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** spoiler omitted **
Here's the problem with those tactics though. Somewhere in there the PC gets a turn.
After Vermlek 1 or 2 - he runs away. Granted, if he's in the muck then he doesn't get far, but hopefully the PC decided not to go straight through the muck...
After Vermlek 3 - Move action to get rid of the ill omen, move action to get away.
After Vermlek 4 - He gets a second save to get rid of the hold person, this time without the ill omen benefit.
After the commoner - How is the commoner still alive the turn after it closed with a PC? The only way I've seen these commoners be awake for most of the fight is if they got crowd controlled out of the fight. (See: Entangle)
That's the problem with cackle-based witches. If you double move or run, it really frustrates them. That's why the cackling hag's blouse is a really important item for them. Certainly threaten the Hold Person/coup-de-grace. But don't spend nearly that much build up on it.
(This of course, assumes that the player's understand what's going on. If there are players who don't understand how witches work, then everything I said above is off the table.)
Besides, a lot of the other spells are well designed to screw with players.
- The obscuring mist forces the players to close in since you can't make ranged attacks without line of sight. This is really important since at least one of the vermleks should be attempting to summon dretches in the first round while the PCs are closing in, and this protects the summoners from ranged attacks. (The concentration on the vermlek's SLAs sucks.)
- Following the vermleks into the mist is problematic since they can just vomit swarm and walk away (maybe even after using evil eye for saves vs you.)
- Flaming sphere is one of their few nonclose range spells, you so can use it as people try to close in, especially for people who insist on bringing mounts with them.
- Shocking Grasp also to get rid of mounts. My usual strategy is to burrow into the ground, then cast shocking grasp underground, pop up, and touch someone.
The hexes are there - and you should certainly use them, but they are full spellcasters too, and if you don't use their full spell list, you're not doing the encounter justice.
Also, if you're having all the vermleks act on the same initiative, shame on you. This is the exact kind of encounter that justifies having different creatures act on different initiative.
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I don't understand. This is already answered in the link to the FAQ Jeff Merola posted:
Example: On round 1, you hex the target's AC. On round 2, you hex the target's attack rolls, so the target now has two evil eye hexes on it. On round 3, you hex the target's saving throws, so it now has three evil eye hexes on it. On round 4, you hex its AC again, resetting the duration of the AC-hex (which does not add an additional –2 penalty to its AC). The same thing would happen if two witches were using evil eye on the same target--as long as each evil eye hex applied a penalty to a different thing, they'd all apply.
Evil Eye (Saves) doesn't stack with itself, even from two different witches.
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My tables have completely ignored the commoners. They have a ridiculous -2 attack bonus so most of the time I am fishing for crits. I have yet to have a PC kill one. At most I use them to block PC charge lanes, provide cover, and cause players to move slower as they tumble through my threatened squares. I did manage to crit a couple of times with them.
I agree that at the higher sub-tier, summoning the dretches is an excellent strategy. I actually like it better than using obscuring mist. The other thing to remember is that the players have no idea what the vermleks are doing when they use their SLAs. I have 3 of the vermlek's use the flaming spheres to block off the quick land routs to the main island and put some early pressure on the party. The last Vermlek drops prone behind a commoner for cover and SLA's 1d4 dretches. PC's will have a hard time hitting him in rnd 1 and they have no reason to specifically target that vermlek as SLAs have no tell tale signs.
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** spoiler omitted **Here's the problem with those tactics though. Somewhere in there the PC gets a turn.
** spoiler omitted **
That's the problem with cackle-based witches. If you double move or run, it really frustrates them. That's why the cackling hag's blouse is a really important item for them. Certainly threaten the Hold Person/coup-de-grace. But don't spend nearly that much build up on it.
(This of course, assumes that the player's understand what's going on. If there are players who don't understand how witches work, then everything I said above is off the table.)Besides, a lot of the other spells are well designed to screw with players.
...
- The obscuring mist forces the players to close in since you can't make ranged attacks without line of sight. This is really important since at least one of the vermleks should be attempting to summon dretches in the first round while the PCs are closing in, and this protects the summoners from ranged attacks. (The concentration on the vermlek's SLAs sucks.)
- Following the vermleks into the mist is problematic since they can just vomit swarm and walk away (maybe even after using evil eye for saves vs you.)
- Flaming sphere is one of their few nonclose range spells, you so can use it as people try to close in, especially for people who insist on bringing mounts with them.
