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Okay, after having to throw this one together last minute, am I the first to run it? Because this scenario is pure awesome.
Yet another Mission: Impossible, with a Narnia bust that turns into an awesome item and lots of skill focused investigation. My brother got a bit of a Mansions of Madness vibe from the deck of clues and texts.
This definitely needs more time to prep, but ad-libbing the Guardian was quite enjoyable, and my players almost figured out the riddle to avoid the fight. However, with a bardbarian and summoner in the party, neither fight was too challenging. (1-2 subtier)
Anyone else run it, or have particular questions?
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GMing this tomorrow, and while I think this scenario is awesome, after a read through I have some questions that I hope John or Kyle can chime in on:
1) How are PCs supposed to know what book they are looking for on Princess Eutropia’s behalf, especially if they don’t make the check and have the knowledge about what she wants, since it says the letter is unsigned? Does the letter itself specify the name of the text, or merely give direction to the kind of information (i.e., line of succession)?
2) The checks for research seem very limited, and I worry about random party composition. It does say to allow other checks, so what do people think is fair for a penalty to straight INT checks for research? Or should there be any penalty? (-2 to -5 suggested for other skills)
3) As Steve asked, which is the correct cipher? I don’t have time to try them all out, and I want to know so if PCs have the right one but make a mistake in working it out.
4) Did I miss the giving of the Cheliax Faction Mission? I see Taldor and GL, but nothing specified for Cheliax. Is this one they are supposed to know from season goals?
5) Why no deception points for avoiding Iliyana entirely?
Really looking forward to running this. I just wish I could do a James Earl Jones voice for The Guardian!
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I have only had a chance to skim it yet, but it already is one of my favorites. It seems like it is going to be a lot of work to prep though. Time to practice up my Guardian voice.
2) The checks for research seem very limited, and I worry about random party composition. It does say to allow other checks, so what do people think is fair for a penalty to straight INT checks for research? Or should there be any penalty? (-2 to -5 suggested for other skills)
I would be reluctant to allow straight INT checks, since the point seems to be to creatively use skills or magic to search the library. That said I plan to be pretty liberal about allowing the players to justify creative skill uses.
Developer
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Each cipher is designed to take an interested player about 3 minutes to puzzle out while everything is happening--enough to feel significant but not enough to be a serious burden.
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Developer
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Another question regarding B11: I see how the clues let you know which of the 4 to use, but the order of them isn’t clear from clues. How should they know the order? It isn’t the order of the rooms they discover the clues in.
Each clue has a numerical hint in it, such "must FIRST know history" or " a lie told twice..."
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 4
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Take the text you want to encode, apply the cipher rule to get the encoded message.
Working backwards from what the PCs have (K Y V W K C E C O O M I M E C F G C Q F C),
H V S T H Z B Z L L J F J B Z C D Z N C Z
M A X Y M E G E Q Q O K O G E H I E S H E
Use consonants from the top row, use vowels from the bottom row.
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1) How are PCs supposed to know what book they are looking for on Princess Eutropia’s behalf, especially if they don’t make the check and have the knowledge about what she wants, since it says the letter is unsigned? Does the letter itself specify the name of the text, or merely give direction to the kind of information (i.e., line of succession)?
Interestingly enough, the players will learn who their patron is without making the knowledge check to ID the seal, since the handout for Lines of Succession specifically tells them this is what they are looking for. As far as I can tell, there is no mention in the scenario about what exactly they need for their 'mysterious' patron other than the oblique reference from the knowledge check.
2) The checks for research seem very limited, and I worry about random party composition. It does say to allow other checks, so what do people think is fair for a penalty to straight INT checks for research? Or should there be any penalty? (-2 to -5 suggested for other skills)
I allowed Perception checks at a -2, but that may have been too lenient. Of course, since the 4th level PC was making checks in the range of 25-28, it was kind of moot.
3) As Steve asked, which is the correct cipher? I don’t have time to try them all out, and I want to know so if PCs have the right one but make a mistake in working it out.
Sadly, I had no Grand Lodge PCs, so this was just a red herring to my party.
4) Did I miss the giving of the Cheliax Faction Mission? I see Taldor and GL, but nothing specified for Cheliax. Is this one they are supposed to know from season goals?
It is part of the season goals, yes. I allowed my Cheliax PC an Int or Wis check to realize it was something useful to their faction goal.
5) Why no deception points for avoiding Iliyana entirely?
Deception points seemed to be awarded more for making sure to cover up any evidence rather than not leave any behind. If they don't meet her, she doesn't actively deceive the Lion Blades about the break-in.
