Risen from the Sands

[Yiroep]

Andrei Buters wrote:

GM: The monument rumbles towards you, ready to crush your fragile flesh body under it's ancient Osiriani sandstone wheels.

Player: I put my yellow cloak over my head and hold still.
GM: :narrows eyes:

All you need is a blanket and prestidigitation and this could be a reality! Camo, sandstone, abyssian wasteland, you name it!

[cartmanbeck]

James McTeague wrote:

UndeadMitch wrote:

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but does anyone find it funny that none of the pregens have the ability to identify magic items? None of the pregen with Spellcraft have Detect Magic, and the only pregen with Detect Magic doesn't have Spellcraft.

Wow. That's actually pretty frustrating.

You don't NEED detect magic to use Spellcraft to identify a magic item, so Oloch could say "Hey, that's magical" and then Quinn could make his Spellcraft check on it. But I agree it's strange.

[UndeadMitch]

cartmanbeck wrote:

James McTeague wrote:

UndeadMitch wrote:

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but does anyone find it funny that none of the pregens have the ability to identify magic items? None of the pregen with Spellcraft have Detect Magic, and the only pregen with Detect Magic doesn't have Spellcraft.

Wow. That's actually pretty frustrating.

You don't NEED detect magic to use Spellcraft to identify a magic item, so Oloch could say "Hey, that's magical" and then Quinn could make his Spellcraft check on it. But I agree it's strange.

Unless there's a faq somewhere that I'm missing somewhere, you do. The ability to make a spellcraft check is only granted after three rounds of detect magic. I believe it's the reason identify has a duration of three rounds.

Detect Magic, from PRD wrote:

3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).

Spellcraft, from PRD wrote:

This skill is also used to identify the properties of magic items in your possession through the use of spells such as detect magic and identify.

[Yiroep]

So, slot zero people, any insight on how the pyramid battle went for your party? I'm sure MANY of us GMs are intimately interested in how it went (I know I am).

[cartmanbeck]

UndeadMitch wrote:

cartmanbeck wrote:

James McTeague wrote:

UndeadMitch wrote:

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but does anyone find it funny that none of the pregens have the ability to identify magic items? None of the pregen with Spellcraft have Detect Magic, and the only pregen with Detect Magic doesn't have Spellcraft.

Wow. That's actually pretty frustrating.

You don't NEED detect magic to use Spellcraft to identify a magic item, so Oloch could say "Hey, that's magical" and then Quinn could make his Spellcraft check on it. But I agree it's strange.

Unless there's a faq somewhere that I'm missing somewhere, you do. The ability to make a spellcraft check is only granted after three rounds of detect magic. I believe it's the reason identify has a duration of three rounds.

Detect Magic, from PRD wrote:

3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).

Spellcraft, from PRD wrote:

This skill is also used to identify the properties of magic items in your possession through the use of spells such as detect magic and identify.

Huh, you learn something every day. Well, I'll probably still have to give Quinn the chance to identify stuff, even without detect magic because otherwise they'll probably never use any items they find, and that's just not fun.

[Akerlof]

Cire wrote:

Confused. My understanding from reading the rules is that that players may NOT use a regular level 4 pregen.

Please tell me I'm misinterpreting that. :)

Yeah, that's what I'm getting, too. I love the Swashbuckler, but this is a horrible adventure to put her in at this level. She's effectively useless in the two encounters with Hardness 8 enemies (woo! I do damage if I roll a 5 or 6!) And she's not very useful on the final boss, either. She's even got a decent chance of failing to one shot the Burning Skeletons. I can understand that for a non martial, but that's kind of humiliating for a full BAB class. I'm not seeing anywhere in here that she can shine, while the others all have a chance to shine.

At least Oloch has a wand of CLW.

I am wondering if this will become Bonekeep lite. We'll see how it plays out.

[Thod]

It is always interesting to read different takes on a module here

About the pyramid - I agree - this easily could generate a TPK.

I just thought I spotted a very clever way how Quinn could completely neutralize the pyramid after the first trample - he has a potion of sanctuary - alas - I just did some reading up.

I would be nice to roleplay it as the pyramid following the group but can't approach - unfortunately it is 1 round per level and they need likely 1 minute to have a chance to move the remaining 375 foot and open the door at the end of the corridor.

