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The problem at our table was that Torch was the one who gave us the mission, and we trust the Decemvirate to have the VC's do their job. If Torch wants to off the Spider, then who were we to argue? If he wants to hold something over them, what are we supposed to do? Guaril Karella wasn't anywhere in sight.
If it was going to come to the point of stopping him, that'd have to wait for another day. Our mission was to bring in the Spider, and that was mission completed. The Decemvirate should work some better management if they want us to stop their Venture Captains.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Grandmaster Torch isn't a Venture Captain, Avatar-1. He's a former agent, and he's claimed to have been an ally of the Society. But -- and this is my question -- what if the PCs say "no"?
Does anybody think that if Paracountess Draleen called a bunch of Pathfinder Field Agents together, she's be able to command their bidding?
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Grandmaster Torch isn't a Venture Captain, Avatar-1. He's a former agent, and he's claimed to have been an ally of the Society. But -- and this is my question -- what if the PCs say "no"?
Does anybody think that if Paracountess Draleen called a bunch of Pathfinder Field Agents together, she's be able to command their bidding?
Are you kidding? Pathfinder agents would take a quest from a talking Rutabaga if it told them to go somewhere, kill something, and bring something back.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I don't think so, Rob. In First Steps II, AMara Li is a Venture Captain. In First Steps I, the Venture Captain tells the Pathfinders to go introduce themselves to some friends of the Society and run a few errands -- they're following the Venture Captain's orders. And in First Steps III, again, it's a VC giving them their assignment.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Yeah, as I wrote that, I was thinking about Osprey. He's something of a special case. I think he was intended to be a VC during Season 0, but "Seeker of Secrets" codified him as a different kind of agent of the Ten.
He has standing in the organization, though. Neither of Torch nor Guarila have any.
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Two questions, perhaps for the author:
1) When I played this, one of the PCs used breath of life on the Spider, bringing her back. (Torch foolishly left before he could stop it.) What can she tell the party?
2) I was talking to a couple of other GMs about this, and we were wondering, what happens if, during the initial briefing, somebody says, "Excuse me, but who are you two to give me an assignment? I take my orders from Venture Captains, and that's not you. I need to check in with Sheila Heidmarch and get back to you."
The thought was that, since at least two Venture Captains were giving faction missions along with the briefing, the Decemvirate were in on this and had given their stamp of approval. But we weren't sure.
1) Well, she'd still be poisoned with the Black Lotus Extract. Unless they cure her of that, and unless she makes 2 consecutive saves, she starts taking 1d6 Con damage/rd for 6 rounds and dies (again) when she hits 0. That's not a lot of time for interrogation. Even if they do, she might not talk for any variety of reasons.
2) I guess you'd have a couple options. One, allow them to refuse the mission (or travel to Magnimar to check in with Heidmarch, allowing the Spider to escape and failing the mission), and give them 0/0/0 Chronicle sheets. Two, point out that their faction missions, many of which come from Venture Captains, might be considered an implicit endorsement of Torch and Karela for this mission.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I don't think so, Rob. In First Steps II, AMara Li is a Venture Captain. In First Steps I, the Venture Captain tells the Pathfinders to go introduce themselves to some friends of the Society and run a few errands -- they're following the Venture Captain's orders. And in First Steps III, again, it's a VC giving them their assignment.
I don't have FS1 in front of me, but I seem to recall Valsin saying something like "Obey their orders as you would mine". And he's even including Guaril Karela when he says that. :/
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If Ambroise Valsin calls a meeting its a mission briefing.
If Grandmaster torch calls a meeting its a union meeting.
If Olystria calls a meeting its a prayer group.
If Amara LI calls a meeting its a tea party.
If Lady Gloriana Morilla calls a meeting its a gala.
If Guaril Karela calls a meeting its an association of legitimate businessmen.
If Major Colson Maldris calls a meeting its beer fest.
If Amenopheus calls a meeting its a Dig.
If Aaqir al'Hakam calls a meeting its a board meeting
If the paracountess calls a meeting its an orgy.
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If Ambroise Valsin calls a meeting its a mission briefing.