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Developer
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Area B3 is a small room at 4x7. I assume area B4 is also a small room at 4x8?
Oh, a size word never made it into the description for this room. Please treat it as a medium room. An earlier version of the adventure defined the rooms' sizes by their area, but I later cut that in the interest of sparing GMs unnecessary calculations on the fly.
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Running this tomorrow. It was a great read. As a fan of Taldor, I can see some future development into a possbile storyline along the line of returning greatness to the empire. Maybe an Empress is needed.
Just checked my roster of players:
2 Qadirans
1 Taldan
2 Osirion
1 Andoran
So it should be interesting.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 4
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Folks had a great time this evening. I figured there would be sadness at the low number of encounters (if they avoid most), but there really wasn't. Only had half a fight before they fled the books.
B11 needs Enemy Analysis added to its discovery section.
Also ran out of Taldan Ciphers by the point the text says room contains one random Taldan cipher.
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I'm running this tomorrow and am worried that it just seems so much harder for low tier PCs. Making all of the perception and perform checks that help you in avoiding combat and clue you in with helpful information is ridiculously easier for 4-5. Is there supposed to be any scaling on those checks?
Also, how come the DC to diplomacize the Guardian is 22? For indifferent, I thought it was 15+(Cha modifier). This one I'm just curious about.
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Developer
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I'm running this tomorrow and am worried that it just seems so much harder for low tier PCs. Making all of the perception and perform checks that help you in avoiding combat and clue you in with helpful information is ridiculously easier for 4-5. Is there supposed to be any scaling on those checks?
Also, how come the DC to diplomacize the Guardian is 22? For indifferent, I thought it was 15+(Cha modifier). This one I'm just curious about.
The DC 22 bit refers to the Intimidate DC, which is based off it's HD. Calculate Diplomacy normally.
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The cipher appears to be incorrect in the scenario.
It says: consonants three places after, vowels two places before
It should say: consonants three places before, vowels two places after
This led to a lot of confusion at the table I played at. In the future, please double check things like this before publishing.
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The cipher appears to be incorrect in the scenario.
It is not. What the PCs have is the encoded message after the cipher has been applied. The first letter of the message is H, and the first letter of the encoded message is K, which is the third letter after H. Y is two letter before A, and follows the rule for vowels.
Your players appear to have mistaken the handout as instructions for decoding the cipher, when they had instructions for encoding and needed to reverse the process. If the instructions to encode were as you say here, H would encode to E and A would encode to C.
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This barely ran for 2 hours and my players avoided all of the combat encounters and also the blind caretaker (they used one of the clue books to determine that there weren't any books in that room).I had no Grand Lodge or Taldor PCs, and only 1 for Cheliax. Did anyone else notice that this ran fairly short?
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I made a quick chart/checklist on Google docs to help keep track of the deception points and success conditions. If anyone finds useful it is located here.
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Developer
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I would not shuffle them back in for two reasons:
1) It reduces the chance that the PCs will uncover mission-critical texts, such as Taldan Ciphers.
2) The number of clues found is important for calculating the PCs' gold earned.
As a result, allow the random texts deck to become smaller and smaller. It ensures that researching PCs will be increasingly likely to find what they need and allows for easier GM bookkeeping.
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I played this and it was fun. However, I had serious misgivings about the magical item found in it.
Namely, it's a fragile shield that cannot be upgraded. Nor can it be afforded by any character before level 7 or so, if they save all their money for the fragile shield.
I guess I just don't see the point of the item, other than simply a role playing tool for characters to keep in their backpack when they are much higher level.
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I don't understand what you mean by 'fragile'. Glorymane is a +2 heavy shield. Maybe not something for a dedicated shield fighter who would want upgrades, but certainly handy for a character that wants the option.
I was reading the bronze entry, which gives the shield the fragile property . However, I missed that the fragile entry has an apparent disclaimer that fragile magic shields like Glorymane don't break when crit like other fragile armors do.
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I don't understand what you mean by 'fragile'. Glorymane is a +2 heavy shield. Maybe not something for a dedicated shield fighter who would want upgrades, but certainly handy for a character that wants the option.
Not only this, but my Taldan cavalier would trade his +3 heavy shield straight up for this shield, even if it's only special abilities were sentience and speech. A hit of -1 to my AC would be so worth it to me to have it regularly chiding Sir Garadoch as a, "Still wet-behind-the-ears, mouth-breathing buffoon" and such. I would think that players would remember this from a table long after they forgot who did 170 points of damage in round 1. YMMV
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I would not shuffle them back in for two reasons:
1) It reduces the chance that the PCs will uncover mission-critical texts, such as Taldan Ciphers.