- Shocking Grasp also to get rid of mounts. My usual
The issue with the tactics (and I'll admit there is one and it's entirely my fault) is I didn't indicate that the PC will always go first. They are the initiator of all conflict here and noone goes until they do.
Realistically it goes like this:
1. PC's look over the hill and decided to engage.
2. Melee PC moves to engage (no mount since they specifically left them behind). Discovers it's at least 95 feet to the closest target across difficult terrain. (No running or charging)
3. Vermlek all see the melee target moving into range, quickly decide on above tactic and proceed to go down the initiative ranks ending with the hold person.
3a. PC has already done his full action getting close and can't make any actions to shake off the ill omen before the Hold person hits.
4. Commoner moves in and begins it's CDG.
5. Rest of the party does something and if, IF they don't save the PC
6. PC makes his save attempt (provoking an AoO from the commoner but possibly making the save).
7. If still aliveand not CC'd commoner finishes CDG.
As for the other points you brought up... well those have several issues in the location we're at.
Obscuring mist, that hurts the vermlek more then the PC's. No line of sight means no hexes or targeted spells but the PC's can still bombard that area with AoE attacks or dive into the cloud without eating AoO's.
Vomit swarm is uncontrolled and are just as likely to hurt you as they are to go after the PC's. (more so unless you cast it in melee and the pathetic concentration on the vermlek makes that a poor option).
Shocking Grasp doesn't work that way since as soon as they start burrowing out of the ground it discharges into the ground, it goes off on the first thing touched. (Also they didn't bring the mounts anyway since the scenario says they get stuck in the trees.
Flaming sphere is nice but as soon as it touches the body of water between the Vermlek and the PC's it goes out. Don't forget anything that puts out a normal fire extinguishes the sphere.
The only real options they have are the hold person tactic or trying to cycle their inflict light wounds but since they are only caster level 3 it only affects 3 targets. That won't even allow them to heal all of each other.
The witches are out-numbered, out-gunned and have only one thing to stop a melee monster from eviscerating them in 1 round. If I could come up with another tactic that had ANY chance of success I would but as written it's either do this or run away (A valid tactic most full casters do when the melee guy gets this close).
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My tables have completely ignored the commoners. They have a ridiculous -2 attack bonus so most of the time I am fishing for crits. I have yet to have a PC kill one.
I ran this five times at GenCon. The first couple my tables left the commoners alone, until I realized I read the scenario wrong and saw
the commoners were the ones who did the actual torturing that was walked in on. That was a big black strike in the Pathfinder book tho. I think I did give one player a sense motive check to realize that while the commoners were committing the torture they were horrified by it, while the Vermelks (which they didn't notice weren't human at that table) were enjoying it. I think most tables will still be proactive about saving the tortured commoner.
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This sounds like a really fun scenario. I wish my judge had not been running cold, because there was no roleplay presented with the all-important NPC. All we did was cast protection from evil on him when he seemed to be affected by the mist (as were others of our party). We never received any sort of cue as to his attitude and the fact that it needed adjusting.
Word of caution to organizers: if you must ask a judge to run a scenario without having read it, don't let it be this one. The fact that we literally never had a chance to earn a second prestige point soured this otherwise interesting scenario for at least half the table.
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Having finally run this at a local con I was expecting it to be better then it wound up being.
Everything was moving along at a pretty fair rate and the interaction with the NPC was going well until the first combat. When the NPC refused to intercede and get involved in the battle the entire table turned on him and refused to do anymore diplomatic interactions.
Everything from that point on was either insulting him, browbeating him or (most commonly) trying to abandon him or send him back to town.
I expected some negative reaction to him not being involved in the fight but this completely changed the entire flow of the adventure. This wasn't an isolated incident either, I watched this happen in a separate running of this as well.
Has anyone else had similar results and if so what did you do/are planning to do to avoid it the next time it's run?
When I ran it, I played up the reasons why he refused to intercede to save the apparent farmers.
1-They are cultists
2-The mission is to find out what is happening at the Fort - the lives at the Fort may be at risk.
3-They have their orders, and if the Crusade ran off to attack every sign of Demons that they came across, they would have all died long ago.
4-Often Demons lay traps, have set ups like this, to lure in new Crusaders and kill them off.
Also, while he was talking, I had on of the dead farmers get off of the pile of bloody bodies, stagger around a bit as the vermlek got used to the new body.
