5-16 Destiny of the Sands, Part 3: Sanctum of the Sages - GM Discussion

[BigNorseWolf]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

If they're worried about my printer ink, lose the 2 ink guzzling pages of adds in the back.

...why do you print the ads?

Because the 16 extra cents isn't worth the work to the poor copy person at office max to type in print pages 1-18,21-23 or the 15 minutes it will take to find the manager if i get the guy that doesn't know how to do that.

[TriOmegaZero]

Ah. I print at home, so I am the poor guy.

[trollbill]

Lou Diamond wrote:

My only gripe was with the name of the bbg in the future could the authors make the name of the BBG's easier to pronounce most of us do not speak ancient egyptian for Ptolemaic period so pick easier names. Cleopatra would have been nice Isis would have been great and both would have fit into the scenario.

I have a vague understanding of ancient Egyptian pronunciation from watching way too many documentaries with Zahi Hawass in them, and as far as I can tell, most people get Amenopheus wrong, let alone Tahonikepsu. It would be nice if Paizo at least included a phonetic pronunciation with names like this.

[not2fear]

With reference to the lamp puzzle, there are four lamps for the Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Topaz sages. Why isn't there a lamp for the Diamond sage?

Just how many jewelled sages are there?

[Mars Roma]

In regards to the Graven Guardians. What Mythic Feats do they have? from their Mythic Tiers? Or do we just them one?

[FLite]

not2fear wrote:

With reference to the lamp puzzle, there are four lamps for the Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Topaz sages. Why isn't there a lamp for the Diamond sage?

Just how many jewelled sages are there?

Because the puzzle reflects the diamond sage's ego. The other four sages are simple lamps genuflecting before and receiving their power from her glory. (she is represented by the giant gemlike wall the lamps light is refracted by.)

[crazedloon]

Ran this last night, at the low tier and much like everyone else it ran long. I ran a table of 7 as to not have an odd man out so there was some added time due to an extra player but it mostly boils down to a long mod.

A few things of note

-Mythic tiers make the combat rather impossible to truly challenge the players. Among 7 target for the Critters to attack 3 have mirror dodge negating any form of physical attack, 2 have epic DR, 1 has Fast healing 10 (on top of the DR), 1 has mythic sanctuary, and even the the basic chronicle sheet gives you "DR 15" vs a single attack. The Behir had the most potential for threatening the PCs but due to PC placement (completely randomly as they all failed to notice its approach) left the only targets in range the fast healer or mirror dodger and the fast healer quickly cut it up from the inside (he got swallowed only because it would look cool for the PCs)

-Mythic Charisma makes the diplomacy to get the Aspis to join the pathfinders laughable.

-This was my first chase scene (as player or GM) but I thought it went rather well and believe the PCs enjoyed it as much as I did. It took a few to many explanations of how mythic points would contribute to the chase (even with printed rules handouts) contributing somewhat to the slow play. However from the horror stories I have heard of other chase scenes the ability for PCs to clear with mythic points is rather cool and the chase acted as a mythic point drain (in a good way since the above problem did not go away so the less points available the better)

-For the puzzle I realized the most likely cause of the white light refracting into colors was it being bounced through the giant crystal door or the Amenopheus and some returning to the points in the room, and that is how I described it to the PCs. Further I informed the PCs of the checks they could make to aid in figuring out the puzzle. Further a low Initiative roll of the guardians meant that the PCs got to start attempting the puzzle before I revealed the guardians which encouraged them to continue trying to solve the puzzle (which they did a few rounds before they would have killed the second guardian). Once the PCs had made the most relevant checks (knowing what gems where where) I also had a few of the positions project wildly incorrect colors to further illustrate to the PCs an incorrect placement so that they did not have to keep referencing their notes for puzzle clues mid combat.

-Greedy and paranoid PCs managed to get the entire group watched from beyond which was a fun upside of the entire scenario.

I would hope in the future if there are more scenarios with Mythic the PCs gain a more limited ability set (the chronicle "template" should have been enough for this scenario ) or the encounters need to be properly equipped. Also I did quite a bit of prep for this before hand, including highlighting important text amongst the walls of text to be able to quickly scan for important info (a thorough read through prior to running meant I had the summery of each section in my head and only needed the key checks and descriptions hidden in the text).

Overall I enjoyed the scenario but wished it had been a little more challenging to the PCs, on my first read through I assumed it would be more of a nail bitter but upon seeing mythic unleashed on the unsuspecting NPCs it was too close to a cake walk for comfort. The PCs had a good time as the ran around trying to 1 up each other in ridiculously easy tasks

[BigNorseWolf]

There is also the amethest sage (references in the beacon below) who seems to have split with the rest of the order before they founded this place.

Fun fact: before vast deposits of amethysts discovered in south America made them almost worthless, amethyst was ranked up there with diamonds, saphires, rubies and emeralds.

[Dhenn]

The Beacon Below actually takes place here, going through one of the doors that are "beyond the scope of the adventure," and:

Mild 6-04 Spoilers:

The Amethyst Sage, based on my reading, was here up until the very end.

Assuming there is a story reason behind the choice of gems, one possibility is that the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/Topaz set being higher ranking and/or older than the others (Amethyst and any to be named at a later date).

[Jeff Merola]

Mars Roma wrote:

In regards to the Graven Guardians. What Mythic Feats do they have? from their Mythic Tiers? Or do we just them one?

None. They don't have Mythic Tiers, they have a Mythic Template. They're different things.

[勝20100]

If a player did part 2 with a character and get the mythic template boon, can he apply the boon if he plays a pregen in part 3 (whose credit goes on same character as part 2)? Or just the sage-blessed template?

[Matthew Morris]

Ok, getting ready to play this post Origins (I've ran it, so no complaints about me looking for spoilers, please)

I'm not finding Mythic Adventures in the "Additional Resources" section, so what mythic feats can I take when rebuilding my PC for part 3?

[RealAlchemy]

Matthew Morris wrote:

Ok, getting ready to play this post Origins (I've ran it, so no complaints about me looking for spoilers, please)

I'm not finding Mythic Adventures in the "Additional Resources" section, so what mythic feats can I take when rebuilding my PC for part 3?

Becausey Mythic is not normally ever legal in PFS, this is the special case of "You do what you want."

[GM Aerondor]

Necro alert.

Question about secondary success.
My team find the two ciphers for two points. They defeat (but don't kill) both Kafar and Nefti. They talk to them about PF society, but stuff up their diplomacy checks to have them join.

On the surface, this seems to be a failure in secondary conditions.

But if you don't make at least one of the diplomacy checks, the only way to get the secondary conditions seems to be go murder-hobo on the defeated aspis agents. That doesn't feel quite right.

Did I understand this correctly?