So it seems the best option to guide new players

1) outrun the pyramid construct in the direction towards the pyramid proper
2) have the pyramid follow for tension
3) try to break open the door as fast as possible
4) Quinn might still give the group one extra round of respite
5) let them slam the door shut / the pyramid construct isn't leaving the corridor

Still doing the math - but it seems the 4 pregens doing rage and power attack still need 4 rounds of attack average to get the pyramid down.

Off course a lucky early crit from either the bloodrager or the warpriest might change odds. But the crits are averaged into the numbers and as such the lack of a crit likely will mean 5-6 round pummeling the pyramid which is

a) too long to be exiting
b) cost too much HP (and likely kills someone)

Well - will see how it works on Saturday and try not too go too hard on the players - likely all newbies.

[pauljathome]

Matthew Starch wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

Cire wrote:

Confused. My understanding from reading the rules is that that players may NOT use a regular level 4 pregen.

Please tell me I'm misinterpreting that. :)

It would also seem (almost certainly this is an error) that if you play the pregens you get no credit. Certainly not at all clear who that credit can be applied to (I'm guessing the usual rules apply which means it MUST go to a level 1 character with 500 gold)

It does look like the option to use a standard PFS 4th level pregen was omitted from this module. A mistake, I think, but it is what it is.

As for applying credit when playing a pregen, there are no additional rules, so you should fall back on the standard rules .

I agree that this is almost certainly intended. But it isn't what the words actually say "may apply to the 2nd, 3rd or 4th level character who played this module".

This does contradict the earlier statement that people who play the pregens get PFS credit.

I'm not trying to be absurdly pedantic. Previous years have had restrictions on this module. The restriction on other pregens in THIS module requires sufficiently close reading that it really isn't clear to me that is the intention.

I've more or less decided how I'm going to run this and what I'm going to allow at my table. But I am not at all certain that I'll be doing what Paizo wants me to do.

[Shivok]

I slot zeroed the mod yesterday. Everyone was 4th level PFS PCs.

Basically when one of the characters got within 40FT I had the pyramid roll through them and had it keep going down the causeway.

They made one save or got an aoo for the trample effect and that was it.

[John Compton]

Follow the normal rules for applying credit to a 1st-level character, if that's what a player chooses to do.

We recommend planning tables of four players, as that allows for additional space to accommodate walk-ins--a common occurance at Free RPG Day. The usual maximum table size applies.

There are special conditions tied to earning a second Prestige Point (by popular demand), but in the name of the module being as accessible as possible--which is to say not "punishing" new players who may not know about secondary success conditions--the second Prestige Point is automatic for those playing this module as part of Free RPG Day.

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. There are four new characters to show off. Having 14 higher-level options available overshadows these four characters, especially with a table of six players, which can as much as double the number of character levels kn play (from 12 to 24). This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

[trollbill]

Just as an FYI, when we played this the Pyramid didn't drop anyone but it did end up chewing a lot of charges off of the Warpriests wand of CLW. We debated running back to the entrance, figuring it couldn't leave the corridor so we could fight it at the end without it trampling. We also debated running further into the dungeon to escape it but that seemed a lot riskier since we didn't know what was at the other end.

I will say I really wanted to like the Investigator. He certainly shined in every non-combat encounter in the adventure, but his near complete lack of relevance in combat was very frustrating. Even though he had spells like Stone Fist that lets him bypass hardness, with a +4 to hit and +0 to damage he still does far less damage to Hardness 8 creatures than either the War Priest or the Blood Rager. What little damage I did with Quinn mostly came from the 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Acid Flasks, and 4 Flasks of Oil he has plus the Holy Water I borrowed off the War Priest. The rest of the time I ran around with the War Priest's wand healing people until that ran out of charges.

[pauljathome]

John Compton wrote:

Follow the normal rules for applying credit to a 1st-level character, if that's what a player chooses to do.

We recommend planning tables of four players, as that allows for additional space to accommodate walk-ins--a common occurance at Free RPG Day. The usual maximum table size applies.

There are special conditions tied to earning a second Prestige Point (by popular demand), but in the name of the module being as accessible as possible--which is to say not "punishing" new players who may not know about secondary success conditions--the second Prestige Point is automatic for those playing this module as part of Free RPG Day.

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. There are four new characters to show off. Having 14 higher-level options available overshadows these four characters, especially with a table of six players, which can as much as double the number of character levels kn play (from 12 to 24). This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

Thank you for the clarification

[pauljathome]

Wendy-Ann Francis wrote:

I uploaded a PDF of the stat blocks not included in the module to the GM shared prep yesterday.

The pre-gens usually come with the chronicle (at least they have for the last two years).