The players still attacked (well, most did, a couple stayed back, but lent long range support - in part ot make sure that Sir Ilivan didn't make off with all of the mounts).
When they decided to go after the captured crusaders, he tried to out argue them, and when that failed, muttered something about why was he always saddle with trying to keep fools alive, and went with them.
For the encounters with spores, I had Sir Ilivan bend forward, fall off his mount, curl into a ball, issue pitiful cries - and his mount Hannah stand defensively over him.
For the last battle, when the PCs were about to rush in and rescue the crusaders, I had them make a perception check, told them about the horde that was coming towards them, with a very large Brimorak Demon leading dozens of Schir demons and a small horde of dretches.
The PCs had managed to get enough Empathy points, that Sir Ilivan cursed (swearing by Iomedae and calling for her aid), then told the players to hurry, he would distract the demons and try to lead them away for a few moments. He dropped his visor, and raced towards the demon horde.
One of my players looked up startled and said "I take back all the nasty things I said about and thought about him".
Rescue of the crusaders happened.
Off in the distance, one PC on the bluff saw Sir Ilivan strike the large Brimorak, a bright flash of light, followed by a sound of thunder and when they could see again, a milling horde of demons that were concentrating on something int he middle and not coming towards the PCs.
The only difference that I will do in the futur, is to ensure that they get Sir Ilivan's history, to have a better understanding of his behavior, of him being a bit shell shocked, setting up defensive emotional walls, etc..
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Mathwei, when you say: "Start CDG" are you talking about it as though its a 1 round spell being cast? Cause that's the way you're making it sound. CDGs are just straight full round actions last I checked.There's actually a "Start Full Round Action" standard action you can take. He's talking about them walking up (move) and starting a CDG (standard), which then finishes next round (standard).
Start/Complete Full-Round Action
The “start full-round action” standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can't use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.
Yup, otherwise it's just a kill and that's not fair or fun for the PC's. This way they have a sense of urgency/paranoia but only the most dysfunctional party will really be at risk of someone dying.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I played this at pacificon lasf weekend. Did not enjoy it much. The knight didnot have any characterization or empathy at all. Just told us not to rescue the villagers and mocked us after we failed to save any. Stayed at the fort when we went to rescue the crusaders, never really talked much. After the crusaders, we found him again, looking a bit shifty. We did a detect evil on him- it showed him neutral first, then turned evil as he begin his attack on us.
We had no clue that we were really supposed to interact znd socialize with him. We just thlught hr was a dick that decided to attack us to cover up him not rescueing the crusaders with us.
Sounds like the GM missed a step or two.
Sir Ilivan should have gone with the party to rescue the crusaders. The scenario calls for him to "accompany the PCs throughtout the adventure"
No where in the description of Sir Ilivan does it say that he would mock you for failures at the first encounter. The worst it calls for is "scoffing at the PCs for their fools' errand" as he goes with the PCs to try and rescue the crusaders.
For the first encounter he's supposed to "curse their foolishness" if they fail to use diplomacy to get him to see their way. I can see that either being run as, or interpreted as, mocking.Sounds like the GM missed a step or two.
Sir Ilivan should have gone with the party to rescue the crusaders. The scenario calls for him to "accompany the PCs throughtout the adventure"
No where in the description of Sir Ilivan does it say that he would mock you for failures at the first encounter. The worst it calls for is "scoffing at the PCs for their fools' errand" as he goes with the PCs to try and rescue the crusaders.
The entry states: "If the PCs ignore Sir Ilivan and attack, or attempt to use the Intimidate skill to get him to change his mind, he curses their foolishness".
To me, that only addresses things before they attack, and only if they ignore him or fail on an Intimidate check. I can't see that in any way leading to mocking their failure at saving the commoners.
He's a callous jerk that ordered them to ignore the commoners and curses them for ignoring him. It's not exactly a large leap of logic to go from that to a mocking comment about how they not only disobeyed his orders, but also failed to do anything.
It's not like NPCs only do exactly what's written in the scenario and never anything more. If they did, roleplaying would be even more limited than it already is.
If he was a one off, then I wouldn't have a real problem with it, but he is supposed to be a central part of the story, where the PCs are supposed to feel some empathy for him (if things go right) when he goes off to use his death as a distraction to allow the PCs to rescue some (or all) of the crusaders.
To make it so that the PCs hate him would make it difficult for them to want to help him or recognize his problem and sacrifice.
