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I know this scenario's been out a bit, so I'm probably dredging up old news. But did anyone else have issues with the final encounter; the ambush?
I've run this scenario twice now, and both times, the positioning is just horrid for the baddies. Narrow alleyway, with no maneuver room for either 'party', and if the baddies go first in initiative, it really kinda cripples them. The barbarian charges in, can't get to the "biggest and strongest" PC if the PCs are all bottlenecked. Same thing with the rogue and the leader. Kind of hard for them to flank and the like, as per their Tactics listing, with the layout.
I know the guides say improvising is a good part of GMing Society.. I'm thinking if I run it again; I'll have them wait until the party's in the middle of the alley, and surround them, two on either side.
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Actually, have the NPC Rogue use Acrobatics to move through one of the PC's space to gain flanking.
Remember the effects on combat of Obscuring Mist.
Remember that the NPC party is both new, and not terribly cohesive, so their tactics, as well, are not going to be terribly good.
Also remember that they are not out to kill the party, but to rob them.
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Every time I've run it, the halfling barbarian just wrecks the party's day. He cleans out the party melee guy in one hit. Melee Man pulls back, while Cleric Chick tries to fix him. Caster McSparky suddenly has no one to keep him free of the front lines, and Jumpy the Rogue has no flank buddy.
And if the pint-sized barbarian doesn't ruin their day, the effing sorc in the back does. Party moves up, she color sprays, and then the party fails their saves. At which point it just gets ugly.
Basically, I could see this fight going either way, but it can get all sorts of bad in a hurry if the dice aren't friendly to the players.
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I GMed the encounter twice. I guess I'm doing it wrong, as it ended up being horrid for the PCs in both cases. Don't recall details, but generally not planning on running it again given the disparity between the nature of the adventure and how it ends up, at least in my hands. If the design is good, then it's a bad fit for me as a GM and I've just acknowledged that its a bad fit and I'll GM adventures that are a better fit for me.
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The thing that I've seen is that vs a 4 player table, the party is generally outmatched, given that the NPCs have better equipment vs a table of characters that, pretty much by definition, Has first adventire equipment and is low on spells. Between Ledford hitting pretty hard and a rogue that is pretty much guaranteed flanks due to the feats, the party tends to have someone go down first and then the things start to snowball. Contrary to OP's opinion, the terrain fits with the NPCs make-up fairly well; the rogue gets flanks and the party has trouble doing so. I'll re-read it and see if I've missed something.
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In my experience, Ledford went first both times. Due to the players not being completely stupid, they had their front-liners on, well, the front line. So Ledford gets in a good hit, if my die wants to behave.. Further on in round one, both of the fighter-types working together dropped Ledford in short order. The rogue was next; the hardest part my players had to deal with was Halli keeping distance and pelting them with acid bolts.
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When I've played/GMed it (about 5 times total), the NPC rogue has never gotten a flank. Going from memory here, I think the feat that lets him flank if allies are near the enemies requires two allies (besides himself) to be near them, so if they manage to get two enemies up there, he doesn't have room to get up front and make an attack.
The big threat on this one is always the possibility of the barbarian getting a crit.
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I've seen it go a couple ways..
-The bad guys get the init.. Ledford mauls someone (or two), the cleric moves in to help heal him up.. wehn the rogue and Ledford drop she proceeds to channel hard core.
-The good guys get a init in. I've seen this go a couple ways.. One time..the cleric got a Murderous Command on Ledford and he's mauled the cleric..
Another time.. the lead tank smacked the mess out of Ledford... cleric healed him.
-One time.. color spray from both sides.. left 1 NPC and 2 players standing.. that got ugly. Wizard/cleric vs Sorcerer in slap fest.
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Nobody's mentioned this yet - we saw one GM rule the building rooves as something you could walk underneath, since it wasn't clear that the walls extended where the roof is. This is a bit of a stretch, but it does allow wiggle room for both sides.
Personally, I don't really agree with it, but it does make flanking for the rogue more feasable than "duh, I'll tumble into the middle of all the enemies!".
And Howie, nosig is right - don't give up on First Steps. These kinds of issues can pop up in any scenario; it's only a matter of running it as best you can. First Steps is good in its re-playability in that you can try to run it better the next time and give people a slightly different experience to boot.
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I don't have the map in front of me, but it was obvious to everyone at every table that played that rule where the overhangs were (on all of them, IIRC, but possibly not).
There's no direction in the book, so this isn't entirely unfeasable if that's what it looks like.
Another reasonably good example is in First Steps 3 at the Bog Mother's Log; which parts are difficult terrain, provide cover, need to be climbed? If it's not clear in the scenario, it's up to the GM to make a ruling.
