (Kyra). Giving the players the reactive knowledge checks a couple of times early in the adventure to whet their appetite seemed to be to be a good way to say, "Hey, players and characters, more information on why this place is a mess is available if you want it." My first party didn't, the second party did, and it all worked out well in the end. Each table got to experience the game it sat down and looked for, which is what we are there to facilitate as GMs.
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I'm currently running The Accursed Halls as a pbp here on Paizo. Here's the gameplay thread. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes and make your game even more awesome.
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My Physical copy arrived in the post last night along with the flip mats (or so the mail company has told me), so Unfortunetly I havnt been able to open these up yet.
Id like to run the Accursed Halls. How much time is needed to run this part of Thornkeep? Ive been looking through this thread but have yet to see anyone state a time it might take.
Thanks
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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A lot depends on what you include, Matthew. I start the adventure in the town of Thornkeep and let the PCs get to know some of the people (the power groups, especially the goblins), the situations, the resources (like the Academy), the rumors (especially the missing adventurers). That can take a couple hours.
Then the Accursed Halls themselves take 4 - 6 hours, depending on playstyle. (At Winter War, I had a party that included three negative energy clerics in heavy armor, while the party at the other Thornkeep table had two gunslingers. Take a guess: which group moved through the encounters faster?)
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I just ran Accursed Halls. Took us about 7 hours, but the party was not on task for some of the time. I also started with a VC introduction and some time in the town.
The party got darn lucky on the Wight. He only got one attack in, and missed, before they dropped him. The Shadow was a little more interesting as the Fighter and the Monk stood around drooling while the Bard took 7 points of Str damage. Mergmo was also an interesting combat, at least until the monk grappled, pinned, and tied her up. The Summoner showed excellent foresight when he dropped a Pony in the midst of the goblins.
The door puzzle is way too easy with the hint. Took my party all of about 10 seconds to solve it. I was really tempted to switch up the correct answer.
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I ran a group of three level three and one level four through the Forgotten Laboratory today. No deaths, it went well! The entire session took about 6 hours and 20 minutes. This level of the dungeon would be an excellent, albeit dangerous way to get a full group of level 3 to level 4 in a short period of time.
The gray ooze gave the party cleric of Iomedae a broken masterwork longsword, so he went into town and had to get a new sword, albeit one that was not masterwork. His rolls with the borrowed sword were incredible though!
The mutant goblins were great fun, and although they bottle-necked, they managed to get a fair few hits in to the PCs. It was good to give each mutant a nickname based on his mutation, such as Squiddie (tentacles) Shiny (chromed skin), and The Elephant Man (rubbery tumours).
Snarltongue managed to hold his own for quite a while although the clever PCs dispatched of his dire rat friends very easily. His renewed vigor didn't come into action. To make him stronger, make sure you position him in a place where the party can't easily flank him - he is strong enough to drop a PC one on one.
The party was nowhere near prepared for the large black widow and its swarm of baby spiders. They hadn't recovered any of the alchemist fire so they creatively backtracked to the reset trap chamber and used the traps to slay the swarm - this was clever, but it cost the party in healing substantially!
I was surprised about how well the goblin rogue bodyguard encounter went. I thought it would be a cakewalk until the goblins lost their flank positions in the laboratory to five foot back and hurl their alchemist fires.
HITTING THE BUBBLING LAB EQUIPMENT WITH THE BLAST.
2 1d6 alc fires + splash + 3d6 exploding laboratory equipment was a painful experience for the party. Be sure to read up on the exploding lab equipment in the room description as it makes a huge difference to the mischief the goblins can enact.
Krenar wasn't as scary as I thought he'd be. He lost initiative and the acrobatic monk got up close and personal. Selective bomb blasts and the first gout of fire breath did huge damage with the gas floor fire damage, but pinned in a corner with melees, he only really had three turns to blast the PCs before AoO and constant attacks got past his high AC and took him out. The Iron Cobra was lousy - the party ignored it. To make him more of a challenge, I'd encourage GMs to be looking for a chance to combine the gas floor with the initial Fire Breath - that's really nasty and will make all the PC's sit up straight at the table.
I would be very aware of Tiefling PCs. Now anyone can have one, and get their free Fire Resist 5 for nothing, they will find this dungeon easier than any other race. Target them with physical attacks while the nasty fire attacks go on the rest of the team.
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Thanks Kestle,
Im looking to run Forgotten Laboratory fairly soon and came across a plot angle that I thought Id type out so I can see how It reads on the screen and get others responses.
My Angle is that the contact is a member of the Goldenfire Order and has to do with the (well season 3) tapestry. The Society is concerned that the tapestry may be susceptible to further 'illegal' access (on the proviso that once breached it will forever remain easier to breach) so sends a team to talk to one of the Goldenfire orders members who is quite knowlegable on Planar magic. For his aid, the Goldenfire wizard wants the rumored inactive hommunculi of the Forgotten Laboratory a recently discovered level of the nearby Thornkeep dungeons.