I am obviously blind. I can't see the uploaded materials.

Its not in modules.

Edit: I had never realized that there are apparently at least TWO places where shared PFS stuff is uploaded. You used the site I'd previously been unaware of

For others, the 2 sites I NOW know of are :

Google drive : https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B041lCt8oofvbWRoVDFjUXVmbXM&usp =sharing
pfsprep : http://pfsprep.com

Stuff uploaded for this module : http://pfsprep.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?237

[Yiroep]

trollbill wrote:

Just as an FYI, when we played this the Pyramid didn't drop anyone but it did end up chewing a lot of charges off of the Warpriests wand of CLW. We debated running back to the entrance, figuring it couldn't leave the corridor so we could fight it at the end without it trampling. We also debated running further into the dungeon to escape it but that seemed a lot riskier since we didn't know what was at the other end.

I will say I really wanted to like the Investigator. He certainly shined in every non-combat encounter in the adventure, but his near complete lack of relevance in combat was very frustrating. Even though he had spells like Stone Fist that lets him bypass hardness, with a +4 to hit and +0 to damage he still does far less damage to Hardness 8 creatures than either the War Priest or the Blood Rager. What little damage I did with Quinn mostly came from the 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Acid Flasks, and 4 Flasks of Oil he has plus the Holy Water I borrowed off the War Priest. The rest of the time I ran around with the War Priest's wand healing people until that ran out of charges.

Pyramid:

Did your GM run it as "Trample, trample, trample!" or do stuff like have it attack?

[Thod]

John Compton wrote:

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. There are four new characters to show off. Having 14 higher-level options available overshadows these four characters, especially with a table of six players, which can as much as double the number of character levels kn play (from 12 to 24). This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

John

Do I read this as 4th level pregens are discouraged but still rules legal? Or do I read this - they are not rules legal?

I just printed and laminated 12 pregens (each 3 times) for our local store. I assume I will have 95% of players using pregens. So these will see a lot of action. The only ones that have higher level are my own group and a few players I got up to level 2.

As such the question is - should player 5 and 6 get a double of one character already at the table or would they be allowed to use one of the 4th level pregens - provided they don't want to risk a 2nd level character?

[CRobledo]

Thod wrote:

John Compton wrote:

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. There are four new characters to show off. Having 14 higher-level options available overshadows these four characters, especially with a table of six players, which can as much as double the number of character levels kn play (from 12 to 24). This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

John

Do I read this as 4th level pregens are discouraged but still rules legal? Or do I read this - they are not rules legal?

4th level "classic" PFS pregens are not allowed by the document. Players 5-6 should double.

(actually, nothing says all 6 players couldn't play the Warpriest)

[trollbill]

Andrew Roberts wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Just as an FYI, when we played this the Pyramid didn't drop anyone but it did end up chewing a lot of charges off of the Warpriests wand of CLW. We debated running back to the entrance, figuring it couldn't leave the corridor so we could fight it at the end without it trampling. We also debated running further into the dungeon to escape it but that seemed a lot riskier since we didn't know what was at the other end.

I will say I really wanted to like the Investigator. He certainly shined in every non-combat encounter in the adventure, but his near complete lack of relevance in combat was very frustrating. Even though he had spells like Stone Fist that lets him bypass hardness, with a +4 to hit and +0 to damage he still does far less damage to Hardness 8 creatures than either the War Priest or the Blood Rager. What little damage I did with Quinn mostly came from the 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Acid Flasks, and 4 Flasks of Oil he has plus the Holy Water I borrowed off the War Priest. The rest of the time I ran around with the War Priest's wand healing people until that ran out of charges.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

He ran it trample, trample, trample. We managed to cut down on its effectiveness after the first trample by doing things like splitting the party so that it could only trample half of us at one time and moving 60 feet away from it to take readied attacks against it so that we got two attacks before it could trample us.

[Yottsu hoshi]

This module is going to produce as many man baby tears as Dawn of the Scarlet Sun did.

I can't wait to drink them up. Should be fun tomorrow.

[trollbill]

Carlos Robledo wrote:

Thod wrote:

John Compton wrote:

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. There are four new characters to show off. Having 14 higher-level options available overshadows these four characters, especially with a table of six players, which can as much as double the number of character levels kn play (from 12 to 24). This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

John

Do I read this as 4th level pregens are discouraged but still rules legal? Or do I read this - they are not rules legal?

4th level "classic" PFS pregens are not allowed by the document. Players 5-6 should double.

