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Again with all due respect to the writer of this adventure, I say it was poorly written and in order to have a more successful, and for the players, fun time. State the goals clearly.
Secondary success missions aren't suppose to be clearly stated. They are hidden goals that players are suppose to accomplish by going above and beyond the call of duty.
The primary success mission is stated clearly.
The secondary success mission is pretty clearly stated in the note you get at the beginning of the scenario, the end of which reads (Bolding is mine)...
Remember that she and her family are influential in Brevoy and beyond, and winning their friendship could bring great benefits in the future.
That part of the note pretty much says, if you make her and her family friendly you'll receive great benefits. That's pretty clear about what you're suppose to do.
I don't think the writer could have written the secondary success missions any better and still kept them as a going above and beyond your normal pathfinder duty.
And if players aren't having fun because they missed out on a prestige point (that they're intended to miss out on once every two scenarios.) I don't think the problem is the scenario, I think the problem are the players expectations being opposed to what the campaign expects.
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The way i read it you were getting into all the whacky sidequests on the way back home. I mean feeding him, watering him, keeping him alive and making 2? dc 20 diplomacy checks in 4 tries shouldn't be that hard, and thats what i think it comes down to.
And remember if you're nice to the kid by by cleaning him up, giving him some food and water, and healing him that's a +6 to diplomacy! And if you hit a 25 DC and not just the 20 you've made him friendly in one shot.
And you get like three tries [varies by overland speed] if you want. And the first DC 20 check can prevent the side quests.
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Even without making him friendly it isn't that hard to get the secondary success condition. When I GMed this the party was barely able to keep Lander indifferent because they were pretty condescending towards him. They just barely managed to keep him indifferent, but they captured Wincent and brought enough evidence back to implicate Marek. If anything, It's too easy to get both prestige if you ask me.
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Just got and read through the new scenario 5-19 The Horn of Aroden. There's something that's confusing, though:
- In the Conclusion section, first paragraph on page 19, the last line says that "Each PC earn the Horn of Aroden boon on his or her Chronicle sheet."
- Under the Faction Notes section on that same page, though, it says, "If Taldor faction PCs accomplish both goals, they each receive the Horn of Aroden boon on their Chronicle sheets."Which is correct? The Chronicle Sheet itself doesn't offer any further clarification.
I asked Mike Brock about who got the boon, and he confirmed that the boon was for Taldor PCs only.
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My problem when I ran this was that my players pretty much tied him up and put him on a horse to drag him back home. Made figuring out how to trigger the random encounters on the way back a bit tricky.
For the final battle, I did manage to convince them to untie him. He charged the Terror Bird and critted it for 15 damage then, which surprised them.
The random encounters don't need to be triggered, they are purely optional based on what the players do with Lander.
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I asked Mike Brock about who got the boon, and he confirmed that the boon was for Taldor PCs only.Just got and read through the new scenario 5-19 The Horn of Aroden. There's something that's confusing, though:
- In the Conclusion section, first paragraph on page 19, the last line says that "Each PC earn the Horn of Aroden boon on his or her Chronicle sheet."
- Under the Faction Notes section on that same page, though, it says, "If Taldor faction PCs accomplish both goals, they each receive the Horn of Aroden boon on their Chronicle sheets."Which is correct? The Chronicle Sheet itself doesn't offer any further clarification.
It would be nice if Mr. Brock could post that himself.
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Well, I am not Mike Brock, and I agree that on the chronicle sheet it does not specify that the boon is only for Taldor faction members, but...
at the end of the scenario, under 'Faction Notes', it says the following:
If Taldor faction PCs accomplish both goals, they each receive the Horn of Aroden boon on their Chronicle sheets.
So, with that in mind, it seems fairly clear to me that it is meant to be for Taldor faction members only.
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I think the trick is making Lander sympathetic. Yes he is arrogant and headstrong, but he's also young and out to prove himself. I'm scheduled to run this soon and I've already planned the best way to make him an annoyance, but in such a way that hopefully the PC's will feel for him.
