#6-06: Hall of the Flesh Eaters

[Nefreet]

[SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY]

Just ran this for a Spiritualist-1, Pyrokineticist-1, Aerokineticist-1, Barbarian-3. We had a lot of fun! Really creepy. I played up the alien geometry. They kept calling it "Confirmation: Part 2" because of the note-taking, but that was probably slightly because I handed out the blank journal sheets from the Confirmation. They definitely earned their 2nd Prestige Point.

With the 4 player adjustment, and an OOT frontliner, the combats were largely trivial. They completely bypassed the first trap (only one medium creature touched the filaments before the next person saw them), but the Barbarian fell victim to the second trap (which was hilarious, because he was a carrion feeder Tengu).

The leech gave the Kineticists difficulty due to its improved cover, until the Barbarian just one-shotted it.

The Pyrokineticist had a blast with the Polyp (double damage every hit).

The Spiritualist's Eidolon fell to a full attack by a Festrog. That was probably the toughest fight, but just due to a lot of misses and the undead playing smart.

Diplomacy with the Ghast didn't last long, and with the power of range they just bottle-necked the undead in the final room.

Baelen was their last fight, and the Barbarian nearly died due to the Ghoul's single-minded focus after paralyzing him.

Ran it in just under 4 hours. Not much diplomacy was had, unfortunately. They subdued the Barbarians for questioning later, but never killed the Surrogate.

All in all, pretty fun!

[Peter N Brown]

We ran two tables at our venue on Halloween. The atmosphere was great. We had one table where the players really got into it and their characters wanted to just get it done and get out of this terrible place.

About the secondary success condition; We did not hand out blank paper to the players and surprise no one took notes. The secret door was never found. In all all but one of the conditions were missed. Talking with the players afterwards there was a consensus that this scenario definitely was putting us all on notice to remember what pathfinders are supposed to do. The majority of the players felt they dropped the ball on this one as the handout did make it clear what they should have been doing.

It seemed like everyone had fun and I know as a GM I loved this scenario.

I'm curious as to how others are reacting to this new emphasis on explore and report. As well as how others are reacting to it.

[Grey_Mage]

I ran this yesterday.

To play up the eerie atmosphere I used small printouts with a dozen different versions of shadows moving, walls appearing to vibrate until they touch it, light levels fluctuating, and so on. I spread them around liberally but focused these more on the high perception characters and those actively searching (basically, the paranoid types) to let them explain to the party what they saw.

The players were so freaked out they were doing perception checks every 5'. After the second room they were so ingrained with people seeing things that never panned out, they completely ignored the one I gave to the only character to spot something amiss in the water in the third room.

So the lead character got surprised by the leech, even though the second person saw ripples moving in the water. He never bothered to mention to the party he saw something coming, even after the encounter. He thought he was seeing things again =)

They had a great time, as did I. Vey good scenario.

[TriOmegaZero]

We held a slot zero Thursday night, with a four man team delving in the high tier.

Sorcerer5
Investigator4
Slayer4
Swashbuckler3

The otherworldly nature of the location came across very well, as the party ascended the spire. The cannibals were a good warmup fight to set the tone.

After that, exploration was the focus up until the leeches. I do like this new direction, in which you actually need to pay attention to what you find more than what you bring back. We were a little slow on the uptake about that part of the mission.

Leeches were dealt pretty handily, although ability drain poison was a real surprise. The next fight was where things notably amped up.

Thanks to the distraction of the polyp, we had a moment to consider options. Seeing no other way to proceed, I opened up with my sorcerers new pit spell on the surprise round. Thanks to a good initiative, I dropped a second pit immediately after. This combined with the listed tactics to really help the party manage the fight. Three of the enemies were out, and all avenues of approach were dangerous places to stop. The rest of the party drew the enemies to them and were able to win the fight without loss. (Diseases were another matter.)

The final encounter was fairly nail biting. Diplomacy worked wonderfully thanks to some retraining on my sorcerer, but the proffered corpse of one of the cannibals was not accepted. My Dark Archive ifrit had no trouble offering a live cannibal, but the rest of the party was not willing to go through with the deal. Initiative started and things went south thanks to the ghasts flanking partner and the face that paralysis allows sneak attacks.

Over the course of the battle, two of the three melee characters were paralyzed at a time. Without low rolls on the durations, we may not have survived. The swashbuckler ended at 2 points from negative Con, the investigator was out of the fight for nearly half a minute, and my ifrit was being menaced when his magic missile finally blasted the beast to true death.

Overall I wonderful scenario, especially for a Halloween weekend. I enjoyed the fact that violence was not the only path to success, as it validated those points in Diplomacy in an otherwise straight dungeon crawl. Looking forward to more interesting exploration scenarios.