If Grandmaster torch calls a meeting its a union meeting.
If Olystria calls a meeting its a prayer group.
If Amara LI calls a meeting its a tea party.
If Lady Gloriana Morilla calls a meeting its a gala.
If Guaril Karela calls a meeting its an association of legitimate businessmen.
If Major Colson Maldris calls a meeting its beer fest.
If Amenopheus calls a meeting its a Dig.
If Aaqir al'Hakam calls a meeting its a board meeting
If the paracountess calls a meeting its an orgy.
This would certainly explain my faction choices.
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Okay, I know that if Torch escapes, the PC's get the "Fool Me Once" boon, and if Torch is captured/killed, they get the "Unexpected Prestige" boon. However, if Torch is successfully captured/killed, do the PC's also get the "Fool Me Once" boon?
We weren't sure after the game, since the module says that Torch escapes from prison or gets a resurrection, which implies that he "escapes" in any scenario. Quite frankly, if it's one or the other, but not both, some of my fellow players said they'd would've preferred to let him go, rather than have the two flying PC's each bring back part of him...
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Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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You get either the Fool Me Once or Unexpected Prestige Boon. Fool Me Once boon is not automatic. You don't get both.
Escaping "off screen" is not the same as escaping from the PCs who are directly confronting him.
If the party kills or captures him during the last encounter, they receive the Unexpected Prestige Boon.
If Torch escapes the party in the last encounter, they receive the Fool Me Once Boon.
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I ran this on Saturday past (6-7). The middle combat (ie the Spider combat) went for 9 rounds.
Kudos to the designer of that bard. I loved every part of that battle. I managed to dominate the Party Fighter, kill the Summoners Eidolon via the Clockwork Soldier crit and have sorcs attacking each other via confusion.
My players avoided the creepy doom as they found the switch, avoided the Rugs with some clever antics.
The Torch battle was interesting. He came second in init and escaped, but Im not sure the party really knew what to do at this point. They wernt sure that Torch killing the Spider wasnt part of the process that was ultimately going to happen (btw in my case she had died and so he cut off the jaw). So the sorc did nothing and he escaped. The Half orc guards were now masterless and so didnt start any battle.
I must admit while Im sure Dominate does have its uses, it just seems weak in Pathfinder. I had the Fighter attack the sorc (as the Paladin was too hard to hit and the spider thought the sorc might have spells to sense her) The save every round to go against their nature with a +2 is a little too good. Perhaps its just the +2 I dont like. Then the summoner started to whip out the Prot from Evils.
Did anyone else get a lot of use out of the Dominate?
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You get either the Fool Me Once or Unexpected Prestige Boon. Fool Me Once boon is not automatic. You don't get both.
Escaping "off screen" is not the same as escaping from the PCs who are directly confronting him.
If the party kills or captures him during the last encounter, they receive the Unexpected Prestige Boon.
If Torch escapes the party in the last encounter, they receive the Fool Me Once Boon.
Thanks for clearing that up, much appreciated!
I don't see how any reasonably played in tier party at 3-4 takes Torch down. 6-7 you can probably one round him, if your get decent initiatives. Outside of that, torch probably gets away.
Well my memory's not the best, but I think it went something like this:
0) Torch rolls a 5 (total) for initiative.
1) I dropped a pit on Torch (he dodged it of course). Two people activated Flight, and a druid became an air elemental. Everyone else engages the bodyguards. Torch heads to the balcony and poofs away.
2) I cast Burning Gaze on my familiar, who burns Torch (and he even caught on fire!) and hops onto a flyer. Flyers follow out the balcony, and the ranger with min-maxed Perception (and humans as a favored enemy) spots him on a roof top. Torch becomes invisible.
3) The dwarf fighter/wizard casts Glitterdust where Torch "went see-through", and catches and blinds him. Ranger charges over and does 30+ damage. My familiar burns him again. Torch attacks (I think).
4) Ranger crits Torch - game over.
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What I don't get is why people think he will dim door anywhere that is findable. Whether it is a second inn room, a sewer or a nearby warehouse.... There should be no chance at all...