To me the Secondary Success goals aren't just about being good Pathfinders, they're about being heroic adventurers. Earning the favour of a family and teaching a young noble about responsibility while maintaining his favor, against the odds, is pretty awesome.
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I kind of wish returning with a hostile Lander was grounds for failure of the primary mission. Currently PC's can treat him like garbage and a as long as he arrives home alive, they pass the primary mission.
I think moms going to be running the place for the foreseeable future, and she doesn't care if he comes back in a box as long as he comes back alive.
You know in most lines of work those would be completely contradictory.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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Ok, so after having played this at a Con and now reading through it I noticed something I was wondering about. Besides some of the other horrible editing mistakes, it says if Lander wins the duel with a PC the skill check DCs are increased by 1 for the remainder of the scenario. Is there a missing 0 there? It seems like 10 would make much more sense than 1. Thoughts?
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Actually, if you read the Q&A with Saronna, she absolutely cares how he comes back. She doesn't want you to fetch him. She has guards who can do that...and they have done it before. If you don't convince him to give up adventuring, then he's just going to run away again. If you bring him back in a box, she will give the horn, since that's the deal, but she is in no way happy with the outcome.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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I think i'm going to see if i can get "Serves you right murder hobos" as a stamp for the chronicles with 1 credit...
Only 90% of the PC's in my area (Memphis) are murder hobos. Almost every scenario that I know of with a rep as an "RP scenario" results in 1 point around here.
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Actually, if you read the Q&A with Saronna, she absolutely cares how he comes back. She doesn't want you to fetch him. She has guards who can do that...and they have done it before. If you don't convince him to give up adventuring, then he's just going to run away again. If you bring him back in a box, she will give the horn, since that's the deal, but she is in no way happy with the outcome.
Mooooooooom! THEY PUT ME IN A BOX!
Do you see how crazy adventuring makes you! Does something to your brain
Yeees mooom.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Mooooooooom! THEY PUT ME IN A BOX!
Do you see how crazy adventuring makes you! Does something to your brain
Yeees mooom.
I will give the group I ran for some credit, they did release him from the box...just before they beat him into unconsciousness, tied him up, and carried him home.
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As for Marek Bogdan, they suspected him from the beginning but had to gather evidence first. Then before the arrest warrant could be served, a single 4th level PC turned out the "Swordlord"'s lights, literally. Fricking tieflings & darkness.
The Ghost of Dorian Grey seems more at peace now.
Sincerely,
Francisco de la Scaramanga & his "faithful" follower Knick Knack
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Human (now a standard model) samurai. Taldan with a Tien fetish and former lantern lodger. Recently acquired an axe beak.
Half orc ninja
Halfling order of the Paw Cavalier with a wolf
Kyra Clone 389238 that lady gloriana
Investigation"
Party asked to see Landers room. No problem, made up a few details (History books piled up: Lord aldori. Lord aldori's campaigns in the north. The complete works of baron aldori..) gave the Cavalier's mount something to sniff. They're off.
Party talks to marek. Have a few beers with him out back, discussing katana vs aldori dueling swords. Someone nails the sense motive check, pretty much has the plot figured out. Mareks comments about training being no substitute for experience bring back a few painful flashbacks for the Tien katana fanboy.
Doggie finds the trail into the woods. They're off!
Bandit fight gave them some problems. The difficult terrain in the marsh meant no charging. Wicent got in some good rolls and KO'd an axe beak "These are good eatin but better money alive!" The ninja crept off and took out another bandit with invis stab invis "help the woods are attacking me!" The party eventually surrounded wincent despite some bad rolls and beat him low enough to surrender. He was nice enough to do subdual damage so the party takes him prisoner.
One intimidate check latter he's singing like a canary and showing off his bite marks. He hands then some "Free Rothland! " pamphlets while leading them to the bandit camp.
The group stakes the bandits and heads into camp.
Party heads into the camp. Ninja and axebeak come in from the north east, party from the south west. Cavalier takes a bandits head off in a charge.
The four person adjustment said to replace Grinner with an advanced wolf, i missed the "dire" in his description and took him out. Oops.
