I plan to DM the Pathfinder Module "The City of Golden Death" for 5th level adventurers.
One of the possibilities on the random encounter table in the very first part of the story when the players sail to the city is a ghost.
I go to the ghost in the bestiary, and this is what it says:
"More than most of the monsters in this book, a ghost benefits from a strong and detailed backstory. Why did this character become a ghost? What are the legends surrounding the ghost? An encounter with a ghost should never happen completely out of the blue—there are plenty of other incorporeal undead like wraiths and spectres to fill that role. A proper encounter with a ghost should be a climactic scene after a lengthy period of tension building with lesser minions or manifestations of the undead spirit."
wtf paizo! make up your mind!
The people who wrote the Bestiary and City of Golden Death are different people, so sometimes wires get crossed.
If you don't like it, remove it from the random encounters.
At the very least, the guy who wrote the module or one of the editors should have read the bestiary entry on the monsters they suggests using...
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It's honestly a minor issue from a module from three years ago that you can easily fix. Sometimes, things get overlooked. Besides, I actually kinda dig the random ghost encounter and what I'd do is give it a backstory and have it come up when I roll it. So it's still a random encounter, but it's not just some faceless, no backstory creature.
I haven't run the module before but depending on the set up sometimes the suggestions of things can get broken up because of flavor or the nature of the beast.
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The people who wrote the Bestiary and City of Golden Death are different people, so sometimes wires get crossed.
If you don't like it, remove it from the random encounters.
Furthermore, the Bestiary and City of Golden Death were most likely written at the same time, it would be hard to maintain editorial oversight down to the level of the individual sentence in that situation.
I plan to DM the Pathfinder Module "The City of Golden Death" for 5th level adventurers.
One of the possibilities on the random encounter table in the very first part of the story when the players sail to the city is a ghost.I go to the ghost in the bestiary, and this is what it says:
"More than most of the monsters in this book, a ghost benefits from a strong and detailed backstory. Why did this character become a ghost? What are the legends surrounding the ghost? An encounter with a ghost should never happen completely out of the blue—there are plenty of other incorporeal undead like wraiths and spectres to fill that role. A proper encounter with a ghost should be a climactic scene after a lengthy period of tension building with lesser minions or manifestations of the undead spirit."
wtf paizo! make up your mind!
My first thought was that you simply need to provide some immediate background for the ghost and let the PCs uncover more of it as they go along. If you need a moment, ask your players for one.
Instead of thinking "Paizo, WTF@??!?!" think "How can I make this work".
How's about we post a backstory here in case someone else googles the module and "ghost"? I'd do it, but I don't gave he module handy.
The following post is based on Pathfinder and ghosts in general, since I do not have access to the module in question.
That said, I think maybe you're taking the section from the bestiary a bit too literal. This is not rules or even guidelines, this is advice to a newish GM. There's no reason to follow that any more closely than the description of gnolls as hulking humanoids - it does not mean you can't have a scrawny runt-gnoll npc.
For instance you could easily reverse the situation - the party encounters and defeats a ghost, then spends a fair amount of time in the ghost's dungeon piecing together who the ghost was and why he was and/or still is haunting the area. For bonus awkward points, they should also gradually realize why killing that ghost was a really bad idea.
I vote for a ghost who has amnesia. That covers the issue AND give the players who care the ability to do some RP and research just who this ghost was. Otherwise it is just another random encounter that the players defeat and move on without really worrying why it was there.
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Back in my day, we didn't have your fancy Interwebz and youPads and iTubes and stuff. When something was weird or wrong in an adventure module, we just had to figure out how to fix it ourselves, usually on the fly. And if we wanted to complain about it to the company, we had to sit down and actually write a letter (or type one if we had a typewriter) and mail it to the company. It could take weeks to hear back, if they bothered to answer at all. That's a long time to hold onto the righteous indignation of a disgruntled customer.
Now you kids get the heck off my lawn!
Or you could use the encounter as an opportunity to insert your own idea for a ghost of your own devising.
This is why I hate random encounters. Even when I do use them, I usually just pick one that happens to strike my fancy rather than letting a die roll determine the outcome.
I'm quoting you because I can only favorite your post once. Both of your paragraphs independently are deserving of such.
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I plan to DM the Pathfinder Module "The City of Golden Death" for 5th level adventurers.
