Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I've run 6 games of this now. Only one was high tier, and that one was brutal. I had similar maps and handouts for each NPC, but different pictures for Pellius and Dorinannia.
One thing that wasn't clear - low tier spells out the mummy's stats and doesn't keep the mummy rot and aura. But high tier just gave the aura to a regular adv. mummy. But it doesn't say anything about removing anything the mummy already has. I other words, the high tier has the sandstorm, aura of dispare, and mummy rot.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I can't believe I never made the connection until it was pointed out last night.
Temmel Passad is prominent in the recent Glass river rescue, as the scenario notes. But he is also a factor in 3-03: ghenett manor gauntlet. It's set in one of his 6 houses, and he makes it into a death trap for the party sent to collect a book.
It puts his wealth and attitude into a very different light. And in the odd case that a 5th level PC has done Ghenett manor when he plays the wake, should be brought up.
And it makes his stat block even more rediculus.
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One thing that wasn't clear - low tier spells out the mummy's stats and doesn't keep the mummy rot and aura. But high tier just gave the aura to a regular adv. mummy. But it doesn't say anything about removing anything the mummy already has. I other words, the high tier has the sandstorm, aura of dispare, and mummy rot.
High tier lists its Aura, replacing the Aura line of a standard mummy. It has desert wind and not despair. Mummy rot is a special attack, which is not listed as altered, so it still gets mummy rot.
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just ran this tonight, got a mixed reception from my players.
I do wish that my Cleric/Inquisitor of Urgathoa hadn't already reached lvl 6 before I learned of this scenario. He would have been the perfect character to play in this, even though he wouldn't benefit from the Qadira boon
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I was one of the players at Simon's table. It was an enjoyable evening. In the beginning there was the awkwardness of a band of kitchensink/murderhobo/weirdo types attending a posh funeral and trying to figure out how to talk to these people about "business". After starting a bit stiffly we had some good shenanigans.
The corpse coming to life surprised absolutely no-one. That was to be expected of course. We weren't quite sure if it was because of mishandling by a Pharasman cleric trying to perform Sarenite funeral rites, or actual evil intent.
Anyway, the chase. Simon started off by apologizing for there being a chase, which I think was a mistake. After his extensive apology, we were all expecting it to be horrible. I'd never before seen the chase mechanics before personally. This wasn't bad at all, it was a few minutes of shoving through the zombies and we were there. Based on the apologies beforehand, we were expecting this to be awful, but it was okay really, and didn't take long.
The final fight.. yeah, the old lady was evil. In hindsight I totally saw it coming, but somehow Simon is pretty good at fooling me with these things. It was pretty cool when she channelled herself eventually, the "Urgathoa here I come" moment. I liked that.
All in all I think this adventure is a little bit cliche but not in a bad way. Maybe at the beginning the players may need a bit more hand-holding on what Aaqir wants them to achieve; that part was a bit vague.
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I ran this last night for the first time. Knowing how confusing all the NPCs are with foreign names & motives, I made handouts with some portraits from the scenario and other images from Google. There are 8 key NPCs to keep track of. I wish we were allowed to share work like this, but it is not covered by the Community Use Policy.
I fortunately had a table of 4 players. Having more face-time to share with the GM helped to keep them engaged. It was 3.5 hours of role-play before we ever rolled init. They enjoyed themselves but it is tiresome to think on your feet that long.
When I played this scenario, we straight-up murdered Shirin outside of the tomb. We were convinced that she was behind it all and would have ended it sooner had the GM not stopped us and explained how the plot was supposed to go. We were so frustrated by the time we got to the graveyard, we didn't give her a chance to talk. We ran up and started hacking her to pieces. We laughed about it afterward--what if she turned out to be innocent?
It made me think about how to avoid a replay of this when I ran it last night. First, don't put down a flipmat and place minis on it. That is like ringing the bell for Pavlov's dog. Players are going to go right into tactical mode. Just keep the atmosphere casual like the graveyard is a red herring and you're going to read them boxed text to lead them to the next clue. Describe "Umut" dragging herself away from the opened tomb looking like death warmed over. Let the players accuse her or make threats, but don't tip your hand. Have a good story rehearsed so it sounds smooth and natural. Every good lie contains a kernel of truth.
Umut: [moans] "Don't come closer! .... You have to get away, warn the others .... she's in there!"
PCs: "Shaa, right. We know you're behind this, evil necromancer lady. Just admit it so we can commence stabbing you with pointy objects."