I actually had a character die like this in a scenario, but it's hard to argue when the bad guy has tactics written where he could take advantage of unclear terrain, when there's a lack of detail about what's on the map to make his tactics falter. I don't always like it either, but sometimes the GM is in a difficult position to know what to do.
Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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The real danger in this scenario is that Ledford will crit. When I've been GMing he has sent two characters to "the choir invisible". One of whom as a first time player. When you roll out in the open this is a real danger.
The colour spray peril is real too as by the time it comes into play there may only be a couple of vertical PCs! Advancing into the mist the PCs are vulnerable.
The alleyway is narrow and a bad site for the rogue's feat. The roof tops probably over hang a few inches but, for me the roof squares need to be climbed upto and at a steep enough angle to need acrobatics to navigate swiftly!
On reflection if the idea was to allow a tough fight to put the rather safe problem solving encounters into context and show that being a Pathfinder can be an ugly brutal fight for survival...then this encounter works. However Ledford's crit which is 15 points of damage before the 3d10 gets rolled.....always strikes we as a bit over the top, if the idea is that all the new players live to the end!
W
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I don't have the map in front of me, but it was obvious to everyone at every table that played that rule where the overhangs were (on all of them, IIRC, but possibly not).
There's no direction in the book, so this isn't entirely unfeasable if that's what it looks like.
Another reasonably good example is in First Steps 3 at the Bog Mother's Log; which parts are difficult terrain, provide cover, need to be climbed? If it's not clear in the scenario, it's up to the GM to make a ruling.
I actually had a character die like this in a scenario, but it's hard to argue when the bad guy has tactics written where he could take advantage of unclear terrain, when there's a lack of detail about what's on the map to make his tactics falter. I don't always like it either, but sometimes the GM is in a difficult position to know what to do.
I would be interested in which sections you feel are overhang, as I cannot see any that are in question. This alley is from the GameMastery Map Pack: Ambush Sites, and when I have placed it on the table, there has never been any question, everyone can see the alley. The only time I have encountered anyone who felt that parts are "overhanging" was one judge posting on a different thread (the one I linked above I think).
On the Judges Map in the scenario, the placement of the area for the PCs to start in is 10 foot wide and 15 long, and is off-set from other parts of the ally - indicating that the second building on the north (counting from east to west) is not an overhang (if it was, the PCs appear to be blocked from starting under it). The placement of the bandits seems to be also avoiding any potential overhangs - appearing only in squares that are pavement, and none that are roof. This should indicate that the 4th building on the north is also not an overhang (not as solid, it just maybe that W,L & H are avoiding getting under the overhang, wanting to remain in the sunlight maybe?) The third building on the south is only 10 feet wide...
I think the northern-central roof was the biggest one in question, but for simplicity's sake the whole alleyway was treated as being 3 squares wide.
Your assessment is how I'd read it too, but that can be a lot for every GM in the world to think about on the spot, and a lot for the author to count on GMs working out themselves if you're writing the scenario.
If you ask in the forums, you're more likely to get community opinion rather than a ruling, so you're in the same boat depending how willing the GM is to listen to that opinion.
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Sleep = full round action so what do the bad guys do between when it's cast & when it goes off one round later?Fail to act in the surprise round
How do the bad guys fail to act in the surprise round? They initiate the surprise round, only the PC's who failed the preception AND sense motive checks earlier are surprised & can't act then.
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Tonight was my first time running a PFS game and, I thought, I was prepped for this adventure.
The final ambush is a little rough and talking with a player who had been through this previously, things could have been much harder. I used Obscuring Mist as a way to keep the players in the fight, blocking off their retreat. I can see how if OM is placed differently it could make this fight much more difficult.
Just over half my players were new to PFS, but had a basic understanding of the rules. The players were disorganized and I played the ambush the same way. In the end, half of the ambush was lead off to the authorities, the other half met their makers.
With a tactician GM this could easily be a nightmare for the players, and against a well prepared group maybe it should be. But, that is one of the pressures of being a GM; encounters are meant to be challenging, not immediately deadly.
I'm looking forward to "Delve the Dungeon Deep" next week.
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Contributor
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I finally ran this last night after having had it prepped as a back up scenario for a couple of weeks (we finally had enough folks for two tables, yay!).
I had originally planned on running it with a 15 foot wide alley (and I still think that's at least a semi-legitimate way to read that map) but nosig's posts had convinced me to look at that more carefully, so I ran that combat twice with a party of five Iconics during prep. Without the choke points, I'm not sure a first level party could survive it.
So I ran it very strictly, though I did have the cleric and rogue make acrobatics checks to get past the choke point. It became quite a scrum, and eventually three of the five PCs were down with only the sorceress left among the baddies when the mist finally dropped. But all the heroes lived through it and won the day.