As for one rounds... I agree it would be rare... Stunning fist.. Slumber.. Human hating rangers... Other save our suck etc.
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Well my memory's not the best, but I think it went something like this:
0) Torch rolls a 5 (total) for initiative.
1) I dropped a pit on Torch (he dodged it of course). Two people activated Flight, and a druid became an air elemental. Everyone else engages the bodyguards. Torch heads to the balcony and poofs away.
2) I cast Burning Gaze on my familiar, who burns Torch (and he even caught on fire!) and hops onto a flyer. Flyers follow out the balcony, and the ranger with min-maxed Perception (and humans as a favored enemy) spots him on a roof top. Torch becomes invisible.
...
What balcony?
And why is he going up there before teleporting away?
And how is anyone attacking him after he "poofs" away?
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And if the scenario had said "Torch is intimately familiar with the area around the Cypher Lodge, and has several bolt holes ready." then I would have run it that way. As it was, it seemed reasonable that he would pop to a nearby rooftop and try to lay low.
1) I did, in fact, roll a 5 initiative for Torch. Could I have fudged it? Sure. But I don't fudge dice. Bad karma.
2) First round, I had the supremely confident Torch "withdraw". It wasn't so much damage that I worried about, it was being tripped on an AoO (boots don't help with being tripped). Withdraw (rather that an acrobatics check) is a sure thing, but it does have the problem of not letting you do anything else that turn.
3) I mishandled the Fly spell in that I forgot that you could not run while flying. My mistake, and I'll admit that. I don't think it would have had any effect on the final outcome, however.
4) I don't know what the penalty to Stealth is for being on fire (he was on fire before he dim doored and didn't have a chance to put it out because dim door ends your turn), but when two flying characters and a familiar use their Standard actions to Aid Another on perception, and the Human hunting Ranger rolls in the high 30's before the bonus for Aid... What? I just say he has a plot bonus to Stealth? Homey don't play that.
The problem is that you have an NPC built for intrigue, and you write him into a situation that he should know will lead to combat. He brings three guards? Killing/Capturing Torch shouldn't be easy, but it is certainly possible.
Edit: What balcony? The one right outside the four open squares on the top of the map. What did you say was out there?
How did they find him? With perception. As I mentioned above.
How did they attack him? With a lead bladed, bulls strengthed, favored enemy human, flying Ranger. It was epic, and the whole table had a blast. Why do you feel the need to piss all over that?
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I'm trying to work out how it's possible to capture him and the description didn't make sense.
When I played it, the GM ran that outside bit as part of the Lodge.
I'm GMing this in a few days and need to straighten this out so I can run it properly. This isn't an attack, I'm straightening out some facts to better my game. If you worked it out, I want to know your logic.
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I'm trying to work out how it's possible to capture him and the description didn't make sense.
When I played it, the GM ran that outside bit as part of the Lodge.
I'm GMing this in a few days and need to straighten this out so I can run it properly. This isn't an attack, I'm straightening out some facts to better my game. If you worked it out, I want to know your logic.
Surprise round:
You either need to be a diviner wizard or get an insane sense motive check. He uses this round to kill the spider. This may be bending the rules slightly, since coup de grace is a full round action and can't be done in the surprise round. If you want to be a stickler, or the party has prepared for this sort of thing (say by casting shield other on the spider, healing her to full instead of a few HP, or every party member wearing a breath of life scroll pasted to the backs of their cloaks) He's still doing 1d4+3d6-2 points of damage to what is probably a 1 hit point person and will kill her anyway.
Round 1: The party wins initiative.
At 3-4? A really lucky shot with a pick from a raging barbarian or two. After that he's gone.
At higher levels you can deal his 52 damage at ac 19 pretty easily if he rolls badly on his init.
Round 2: there is no round 2. He's gone unless you have some serious divination mojo and a teleporter in the party.
