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Reading through the scenario right now - it looks really cool and I really like how it is structured to allow players the freedom to take a lot of different actions to defend the lodge.
I'm just posting because...
apparently we're being attacked by someone with the last name of Gavix.
Are we suddenly about to be attacked by a family who's pissed that their daughter died via minotaur?
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Fair enough - so the copying is just day job fluff then. Got it.
Also, I noticed that there's a bunch of references to other scenarios in the text.
Also, am I missing something, or is there no dead character hidden in this scenario? I was looking for one!
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A few things I've found:
Page 18&19 - Thurlok's Before Combat tactics are excessively long and will be quickly violated by PC actions.
Page 24 - Thilza's slow spell is DC 19 and suggestion is DC 17. Additionally, she's listed as having Racial Modifiers to Disguise and Sense Motive even though she's human.
Page 25 - Same thing with the Racial Modifiers. Advanced Gearsman Robots are on Page 15, not 14.
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Also, I noticed that there's a bunch of references to other scenarios in the text.
Also, am I missing something, or is there no dead character hidden in this scenario? I was looking for one!
No to the EotT reference.
You're missing one more.
Arvellos could easily be the dead character you're looking fore depending on the path the PCs choose.
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That's pretty handy actually. I was really just giving you a hard time, but I am slightly concerned about table space at GenCon. I DID notice though that the map is pretty nicely delineated between inside and outside very close to that halfway point, and barring a very spaced out rumble could probably function with one or the other at any given time. Intentional?
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That's pretty handy actually. I was really just giving you a hard time, but I am slightly concerned about table space at GenCon. I DID notice though that the map is pretty nicely delineated between inside and outside very close to that halfway point, and barring a very spaced out rumble could probably function with one or the other at any given time. Intentional?
Of course!
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Oooooooooooooh, purdy.
It just HAD to be a gigantic map.
I guess it took me close to an hour to draw the map in my hotel room. Some gaming paper and a pack of crayons. I started travel before it was out and didn't wanted to take too much stuff with me.
Now I still need to look up various feats, special abilities, etc that I seem less familiar with.
This scenario surely is on the heavy side in regard to preparation.
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Oooooooooooooh, purdy.
It just HAD to be a gigantic map.
I guess it took me close to an hour to draw the map in my hotel room. Some gaming paper and a pack of crayons. I started travel before it was out and didn't wanted to take too much stuff with me.
Now I still need to look up various feats, special abilities, etc that I seem less familiar with.
This scenario surely is on the heavy side in regard to preparation.
Yeah, I drew out the lodge part of the map. If the top half becomes relevant, I have a flip mat and I can do a quick sketch, but seeing as they attack from the back, I'm not too worried.
Ans yes, Kyle's document is really good. People should download it and use it. I know I have.
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So 1 death, 1 feeblemind and 1 bunny in 2 sessions of this scenario. Turns out Greater Invis Vivisectionists are pretty brutal.
Also I had someone speak with animals to the behemoth hippo. Turns out there's only one thing you can do when a PC does that.
"I'M A HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO."
The general feeling I got from the players was "This scenario was tough but fair." It's an excellent scenario, even if it is a little long on the GM side. Definitely made up for the mixed feelings of Sealed Gate.
One thing I'm curious about is how other tables approached the defense. Here's how both of my tables went.
Me: *box text about Rand going missing*
Players: So, let's go look for Rand first. When he last left the lodge, what was he doing?
Me: Uh... *thinks* I (Aya) told him to help defend the lodge in case we're attacked.
Players: Well, what defenses does the lodge have?
Me: Well, we got this wood golem and this armor, but the armor needs a diamond and this golem needs some baobab root.
Players: Cool, we'll get that too.
Players: *search for the diamond, complete that encounter*
Players: So, have you heard of anyone trying to buy a black diamond before us?
Me: Uh... *thinking* I've heard rumors, but I've never seen the guy. We all talk to each other out here. You might want to talk to *some guy I made up*.