One of the possibilities on the random encounter table in the very first part of the story when the players sail to the city is a ghost.I go to the ghost in the bestiary, and this is what it says:
"More than most of the monsters in this book, a ghost benefits from a strong and detailed backstory. Why did this character become a ghost? What are the legends surrounding the ghost? An encounter with a ghost should never happen completely out of the blue—there are plenty of other incorporeal undead like wraiths and spectres to fill that role. A proper encounter with a ghost should be a climactic scene after a lengthy period of tension building with lesser minions or manifestations of the undead spirit."
wtf paizo! make up your mind!
welcome to Game Mastering a pre-made adventure from paizo!!
Where as a GM your job will be read the entire module, and then read it again in hunt for glitches and fix them by yourself!!!
Also, addapting the module by cuttin pieces that your party could not have feel good for them...
And make the whole module have sense and fun for everyone at your table (including you)...
maybe a couple of hours could be a great time invested for fix the issues that you can see!!
Somebody has a bone to pick with Paizo...
Unlike this guy, I'm not going be passive aggressive. If changing a single monster on a random monster table is considered too much work and a failing on Paizo, then you probably aren't cut out to GM and should leave it to someone that can spare the one minute to do so.
GMing isn't for the lazy, even with premade adventures. GMing adventures will always take some tweaking, whether it's Paizo, Pelgrane Press, Pinnacle Entertainment, Fantasy Flight, White Wolf, Evil Hat, or whatever else is out there. That's because sometimes there is a disconnect between the freelancers and the rules writers, or maybe it's because you and your players play differently enough where the adventure won't be fun as is. Having played City of Death, we all had a blast without it being changed. But different groups play the game differently. As long as overall mechanics are sound, and the adventure is fun, then some tweaking here and there is fine. Admittedly, this is coming from a tweaker that always changes modules. Not because I hate them, but because I just love to tweak.
So you can whine about how the module "breaks the rules" about ghosts on the internet, or you can put on the big boy pants and just remove it. Because I have bad news, as a GM, you WILL be changing and adapting things, sometimes on the fly. And if you can't handle a simple thing like a ghost on a random encounter table, then you should probably not GM. I'm sorry if that sounds mean, but it's better you hear the truth now before you continue GMing.
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In defense of Random encounters, I've only started using them after a quarter-century of GMing.
I like the way they force me to push myself creatively. They definitely overclock the brain, forcing the GM to think on his feet since not even he knows what's going to happen during the adventure.
Improvisation is a creative art unto itself.
So you can whine about how the module "breaks the rules" about ghosts on the internet, or you can put on the big boy pants and just remove it.
Actually, he can do both.
What's with the all the freakish false dichotomies that pop up on the internet? Oh right... the internet.
Something like this isn't a big deal or wtf? moment, but it is chuckle-worthy. It's just the nature of the beast when you have a product line this broad.
I'd either take it out, or take it as an opportunity to come up with a back story for the ghost ahead of time.
Creative Director
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To be honest? I agree with the original poster (at least, with the original poster's concern... not with the poster's somewhat abrasive method of framing the question). A ghost should NOT show up on a random encounter unless you or we or whoever put in some pretty good story-based reasons why there's a wandering ghost in the region... and even then, it should be a one-time encounter. Maybe if the ghost comes back after killing it I could see it being encountered more than once.
Of course, the wisdom of setting a 5th level adventure on what was intended to be one of the highest-level adventure sites in the Inner Sea region is also subject to debate...
In any event, I agree that the ghost should come off the table. Replace it with a wraith... or if you want to keep it CR 7, 1d4 wraiths (although that's pretty rough on a 5th level party).
As to why this happened? I was the one who developed the ghost for the Bestiary and wrote the "An encounter with a ghost should never happen out of the blue..." but I was not involved in the writing or developing for "City of Golden Death" at all. Had I been... the ghost would have gone away... and I would have set the adventure somewhere else entirely, but that's neither here or there.
So... yeah. By all means change the ghost on the wandering monster list.
NOTE: All adventure writers should pay attention to the ghost, especially including anyone who writes for Paizo. It's not the same monster it was in previous editions. I still see ghosts showing up in our products that talk about it being a creature of the Ethereal Plane or that it exists on that plane at the same time as the Material Plane, for example... and ghosts aren't like that in Pathfinder. [mini rant over}
Of course, the wisdom of setting a 5th level adventure on what was intended to be one of the highest-level adventure sites in the Inner Sea region is also subject to debate...