[Ulfen Death Squad]

This encounter was fun. I played it yesterday with my level 1 aasimar paladin (1st encounter was before the cut off date). We had a full group with a wizard, a fighter, an inquisitor, a playtest pc and one other character. Five level ones with fighter being the only level two. Only way this could have been better was if we played it the night before on Halloween.

extra fun thing GM did:

Extra thanks to the GM who ran it here in San Antonio. Instead of reading out what creepy things a pc might see or feel, he had it all typed out in slips of paper and would hand them out at appropriate times. It added to the creepiness and the overall fun.

Oh, and my paladin learned not to blurt out "I don't think this one can hit me" as she moves past, pulling an AOO. A confirmed crit dropped her from full heath to 1 HP.

[Sarvei taeno]

my table had more trouble with the 1st encounter while playing up. having the oracle keep trying to cast death knell really had the party terrified. then i had hunter get hit with the cannibalism enchantment and try to eat the unconscious wizard. i showed the hunter the enchantment so no one else at the table knew she was enchanted. she played it off well.

[Tom Phillips]

I'm pleased you seem to be having fun with this scenario. It warms my cold, dead heart. :-)

[Chaosorbit]

Planning to run this this coming weekend and really looking forward to it, it looks great.

Quick question: For the 2 traps, we have a very careful rogue that often runs with us. How would you play out a successful perception and disable device check on each of them?

[Grey_Mage]

Hopefully he has the trap spotter feat, because looking for trap while climbing would be exceedingly difficult.

Trap 1 - I recommend you tailor your description based on how they descend. (Mine used a grapple and knotted rope although they still set the trap off from bumping into filaments and such on the way down.)

Note: The Perception DC check to spot the difference in the statues are a good place to start.

Trap 1:

The shaft is naturally dark or low light. In low light he may examine the statues and deduce they are sturdily in place. Does he descend into darkness? Go down holding out his pathfinder (easily announcing his presence to all below)? If he/she goes down with a light source/dark vision, I would also explain some of the statues are missing from the lower niches. If his rogues senses tingle (trap sense), I would explain it seems weird some statues would fall when they appear very firmly in place near the top.

The first player is likely the rogue who will be safe unless he is using the statues as handholds. Once down the next character will usually descend to prevent stranding a party member all by himself. Player 1 may notice broken pieces of statues intermixed with all the roots and vegetation. Of course this also means he is in the path of falling statues himself...allowing him to realize something is amiss about the time the second member sets off the trap (standard reflex save). Disarm? knock down the statues as he/she descends (how could they possibly fail this? maybe the root filaments give the impression a statue is firmly in place when its not actually...)

Since trap 2 is magical, its more difficult to quantify how a rogue might identify, but I would recommend it the same way that a detective might see things that aren't supposed to be related and fit together nicely.

Trap 2:

A bas-relief of a hag eating her own hands + obvious magical effects (the hag looking at the 1st player) + a partially eaten corpse in the corner = something amiss related to hunger(?). Enough so that a robed fella will cast detect magic to identify the aura. Necromancy and Enchantment for the effects give additional info to make some assumptions regarding the nature of the trap.

Disarm? I'm less sure since I didn't have to deal with this, but I would suggest a disarm by premature trap discharge through a bait strategy (I would only allow this as a disable device attempt w/ story telling flair, not through paranoid players with a 10' pole)

[Chaosorbit]

Grey_Mage thanks so much for your thoughtful response. I spent a decent amount of time considering this and didn't come up with anything a solid as what you have provided. Especially regarding the 2nd trap, which had me scratching my head. I had a some similar thoughts on the 1st trap, but the way you put it makes me feel much more comfortable with it. Thanks again for the help!

[Zach Klopfleisch]

I enjoyed prepping the scenario, it was simpler than a lot of the Season 5 stuff, but still had cool, new lore that I was able to get across to my players. It was a dungeon crawl, but had a really "explorey" feel to it. I handed out paper and stressed bringing a record back, and Valeros's player immediately started mapping the dungeon out when he saw it. The party met every single one of the conditions for the second prestige point and boon.

All told, the players had an edge of their seat experience. The fights were tough, and things got out of hand with just a couple bad rolls on the players' part. I thought for sure it would be a TPK a couple times, but the dice aligned properly to avoid that. I think the fights were balanced really well for that party, which was pretty close to an iconic party in strength and composition.

Well done.

My experience with it:

Ran it Saturday morning, unfortunately I completely forgot to play up the alien geometry but the tension ended up high enough anyway.

4 players: An Inquisitor, Ezren clone with 2XP, Investigator who took the archetype that traded out extracts, and a first timer playing Valeros. Only the Inquisitor could use a wand of CLW.

Ezren memorized Color Spray instead of Magic Missile and ended up taking out all but one of the Barbarians in the first fight. The Party coup de graced them all, but not after one dropped the Investigator to 0.

The Investigator proceeded to be KO'd by the first trap and trigger the second one, ending up sickened after 3 rounds of gnoshing on the corpse.