He;s more or less supposed to get away: thats why the boon for catching him is above and beyond a normal boon- its a rare and special thing that not everyone can or should get.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I had a bit of trouble with the bard. Assuming things are going correctly and she's following her tactics, there wasn't much I could actually do. This was low tier. She got confusion on some, managed to deep slumber the rest. Then she just sits back until the confusion wears off? In my case, the confused people took forever to roll over 75 on the confusion options, and mainly stood there babbeling. Meanwhile, the sleeped players were getting rather loud in their complaining about the fight.
In my case, the positioning while she was invisible also worked out for her to get out of the office with nobody noticing. (Some great stealth rolls, even without having the skill). I had her hang out near the carpet, but is there any reason for her not to just leave? This would be even more of the case in high tier with greater invisibility.
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I had a bit of trouble with the bard. Assuming things are going correctly and she's following her tactics, there wasn't much I could actually do. This was low tier. She got confusion on some, managed to deep slumber the rest. Then she just sits back until the confusion wears off? In my case, the confused people took forever to roll over 75 on the confusion options, and mainly stood there babbeling. Meanwhile, the sleeped players were getting rather loud in their complaining about the fight.
If an enemy was asleep next to your PC, his evil buddies were distracted by a spell effect for a few rounds and you had a rapier, what would you do?
I agree, though, that she uses the same silly low tier tactics as in her previous appearance that we know resulted in her being captured/killed: a bard with no allies to support her burns resources to turn invisible, immediately casts a spell that breaks her invisibility and tries to solo the party with non-damaging spells, several of which have full-round casting times.
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I'm assuming that, by the time you've gotten 300+ posts into this thread there is not much left to be spoilered. If you've managed to avoid learning the ending to this scenario so far, you should probably stop reading now . . .
I ran this over the weekend, for a party of 3 Shadow Lodge and 1 Osirion, and had an interesting endgame situation with several of the Shadow Lodgers remaining strangely loyal to Torch. After the final battle, I had Ambrus Valsin call each one of the SL characters into his office one by one (so that each player could make the choice for themselves).
Valsin: We are disbanding the Shadow Lodge, so you'll have to align yourself with some other faction. Now, I believe Torch had asked you to find a list of names in The Spider's lair. If you could give me that list of names, it would go a long way towards proving your loyalty to the Pathfinder Society, and easing your transition into your new faction.
Inquisitor: I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't have any lists on me (which is technically not a lie because he already gave it to Torch).
Valsin: Come now, there's no need to remain loyal to Torch, who has betrayed the whole Society. Your reputation with other Pathfinders may suffer if you don't cooperate in this matter.
Inquisitor: Nope. I don't remember any lists.
GM: You could make an intelligence check to remember the list.
Inquisitor's Player: I forego my intelligence check.
Rogue: Hmm, I don't think I remember any lists.
Barbarian: Sure thing, Mr. Valsin, just let me think for a minute and see if I can remember the list (rolls a 5 on his intelligence check). There was definitely someone named Sam. And Larry . . . or maybe it was Jerry. Possibly Mary.
Valsin: I appreciate your honest intent, but if I let you think any longer you're going to hurt yourself.
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I had a bit of trouble with the bard.
When I ran it (low tier) the fight was completely silly. She ended up blind from glitter dust and I could NOT make her save. Meanwhile, most everybody ended up confused and doing far more damage to themselves than to her (especially as hit nearest opponent essentially translates to taking 2 people out of the fight).
It was a scene right out of the Keystone Cops :-). People babbling incoherently, hitting themselves, missing when they COULD see, etc. Most of us couldn't stop laughing.
Eventually, she regained her sight but not her rapier (it had been lost earlier due to a grease spell). She had no killing spells left so she just departed. There was nothing else vaguely rational for her to do at that point.
Then I had to just describe the aftermath. How she was still captured by 1/2 Orcs, how Torch murdered her, etc.
Rather anticlimactic ending. I'm kind of glad that none of the characters were Shadow Lodge (SL seems to be very under represented up here in Toronto. Locally Way of the Kirin has run at least twice as often as Rivalry's End). Hilarious as all heck, though :-)
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I'm trying to work out how it's possible to capture him and the description didn't make sense.
When I played it, the GM ran that outside bit as part of the Lodge.