To then make it so that there was no way for the PCs to earn any empathy points, defeats part of the scenario. By allowing the PCs to ride off without him, so that he is not present for the spores nor when the PCs start to rescue the crusaders, made it impossible for the PCs to gain those empathy points (and is contrary to the instructions of the scenario).
To have him miraculously find them (and why did he chase after them if he didn't go with them in the first place?) only to attack them stretches things a lot. It is his shame in seeing the crusaders rescued from the demons by the PCs that triggers his anger (insanity?) and desire to blot out his shame, not simply seeing the PCs ride up with the rescued crusaders. Also, how did he find them (his survival skill is pretty low)? Get by the spores even if he passed his survival checks?
Also, it is a fort, a military compound. Do you think that it would be easy for the PCs to ride out without their patrol leader knowing? Get the gates opened for them? Unknowns vs a tried and tested officer?
I didn't bring all of this up in my original post because I am working on assumptions based on a single post. But I don't think that the GM in this case should get a free pass for not knowing the scenario, and in running it in a way that wasn't fun for the PCs and that likely made it impossible for them to have any chance of succeeding at the secondary missions (having him turn "evil" for thinking about killing the PCs is also a bit much and not likely to encourage the PCs to take him alive).
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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He's a callous jerk that ordered them to ignore the commoners and curses them for ignoring him. It's not exactly a large leap of logic to go from that to a mocking comment about how they not only disobeyed his orders, but also failed to do anything.
It's not like NPCs only do exactly what's written in the scenario and never anything more. If they did, roleplaying would be even more limited than it already is.
If he was a one off, then I wouldn't have a real problem with it, but he is supposed to be a central part of the story, where the PCs are supposed to feel some empathy for him (if things go right) when he goes off to use his death as a distraction to allow the PCs to rescue some (or all) of the crusaders.
To make it so that the PCs hate him would make it difficult for them to want to help him or recognize his problem and sacrifice.
To then make it so that there was no way for the PCs to earn any empathy points, defeats part of the scenario. By allowing the PCs to ride off without him, so that he is not present for the spores nor when the PCs start to rescue the crusaders, made it impossible for the PCs to gain those empathy points (and is contrary to the instructions of the scenario).
To have him miraculously find them (and why did he chase after them if he didn't go with them in the first place?) only to attack them stretches things a lot. It is his shame in seeing the crusaders rescued from the demons by the PCs that triggers his anger (insanity?) and desire to blot out his shame, not simply seeing the PCs ride up with the rescued crusaders. Also, how did he find them (his survival skill is pretty low)? Get by the spores even if he passed his survival checks?
Also, it is a fort, a military compound. Do you think that it would be easy for the PCs to ride out without their patrol leader knowing? Get the gates opened for them? Unknowns vs a tried and tested officer?
I didn't bring all of this up in my original post because I am working on assumptions...
As more detail (now that I'm not posting from my phone).
First we dealt with the villagers. Sadly, when they started attacking everybody failed their knowledge checks, and some players seemed to think they were undead. So some of us concentrated on the demons, but a few went after the villagers. Especially the ranger's cat. As it didn't have attack twice, it wouldn't attack the demons, so he let it maul through the hostile villagers. I ignored them as I thought the demons were the important threat, but by the time the demons dropped it was too late.
When we got to the fort and said we'd go after the crusaders, he left and headed back home. The rest of the fort cheered us off. Then we went on through the fields by ourselves, had one guy fail to it but got him restrained pretty quick. Dealt with the fight (tough but good), then got back to the fort.
Then we started home by ourselves, and caught up with the knight as he fed something to the horse (must have been walking slow). The fight with him was pretty brutal, as our party had no arcane casters. Luckily, we had 2 gunslingers able to punch through his tin-can.
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Ran this 5 times so far, each time I have had at least on Diplomacy and/or Heal skilled player at the table. No one has pinged as evil in 5 runs, so it hasn't come up, but each of the Cheliaxians have had to be told at the table what their factions season goal was to have a clue. I have yet to run the Illivan combat, but that might be because I had prepared Illivan very well and he interacted with each group. The only group that had trouble was the group that did not get a single piece of his backstory via the gather info. Thankfully, they had a super friendly Cleric of Shelyn that really tried to get to the bottom of his problems. If the GM does not play him with a good bit of PTSD, then they have failed. He is harsh, but at the same time a very sympathetic character. I love this mod. So far it is one of my favorite that I have read/played and I'm glad I had the opportunity to run it as much as I did. Also, I LOVE Jorsal of Lauterbury.
