I played this on Sunday and it was ok. I had a lot of fun playing with Mythic Powers (the Behir battle was great!) as well as the role-play segments, but the Secondary Objective failed me again.
I really do hate how it is handled now, I would welcome the faction missions back with open arms, but at the end of the scenario our GM read off the requirements and we fulfilled only three of them.
We saved Nefti and Kafar and attained the journal. There were also requirements of getting some sort of ciphers as well, and that would have been fine if we were given ANY indication for it. However, there was absolutely nothing.
We made our diplomacy rolls with Nefti and Kafar, they even gave up the information of the topaz and phony bill of sales, but said absolutely nothing about any ciphers.
Our GM did say that they would not have given up the ciphers at all and the only way we would have gotten/found them if we killed them (which was an option to fulfill the objective).
If I fail at my Diplomacy check to get all information/items or miss my Perception check to notice the missing item, I can understand that. But when I am not given ANY info at all on what the secondary objective is, I hate that as there is just no way to guess something like this.
I don't know if this was a failing of the GM, on something he missed or the writing of the scenario, but when he read off getting the ciphers as well, we were like "Wait, what ciphers?"
So enjoyed the scenario overall, but very unhappy about how the secondary objective is handled, or how they are handled in general.
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The sizing change, RAW, applies to 'natural and manufactured weapons'. A 'breath weapon' should keep the original damage dice. Were it a natural weapon or manufactured weapon, it should drop to 4d8.
Citation, please? (Not doubting you, just looking for the line that I missed, because I pored over books for half an hour looking for something like this.)
Does this mean constrict damage isn't affected either?
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I don't know if this was a failing of the GM, on something he missed or the writing of the scenario, but when he read off getting the ciphers as well, we were like "Wait, what ciphers?"
So enjoyed the scenario overall, but very unhappy about how the secondary objective is handled, or how they are handled in general.
Hobbun, you should have gotten your second prestige point. Recruiting Kafar and Nefti count as two of the four goals for each agent. So getting them both together equals the four items needed.
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Constrict damage RAW shouldn't change, but most definitely RAI should:
Constrict (Ex) A creature with this special attack can crush an opponent, dealing bludgeoning damage, when it makes a successful grapple check (in addition to any other effects caused by a successful check, including additional damage). The amount of damage is given in the creature's entry and is typically equal to the amount of damage caused by the creature's melee attack.
Bolding mine. I don't know where Jokon is finding the for natural and manufactured weapons, but I'm looking.
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Citation, please? (Not doubting you, just looking for the line that I missed, because I pored over books for half an hour looking for something like this.)
Does this mean constrict damage isn't affected either?
Correct. The young template says 'Attacks decrease damage dice by 1 step'. Constrict and breath weapons fall under Special Attacks.
Edit: And Nathan is correct about the constrict damage. Good to know!
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Hobbun, you should have gotten your second prestige point. Recruiting Kafar and Nefti count as two of the four goals for each agent. So getting them both together equals the four items needed.I don't know if this was a failing of the GM, on something he missed or the writing of the scenario, but when he read off getting the ciphers as well, we were like "Wait, what ciphers?"
So enjoyed the scenario overall, but very unhappy about how the secondary objective is handled, or how they are handled in general.
This is true so long as your group did recruit them and not just give them a slap on the wrist with an admonition to not misbehave in the future.
The secondary success conditions for this scenario are designed in such a way that players can accomplish it either by recruiting the two agents, killing them (and finding the ciphers) or some combination of the two, though mixing and matching is a little tough.
You could have searched their belongings, prompting the Perception checks (one was in a pouched scarf, the other in a false bottomed scabbard).
Where we made our diplomacy check on receiving the topaz and bill of sales (including the phony one), they gave them to us and we didn’t go as far to strip their supplies and search them thoroughly (why would we as we had everything we were told we needed?), so therefore we weren’t able to ‘find’ the hidden ciphers.