(actually, nothing says all 6 players couldn't play the Warpriest)

If they played this with 5 Warpriests and 1 Investigator they would probably do just fine.

[Iammars]

pauljathome wrote:

Wendy-Ann Francis wrote:

I uploaded a PDF of the stat blocks not included in the module to the GM shared prep yesterday.

The pre-gens usually come with the chronicle (at least they have for the last two years).

I am obviously blind. I can't see the uploaded materials.

Its not in modules.

Edit: I had never realized that there are apparently at least TWO places where shared PFS stuff is uploaded. You used the site I'd previously been unaware of

For others, the 2 sites I NOW know of are :

Google drive : https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B041lCt8oofvbWRoVDFjUXVmbXM&usp =sharing
pfsprep : http://pfsprep.com

Stuff uploaded for this module : http://pfsprep.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?237

Everything is being moved over to pfsprep.com because that site can't have random people deleting important stuff.

[trollbill]

Does anyone know if the effects from multiple auras stack? I can't find anything in the rules about it. In other words, If you are standing next to 2 burning skeletons, do you take 2d6 fire damage or 1d6?

[GM Lamplighter]

HP damage stacks.

[GM Lamplighter]

John Compton wrote:

The omission of citing 4th-level pregenerated character is intentional. (...) This a decision we considered for quite a while before settling on this particular approach.

Thanks for the clarification, John... must have been a tough meeting! So, the only way a walk-up new player can play this on Free RPG Day, is to play a pre-gen from the Advanced Class Guide. Or, to play a different scenario or quest entirely, with whatever legal pre-gens are available for that scenario.

[ThreeEyedSloth]

Ugh, I'm not a big fan of that decision. If someone is brand new to Pathfinder and wants to play, I'd rather give them a base class to learn instead of handing them an advanced hybrid class.

[Wingnut]

When FRD started, it was 100% my intent that the event be specifically to introduce players to a new RPG that they had maybe never played. From that, some people feel that level 1 characters and adventures are the best way to do that. Some people feel that level *whatever* characters can accomplish the same feeling because in the end, you're getting to try the game before you buy.

We have no hardened rule telling publishers that they have to do one type of offering or another. We do very much encourage existing game publishers (like Paizo) to do an adventure with pregenerated characters just to make it super simple if someone just wants to drop in to try. We also very much encourage new RPG publishers (or even less known ones) to do an offering that has quickstart rules, pregenerated characters and an adventure for the same reason. Again, in the end, it is the publishers choice.

I do hope that everyone takes away one key thing --- these companies participating spent time and money making something that they are giving away for free. Yes, it is a marketing thing, and hopefully, it helps them, the retailer and the industry as a whole to continue doing well.

Thanks to everyone in advance that supports FRD.

Best,
Aldo Ghiozzi
Owner
Impressions
Organizers of Free RPG Day
[e-mail]

pauljathome wrote:

John Francis wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

For a free RPG day run, I have every intention of ignoring the slam attack (and probably reducing the hardness, as suggested elsewhere).

Everything Matthew describes strikes me as making the reflex save to take less damage from the trample. Anything more than that is pretty much just ignoring pathfinder rules.

Ignoring the rules is pretty much what I'll probably do. I'm very likely to just treat this as an extended trap. It rolls forward and then stops.

Maybe local players are weird, but I've seen few who find it fun to die in the first 10 minutes to a pyramid.

And certainly locally we're running this scenario. Kinda seemed the point.

[BigNorseWolf]

Please don't contribute to pregenocide. Groups of pregens only are going to die. Toss some real characters in there.

Players who wish to receive
Pathfinder Society credit for playing
through Risen from the Sands must use
either one of their Pathfinder Society
characters (without modification)
within the legal character level range for
the module or one of the pregenerated
characters provided on pages 12–15 of the
module.

[Mike Bramnik]

Does anyone have a pdf copy of the pregens that can be printed out and handed out to players? I might not have access to a printer before I get to my FLGS tomorrow morning and I had kind of hoped the pregens would be in the same document as the chronicle sheet (since said FLGS has a printer, but no scanner...)

[Iammars]

There is a pdf copy of the pregens on the product page for Risen from the Sands.

[Mike Bramnik]

James McTeague wrote:

There is a pdf copy of the pregens on the product page for Risen from the Sands.

Ah ha, thank you! I only saw the document that was on the additional resources page. I'm off to grab it now!

