(I suspect that somebody is going to find one minor oddball way in which they should not be treated like locations... which is why they are stacks.)
Hmmm....
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(I suspect that somebody is going to find one minor oddball way in which they should not be treated like locations... which is why they are stacks.)Hmmm....
I've been trying to figure this out, but with no luck. Anyone got a guess as to this PACG riddle?
No guesses from me as yet. For those interested who do not yet have deck 6, the card is listed in the blog post previewing Deck 6 here http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lg7o?Free-at-Last-Free-at-Last-the-Run elord-of
(Note: Spoilers are in that article, so don't look unless you want to know).
Spent some more time thinking on it. Right now my guess is simply the rule about moving to closed locations.
Characters may move to closed locations, and if there are cards there, they may explore and encounter those cards as normal.
In this scenario, once you move away from the empty stack/location, you don't seem to be able to move back there, forcing you to group up and denying you the ability to find a safe place to camp out if you are at risk of dying.
I'm also wondering if there is a "story" reason they aren't locations. What exactly is a Death Zone in the Adventure Path story?
Are you saying that a closed stack no longer exists since there is no longer a card there to represent it and therefor since it no longer exists, a character cannot move there? Its a possibility. However if the stack no longer exists as a closed stack, then its not able to add 2 to the difficulty of closing open stacks.
If its just the fact that its a stack and not a location causing you to be unable to move there, then you could not technically move to the open stacks either.
There may be another reason that you can't move to a stack once closed that I am not picking up on. What happens to a character who dies at a stack that gets closed before they are able to be revived?
I'm also wondering if there is a "story" reason they aren't locations. What exactly is a Death Zone in the Adventure Path story?
As I recall from the adventure, this is the section where the PCs climb to such a high altitude that they have to deal with real high-altitude issues - extreme cold, diminished to nonexistent air supply, and so forth.
I think it's okay to be at a closed stack, but if you do, you're not "moving forward" to get everyone clear of the death zone. And I suppose that works - because failing to complete due to the timer running out could be the equivalent of backing down the mountain instead of finishing the climb.
So - not seeing a reason why these are different from "Locations" other than there being no Location Card. Although I see Vic's point - if he'd categorically answered that way, someone would find an exception.
Chief Technical Officer
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Mhar Massif provides the very backbone of the World’s Roof and supports one of Golarion’s tallest peaks. Reaching a staggering elevation of 31,565 feet, the peak shares its name with the entire massif, whose eponym is derived from the gigantic carving of Karzoug’s visage that graces the south face of the mountain. This feature is itself 1,500 feet high and reaches the crown of the mountain. Just below this carving soar the mighty towers of the Spires of Xin-Shalast, though even the highest of these dare not intrude upon the elevation that is the face’s alone.
The name Mhar is itself from a legend, as can be recalled with a successful DC 30 Knowledge (history, planes, or religion) check. This legend tells of a powerful entity called Mhar who attempted to enter Golarion from some alien realm, only to be caught and petrified midway through its emergence from the mountain. What Mhar might have been and what power might have been great enough to stop him is unknown, but none dared contemplate the consequences had Mhar been successful in his transition. The entity’s face was all that remained, frozen at the mountain’s peak in stone. Runelord Kaladurnae (the original Runelord of Greed) chose this site to build his city partially due to these legends, and now, thousands of years after Thassilon’s fall, tales of Mhar can still be read in moldering tomes. With each new runelord, arcane sculptors changed and altered the features of the face to match the new lord, yet still, even the runelords themselves couldn’t completely shake the feeling that something else, something far older than Thassilon itself, looked out from those cold stony eyes in the World’s Roof.
Mhar’s failed attempt to come to Golarion scarred the region in other ways—most notably, in the thinning of the boundary between this world and the nightmare realm of Leng. The influence of Leng grows ever more powerful the higher one climbs along the slopes of Mhar Massif, almost as if the mountain’s sheer height were piercing the firmament and allowing this other world to leak in around its crown. Scaling the Face of Mhar is extremely dangerous, with even the most direct route (the ascending Golden Road) posing numerous difficulties along the way.
Ascending the mountain via the Golden Road is the easiest climb, requiring only a dozen successful DC 15 Climb checks in total along its face, where the road becomes particularly steep or has crumbled away for short stretches. Attempts to climb the mountain along any other route require DC 25 Climb checks, made round-by-round, along with a dozen areas that require DC 30 Climb checks to bypass particularly harrowing obstacles. Magical flight is a much safer option, as is teleportation. Even then, the winds, thin air, and cold present deadly hazards.