I'm GMing this in a few days and need to straighten this out so I can run it properly. This isn't an attack, I'm straightening out some facts to better my game. If you worked it out, I want to know your logic.
Sorry, I guess I'm just a bit touchy. Certain posters think they can armchair GM better than people who were there with the scenario in hand. If they're that good, then they're welcome to come and GM so I can play more.
To be frank, I did what I always do when the scenario lacks the answer to the very thing I need to know: I pulled it out of my butt and spun it in a way that made sense to the players. I suppose I could have made that a second room of the suite, and had Torch dim door too a safe room (either in the Cypher Lodge or a nearby building) but that's not the feeling I got from the descriptive text. It felt more like Torch was trying to capitalize on an unexpected windfall, not a plot he had set in motion and prepared for. If that was my mistake, then so be it.
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just for the record .. and since I dont remember anyone else mentioning this
+3 Cha
+11 Ranks
+4 Decietful
+2 Skilled Liar
+3 Class Skill
I ran this last Friday ...and I admit I could have been a LOT more prepared and I missed a few things when it came to the trap but
the Rugs didn't even play a part in it as no one went down there
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I played the scenario tonight and the GM did a spectacular job of running it. Our party, much to my barbarian's very vocal disappointment, managed to avoid every combat encounter except for the one with the lady in the basement (although she was less of a threat to us than ourselves).
All in all, I think the faction quests were interesting and the scenario in general was well constructed (although not as engaging as Way of the Kirin).
I was, however, concerned about the end game and the implications it has for The Society as a whole. It feels to me like the noble goal of the now defunct Shadow Lodge has become tainted.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Xuttah,
From a story-line view, the Shadow Lodge as a concept required that the Pathfinder Society, as a whole, be a dangerous, unfriendly organization. So, every time the Society would send PCs on missions like "rescue this missing Pathfinder" or "help that field agent" it made the Shadow Lodge look foolish.
Now, that's not to say that there haven't been adventures where an agent-defense faction wasn't warranted. (We're in the GM section of the boards, but even still, let's not go into too many random spoilers.) However, Mike and John seem to be pulling back from that facet of the Society, and those have become less common in Season 4.
The Shadow Lodge faction started out tainted, after a year of being a secretive, ruthless, splinter group bent on seizing power. Having a ruthless schemer at the helm didn't help matters.
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Poor roll vs. a DC 17 slumber hex.
Poor roll vs. a DC 17 to 19 hold person.
Someone at your low level table having a pouncing tiger *shudder*
Fortunate crit with a x3 weapon from a barbarian or similar could easily fall into the 3d12+39 or higher range.
Even just a series of non-crit hits that land on him because he biffed his initiative roll. These are just a few viable examples. While I certainly agree that he should dimension door straight to freedom if given the chance, I don't think him being overcome is worth of such suspicion.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Online
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It is important to mention the tactics in his stat block:
"Grandmaster Torch does not waste his time fighting the PCs. He makes every attempt to flee the Cypher Lodge using his cape of mountebank or boots of escape..."
I have ran it a number of time now and only a few PCs have beat him in the INIT order. They were ShadowLodge though and they bro-fisted GT, and said to tell the Decemvirate "Hello" for them. ;b
Thing is, even if he is blinded or anything else that does not keep him from acting on his turn, he can still make his escape. So they need to do something significant to keep him from escaping.
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I was, however, concerned about the end game and the implications it has for The Society as a whole. It feels to me like the noble goal of the now defunct Shadow Lodge has become tainted.
I don't really know how noble the shadow lodge was. They started out in the metaplot by being an organization that killed pathfinders and then when they lost their fight against the Decemvirate Torch bargained to be let back in by betraying the rest of the original shadow lodge. [Though they betrayed him a bit too.)
The hardest part to believe was that the Decemvirate was willing to let all these pathfinder who were trying to kill other pathfinder back into the fold with amnesty.
What Torch did was extremely fitting for him, he betrayed his team as soon as they're divide loyalties would have put his future plans at risk. Though I imagine if this doesn't go well for him he will try to get a peace treaty again.