[MrRetsej]

trollbill wrote:

Just as an FYI, when we played this the Pyramid didn't drop anyone but it did end up chewing a lot of charges off of the Warpriests wand of CLW. We debated running back to the entrance, figuring it couldn't leave the corridor so we could fight it at the end without it trampling. We also debated running further into the dungeon to escape it but that seemed a lot riskier since we didn't know what was at the other end.

I will say I really wanted to like the Investigator. He certainly shined in every non-combat encounter in the adventure, but his near complete lack of relevance in combat was very frustrating. Even though he had spells like Stone Fist that lets him bypass hardness, with a +4 to hit and +0 to damage he still does far less damage to Hardness 8 creatures than either the War Priest or the Blood Rager. What little damage I did with Quinn mostly came from the 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Acid Flasks, and 4 Flasks of Oil he has plus the Holy Water I borrowed off the War Priest. The rest of the time I ran around with the War Priest's wand healing people until that ran out of charges.

RAW, Quinn's Stone Fist doesn't work in this adventure.

Stone Fist

It only works on objects with a hardness less than 8. All the constructs in the adventure have Hardness 8. :-[

[cartmanbeck]

MrRetsej wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Just as an FYI, when we played this the Pyramid didn't drop anyone but it did end up chewing a lot of charges off of the Warpriests wand of CLW. We debated running back to the entrance, figuring it couldn't leave the corridor so we could fight it at the end without it trampling. We also debated running further into the dungeon to escape it but that seemed a lot riskier since we didn't know what was at the other end.

I will say I really wanted to like the Investigator. He certainly shined in every non-combat encounter in the adventure, but his near complete lack of relevance in combat was very frustrating. Even though he had spells like Stone Fist that lets him bypass hardness, with a +4 to hit and +0 to damage he still does far less damage to Hardness 8 creatures than either the War Priest or the Blood Rager. What little damage I did with Quinn mostly came from the 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Acid Flasks, and 4 Flasks of Oil he has plus the Holy Water I borrowed off the War Priest. The rest of the time I ran around with the War Priest's wand healing people until that ran out of charges.

RAW, Quinn's Stone Fist doesn't work in this adventure.

Stone Fist

It only works on objects with a hardness less than 8. All the constructs in the adventure have Hardness 8. :-[

This is one of those times where GMs need to realize that the writer had to have made a minor mistake, and the thought process was that the spell should bypass the hardness. So I'm gonna have to fiat that one.

[JohnF]

I'm not going to run this as a for-credit event until these issues are resolved. But I should be running it today at a FRGS (it's a 90-minute drive away, so it's hard to classify it as 'local' :-), assuming enough players are interested.

[UndeadMitch]

I'm running this in about an hour and a half, and I have a question. When I report can I just report the people that have PFS numbers? For example, if I have someone that wants to just play a pregen but isn't a PFS member, can I still report the rest of the table, provided I have enough people to report. I'll obviously try to get them to join PFS, but I'm just trying to figure out what I should do in adavance if I have someone show up to lay this that isn't interested in PFS.

[Shivok]

Risen from the Sands is a Bonekeep for non-convention goers!

Enjoy the meatgrinder or go with 7 PC's!

No really if you give the new players Oloch and Crowe and Quinn you'll be fine. Janelle not so much.

[Drogon]

I have to admit I'm unsure where everyone is seeing the high kill rate for this adventure. I ran it today with an eye toward everything mentioned in this thread and saw no real issues. There were certainly a few challenges, but nothing overtly dangerous. The bloodrager and warpriest hit like two-ton trucks, and with the support that regular PFS characters can provide them (I had a ninja, bard and alchemist at a table of five) my group had no problems at all. A couple guys were knocked unconscious a couple times, but that's as far as the threat level got.

I found it to be a very enjoyable scenario, actually, and nowhere near as deadly as was being espoused in this thread. Dawn of the Scarlet Sun and Bonekeep are levels of deadly WAY above this.

[David Haller]

Likewise - I ran it pretty tough (the zombie lords coups de grased paralyzed PCs at the end, for example), but ultimately had one PC death. As I said earlier, if you just let your players do their thing, they'll prove clever and resourceful.

I don't think any of the four tables at our venue TPKed.

[Ulfen Death Squad]

The three here in San Antonio had zero TPKs. Our table took longer than it should have but we finished with no deaths. My Crusader Cleric was a solid factor in our surviving the final boss. The first group to finish came close to having a few deaths in the boss fight. I have no ideas about the second group to finish.