"Are you sending us on a mission to certain death, Jorsal?"
"Not Yet, Pathfinder, Not yet."
For the faction missions, I printed and laminated the forum letters from the Faction Heads and passed those around the table.
After each of the Season 5 missions that I have run, I explained what the missions had been, and why some succeeded and some failed. This way the players have a better understanding on how the new missions work.
I also did this for the Primary and Secondary success rewards.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Totally stupid question here, that I can't believe I'm asking about D1 at the higher tier.
** spoiler omitted **
I was actually wondering that, myself, after running it three times. I had used the stats pulled from the GM resources page, which have the size as large. Then this week's art blog mentions that they're all small and I wondered if whoever advanced them missed that. Good thing I didn't kill anyone using reach in that encounter...
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Which version did you pull? The .docx one (which I'm currently printing out for use tomorrow) correctly has him sized medium.I was actually wondering that, myself, after running it three times. I had used the stats pulled from the GM resources page, which have the size as large. Then this week's art blog mentions that they're all small and I wondered if whoever advanced them missed that. Good thing I didn't kill anyone using reach in that encounter...Totally stupid question here, that I can't believe I'm asking about D1 at the higher tier.
** spoiler omitted **
I'm unsure, other than that I got them a couple weeks ago from the GM Shared Prep site maintained by Thea. If you're getting them from the same spot they must have been corrected. At least I now know to trash my current copy and get a new one.
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Played this today and had a pretty rough time, mostly from the rest of the party being callous and insulting to Illivan. We pretty much had no roleplay with him other than that, which somehow got us into D1 instead of D2. We also pretty much failed to save anyone as the vermeleks included the villagers in the mass inflict SLAs.
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"One with evil in their heart, such as you, will not enter the fort. You will stand under guard outside. Just be glad you are not killed on the spot."
"Who are you to judge whether I have committed evil in act or simply aligned myself with the most powerful? Besides, I am here at the invitation of your Queen."
Diplomacy check. 30. Insufficient. 4 lances pointed at neck.
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I'm also greatly concerned about the Cheliax faction mission. There is no good reason for Cheliax PCs to do what they are expected to do. Am I alone in thinking that I wouldn't come up with this?I believe I addressed this in another of your threads, but I'll reprint it.
The faction head letters that should be coming out on Monday will contain additional prompts with regards to faction goals. As these goals evolve, change, or are realized, the faction heads will send updates. It's a little early for me to toss out anything but an estimate, but I imagine we'll see a new letter from a given leader perhaps once every 3 months, meaning a letter will remain valid as an ongoing faction mission of sorts throughout that time.
And yes, faction head letters conclude with an out-of-character recommendation of which upcoming scenarios might be most relevant to a member of a given faction.
This is true for the Cheliax faction as well as for all other factions.
I just played this. I never got the "faction head letter" for August. I have one for April, wrapping up the back half of the Year of the Waking Rune.
All I got was the email dated 12 August that had this:
Cheliax: Secure important artifacts and sources of power to establish order in the Inner Sea region and strengthen the faction's power base.
So, naturally, I investigated anything that might have been an artifact. Surprise. This isn't what the scenario calls for.
Color me less than pleased.
I just played this. I never got the "faction head letter" for August. I have one for April, wrapping up the back half of the Year of the Waking Rune.
All I got was the email dated 12 August that had this:
Cheliax: Secure important artifacts and sources of power to establish order in the Inner Sea region and strengthen the faction's power base.So, naturally, I investigated anything that might have been an artifact. Surprise. This isn't what the scenario calls for.
Color me less than pleased.
All of the letters are in the Faction talk thread with thread titles of " XXXX Faction Status Report - Year of the Demon".
I have printed and laminated them and pass them around to players at the start of season 5 scenarios. This ensures that the players know what they need to do. I would recommend that all GMs do so, while telling the players where to find them and that they will be updated a few times over the course of the year.
This was not done - and I had email access at the con. Wasn't in my inbox. Que sera sera.
Is there a place where they're archived somewhere on the Paizo website?
Each of the factions have a thread with their name in it "XXXX Faction Status Report - Year of the Demon".
So if you are Andoran, look for the thread titled "Andoran Faction Status Report - Year of the Demon".
So, in other words, if you miss out on the emails, and don't lurk on the forums, you're at the mercy of your GM's prep habits.