Aldara comes out of the tent and heads to the party. Ninja enters the tent with the axe beak, hear landers, and drag him off.
The bandit plunks away at a few folks. The werewolf gets in close with the cavalier and rings her bell a few times with the sword. Gets a nasty, nearly max damage crit with a bite and trips her off the wolf.
The wolf thinks the way Aldara establishes dominance in the confrontation is amazing and wonders if she's available.
The DR reaally slows the party down, but they whittle her a bit until the samurai crits her to take her head off.
The Ninja badmouthing lord flaunteroy almost balances out the samurai cleaning him up, getting him dinner, and offering to spar. (EVen with the flat, the samurai brought Landers to 0 hp, and he keeled after missing the samurai badly)
This was interesting. The party, not having the knowledge arcana to tell the difference between an infected and natural lycanthrope, worry that landers may have been bitten and want to get him back to town to be checked out. Some good diplomacy rolls have him willing to look for bandits on the way to town.
The party was hesitant as to who would answer the Atomies challange so Landers stepped forward. A knowledge nature from the Cavalier told her it PROBABLY wouldn't kill him, so they let him go ahead and get his but kicked, healed him up and told him to be a good loser. (yay for pregens with wands)
A few encounters and really good diplomacy checks later landers pretty much wants to be just like the samurai almost as much as he wants to be like lord aldori. He's willing(ish) to listen about the ideas of duty and honor that go along with being a lord and the ability to kill. He respects the cavalier when she says that the "Dragon" is harmless, and the samurai when he tells landers NOT to go running down the tunnel.
The terror birds are NOT happy to see another axe beak in their territory. Landers got a high initiative, but waited for someone else to engage the birds first, then advanced and held an action (and learned a very important lesson about reach) The Ninja charged a flat footed one, sneak attacked it, went invis. Samurai eventually came up and whacked one. Landers finished off the male, the samurai's bird flanked the female... and left with her for a while when she retreated.
Not being satisfied with chicken as an end boss, the party decide to confront Marek rather than involve Landers mother. (drat. His damage is wrong. Should have had an extra 1d6 from the merciful enchant) They offer to exile him, he says no. Ninja ganks him, he whales on the samurai, fails a hold person from Kyra, gets tripped and beat on. he drops the Ninja pretty low with a few whacks from the ground, but eventually gets knocked unconscious.
The party stuffed him in the box that landers was himself kept in, and shipped him to andor. (which I took as a creative solution for getting rid of the bandit leader other than the one presented)
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Just out of curiousity, how did the party deal with Marek? The mod says to use the Scheming Fighter stats from the NPC Codex, which means they're, at maximum, a bunch of 5th level characters facing down an 11th level fighter. He should mop the floor with them.
He has a low will save, he's not wearing any armor (i gave him +1 for the leather apron), and both myself and the author forgot the +1d6 subdual damage from the merciful ability.
Fighters do not scale well as opponents, especially when under equipped. He only has a +6 will save, meaning a ~50 50 chance vs even a passingly optimized caster.
He got held by the pregen kyra's hold person and tripped in the first round (hold person =0 dex and strength, so you now have the CMD of a dish rag), and doesn't deal an awful lot of damage for his level. Flanking ninja + samurai with a side of halfling and a pet whaling on him whittled him down as he brought the ninja to almost 0.
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Just out of curiousity, how did the party deal with Marek? The mod says to use the Scheming Fighter stats from the NPC Codex, which means they're, at maximum, a bunch of 5th level characters facing down an 11th level fighter. He should mop the floor with them.He has a low will save, he's not wearing any armor (i gave him +1 for the leather apron), and both myself and the author forgot the +1d6 subdual damage from the merciful ability.
Fighters do not scale well as opponents, especially when under equipped. He only has a +6 will save, meaning a ~50 50 chance vs even a passingly optimized caster.
He got held by the pregen kyra's hold person and tripped in the first round (hold person =0 dex and strength, so you now have the CMD of a dish rag), and doesn't deal an awful lot of damage for his level. Flanking ninja + samurai with a side of halfling and a pet whaling on him whittled him down as he brought the ninja to almost 0.