[Mat Black]

I did TPK the table I ran, but it wasn't necessarily for any of the reasons that have been brought up.

Spoiler:

the party finished more than half of the encounters. they had not explored the southern chambers of the pyramid before reaching the tomb. after fighting off the animated statues in the entryway to the tomb, the healthiest character was the swashbuckler, who was at 10 hp. this was after expending all of their healing options, as well as every consumable that they had left. they had a good idea what was behind the door, but chose consciously to go in and go out in a blaze of glory.

so, yes, it did end up being deadly, but by their choice. they were aware that they could have holed up and rested, but decided not to as we were already past the five hour mark and some of the players had other commitments. had they rested, they likely would have done very well.

all in all, it was a very enjoyable module to run, and all the players had a blast.

[cartmanbeck]

Matthew Starch wrote:

I did TPK the table I ran, but it wasn't necessarily for any of the reasons that have been brought up.

** spoiler omitted **

They burned through the entire 50 charges of the cure light wounds wand that the Warpriest was carrying? Wow!

[TheFlyingPhoton]

cartmanbeck wrote:

They burned through the entire 50 charges of the cure light wounds wand that the Warpriest was carrying? Wow!

The Warpriest's wand only has 25 charges on it. My table had two Warpriests and both of their wands were completely used up before the mod was finished (so equivalent to a whole wand).

[trollbill]

The Wand only has 25 charges.

Ran it this afternoon. Six players running the pregens doubling up on the Warpriest and Blood Rager. They had 2 deaths.

Spoiler:

They spent some gold on supplies before they left Eto and a tanglefoot bag greatly nerfed the rolling pyramid. Investigator died because he couldn't ever learn than when you are a squishy you shouldn't be the one to open the door after you check it for traps. One of the Warpriests died due to Mummy Rot.

[Hazzard]

Crowe the Pregen Barbarian from Risen from the Sands, the Free RPG Day module has a typo in his while in rage stat, it should read 18 and not 22.

We ran it today with 5 players, 2 of the players played pregens, Crowe and Jirelle, I had an Oread Invulnerable Rager, a Bard, and a Fighter.

We successfully avoided the falling rocks trap.

Our GM put the pyramid trap on rails and basically had it slam back and forth down the hallway and hitting us, but we had spread out enough that we were able to deal with it before it killed or seriously damaged anyone.

Our bard failed to percieve the pit trap and fell in. My character went up to kick the lid off the coffin/mimic, but we were able to murder it fairly quickly.

We found the secret doors and didn't go into the false tomb at all. We followed the hallway around to the left into the canoe room and were able to fight off the scarab beatle swarm with two flasks of alchemists fire. earning us a dust of dryness we never used.

We fought the Harem Guard Skeletons in the door way, minimizing who could come at us, took damage from the fire and explosions, but nothing that couldn't be healed with the Pregen Warpriests heal stick.

None of us confronted the harem girls, the room radiated so much magic we felt it best just to step out and close the door. None of us could speak Ancient Osiriani so that didn't help.

We followed the hallway to 16 and located the secret door, we disabled the trap, but not being able to figure it out or open it, I rage + power attacked the wall in order to break our way in. Our bard successfully knowledge checked the statues and we proceeded to break them to pieces.

Burial chamber fight with the Sphinx and Zombie Sekh-Pa-Mefer III lasted about 5 rounds, two of our party were paralyzed, the sphinx lasted 2 hits from my barbarian and one panache pumped up hit from Jirelle, then our bard use his whip to trip the zombie dude and everyone moved in to kill him when he tried to stand up.

Our GM called it at that point because we had essentially destroyed the hardest stuff in the pyramid.

Its a good scenario and I can see some parties having trouble with it, especially if they're all lower than lvl 3, but in the end we all came out alive.

[trollbill]

Drogon wrote:

I have to admit I'm unsure where everyone is seeing the high kill rate for this adventure. I ran it today with an eye toward everything mentioned in this thread and saw no real issues. There were certainly a few challenges, but nothing overtly dangerous. The bloodrager and warpriest hit like two-ton trucks, and with the support that regular PFS characters can provide them (I had a ninja, bard and alchemist at a table of five) my group had no problems at all. A couple guys were knocked unconscious a couple times, but that's as far as the threat level got.

I found it to be a very enjoyable scenario, actually, and nowhere near as deadly as was being espoused in this thread. Dawn of the Scarlet Sun and Bonekeep are levels of deadly WAY above this.