2) The number of clues found is important for calculating the PCs' gold earned.
As a result, allow the random texts deck to become smaller and smaller. It ensures that researching PCs will be increasingly likely to find what they need and allows for easier GM bookkeeping.
And PC's gold tied to number of clues discovered - something else I missed when running it.
Seriously, John, Kyle, this was a FUN scenario to run, HORRID to prepare. IMO, WAY TOO MANY special little mechanics for one scenario. I enjoyed the mini card deck (and apparently ran that mechanic correctly), the NPC's (the Taldan VC, Gloriana, and Glorymane were played to the hilt, I would say. :D), and the investigatory/stealth style of the scenario. Oh, and the background story was excellent. Again, though, the insertion of too many 'things' (card mechanic, cypher, deception points, etc, etc), made it a pain in my opinion. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I'd like more scenarios like this, but with a few less mechanics 'gizmos' and a lot less editorial typos (directions in box text and GM description often didnt match the map, other typos required too much red-penning for it to read as intended, I believe).
That said, the good points are great enough that this is one my favorite PFS scenarios ever.
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My PCs enjoyed it, but the cipher stumped the Grand Lodge PCs. Even I was initially confused as they explained it to me. Their problem was that they were essentially /re/ciphering it as opposed to /de/ciphering it (instead of working backwards, they worked forwards). They spent about an hour on it in real time, but I didn't penalize them for it. I didn't want them to basically lose the scenario by getting hung up on a faction mission that wasn't critical to the story. They did miss out on the boon, however.
Other than that little hiccup, the scenario was enjoyed by all (including me). I'm going to run it again next week!
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Played this last night, and had a really good time of it! We managed to jump to the last room, which made B10 - (following a good Asmodean plan of always going to the left-most choice), so didn't have enough of the clues for B11. Even so, we might have messed this up, due to mis-guessing which statue meant what.
Finding the information for secret door in The Rare Books Collection was a challenge. We spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what we as players (all experienced PFS'ers... including 2 V-Ls), and came up pretty much blank. Our GM dug and found the reference on p5 with the following:
The scroll tube contains an unsigned letter that describes many of the mission’s details from Princess Eutropia’s perspective as well as a formal request signed by the Arch-Exarch Gregorius to admit the bearers to the Kitharodian Academy’s rare books collection. The princess’s letter also explains that the Pathfinders can find the hidden entrance to the archive by studying honor, courage, and glory.
(bolding mine)
I assume a GM should read (or paraphrase) this to players when they check out the scroll tube (that they are given). Without the bolded sentance, it is going to be merely by chance that they get this! We've been debating on the best way to handle this, though I am thinking just reading the above sentence would likely be the best.
We really enjoyed the interactions with Glorymane, and there was a bit of a "discussion" between my Inquisitor and the gnomish cleric of Torag who'd get to carry him! What a neat magic item (and at this point, far more useful than Gamin!). I am pretty sure that Faustus will be saving up for him... even though I am not sure that a Lion Shield will go well with the Hellknight's Armor he'll eventually be purchasing!
More on this later... just some early observations. I am planning on doing a good amount of prep on this one... it will need it!
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This involved quite a lot of prepping, but it was definitely worth it. My players appreciated having the chance to avoid combat entirely, and were engaged in solving the puzzles. I suspect that the absence of chaff encounters was appreciated; I was running it for veterans.
I'll admit I stumbled a bit when my players wanted to know more about the administrator. After they interviewed The Guardian and the Caretaker, and having them allude to him twice, my players started asking about his name and appearance. I suppose they were expecting him to be the Big Bad. Having some titles for the Hidden Vault books vaguely in my head helped, This is definitely one where you need to sit down with a some blank paper to help prepare.
Regarding Talbanus' view of having too many gizmos in it, I actually found it fairly easy to keep track of. Players enjoy receiving cards I think. I made a cheat sheet for the deception points and went through most of it at the end, ticking them off retroactively. They were more minor than they seem. There is surprisingly little that needs to be accounted for when keeping time, other than that you keep it being the only real chore. Perhaps other peoples experience is different. I didn't think it was too much, so long as you are ready.
The only things I found difficult to prepare for, and tripped me up a bit, was giving an impression of just what book the PCs were looking for, beyond just a "you'll know it when you see it" in the back of the dungeon. In the end I told them that they would be investigating Taldane royal successions. The clue in Eutropia's letter was hard to point out in a natural way. These were small things, but they tested me as a novice GM. It was a layout/editing/presentation thing I think.