(The first group was looking for a way to make a survival check to track him, so I basically decided to allow them to find the guy no problem and switch the gather info into a survival check at the same DC. I figure that tracking gearsmen in the city won't be impossible. The second party tried to do the exact same thing, but they weren't trying to actively track things, so I probably should have omitted the name and made the gather info check her and made the tracking automatic. Hindsight is 20/20.)
Players: *clear out the warehouse*
Me: *reads the Rand box text*
Players: *completely ignore the Rand box text*
(One set of players at this point went out to get the Root, while another decided that they didn't have enough time before the siege and went back.)
*siege happens*
Basically, 2 very different tables taking a very similar path means that it's probably something in how I'm framing the scenario, and I have to guess that it has something to do with the Q&A session with Aya, but I'm not sure how it would go different.
Also - funny trick with the gnome sorcerer in the warehouse at higher tier. At some point she might need to escape, but she doesn't have any good escape spells. Easiest trick I was able to come up with is major image into a wall of stone. I had PCs beating up on the wall for 2 rounds because they kept failing Will saves.
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The difference between high-tier and low-tier must be significant, because the two tables that I ran had little issue with, well, anything in the scenario.
The low-tier inquisitor just doesn't have enough attack bonus to hit a reasonably prepared level 5-7PC. The teamwork fighters do their best to help, but the absence of Greater Trip makes their tactics of "always try trip attempts" really all-or-nothing.
Both of my groups did everything right to avoid the final encounter, so I can't make a comment on that one.
But, two tables left with good spirits and were both pretty pleased with the way the table went. Everyone got their faction bonus missions completed as well.
All-in-all, it went well. I would love to see what the high side is like, though.
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My first table was low-tier and even splitting up to tackle multiple tasks early, including the warehouse, they destroyed it and got everything done in time to avoid the final encounter. They were also jerks the whole way and missed the Exhange mission by a long shot, which annoyed the Exchange players but as a GM I really appreciate having a faction mission that isn't entirely dice-based and includes consequences for treating NPCs like game pieces, so props for that, Kyle. Also, thanks for letting me briefly borrow the picture of Aya, it was a really cool thing to have. Am I correct in assuming that posting it would be against the community use policy? If so, I hope it does end up showing up, which I guess is probably a pretty safe bet if Grand Lodge is focusing on the Mwangi Expanse this season.
My high tier table went a lot differently. They stuck together and still had challenging fights throughout the scenario. Within the first three rounds, the shaman had been paralyzed for 11 rounds and the rogue took a ton of ability damage from poison and then died to a phantasmal killer. The bar fight was pretty punishing with the teamwork fighters, which really surprised the players even after the first fight. The inquisitors never had any significant actions on either table. The final battle was a doozie though. The Oracle was dropped by one attack from the rogue and the robot and fighters played some good interference but got whittled down eventually while the sorceress did her thing. The first victim was one of the teamwork barbarians being turned into a platypus. After that, the rogue was feebleminded and went off to play with the platypus. The other teamwork barbarian was dropped from a combination of robot and lightning bolt damage and the shaman was turned into a dodo when she tried to get him back up. The tanky fighter mostly absorbed attacks the whole time. When he saw the mean magic lady attacking his friends, the feebleminded rogue came back and tried to hit her with a stick. The tank and rogue proved to be fairly resistant to her damaging spells, so she caught them in a black tentacles and then went to find the book, but she only had a vague idea of where it was. She cast prying eyes, but I will admit that I hadn't read the spell very well and didn't realize how high the perception check on the eyes was, so they didn't do very much. The tank got out of the tentacles and healed the barbarian enough that he got back up and went after the sorceress again. A few magic missiles and a lightning bolt dropped one of them to unconscious and killed the other. The rogue finally got out as well and resumed his assault and finally brought her down, then went to play with the platypus again. It ended up being a real nail-biter and I think everyone enjoyed it in the end, despite the cost to heal everyone up.