I think the biggest problem with this adventure is how ineffective the swashbuckler and investigator are in combat due to all the DR & Hardness. I am sure having an Alchemist does wonders when going up against a BBEG with a touch AC of 11 and vulnerability to fire. Ironically, we didn't have any deaths to Dawn of the Scarlet Sun when we ran it two years ago.

[Snuggles: Destroyer of Worlds]

I've only been playing Pathfinder for a few months (so I at least know the basics), but this was my first time playing a PFS game, so I figured that it would be good to give a comment from a new player's perspective.

First off, my party included me (warpriest pregen), a swashbuckler pregen, a lvl 2 evoker wizard, and a level 3 conjurer wizard. Not ideal, I know, but not horrible either. We had two front line fighters and two in the back, with healing, perception, and magic, so I figured that it would be okay for a supposedly lvls 2-4 module meant for 4 people.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

First off, we miraculusly found the first trap at the entrance and miraculously arranged ourselves so that we were out of range but in the room before we tripped it and the stones and portaculous fell, sealing us in. Not unexpected, and about going on par with what I was expecting.

Then came the roller derby of doom. Let's just say that 8DR is FRICKIN' RIDICULOUS for lvl 4 and below characters!!! Our wizards could do literally NOTHING to harm it, our SB would only BARELY be able to hurt it, and my initial attack of 14 damage with a 2d6+6 power attack swing did pretty much nothing significant. After it did 11 damage to 3 party members on its first charge, we decided that it was IMPOSSIBLE to beat it and bolted down the hallway, praying that there were no traps along the way. Healing takes up 5 of my 25 charges on the wand of cure light wounds I got for pregen.

Next room was the mimic. I star off attacking first for 20 dmg. That's more like it! And then it grabs me and does 14 points of one damage with one attack, and 8 with another. The SB does decent damage, the mages do a pitance, and I fail to break the grab with a 12 on the die. It sends me to -7 this round and I pass out. By the time that it dies, we need to use another 6 charges from my wand (down 11).

We find secret doors and go left of the entrance. There are two wooden boats and a scurrying sound from one. Our evoker, familiar with PF modules, has burning hands prepared and roats a swarm of scarabs. I attack with my sword (which apparently does nothing, not even the half damage I was expecting, on the swarm). Long story short, a few more alchemist fires and a burning oar later and we are through. 4 more charges from my wand (down 15).

Next room has 4 skeletons and another undead. Before we go in, we decide to play it smart and set up a trap with the boat from the previous room. Three of us stay back, ready to topple the boat unto undead and block the entrance of that room, and the SB tosses my holy water at a skeleton and then runs. Except for the automatic damage from their firey bodies, our trap and tactics work out well. Still though, another 3 charges lost (down 18). I'm also down 2 fervors too, and a divine favor spell. The wizards are down 1sr lvl spells each and a 2nd lvl spell.

So to recap, 3 combats in and I've spent 2/5ths of my available resources, the mages 4/5ths of theirs, and we never consider, nor were told, that we could rest to recover instead of spartan racing this SOB.

Next room has 2 concubines/ mummy lords. Pretty standard bottlekeck at the door tactics that work well, sans the frickin' DR, once again. 3 more charges from my wand (down 21) and my final fervor.

Finally, the boss. Our conjurer is up front because she can actually talk to him. His sphinx gets the first round when combat starts and hits her twice. The SB goes next and hurts the sphinx. Then me (23 dmg). Then the pharoah comes and we ALL fail our saving throw for paralysis for 1 round. Sphinx gets 4 ATTACKS off, and the pharoah one himself. The SB is most definitely dead. This battle is IMPOSSIBLE for us, so I decide to be the sacrifice, since I'm only a pregen and not a PC, and hold the bosses off while our mages run.

Mission failed.

Here's what I've learned from my first PFS experience. The module creators have NO IDEA how to balance out the difficulty!!! If I was completely new to Pathfinder and didn't have experience with a friend running a campaign at a gamestore, I'd most likely say "screw this" to the rest of the system.

First, DR against players under level 5 is just plain stuid, since few players will be able to overcome it. The damage levels, likewise, were WAY to high, since 2 attacks could kill off just about ANY character, even my 30hp warpriest. Enemies needed to have a MUCH smaller additional damage in order to even make things survivable. +9 on the roller, 1d6 fire per adjacent skeleton, and whatever the boss had were just WAY too much to handle. Not to mention the pharoah's +14 att, which is basically like giving the boss an automatic hit.