Umut: [groans in pain, rolls over so PCs can see mummy rot on her neck] "It wasn't me. Her name is Shirin. She's a follower of Urgathoa, the Pallid Princess, an enemy of my goddess. [weeping]Oh Pharasma, deliver me from this place! Shirn's harrassed me in the past .... followed me here from Osirion."
PCs: "Sense motive! Heal check! Crap, her story is checking out. Where is she now?"
Umut: "She was laying in wait for me within the tomb with her mummy companion. The servants have been slaughtered, she's probably animating their bodies right now. She'll do the same to you, if you don't leave right away!"
PCs: "GM says we should leave. He's probably trying to screw us again. We're going in after we buff up. Squishy guys, stay in the back!"
GM: [evil smile on the inside] "OK, roll init and give me a marching order into the tomb."
In my game there were two inquisitors and a cleric of Sarenrae. Thanks to some favorable rolls, the encounter worked like the author intended. They did consider she was setting them up, but there was enough doubt in their minds they ended up getting hit from behind after they went down to fight "the necromancer in the tomb".
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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When I played this I was under the impression that the mummy rose because Umut bungled the funeral rites. While she was an experienced Pharasmin cleric (...), out of respect for Zamira's faith in Sarenrae it was going to be a sort of hybrid ceremony. With disastrous results!
Maybe I'm just naive, but it worked on me. And I'm running it come sunday, I think I'll try it like that. And when they meet Umut in the graveyard I'll have her talk about "it's gone all wrong! I must have made a mistake! those poor people!" and stuff like that.
I've scavenged some artwork from other scenarios so I can have minis and table tents for all the merchants. I'm still afraid the full-body portrait for Shirin will be suspicious, though.
Other than that, I'm really looking forward to this. Time to practice some accents.
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If it was cast before the failed saving throw, then the PC would be immune. If it was cast after the failed saving throw, it does them no good. They would be safe from further affects, but it will not undo what has been done previous. They have already suffered the affect. Think about casting resist energy after being hit by an acid arrow. Agree?
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6 players; 3 rogue, 3 paladin, 3 warpriest, 4 Swashbuckler, 5 Druid, 5 Witch. High tier, no adjustment.
The adventure started with the party looking at the three items on the table and asking if they had a plausible excuse to think the note meant to take all three items and decide which to give once they arrived (for the sweet temporary loot).
Mingling: Printed out the names and a one line description on a sheet of paper with the character art from the scenario. this telegraphed who was more important but Aaqir hints that those three are more powerful anyway. I struggle with NPC RP, but i found that focusing on the optional skills was a good crutch (the dwarf asked about how characters have been supplementing their income). The paladin and warpriest were super excited to contribute to a diplomacy encounter with their Know(religion). They decided to ignore Temel once finding about the rivalry.
The Wake: downplayed the priest as a Named Character, and prerolled the know(religion) so the party suspected nothing. But the advanced mummy was a brutal fight. I used the power attack for the whole fight. Charged the witch to knock her out in one slam plus aura. Scared the mouser swashbuckler when the underfoot failed and he got hit hard, one hit the paladin after he Smited and got one hit through damage reduction. Druid started chain summoning fire elementals to tank it. The group also rolled poorly on the aura and had no cleric to channel, so that may have been bad luck.
Players were torn on the chase scene. Their characters wanted to save everyone, the players suspected that the scenario was not designed that way. I tried to play up the hordeness of the zombies, how they would really need to work together if they were going to make it to either of the guest rooms in reasonable time. They only failed the trap challenge, I wasn't giving the DCs because I wanted to keep it in 'narrative' mode. I should have emphasized that given their rush it would be easier to kick the trap and dodge it than to disarm it.
The ninja knocked the merchant unconscious in the second round of combat and he died from poison/bleed in the 3rd round. The party could have saved her but fell into the 'someone else will cure her, i'll fight zombies' trap here. The party immediately decided to get her raised "She is rich, she will reimburse us." Aaqir assured them he would preserve her body while he contacted her family to learn of her will and wishes, but insisted that they focus on the living: the priest in the graveyard.
The rogue saw through the disguise and got adjacent to her in the surprise round with the druids animal companion. They rolfstomped her and then met and fought the skeletons on the stairs. They commented on how the last fight was a push over compared to the earlier fights, had to stop and play up that is was easy cause they were awesome pathfinders who saw through her ambush.