All in all, I enjoyed the scenario quite a bit and I'm looking forward to running it again on Thursday.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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I only had one table out of four get any of the Golem's items, most went the first two then I had to get the Siege going because of time.
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** spoiler omitted **
Awesome! There's still some luck required because even if the PCs do remarkably well, that d4 can keep them from avoiding the final encounter.
I'm curious if any of the players feel cheated by *not* having to fend off the Technic League. Seems that a few reviews might hint at that.
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** spoiler omitted **Awesome! There's still some luck required because even if the PCs do remarkably well, that d4 can keep them from avoiding the final encounter.
I'm curious if any of the players feel cheated by *not* having to fend off the Technic League. Seems that a few reviews might hint at that.
There were a few players expressing, "aww, man, we coulda had another fight!" at my table that avoided the final encounter, but they still seemed fairly satisfied.
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Yes there is, however, it didn't make it into the scenario. I'm hoping that John works it into Monday's blog post so then everyone can print their own copy.
(the artwork for her is stunning)
Super excited!
I was scheduled to run this twice at Gencon, and had the second table not fire. The first table was pretty interesting. Their first instinct after talking to Aya was to just take the book and head back to Absalom. I had Aya balk at the prospect, and convince them that letting a Pathfinder Lodge burn to the ground might be a bad idea. After they got back on track, things went pretty smoothly, the table engineered it so they would play in Tier 5-6, and with half the table playing over-optimized characters, and two pregens. They killed the G.I. checks, and got lucky on dice rolls, so time wasn't an issue. The warehouse almost was pretty grisly, they didn't bother checking and set off the alarm, but they boxed in the sorcerer before she could lightning bolt four of them. Once the Vivisectionist went down the fight went pretty quickly. They went after Sal next, and the fight was even quicker. After that, they spent some time pinning it on the Aspis Consortium, spreading rumors. The night passed uneventfully, and later on they heard rumors that the Aspis in Bloodcove had been hit by the League.
Looking at the conditions for the siege, if the party goes after Rand, then Sal, do they then have as much time as they need to spread rumors?
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Looking at the conditions for the siege, if the party goes after Rand, then Sal, do they then have as much time as they need to spread rumors?
It needs to be looked at (somewhat) logically.
There's TL agents throughout the city. Some are at the warehouse interrogating Rand. Others are tracking down Sal. Yet others are still "gathering information" around town.
If the PCs track down Rand and Sal right away and make great time (i.e. roll well on the d4 and/or bring the time down via gather information), the rest of the TL presence in Nantambu is left searching for answers.
If the PCs immediately go and plant rumors (or had done so immediately before going after Rand and/or Sal), the TL follows-up on those rumors and leaves Nantambu. If the PCs instead to decide to play defense, the TL eventually puts it together and searches Sharrowsmith's.
It's all intended to be very organic and the GM should feel free to adjudicate it however he feels the party would enjoy it the most. The final encounter could even be a smaller group of TL agents asking around the bazaar about the book. I do worry a bit that I may have been off by an hour on critically succeeding at avoiding the final encounter. I wanted it to be obtainable, but not common.
I still owe everyone a play-by-play of how my 3 tables went.
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So, just to confirm here. The PCs are assumed to have a copy of A Thread of Silver, and, and Reading the Threads applies to that? That's the way it seems to be, but I just want to make sure.
Looks like I'll have to provide copies of the A Thread of Silver dungeon guide info for mt PCs from last weekend. If any PC who finishes the adventure without the book being destroyed gets a copy, I'll whip up a little printable sheet for it.
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So, I've been rereading the scenario so I can run this again locally, and I'm having trouble finding when I should have the League attack. Is here any sort of timeline for the scenario that I'm missing, or should I just start the siege once I hink they've had enough time? I see how long each individual task takes but I don't see when the Siege should go down. I see that if a Warehouse NPC escapes it begins in two hours, and it begins an hour sooner if an NPC from the Copper Buffalo gets away, but nothing on when the siege itself starts. I'm sure I'm just blind, but can someone help me out?