Hobbun, you should have gotten your second prestige point. Recruiting Kafar and Nefti count as two of the four goals for each agent. So getting them both together equals the four items needed.
TOZ, there was apparently four requirements that needed to be met. A combination of either killing or capturing both of them (two requirements), getting the journal (one requirement) or getting the two ciphers (would fill two of them). So apparently you needed to get at least one of the ciphers to fill all four requirements.
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TOZ, there was apparently four requirements that needed to be met. A combination of either killing or capturing both of them (two requirements)
I take it you did NOT recruit them into the society then, as recruiting Kafar counts as two requirements and recruiting Nefti counts as two requirements.
Were they waiting for you when you left the sanctum, or had they escaped while you were dealing with the final encounters?
No, actually we did. We made the offer to them, they said they were interested. Although when we left the sanctum, that’s where we left off, our GM didn’t address them walking back with us, but he didn’t say they ran off, either. But we made it clear we were offering them to join us in Pathfinder Society and they were open to it.
I will need to bring this up to our GM, I believe this was missed when we went over the requirement list. Thank you.
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After gathering post-run feedback and reviewing the scenario, I messed up a few things that I thought others might want to watch out for:
- The Behir's cliff is 40' high. Somehow I completely missed that over multiple readings, so during play I pulled a number (8') out of the air to keep things moving. Oops.
- I remembered to make perception checks to spot Nefti's belt pouch for the first character to see the Akatas, but then promptly forgot for the rest.
- Finally, I didn't do a thorough job describing the puzzle room. Spend a little extra time and/or care to make sure your players have a clear picture.
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I am giving this feedback solely from the perspective a GM who hasn't played an actual scenario in over two years. I take honing my GMing skills very seriously, and put an utmost importance on player enjoyment - above all else.
This scenario runs long. There are a lot of words. It is not at all accommodating towards parties of players who like to stop and look around and roleplay.
As a word of feedback to TPTB, please take it easy on the GMs. I savor the Golarion-shattering scenarios - as this one is - but when you know that the scenario you are writing is important, give some leeway and time for the players to process. Remember that the most important priority is that the players have fun - not to fill the scenario chock-full of encounters.
By the time we got to the behir encounter, I knew that we were running behind, so I skipped it.
I also skipped the whole chase flow chart, and had the characters actually physically chase Nefti and Kafar through the flip-map, basing their distance in a subjective manner of how they did with the Chase Points up to that point. I think it went very well, as there was an actual sense of chase when they saw the miniatures moving on the map.
The players did not notice any difference at all, and very much enjoyed exploring around, and digesting the information.
Also, during the combat in the age-old temple, in order to run it, I had two Bestiaries open in front of me, as well as the Core Rulebook to refer to (because I don't have the whole thing memorized), and the pages of the scenario. I was taking up an ungodly amount of table space just to run that encounter, and almost injured my neck looking back and forth to make sure I did not miss anything.
My point is, please take it easy on the GMs. We have stress to keep it within four hours at my gaming store, plus the stress of running the scenario to the letter, and also all the administrative paperwork and juggling the numbers from the books and the scenario. The least the creators of a scenario can do is consolidate data, and lessen the extraneous non-important facets of the scenario.
Oh, we spent the first half-four of the scenario going over the mythic powers. No one had the Mythic Powers book on them, or were familiar with mythic powers, so we spent some time digesting and figuring that stuff out. I also do not have a copy of the Advanced Player's Guide on me, so I had to rely on a player's memory of how the alchemist's bombs work.
Was it really necessary to have all the pages of text dealing with all the various possible outcomes of the exchanges between the characters and Nefti and Kafar? And the conversation between Amenopheus and the Diamond Sage? Or, how the characters can get from area A1 to A3 - never mind that area A2 isn't even detailed. Really, I could have boiled it down to a set of bullet-points detailing the motivations and box text of what is actually said.