Win init. Round 1 move up and hit the samurai. (move or damage is hell on martials)
Round 2: Spend the entire round breaking the hold person
Round 3: After being kidney stabbed by the ninja , realize he's the threat, try to take him out from prone. Almost succeed.
its not that hard for 4 characters to chew through 98? his points in short order.
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Win init. Round 1 move up and hit the samurai. (move or damage is hell on martials)Round 2: Spend the entire round breaking the hold person
Round 3: After being kidney stabbed by the ninja , realize he's the threat, try to take him out from prone. Almost succeed.
its not that hard for 4 characters to chew through 98? his points in short order.
Round 4 or 5: You get arrested for attacking a stalwart community member with ties to the royal family because you attacked him and only thought he was involved with the bandits.
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Round 4 or 5: You get arrested for attacking a stalwart community member with ties to the royal family because you attacked him and only thought he was involved with the bandits.
Win init. Round 1 move up and hit the samurai. (move or damage is hell on martials)Round 2: Spend the entire round breaking the hold person
Round 3: After being kidney stabbed by the ninja , realize he's the threat, try to take him out from prone. Almost succeed.
its not that hard for 4 characters to chew through 98? his points in short order.
They did do the investigation first and THEN proceeded to knock the tar out of a stalwart member of the community. I figured no one would come to check on the noise because the neighbors were used to hearing him knock the tar out of landers while sparring. If the guards did come, landers would stick his head out the door "Everythings fine here. Tell mother I'm home and prepare a hot bath"
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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I had a GM with terrible reading comprehension when I played this at Origins.
I just ran it last night and nearly everything he whined about was a non-issue, he just missed it. The big thing was that for the Secondary Success Condition he insisted we go and fight Marek ourselves.
Hard fight but we were thankfully at the higher tier.
Went much more smoothly on a careful read from me last night though. This is a pretty finesse adventure though.
The players at my table were about to forget about the secondary condition, but after returning the son I had the Dame ask if there was "anything else?" and then they remembered. Sometimes the simplest things can trigger the memory.
This is possibly a dumb question, but I get nervous with all the "NEVER MODIFY THE MODULE" talk. So, here goes. On page 7, the module has this text:
If the PCs insist on fighting Marek, the GM can approximate his statistics by using the scheming fencer >>snip<< ...replace his Double Slice, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Two-Weapon Fighting feats with Dazzling Display.
So I printed out that NPC stat block, crossed off the feats, added Dazzling Display, and printed the Dazzling Display feat too. Then I noticed that in order to use that feat, Marek must have Weapon Focus with the weapon he's using. But he doesn't. The module didn't say to change the scheming fencer's Weapon Focus feat to use his Aldori sword. I looked to see if the Aldori sword is considered the same as a rapier, which the scheming fencer has for Weapon Focus -- and it does actually have an equivalent, but it's considered a long sword!
In other words, the module has told us to add Dazzling Display to an NPC who cannot use it, unless we change Weapon Focus from rapier to Aldori sword. Presumably if we do this, we should also adjust Weapon Specialization, otherwise it's a broken feat that cannot exist on the scheming fencer's stat block.
I presume this makes the NPC a bit more powerful, which is why I'm nervous to change the stat block and have PFS management get miffed at me. However, without the change, the module asked us to do a bunch of stuff to the NPC stat block that doesn't work.
Ideas? What'd you do when you ran it?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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We played this yesterday and it went fairly smoothly.
I'd previously run Library of the Lion and credited it to the PC I was playing in this session (big surprise), so I could give the other players some background on why we were there and why it was important. I was playing my Sovereign Court (optimized) level 3 Investigator who's pretty pragmatic; he doesn't mind brownnosing if it gets results. The rest of the party was level 1-2 without much diplomatic skills except for a Sarenrae cleric.
I'd heard about this adventure's reputation before, so I was all set to go along with the madness. And the mission briefing was clear enough that I was able to talk the other players into going along with it as well. I basically told them that we needed to keep our eyes on the big picture; make nice with the young idiot because we want his mom to be nice to us.