One other question, if the party takes an excessively long time to enter the Warehouse after setting off the alarm ("Oh man, we'll just wait out their buffs!") would it be reasonable, once they get around to gong inside, to have them find a dead Rand and an otherwise empty building with the siege on the fast timer? My table at Gencon almost did this, but just barely decided not to. Furthermore, if they take time to buff after tripping the alarm, would it be reasonable to also have the NPC's inside start doing whatever buffs they can?
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So, just to confirm here. The PCs are assumed to have a copy of A Thread of Silver, and, and Reading the Threads applies to that? That's the way it seems to be, but I just want to make sure.
Looks like I'll have to provide copies of the A Thread of Silver dungeon guide info for mt PCs from last weekend. If any PC who finishes the adventure without the book being destroyed gets a copy, I'll whip up a little printable sheet for it.
I think it's more of an access thing, not a physical copy. The way I understand it, future scenarios will reference this boon and award bonuses based on the PCs having access.
So, I've been rereading the scenario so I can run this again locally, and I'm having trouble finding when I should have the League attack. Is here any sort of timeline for the scenario that I'm missing? I see how long each individual task takes but I don't see when the Siege should go down. I see that if a Warehouse NPC escapes it begins in two hours, and it begins an hour sooner if an NPC from the Copper Buffalo gets away, but nothing on when the siege itself starts. I'm sure I'm just blind, but can someone help me out?
Page 6: The final encounter of the scenario takes place approximately 10 hours after the PCs’ arrival in the city (this will vary based on PC choices). If the
scenario is running in a limited time slot, the final encounter should begin when less than 1-1/2 hours remain.|
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Wow, I have no idea how I missed that. It's even in a big gray sidebar to boot. Thanks for pointing that out to me. I saw the stats for Nantambu, and just blanked. Thanks again, Kyle, for pointng that out and for the incredible stat blocks you put up on the shared prep site. It made running so much easier.
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Make whole and mending both state they can fix/repair magic items specifically. The book is non-magical.
If that doesn't work for you, they need every piece for the spell to function. It's simple enough to have some of it blow off in the (fickle) wind or the TL can take it with them, or whatever it needs to be to make a destroyed book stay destroyed.
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A couple things.
1. Thanks Kyle for putting your notes on PFSprep.com. I usually don't use the site, because the notes are typically just stat blocks and I prefer my notes to be more thorough. Your's however has spells, poisons, feats, etc. I was more then happy to use yours.
2. WTF is up with that map. The size of 2 flips maps, geez louise. I did take someone's recommendation and just draw out the manor.
3. I really like the idea of this scenario. I am curious as to how it will play out. Other scenarios like this, I have felt the plot gets lost in the tasks. I hope that is not the case.
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With apologies to AC/DC, this is the song I'm having the bard singing to kick off the siege:
Thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder
You’ll be caught
In the middle of a petty plot
You’ll look around
And you’ll know there is no turning back
When you steal
From those better than you-u
And you’ll know
There’ll be no help, no help for you-u
Sound of the drums
Will beat in your heart
The thunder of guns
Will tear you apart
You've been
Thunderstruck
That song can sound pretty impressive on a stringed intstument :D
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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We played this yesterday and it was awesome. The crowning moment was when we had the Oracle Silenced and a fight to stop her from using Alchemist's Fire, and the Sorcerer Feebleminded the Bloodrager.
Turns out that feebleminding a bloodrager doesn't stop him from ripping you apart with claws :D
The fights were fun and challenging, and we felt that our earlier choices really helped shape the final confrontation. We went for aggressively seeking out and confronting the TL agents wherever they were, and as a result when the final conflict came we were at a bit of an advantage. Although that sorcerer really gave me the willies with the kind of stuff he was throwing at us.
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We played this yesterday and it was awesome. The crowning moment was when we had the Oracle Silenced and a fight to stop her from using Alchemist's Fire, and the Sorcerer Feebleminded the Bloodrager.