Lol..for some reason this reminds me of when I started playing WoW and was trying to figure out how to find the place my mission was in and took my lvl 20 warrior from stormwind and swam around most of the coast and finally got to the Eastern Plaguelands where I thought I was supposed to be...only to be terrorized by mobs of lvl 50 critters. I jumped off a cliff and died in order to save myself from mutant bears.
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NOTE: All adventure writers should pay attention to...
Do you guys have some kind of "bible" with notes on different monsters for your in-house writers? Things like "Ghost - don't use these as random encounters; NOT on the Ethereal Plane," or "Drow - all drow in Golarion are evil." #1 It might help promote internal consistency. #2 It would be a fascinating read for we on the outside.
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Creative Director
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NOTE: All adventure writers should pay attention to...Do you guys have some kind of "bible" with notes on different monsters for your in-house writers? Things like "Ghost - don't use these as random encounters; NOT on the Ethereal Plane," or "Drow - all drow in Golarion are evil." #1 It might help promote internal consistency. #2 It would be a fascinating read for we on the outside.
When we provide an outline to the author, yes, we'll make note of things like this; we'll specifically call out areas we suspect or know will be confusing. At the same time, we assume that our writers are familiar with the rules elements they use.
For this adventure, I suspect no outline was generated since the author was in-house. That policy has long since changed. In-house authors are convenient to work with, but assuming that they need no guidance from the project's developer is an error.
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In defense of the module author (I have read it, but not played it), a encounter with a ghost is appropriate to the setting of the adventure. It is a location where I would see one or more ghost arising.
It would have been nice to put up a 2 rows back story for the ghost encounter, maybe even the description of 2 different ghosts, but generally a GM can create a reasonable back story on the wing, if needed.
Probably word count created some problem in printing a back story for teh ghost encounter.
A random combat ghost is often known by its scientific name, Spectrus specter, or its common name, the Golarion Common Spectre.
We ran into a random ghost in the middle of the night while on the boat. The player on watch got one hefty scream out before the ghost killed her. In fact, this whole adventure has been a meat grinder so far. We've lost four characters and haven't even gotten to this so called 'city' yet.
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Creative Director
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Just so folks know... the reason we took away the association with the Ethereal Plane that ghosts had in previous editions (which was itself an evolutionary fragment from 1st edition when the idea of something being incorporeal was synonymous with being on the ethereal plane... something that 3rd edition mostly but not completely got rid of, and something we ended up getting rid of totally in Pathfinder) was simple.
We wanted ghosts to be able to exist on the outer planes.
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We wanted ghosts to be able to exist on the outer planes.
Oh, hey, Aroden, where ya been? Yes, I know my new armor's all fancy, but can you stop going, "OOOoooOooo" please? It's hurting my head.
We wanted ghosts to be able to exist on the outer planes.
Huh? Isn't a ghost by definition a spirit that didn't make its way to the outer planes?
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Creative Director
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We wanted ghosts to be able to exist on the outer planes.Huh? Isn't a ghost by definition a spirit that didn't make its way to the outer planes?
Nope. A ghost is what happens when a creature dies but its spirit refuses to or cannot move on to be judged in the Boneyard. Creatures who die in the outer planes can still leave ghosts behind there.
To be honest? I agree with the original poster (at least, with the original poster's concern... not with the poster's somewhat abrasive method of framing the question).
To be clear, I never asked a question ;) Was mostly just pointing out an interesting but super minor error and purposefully overreacting to it just to be silly.
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Problem is that silly doesn't translate through text well, at least without some kind of signifier (either a spoilered "this is in jest" message or at the very least an emoticon). So pretty much everyone has taken your complaints as if you meant them seriously - including someone who took it as an excuse to lay out their own grar-laden rant.
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James, if it makes you feel better, when we ran the module in my home game, the two GMs said, "This is way too cool a setting for 5th level characters." It ended up being the foundation for the climax of two conjoined campaigns that went to 15th level, one of which also involved templates.
We had a party serving The Whispering Way and another of roving heroes who ended up fighting each other at the heart of the city.