Just put yourself in the position of a GM, who wants to run the best table possible, with a table full of players looking at you, as you are searching through pages of text looking for the correct answer.
In short, it's a great scenario that brings to light some very important Golarion mythology. I prepared the scenario properly, but I did not have every letter of the darn thing memorized.
Ryan,
That’s a shame you needed to cut the Behir combat. I found that that to be the most fun combat of the scenario, and I am not saying that in a negative sense in regards to the other combats of the scenario, I just found the battle with the Behir to be very enjoyable.
Although with only having 4 hours to run at the store, that is pretty rough, so I understand. I know there would have been quite a few scenarios we would have had to pick up next week if we had a strict 4-hour time limit, this one included.
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With respect to the "books on the table" issue, I usually copy, write, or type out monsters' stat blocks before coming to the table just so I don't have to have the Bestiaries or NPC codex with me when I run.
I run this adventure tonight, so I'll see how it goes time-wise.
This is why i'd really like to see the scenarios ditch the print paradigms of space and layout and have all the monster stat blocks included and, more importantly, all on one page.
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This is why i'd really like to see the scenarios ditch the print paradigms of space and layout and have all the monster stat blocks included and, more importantly, all on one page.
This. 1000x this. Worrying about page count in product that is never going to be released in printed form is a waste, especially when it severely hampers the usability of said product.
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I actually don't mind the lack of statblocks - I find that having to add templates and things makes me really read over monster abilities. In essence, I've found that it's improved my preparation (though added to the time I have to spend.)
Speaking to that, since no one had gotten around to it yet, I just uploaded my prep document to the GM's Shared Google Drive, in case it's useful for anyone else. Use with caution; I'm not sure about some of the applied templates.
Question about A1: The sheet of beaten gold with the ritual is written in Aklo and describes a ritual to be done. The ritual does not require being able to understand Aklo. With these descriptions, I'd rule that if no one in the party speaks Aklo, then you can't learn about the ritual at all, so no one can actually do it. If one person understands Aklo, then everyone in the party can complete the ritual. Sound correct?
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I figured the ritual was in picture form the way goblins write, which allowed for the ritual to be performed, but I don't suppose it matters too much.
Maybe, but without the description of what the ritual is, people might be more reluctant to do it. That's my concern, I guess - are people discouraged from earning the boon if they don't 1) have a party member who speaks Aklo, or 2) have a party member with the ability to comprehend languages or something similar.
In the absence of an official weighing-in on this, I'll run it as I interpret, I guess. More and more I'm seeing an expectation that Pathfinders in the field have some way to read a variety of languages, which as far as I'm concerned is a Good Thing (TM). (Case in point: No secondary prestige for DotS part 2 unless you have Linguistics or can speak Ancient Osiriani.)
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I actually don't mind the lack of statblocks - I find that having to add templates and things makes me really read over monster abilities. In essence, I've found that it's improved my preparation (though added to the time I have to spend.)
I believe that forcing GMs to build stat blocks is punitive (it's forcing for me, anyway. I can't apply Advanced and Savage to the same creature in my head). As you noted, it increases prep time, which discourages GMing. Shouldn't we be lowering, not raising the barriers to GMing? Even when sufficient time is available, I feel it could be better spent elsewhere. Finally, even if scenarios included the stat blocks, one could still apply the template(s) manually if desired. Why not give people the choice? Do the work once so that every GM that runs the scenario doesn't have to do it.
Question about A1: The sheet of beaten gold with the ritual is written in Aklo and describes a ritual to be done. The ritual does not require being able to understand Aklo. With these descriptions, I'd rule that if no one in the party speaks Aklo, then you can't learn about the ritual at all, so no one can actually do it. If one person understands Aklo, then everyone in the party can complete the ritual. Sound correct?
That's the way I interpreted it.