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Just bought and read this this morning, and there is one big question that I need to ask...
Okay, so the scenario says that if the PCs are captured by the Lion Blades, they can either give up Eutropia's letter or be imprisoned, after which they spend five prestige and are then released.
What about if the PCs kill the Lion Blades but leave Tobias and/or Ilyana alive? What happens then?
-Matt
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Just bought and read this this morning, and there is one big question that I need to ask...
Okay, so the scenario says that if the PCs are captured by the Lion Blades, they can either give up Eutropia's letter or be imprisoned, after which they spend five prestige and are then released.
What about if the PCs kill the Lion Blades but leave Tobias and/or Ilyana alive? What happens then?
-Matt
Nothing should change for Iliyana's notes about her deception points in this circumstance.
The only way for the Lion Blades to be alerted is by Tobias. If the PC's fight the Lion Blades at the end, then they are not awarded the 3 points from Tobias's entry on deception points. However...they may still earn the 1 point if they attempted to hide their way finders.
The PC's can still get 15 deception points, JUST BARELY, if they do everything else perfect and end up fighting the lion blades at the end.
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The PC's can still get 15 deception points, JUST BARELY, if they do everything else perfect and end up fighting the lion blades at the end.
What has me really stumped, though, is the prospect of the PCs dealing with the Lion Blades peacefully, and thus having to either give up the letter or spend 5 Prestige, as well as all the books they have recovered, being more detrimental to their mission than just killing the Lion Blades.
Here, dealing with them peacefully costs the PCs three of the six possible secondary goals (avoid alerting them, avoid giving away Eutropia's letter, recover three Shining Crusade texts), on top of costing the PCs their Primary Success Condition (no texts, no Prestige Point), while fighting them costs them only two of the six goals (avoid alerting them, avoid combat with them) and they still can achieve the Primary Success Condition.
Doesn't that sound strange to you, too? Am I missing something?
-Matt
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Doesn't that sound strange to you, too? Am I missing something?
Only that the developers can't codify every possible outcome. It seems an obvious one with hindsight, but then hindsight is like that.
Deception points are about hiding that anyone has been in the secret library, and they don't care about folks in the main building - which may or may not be relevant.
So if you kill them, clean up, and put their bodies outside the secret library you are good. Though we don't have leeway to penalize if they don't, we can hint that they should.
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Played this yesterday. Had a great time on tier 4-5 with 4 players, only experienced 1 combat. Was really surprised when we got told what we could've triggered if things went sour.
I've left a review with details on improvement points. Advice for GMs, consider how you're going to get players to do research - make it as simple as possible.
Also ensure you have the solutions to the cipher mentioned by John above. With only 1 card (the cipher itself), we really struggled to work out what we were doing wrong. I'd go so far as to suggest to the player that "you think you've made about as much sense of it as you can" to get their focus, as a player, back to the rest of the game. It's slightly unrealistic, but it'll save them some unnecessary grief.
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The PC's can still get 15 deception points, JUST BARELY, if they do everything else perfect and end up fighting the lion blades at the end.What has me really stumped, though, is the prospect of the PCs dealing with the Lion Blades peacefully, and thus having to either give up the letter or spend 5 Prestige, as well as all the books they have recovered, being more detrimental to their mission than just killing the Lion Blades.
Here, dealing with them peacefully costs the PCs three of the six possible secondary goals (avoid alerting them, avoid giving away Eutropia's letter, recover three Shining Crusade texts), on top of costing the PCs their Primary Success Condition (no texts, no Prestige Point), while fighting them costs them only two of the six goals (avoid alerting them, avoid combat with them) and they still can achieve the Primary Success Condition.
Doesn't that sound strange to you, too? Am I missing something?
-Matt
From how I am reading it in the section describing the Lion Blade possible encounter, if the PCs negotiate their way out of it (A very difficult proposition) the Lion Blades have no mention of searching the PCs in this event.
It only mentions they will search the PCs if they turn over the letter.
In terms of sounding strange...
You can have the party spend 5 prestige each to avoid giving away the letter, keeping that as a possible victory condition to keep. You can use the potions of invisibility they are given at the beginning to "escape" them, and thus avoid the combat.
There is also the option of "Ummmm.......RUN!" and the PCs could end up splitting up to escape being caught red handed as a group.
There are plenty of options not covered in the text as to how the players can get past the Lion Blades or avoid that combat all together, but in general I think the primary situations are covered. The hard part with any "caper" style scenario is providing the GM planned options for the most likely decisions the players will make.
Knowing the depth of my local player base...there is no way one scenario could cover EVERY single outcome they could come up with.