This module felt like that it was designed for 6 person parties lvl 4, or 4 person parties lvl 5-7. It seemed like someone was told, "get a module ready for a free game day," and then they had to rush it, so they just used a higher level module and claimed that it would be a "good challange" for a lower level party. DID ANYONE ACTUALLY PLAYTEST THIS WITH A 4 PERSON PARTY?!?!

I enjoyed playing, but I HATED the difficulty of the module. It WAS NOT possible to win it without some optimum 4 person party, if that. In all honesty, if you didnt have a party of 5 warpriests and an investigator, you were screwed from the beginning. That's not a fun, "intro to PFS" game, that's a needless slaughter fest to kill off PC's and make new players think, "Why bother, if all that's going to happen is a party wipe EVERY SINGLE MODULE?"

It's NOT FUN when death is GUARRENTEED from the very beginning.

[Wraith235]

Mine was Create pit on the pyramid ..
Jump across pit ... run down hallway ...
use run actions as the pyramid is closing in on them ... 3 rounds to break through the door ... End up trapping pyramid in the pit on the other side of that door

the pyramid is still shuffling in that hole - everyday I'm shuffling shuffeling

[trollbill]

Wraith235 wrote:

Mine was Create pit on the pyramid ..

Jump across pit ... run down hallway ...
use run actions as the pyramid is closing in on them ... 3 rounds to break through the door ... End up trapping pyramid in the pit on the other side of that door

the pyramid is still shuffling in that hole - everyday I'm shuffling shuffeling

I pity the party that falls in the pit trap at the end of the hall while running away from the pyramid only to have the pyramid fall in on top of them.

Snuggles, thank you for sharing. I am sorry you had that experience. It's difficulty is not typical for a PFS mods (though there are always a few exceptions).

[Wraith235]

1 did ... the party had the sense to toss down a rope to help him get out ... he took a full defensive after falling prone (and standing up provoking an AoP) in order to maximize action economy to get accelerated climb of 30 feet from a double move

[TriOmegaZero]

Six man table, level 4 4 4 4 3 2, no deaths. 4th level maneuver master monk grappled the pyramid, 4th level flame oracle burning hands everything, 4th level inquisitor and 2nd level war hulk barbarian power attacked everything else. Hardness slowed combats down but did not stop the party.

[Chris O'Reilly]

Despite the difficulty I think this was an enjoyable run and was pretty well received in our area. We ran 5 tables at our store, ours was the third to finish and we had one death and that was the only one I heard of for the day.

Area Venture lieutenant Matt had set up some spectacular looking 3d terrain(See here) so we were all jostling to play at that table. In the end we were the only table of 5 and the others went with 4. I was the only pregen, Oloch, and we had a lvl4 dual wield fighter, 2 witch, 4 monk, 4 oracle/pally. I could easily see how having actual characters at level 4 along greatly added to our success but we didnt have any tables of all pregens to compare to.

We possibly could have wiped on the rolling pyramid. After trampelling first round our gm had it single attack the highest ac target (he hit the pyramid last) the second round as a bit of a respite. Our witch was down after the first trample but was lifelinked. If the thing trampelled again only the monk would have been up and only if he made his ref save. But because of the oradin channeling we survived and whittled down the pyramid over 4 or so rounds(the fighter crit once which hastened the affair).

For the mimic we thought the lid looked heavy so 4 of us each took a corner and grabbed to lift. Woooops.

For the last fight everyone failed their aura saves but the oradin and I managed to succeed on a reroll. Had we not of been prepared with rerolls it could have been a tpk right there with 2 coup de gras a round coming in. Anyway the mummy downs the pally and, the pally having been the first one in the tomb, has the sphinx full attack him causing the oradin to be dead dead, but he didnt have mummy rot. The mummy crit our monk and gave him mummy rot but he stayed up and we ended up killing the boss before anything else eventful happened.

The oradin ended up being raised by his father who was playing and posessed a debt to the society boon, only having the required fame because he was level 4.

So afterwards we all said it was a fun adventure but agreed it was probably less so for the guy that died. It will probably never be run again now that free RPG day is over. We did have a couple new people show up to try out the system and while I wasnt playing with them it seemed evident from another table that they were enjoying themselves.

[trollbill]

To be clear, I did enjoy the adventure despite 3/4s of my party dying (of course, I wasn't one of the ones who died either). My concerns on this thread were directed at the potential new player issues that are exhibited by Snuggles's post.