As the PCs climb up from the Lower City, there’s a 15% chance per hour that someone notices and attacks—possibly dragons, flying patrols of lamias, or frost giants—the most likely things to notice the PCs are the Leng spiders that infest the region (see page 341). Once the PCs climb above 26,000 feet and enter the death zone (see below), these leng spiders become the only creatures they’ll encounter until they reach the Pinnacle of Avarice.
The Death Zone
From the Lower City’s elevation of just above 15,000 feet to the upper slopes of Mhar Massif, the PCs will need to endure the effects of high peak altitudes, as detailed on page 430 of the Core Rulebook. But once the PCs near the spires, they pass above 26,000 feet and enter what is known as the “death zone,” the point at which the air itself grows too thin to breathe. In the time of Thassilon, the interiors of all the buildings here maintained breathable atmospheres, and certain outdoor areas (primarily courtyards and walkways between structures) had zones where portals to the Plane of Air and churning elementals worked to maintain rivers of breathable air, but today only the uppermost reaches of the Pinnacle of Avarice itself maintains these effects. Creatures who come and go from the region today (mostly giants, Ceoptra, and Khalib) generally resort to magic or speed (or a combination of both) to limit their exposure to the death zone’s effects. The following rules for the death zone supplement those presented for high altitudes in the Core Rulebook.
DEATH ZONE (MORE THAN 26,000 FEET): Normal life is not possible at this altitude; there is simply not sufficient atmospheric pressure to allow enough oxygen to be inhaled by breathing creatures. Altitude sickness manifests almost immediately at these heights. After each 10-minute period a character spends in the death zone, he must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1 point of damage to all ability scores. Acclimation to high altitude (such as that granted by the Altitude Affinity feat, or to creatures who have adapted to such regions) offers no protection at all. Perhaps even more dangerous—as soon as any creature fails three consecutive saving throws against this effect, it begins to slowly suffocate—until that creature returns to more hospitable terrain, it suffers the effects of slow suffocation, as detailed on page 445 of the Core Rulebook. Temperatures in the death zone are always severely cold.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I recall pitching that the Death Zone locations would each be actual cards named things like "Death Zone: 25,000 Feet", "Death Zone: 30,000 Feet", and so on, each with their own built-in (and gradually worsening) penalties, and that the scenario would require the characters to begin at the lowest level and only allow them to move to the next level when they permanently close the current level.
I have to say, I love the idea of escalating Death Zone locations with a variety of different penalties.
Someone should create this!!!
It's been a year since I thought about it, but I think Mike's response was something along the lines of "...and which 5 cards would you remove from Set 5 to make that happen?"
Yeah, almost certainly not worth the cards. However, it sounds like a great starting point for a Homebrew or OP scenario.
It's been a year since I thought about it, but I think Mike's response was something along the lines of "...and which 5 cards would you remove from Set 5 to make that happen?"
I do believe it was.
Ok. So this got FAQ'd yesterday. And besides using the term "locations" the equation for the increased difficulty also changed, though the end result seems to have stayed the same, assuming I'm figuring it out correctly.
1st location: (6-6)*2 = 0
2nd location: (6-5)*2 = 2
3rd location: (6-4)*2 = 4
4th location: (6-3)*2 = 6
5th location: (6-2)*2 = 8
6th location: (6-1)*2 = 10
5 characters
1st location: (5-5)*2 = 0
2nd location: (5-4)*2 = 2
3rd location: (5-3)*2 = 4
4th location: (5-2)*2 = 6
5th location: (5-1)*2 = 8
4 characters
1st location: (4-4)*2 = 0
2nd location: (4-3)*2 = 2
3rd location: (4-2)*2 = 4
4th location: (4-1)*2 = 6
So, two questions:
1. What was the minor oddball way they wouldn't have been treated like locations? It's the greatest PACG mystery there is! I must know!
2. Was the "math" change just so you wouldn't have to remember how many locations you'd closed since once closed there is no evidence they ever existed on the table?
1. The big change was to remove the word "duplicate," which made some people think there were N stacks and some think there were N+1 stacks, where N is the number of characters. But the real questions came when things like the golden rule and character powers referred to locations. If a card gave you +1 on checks to close a location, it was unclear they affected "stacks." So we addressed it.
2. Yes.