The thing we were most unsure of was how to best handle him. Do we encourage him, set him up to succeed at some fights, so that he can get it out of his system? Maybe he just needs to feel like he's done something, so that he can come home with his head held high. Or are we supposed to "drop the bomb" on him and show him how unfit he is?
To not burn bridges preemptively, we started out nice. Basically, we went along with his delusions, set up flanks, tripped monsters so that they couldn't get away from him, and did everything we could to not kill-steal from him. Which made for a nice challenge in itself, with a pregen Amiri in the party, and even level 1 Valeros being more effective than Lander.
Meanwhile, when he wasn't looking, we were doing everything to make him uncomfortable; put poison ivy in his socks, use Prestidigitation to keep him dirty and itchy. When he was sleeping we waited until he was in the sleep phase where waking up is most disruptive to your rest, then wake him up with a summoned fiendish dog ("we're under attack by a HORRIBLE MONSTER!"). Joke was on us though; he didn't manage to hit it in three rounds and it vanished. Only some quick bluffing convinced him that that was because we'd made his sword too terrifying (with a Light spell). And then we had him throw the "Holy Hand-Spear of St. Antioch" at the "Swamp Wraith" that appeared (Silent Image). Somewhere in the middle of this fiasco the GM triggered the kobold encounter.
It was a hilarious game. I had to ride herd on the other players not to say mean things about him all the time ("he's standing right there guys"), we almost undid all the diplomacizing we'd already achieved.
The blacksmith's makers mark on the swords seemed suspicious to us, and we'd apprehended most of the bandits, so we just handed those over to the lady, and Lander liked us, so that worked out easily.
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All in all I like the adventure. It's a typical Season 5 "be a nice guy, not a murderhobo" adventure. It's not hard to get the Secondary; just keep to my maxim. "Explore, Report, Cooperate, and when in doubt be a Good Guy."
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Aldona, the map places her starting in her tent. Do you assume she is walking around in hybrid form? or takes a full round to Change Shape (Su), if so do you roll the DC 15 Constitution check or just fiat it?
I think I'll pick a course depending if it is APL 1 or 2.4, but I'd like to hear your comments?
What if the PCs collect evidence and confront the blacksmith without notifying any authorities (and wouldn't Lander be keen for them to do this to avenge his humiliation) ?
Would he just drop them all with non lethal damage and run away?
I suppose they could still count as having the evidence on him for reward purposes
Might be a useful lesson? Or would it make them paranoid about future combats? It doesn't seem to me that going to confront him is an unreasonable assumption for the adventure end point
At tier 1-2 he will dismantle them handily
What if the PCs collect evidence and confront the blacksmith without notifying any authorities (and wouldn't Lander be keen for them to do this to avenge his humiliation) ?
Would he just drop them all with non lethal damage and run away?
I suppose they could still count as having the evidence on him for reward purposesMight be a useful lesson? Or would it make them paranoid about future combats? It doesn't seem to me that going to confront him is an unreasonable assumption for the adventure end point
At tier 1-2 he will dismantle them handily
He uses the scheming fencer statblock, but with a couple of adjustments. Most importantly, his weapon is a +1 merciful Aldori dueling sword.
Also note that they get a warning (possibly a very Dazzling Display.) "If the PCs try to bully him or attack, he responds with a nonlethal show of force or a grim warning that his guests not embarrass themselves by taking his hospitality for granted — a polite way of promising that any altercation would end painfully."
As for the evidence, that might depend on what they've gathered and what they've said to him so far. If they just try attacking? Knock them out and leave them in an alley out back. It would be like a PC looting a generic no-name goblin in a tier 7-11 - why bother? If they've made it a point to say how much and what evidence they've gathered, though... well, he might make a quick search of the PCs to destroy what he can.
Yes I saw the merciful weapon . That is why I would expect him to knock them all out
Although he could fail a save against a wizard illusion to give him a brief problemBut my question is more about whether they lose their chance to succeed on the secondary success condition if they lose to him. From what you have said I would assume this only happens if they reveal evidence that he can take. But I seem to remember most is just witnesses