Que sera sera. So much for semi-casual play.
Yes and No.
This is something new that they are trying, due in part to the feedback based on previous years faction missions.
Do you have a suggestion on what/how they could ensure that all players knew about their faction's current priorities?
Also, players do have to take some responsibility for their world knowledge and character.
Please also note that the rewards for completing faction missions are small boons - it is no longer a prestige point.
And finally, not all factions will have missions on each season 5 scenario. 2 or 3 of the factions will have a faction mission - current trend in season 5.
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So, in other words, if you miss out on the emails, and don't lurk on the forums, you're at the mercy of your GM's prep habits.
Que sera sera. So much for semi-casual play.
Pretty much, yes. I've taken to explicitly pointing people to the posts if Internet access is available, but the faction mission changes have been a cluster. On the bright side, it won't cost you prestige. And it will get better.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Do you have a suggestion on what/how they could ensure that all players knew about their faction's current priorities?
Include them as an appendix in the Guide to PFS Organized Play.
Barring that, make sure that they're available as a packet at conventions.
Also, players do have to take some responsibility for their world knowledge and character.
I disagree, with respect but also vigor. A player needs to do those things which the campaign tells players to do. "Read the Guide. Own the Core Rulebook. Keep your paperwork in order."
A player isn't responsible for searching out information the campaign doesn't tell her about.
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Cheliax: Secure important artifacts and sources of
power to establish order in the Inner Sea region and
strengthen the faction’s power base.
Ask the incredibly suspicious, demon possesed guy if there's a weak point in the fortress he's defending...
what?!?!? Or was there another message I've missed.
Cheliax: Secure important artifacts and sources of
power to establish order in the Inner Sea region and
strengthen the faction’s power base.Ask the incredibly suspicious, demon possesed guy if there's a weak point in the fortress he's defending...
what?!?!? Or was there another message I've missed.
You missed:
Ah, but what are our interests? I am researching several untapped sources of power—rather dark power—that will give us an edge in the days to come. The Chelish traditions of bargaining, deal-making, and binding have not been forgotten, and if we acquire enough arcane and planar might, Cheliax will certainly receive us again with open arms. Should you encounter other sources of magic that might give your allies pause, I leave it to your discretion as to whether we should add it to our arsenal or spurn it as too dangerous.
In the meantime, learn what you can about the crusaders’ foibles and their fortifications’ flaws. Our plans cannot come to fruition without that.
It can be found here
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Not in cheliax, but i haven't seen an email for any faction.
They really, REALLY need to bring that information out. Someone may be looking at the season goal listed in the guide and have no idea to even know to START looking for information there.
Looking at the andoran and silver crusade faction progress reports i don't see anything nearly as specific.
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This was a difficult scenario to run under a time crunch. We had about 4 hours, which I felt robbed the players, and myself, of roleplaying opportunities. I'm not sure if others feel the same, but I suggest setting aside a 6 hour block if you are confident your table will enjoy delving into the guts of the story and Sir Ilivan (perhaps literally).
Combat got underway pretty quickly at A1. The Ruins of Bedis. Subtier 6–7 allows for the rounds to add up quickly with the tools the "bad guys" have at their disposal. My group of players had mostly ranged combatants. It got to a point where it was obvious that the players were going to end up victorious, but that it would take many more rounds (funless, by this point) to pull it off. I decided to call the fight and move on. No one was unhappy about this.
The highest Diplomacy modifier my players had was a +4 with an APL of 5.88. When Sir Ilivan suggested avoiding fights, most of the table agreed. This set the players against each other when one or two were forced to take action and the others followed out of a sense of duty. This severely limited the opportunities for a Diplomacy check in all three cases because the player characters weren't effectively reasoning with Sir Ilivan, nor were they granting him awareness of his issues.
The players completed the primary and secondary success conditions and one of the three players was able to satisfy his faction boon condition(s). That said, there was strong disappointment at the table with the ending after they faced down Sir Ilivan. It became apparent to them in the debriefing that something had gone terribly wrong and that they could have influenced it, but that the odds were stacked against them.
There was discussion about the limitations of the Diplomacy checks and the lack of their ability to influence those checks through their actions. I paraphrased what they had been experiencing of Sir Ilivan throughout the patrol as further debriefing: he is deeply disturbed, unempathetic, and afraid to lose control after the past possession of a shadow demon. This didn't seem to satisfy them completely and I couldn't help but to think to myself about player character choices.