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I actually don't mind the lack of statblocks - I find that having to add templates and things makes me really read over monster abilities. In essence, I've found that it's improved my preparation (though added to the time I have to spend.)I believe that forcing GMs to build stat blocks is punitive (it's forcing for me, anyway. I can't apply Advanced and Savage to the same creature in my head). As you noted, it increases prep time, which discourages GMing. Shouldn't we be lowering, not raising the barriers to GMing? Even when sufficient time is available, I feel it could be better spent elsewhere. Finally, even if scenarios included the stat blocks, one could still apply the template(s) manually if desired. Why not give people the choice? Do the work once so that every GM that runs the scenario doesn't have to do it.
I'm just going to respond to this, and then stop on this topic since we're derailing a thread that's useful to GMs in this scenario specifically, but have you made use of the Shared GM Drive? If I didn't have the time/want to spend the time doing statblocks for templated monsters, I'd just head over there and download someone else's work. I do respect your position and your views on lowering the barriers to GM entry, and the drive makes the best of a situation in which GMs don't have the choice.
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No, actually we did. We made the offer to them, they said they were interested. Although when we left the sanctum, that’s where we left off, our GM didn’t address them walking back with us, but he didn’t say they ran off, either. But we made it clear we were offering them to join us in Pathfinder Society and they were open to it.
I will need to bring this up to our GM, I believe this was missed when we went over the requirement list. Thank you.
Hobbun. It seems you might have been cheated. Converting either Kafar or Nefti to the Pathfinder society was two points. If you do that, they should give you the info on the ciphers automatically. You also got the journal so you earned your 4 points. I'd talk to the GM about it when you see him again.
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Ran it last night.
1) LONG. I had a table with 3 characters and a pregen, at low tier. They were very snappy, to the point of beating the behir within two rounds. It still ran almost 4.5 hours with this pace, and I shudder to think how long it would have gone with 6 people at the table.
2) Confusing new subsystem. Mythic Powers are kinda cool, and it was neat to give people a taste of them at the table, but there was a LOT of confusion as to what the powers did. The Versatile Surge feature especially - while nice, because it had options for all types of characters - meant that there were huge numbers of options to keep in mind when spending mythic power.
3) Tone problems. Mythic powers spur people to get epic in their descriptions, actions and whatnot. First of all, the time constraints made this a very complicated thing to encourage. Second, this is not the tone of a standard PFS scenario, so you're asking people (with very little prompting) to go over-the-top with descriptions. This isn't something they've built their characters with in mind, and as a result, it's hard to expect them to suddenly change narrative gears in organized play.
4) The puzzle. In my opinion, there are TOO MANY statue possibilities. 14 statues with 4 lanterns = 56 possibilities. Even with all of the different ways to narrow it down, the problem was overwhelming. I had the players successfully identify from the style of the holes which gem went in which hole, and know which lantern went with which gem. When they tried to identify which statue was pointing in the correct directions and I laid out the K(E) check and what it would get them, the players just said, "Well, screw it, we'll just smash the statues and deal with the lanterns later."
I really liked this scenario; it was a lot of fun, with an interesting plot and some nice twists - but it needs 6 hours to do it justice, the first 45 minutes of which needs to be making sure that the players are aware of the mythic options that would best suit them, and a quick discussion about the tone of mythic adventures and how it differs from normal PFS tone.
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4) The puzzle. In my opinion, there are TOO MANY statue possibilities. 14 statues with 4 lanterns = 56 possibilities.
Just 14 possibilities (lamps are identical), but 14 options with 4 picks where order doesn't matter = 1001 combinations. (Order doesn't matter since, again, the lamps are identical). That's the odds of doing this correctly at random. (4 in 14, times 3 in 13, times 2 in 12, times 1 in 11, of choosing a correct statue)
Knowing the correct gems/colors/order reduces this to at most 14 tries, since you don't have to try a statue more than once to determine whether is shines the correct light on the correct spot.