(Of course the Hommunculi is now active.. or is it? That Hommunculi might be one of two with the other being inactive and being worked upon by Krenar)
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Good idea. The Pathfinder Society would also have a number of leads to find out where the 'back entrance' to the tapestry was located. An expedition to check out Thornkeep to ensure there are no planar entrances may have been one of the operations signed off on.
When I ran it, the main mission was to subdue/destroy the crazed alchemist Krenar Half-face, before he unearths an Azlanti relic or develops an alchemical weapon that could tip the scales in his favour. He's the scariest encounter in the Laboratory, and a manhunt is always fun.
Also the Brambleclaw goblins are very eager to see him dead for what he did to their excavation effort.
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Sanctum of a Lost Age help. I am going to be running the mod and had a question after reading it. In D15 HALL OF GRAVEN IMAGES how many paintings are there?
For PFS, I would say just the 8 listed, plus the damaged one of a behir which should be easily obvious to the PCs, makes for 9 total.
For a home game, it would be up to the GM, who could add additional monsters in that CR range.
Which is good for the PCs if you roll a lot of 8s...
So, roll a d8 for the first one.
Roll a d8, rerolling the previous number, if it shows again.
Roll a d6, skipping the 2 used pictures.
Roll a d5, skipping the 3 used pictures.
Roll a d4, see above.
Roll 1 d3, see above.
Roll a d2, see above.
No roll, just release the final creature, and watch the mayhem.
To be honest, if the PCs haven't dealt with the <redacted> fairly quickly, they are in trouble, and likely to wind up in serious trouble.
Unfortunately, given the setup, that d8 can really cause this encounter to be extremely swingy. Roll only low numbers, and the party will have a walk-over. Roll high numbers, and the party should head for the hills, and figure out someplace to setup ambushes of their own.
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Hey guys,
I was just reviewing the Krenar Half-face tactics and I am confused by his levitate spell tactics.
According to the guide the room he is in is 20ft tall. Assuming he levitates to his full potential, if he is *guessing* 5.5 feet tall then the top of his head is 20ft up and his feet are 14.5 feet up.
Assuming an adventurer is 6 foot tall and their reach is 5 feet, does this mean that melee characters without reach can't touch him?
Can they jump in an attack or anything like that?
I dislike 3D combat :(
I'd like to know how you handled this.
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I tend to handle everything as 5ft cubes. You can attack a cube next to you. A 20ft tall room supports 4 5ft cubes of height.
A PC on the ground can reach the cube above him. The bad guy is another 2 5 ft cubes up. To reach him with a standard melee weapon you would need to clear 10 ft via a jump (DC 40 with a running start or 80 without). If you had a reach weapon you would only need to clear 5 ft (DC 20/40).
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What pirate rob said. For combat, assume all medium creatures are a 5' cube. Large creatures are 10' cubes, and so on. Otherwise you are getting into too convoluted math.
Plus, the combat rules don't support varying heights in combat. What Pirate Rob said on jumps would be my suggestion as well. Most groups I ran through this just had melee people tackling the snake and the ranged people the alchemist. I did have a fighter with a potion of fly (2 pp!) ready to go that shut down the levitating guy pretty effectively.
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(Now I'm thinking about an alchemist ability to dispel the effects of potions on enemies at close range ... )
Dispelling Bomb: When the alchemist creates a bomb, he can choose to have it dispel magic effects instead of deal damage. Creatures that take a direct hit from a dispelling bomb are subject to a targeted dispel magic spell, using the alchemist's level as the caster level. This cannot be used to target a specific spell effect. The alchemist must be at least 6th level before selecting this discovery.
;)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Thanks, CRobledo. Not quite the same, but probably as close as we're going to get. (Remember the Alan Moore "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" story right before the Crisis on Infinitie Earths reboot? Remember how Cosmic King dispelled Lana's powers? ("I'll use my transmutational abilities to turn the radioactive traces in her tissues into normal body salts.") That's what I'm imagining.)
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Question regarding the Chronicle Sheet for The Forgotten Laboratory:
What, exactly, does that mean? Is a character with this Chronicle Sheet considered to have this item available for use (at no cost) whenever he/she is in Thornkeep, but to use it anywhere else, it must be purchased?
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What, exactly, does that mean? Is a character with this Chronicle Sheet considered to have this item available for use (at no cost) whenever he/she is in Thornkeep, but to use it anywhere else, it must be purchased?
Exactly that. It's a freebie while doing Thornkeep adventures, but you need to actually purchase it for 2k before using it in any other PFS scenario.
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Thanks, CRobledo and Chris; I'm reading it both ways, but was inclined to run it as CRobledo answered. I'll continue watching for a definitive or consensus answer.
In the meantime, another quick question regarding that same Thornkeep level: