Way of the Kirin _ New PFS GM _ SPOILERS

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

I am going to be the GM for this scenario this weekend.

(I played it once at the lower tier. So I am a bit familiar with it, but we did rather poorly. Many in that group were rather inexperienced.)

What I am looking for is things I should be watching out for. Confusing, hard to understand, common mistakes, etc...

Some modules, AP's, and scenarios have certain things that I hear are often done wrong (or at least could have been done better).

Anything in here likely to trip me up?

[Galnörag]

I didn't want to hand the table the problem on a platter, but on the same time I felt it was important to guide their eyes to the important bits. So early on as they explored the home in prep for the meeting I tried to describe things in detail, while I gave fluff descriptions, I always mixed in some hints about how it could be worked into a defence.

The alchemists were pretty brutal in wave 2, but I made sure to have them come in different windows to at least spread out the damage.

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

Yeah, the alchemists did a number on us.

Almost immediately took our melee guy and blaster wizard into negatives.

So we were trying to take them on with a healer, pregen rogue, and a contoller sorc.

It wasn't pretty. We used up all the healing potions we had and everyone was still in single digit hitpoints.

[Rerednaw]

I suggest having a spreadsheet or chart to tally each possible defense check. Will make it easier and faster for you to run.
Something like:
"Room/Defense/Skill Red'q/Success Y/N/Effect/Defense Pts gained"

In my playthrough my witch was an engineer so we ended up getting almost all the defenses up. And we thought outside the box and used the bear traps in the choke point (doorway). While the attackers were trapped there I dropped an origami swarm on them. I had bought an origami swarm because I thought it was thematically appropriate (Tian, Lantern Lodge, etc.) didn't think I'd end up using it the same adventure.

We didn't play the optional encounter. The only tough fight was at the end as we were pretty depleted of resources and the boss kept running away while his alchemist buddy one-shotted a couple of our party members.

Something else to remember: if an alchemist scores a crit with his bombs, you only get to roll an additional d6, you don't double all his dice.

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

Yeah, that's a good idea to make a chart for the defense things rather than trying to remember them all.

We didn't do so good on the outside defenses. Only got 1 point for the catapult. But we mis-heard the exterior description (very loud game location). We thought it was a small rather featureless island. So setting things up oustide really didn't occur to us.
Plus we really didn't get that there was an army approaching on foot at first. For some reason we thought he had said the boat was burned by another boat at sea. We were assembling the catapult to try and shoot at the other ship.

[Xera]

I ran this adventure 4 times at PaizoCon - 1 table did almost no external defense and didn't have any engineers. It was my first table, so I took it a bit easy on them, but it was almost super messy. After that table I became a lot more descriptive of the land. Players also have a hard time leaving Amara Li on her own, she is their captain and they want to defend her. Be sure to reiterate, as many times as necessary, that she is quite capable of taking care of herself and that the need for body guards is only during the meeting with the Way representative.

I've had players put the bear traps in interesting places, like outside different windows that baddies might enter, outside the front and side doors, down the cliff, etc. I had a Druid make animal traps on the sides of the cliff, pour the oil down the murder holes they made and then light it on fire. I've had whale oil end up in some very random places.

I have yet had the time to put in the optional encounter as these battles can take a really long time. Be ready to reward the creative thinking of the players, doing stuff for defense not specifically listed, but would in fact slow down the army, or keep some from arriving.

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

Well, it went weird. But I think everyone had fun, so that’s what counts.

As soon as they found it they became obsessed with putting the catapult together. Even before the attack started, they had decided to put it together, burning a fox’s cunning potion to have better odds.

When the attack started, they actually decided to mostly defend from outside piling all the furniture and debris as a barricade around the catapult. Of course with no skills in its use they only managed to get a single hit before each wave. But they were totally thrilled with successfully using a siege engine in a scenario.

They totally ignored the bear traps because they were so stuck on the idea of the catapult. It’s kinda funny. As far as the people I’ve talked to, the only groups that did any other defense point items such as traps, deadfalls, pits, burning oil slick, etc… were the ones that failed the roll to recognize/build the catapult. Everyone that had a chance to use that immediately dropped any other ideas (except boarding up some windows).

It’s really not the most effective use of time (if you don’t have prof siege engineer), but it is what everyone wants to do.

Second wave was tough as usual. Two guys close to unconscious and 1 poisoned by the second round.

The final fight was a sort of anti-climax. A lucky targeted dispel to take down buffs and a failed save vs glitter dust. He suddenly wasn’t nearly so dangerous.

[Ghost1776]

My players hit all the defensive points and then some. I GM for my kids and their friends and my wife has been playing too since we switched to pathfinder

I thinking about having my food checked for poison and checking my car's brakes and wiring after GMing this one. My wife plays the most paranoid and cautious ninja I've ever run across. She trapped the cliff side, the pathways, the house, she lectured the kids about John Rambo, Vietnam, The A Team, MaCGyver, the OSS, Burn Notice and Michael Westen. Then she started talking about various discussions and readings about tactical position defense in a magical game world over the last 20 years ... In short everything that came anywhere near the house once the tea ceremony started died, very bad deaths involving fire,falling, poison, impalement, or large rocks, usually all of the above .

Very Bad Deaths, I'm sleeping with one eye open from now on.