The Perception checks to ID don't really speed this up too much, since you still have to check all the rest until you find the right one. The Knowledge (engineering) check is just a way to check a statue (or multiple) without moving the lamps around.
It essentially all hinges on the initial Appraise or Knowledge (history) check to ID the gems. The check to "know the order of light" is useless without knowing that is the correct order to put it in. If you don't know what you're doing, you're back to the 1001 combinations.
Edit: GMs, what you need to be able to tell players is what each of the 'wrong' statues do with lanterns in their hands. That means coming up with 10 'wrong' combos that you use consistently. If you tell the PCs the light is one thing with one lamp, and another with another lamp, that will add to the confusion.
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I'm just going to respond to this, and then stop on this topic since we're derailing a thread that's useful to GMs in this scenario specifically, but have you made use of the Shared GM Drive? If I didn't have the time/want to spend the time doing statblocks for templated monsters, I'd just head over there and download someone else's work. I do respect your position and your views on lowering the barriers to GM entry, and the drive makes the best of a situation in which GMs don't have the choice.
I appreciate you respecting my opinion. And yes, I do use the drive and it is fantastically helpful (thank you). Unfortunately, in this particular case, when I prepped the scenario two days after release, there was nothing there yet. Come to think of it, I should have uploaded the stat blocks I generated. I will remedy that tonight.
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Hell, I though the puzzle was too simple. Just swap lanterns until you get the right one. I thought we actually had to do some angle calculation at first.
It could be that I misunderstood the puzzle...I thought that the lamps themselves were intended to be interchangeable, so that the only thing that mattered was getting *a* lamp into the hand of each of the four correct statutes. But even if that is correct, you guys did get very, very lucky when you place two of the lamps.
BTW Doing calculations (with knowledge engineering, IIRC) is an option.
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Lots of different checks can help the PCs. Engineering is one of them.
A PC may attempt one
DC 15 Knowledge (engineering) check to study the angles
between the statues and the door. On a successful check,
the PC learns what type of light—and where it would
shine—one statue of his choice would produce if it held
a lamp. For every 5 points by which the PC exceeds this
DC, he learns the same information about another statue.
Brief summary
Appraise or History to recognize the different carvings on the door with respective colors.Intelligence, Arcana or Nature to remember the colors of the light spectrum.
Perception to ID one statue looking like Amenopheus or the Ruby Sage
Engineering to determine if a statue is correct or not.
Question for everyone who's run this so far: Are you prompting them for these checks or are your players asking you to do these checks? I feel like my PCs aren't very good at coming up with good usages for skills and they need lots of prompting to things like this.
Hobbun. It seems you might have been cheated. Converting either Kafar or Nefti to the Pathfinder society was two points. If you do that, they should give you the info on the ciphers automatically. You also got the journal so you earned your 4 points. I'd talk to the GM about it when you see him again.
Where we were cheated, I know it's something he didn't do on purpose as he just isn't that kind of person. Great GM and enjoyable to play under. I think he just missed that it fulfills two requirements if you recruit each of Kafar and Nefti. And we recruited both.
I see he is signed up to play at another table (on Warhorn) for Sunday, so I'll talk to him then.
Thanks.
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Because they are on the wrong statues. The rays from where they start shine on two of the gems, but are the wrong color due to improper angles. So the PCs know that those four will not light the correct spots regardless of which lamp they place on them.
That is... incredibly counterintuitive. I know OMG MAJICKZ and everything, but a white light shining in a given spot is green at one angle and blue at another just really confuses the description of the situation. This would have been much simpler to understand if the four lanterns shone at four spots on the floor that weren't the gemstones.
[edit] Went back and read the description again, and I somehow missed the "refracting off the jeweled door" part of the description. I withdraw my complaints.
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Now I'm confused. If the lamps are identical, then how is this possible:
At the start of the encounter, none of the lamps are in the correct position, but their configuration illuminates two of the gem carvings with the incorrect colors.