Turns out that feebleminding a bloodrager doesn't stop him from ripping you apart with claws :D
The fights were fun and challenging, and we felt that our earlier choices really helped shape the final confrontation. We went for aggressively seeking out and confronting the TL agents wherever they were, and as a result when the final conflict came we were at a bit of an advantage. Although that sorcerer really gave me the willies with the kind of stuff he was throwing at us.
I love asking for a fort save, then pausing a moment and asking for a will save. :) Sounds like you had a great time, thanks for the report!
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I love asking for a fort save, then pausing a moment and asking for a will save. :) Sounds like you had a great time, thanks for the report!We played this yesterday and it was awesome. The crowning moment was when we had the Oracle Silenced and a fight to stop her from using Alchemist's Fire, and the Sorcerer Feebleminded the Bloodrager.
Turns out that feebleminding a bloodrager doesn't stop her from ripping you apart with claws :D
The fights were fun and challenging, and we felt that our earlier choices really helped shape the final confrontation. We went for aggressively seeking out and confronting the TL agents wherever they were, and as a result when the final conflict came we were at a bit of an advantage. Although that sorcerer really gave me the willies with the kind of stuff he was throwing at us.
I had no chance against that feeblemind, only a natural 20 would've saved me. But yes, even if I can no longer cast spells, I can still function as a barbarian with slightly less maximum hitpoints :)
From the three season six scenarios this one is the one that I enjoyed most, because there were so many options and directions to take.
We sadly didn't get a chance to go to the hippos, because we spend too much time in the lodge checking it for clues and the instructions for the golem and animated armor, and after that city going after Rand and Sal and getting the component for the animated armor.
Getting the component for the armor was one of the highlights for me:
Two shackles pirate thugs are threatening the shopkeeper, and we barge in dispite them trying to warn us out. The people that went inside were a cleric of sarenrae, Ascalaphus' paladin, a barbarian, a summoner (who's eidolon was posted outside the door next to the ranger, they were standing guard), and my bloodrager.
As my bloodrager has received the Skull & Shackles chronicles and as such has 10 infamy I was trying to use a combination of diplomacy and intimidate to get them to let us buy the component after which they could continu their business.
However before I got a chance to complete it the barbarian drew one of her weapons and it escalated into a fight. Initiave order after this was first me, then the paladin, then the others. Go into rage, become large, two claw attacks on one of the pirates combined with a snarling "You will learn your place" followed by the paladin knocking that pirate down and stepping up to the other pirate stating: "surrender and you may live" ended the fight.
We healed up the pirate we knocked down a bit, and after some back and forth talking we bought the component and some more stuff so the shopkeeper could pay off her debts.
One of the pirates tried to persuade my bloodrager to join their crew as they could use someone like me, but the paladin heard :(.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah, that was fun. I saw the guys threatening the shopkeeper, and of course that wasn't going to fly. I was subtly trying to goad them into attacking so I could beat them down with a sap, when the barbarian drew swords.
After the scuffle, when the woman admitted to being in the thugs' debt, I thought "well, that's a poor life choice". We bought stuff so she had money, then I brought the thug lurking outside back in, told her to settle accounts immediately and work on joining a good merchants' guild, and told the thug never to come back.
I really enjoy an opportunity as a paladin to legitimately boss people around and set them on the straight and narrow, whether they like it or not. Particularly when it's in a case like this, where it doesn't have to truly cramp other players' styles.
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I ran this last weekend on our season 6 kick-off weekend.
It went very well indeed. My players loved the amount of detail to the city and the backstory. I consulted my Heart of the Jungle as well.
They felt they had a lot of options, which they loved. The fights were well thought out and had some unique tricks (teamwork, etc.) Also the gelatinous ooze was hilarious.
As a GM I used the stats with relevant rules from pfsprep.com and that was simply heaven. What poison? Oh its on the sheet. What spell? Right there. Teamwork feat? Ah!
I want more of this 'stuff'. :)