Jeff, I'm not seeing anything stating that the lamps are identical. Where are you seeing that?
How I'm reading it is that there's 4 lamps and each one is lit with bright white light.
The statues are carved in the Osiran fashion, some
bearing the heads of animals, and many holding objects like
staves, ankhs, oil lamps, and scepters in their supple marble
hands.When the light fades,
Amenopheus is trapped within a crystalline prism like
an insect sealed in amber, and the four oil lamps held
by the statues have lit with bright white light.
What I'm *inferring* is that there is some differences in the construction of each lamp that causes the light coming from it to show up a specific color on the wall and based on the statue, it will shine on a random part of the wall. That way the PCs have to put the correct statue in the correct statue's hand. If they put the wrong lamp on a good statue, it'll light up one of the carvings, but not the correct one, just like the situation at the start of the encounter. At that point, they just have to figure out which lamp belongs to that statue.
[edit] Jeff, you ninja'd me AND I missed the light reflecting off the door bit as well. Good catch!
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Ran it last night.
1) said, "Well, screw it, we'll just smash the statues and deal with the lanterns later."
I was at Jeffs table and I think I was the one who said that :-)
My character was the only one with knowledge engineering, and only at a +6. And with only the 4 characters there was no "spare" to play with the lamps. Might easily work better with more players. Smashing the statue just looked like a much better use of the action economy.
My biggest single issue was with legendary magic. I had to constantly delay and make very quick decisions to decide what to cast. Even with an experienced player limiting himself to CRB spells it took time and was frustrating since I "knew" I was making seriously suboptimal choices.
The power disparity between the character using the book, the 2 of us using the chronicle sheet, and the pregen using the template was also obvious.
Although (at tier 3-4 with 4 character adjustment) the fights were less tough than I expected. A group of 4 well built and well played characters could likely have succeeded without mythic power.
I'd second Jeff's opinion that it didn't really feel mythic. The chase scene had the most potential but some really bad die rolls on my part stopped that. Its hard to feel mythic when (after the surge) you're still failing to make progress with trained skills :-(
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Where we were cheated, I know it's something he didn't do on purpose as he just isn't that kind of person. Great GM and enjoyable to play under. I think he just missed that it fulfills two requirements if you recruit each of Kafar and Nefti. And we recruited both.
I see he is signed up to play at another table (on Warhorn) for Sunday, so I'll talk to him then.
Thanks.
Good approach, and great attitude! GMs have a lot on their plate -- especially with this scenario -- and sometimes they just miss stuff. Almost certainly the case here.
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Lots of different checks can help the PCs. Engineering is one of them.
Question for everyone who's run this so far: Are you prompting them for these checks or are your players asking you to do these checks? I feel like my PCs aren't very good at coming up with good usages for skills and they need lots of prompting to things like this.
I feel i must absolutely, absolutely, point these things out to the players. I am the players eyes and ears into the world. A player cannot possibly keep asking me if there's something any of their 12 knowledges might pick up on that I'm not describing. Three days of walking through the woods for example, the druid constantly asking me "do the woods look normal, do the woods look normal" would drive the DM insane. But if suddenly there's something NOT normal about the woods you have to give that information to the player . Likewise an engineer might notice something funny about the architecture, or a mycologist may notice that that the mold on the ceiling isn't normal.
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Thanks BNW! In situations like you're referring to, I completely agree. The examples you gave is just like forcing a rouge to search every 10 feet down a dungeon corridor in my opinion. That even includes scenarios like Library in the Lion. I don't expect them to know the mechanics of searching a room, so I took time to explain that the moment they opened the first door.
Since this is a puzzle room, that's where my thought was coming from. I didn't know if anyone had a player ask if they can calculate the angles or trying to use cleverness to figure out the solution to the puzzle. Since this is a puzzle that can be figured out with trial and error, I didn't want to give them the answer on a silver platter, but make them feel like they figured something out on their own.