Then, they got to the water and while the Investigator was wondering what horrible fate would befall him next, Ezren (who happened to be played by a 12 year old) offers "Why don't we just unfold the boat." That idea never crossed my mind, and I figured that qualified as "creatively bypassing" the encounter. I did give the Investigator a nice, close look at the slug as it tried to latch onto the boat.

The Polyp and Ghouls/Festrogs was rough on them. They didn't take advantage of the surprise round or the territory, moving in slowly and getting split up. The Inquisitor charged on the round they were staggered while Valeros waited for them to come to him. Both ended up getting full attacked and eventually going down. Ezren ended up in a corner, with a Festrog (at 3hp) 10' away and a Ghoul (at 2hp) adjacent. He cast burning hands, accepting the AoO from the Ghoul who promptly missed on what was probably my first sub 10 roll of the day, and chose the far corner of his square, catching himself and both undead in the AoE. My dice completed the process of reverting to the mean and both failed their saves, taking 3hp damage and going down.

The score is now Ezren 3, Investigator -2, Valeros and the only character capable of using a CLW wand unconscious but stable.

So, the two characters who are vertical begin digging while I look up the rules for Heal and Recovering With Help. Two hours later Valeros is conscious at -2 and the Inquisitor comes around, lucks out and heals himself for 6 hp so he doesn't drop back unconscious.

At this point they decide to check out the other room. Nobody ever gets really curious about the Polyp.

Valeros goes in alone, trying to bluff the Ancient One about giving himself up and failing miserably. No surprise round, everyone knew what was going to happen, but Valeros gets paralyzed. The Inquisitor moved in to help him, gets knocked to half HP. His next round, he judges Justice. I ask him if that's what he really wants to do. He tentatively says "Destruction?" I ask him how many HP he has and the rest of the table reminds him of the fact that Healing explicitly doesn't stop when you go unconscious. He goes with healing and proceeds to hit the Festrog. I smile and then knock him down to -2. Then proceed to move on and KO Ezren and the Investigator (who was the only one to fail his save vs. the stench. But hey, he still had 3 hours of sickened left anyway, so no biggie.)

The Inquisitor heals to 0, I let him Bluff to play dead and pop himself with a wand of CLW and completely low my perception checks. The Festrog heads back to finish off Valeros first and draws and AoO (legitimate non-metagemey: The mini was down so I didn't think anything of walking right past it.) One natural 20 later and it's just a Ghast and a prone Inquisitor. The Ghast moves over and bites the Inquisitor into the negatives, but that gives Valeros just enouh time to come out of paralysis. He moves up and gets one swing in, and misses. I full attack and only hit with 1, failing to paralyze. He proceeds to full attack and crit but not confirm, dealing almost max damage and exactly enough to knock the Ghast down to 0.

This was the only fight that Ezren didn't finish off.

Once everyone came back around and healed up, Valeros and the Inquisitor spend the next four hours digging. The Inquisitor was a Dwarf with Profession (Stone Mason), which I figure was close enough to Profession (Miner), and he had Stonecunning anyway. He blew away the check to make the saves easier and the mining quiet. The last fight was anticlimactic, save for Ezren walking up and applying his stick to the Ghoul's head after the martials whiffed a couple rounds in a row, ending it.

[John Compton]

Zach Klopfleisch wrote:

[Story time]

Reactions:

Ezren's suggestion to use the folding boat was brilliant and never crossed my mind while developing this scenario. Nicely played!

Regarding the healing judgment, take a second look at the second paragraph of the judgment ability, which states the judgment's bonuses do not persist when the inquisitor is unconscious. As a result, the fast healing would shut down until the inquisitor regained consciousness. I remember accidentally missing that same line during a slightly higher-level module in which the inquisitor PC rejoined a very long combat six different times with the same healing judgment before the villain accused the PC of being a troll-blooded monstrosity (followed by a powerful fire spell).

Even so, it sounds like a small mistake led to a much more successful and entertaining game!

[Zach Klopfleisch]

John Compton wrote:

Zach Klopfleisch wrote:

[Story time]

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah, Ezren's player's idea was brilliant, nobody else saw it coming.

Offtopic: Healing Judgment:

While the Judgment ability itself says "If she is frightened, panicked, paralyzed, stunned, unconscious, or otherwise prevented from participating in the combat, the ability does not end, but the bonuses do not resume until she can participate in the combat again."

The wording of the Healing Judgment seems to make it an exception:

Quote:

Healing: The inquisitor is surrounded by a healing light, gaining fast healing 1. This causes the inquisitor to heal 1 point of damage each round as long as the inquisitor is alive and the judgment lasts. The amount of healing increases by 1 point for every three inquisitor levels she possesses.

The way I read it, Healing Judgment specifically overrules the general rule. The Judgment has not ended, per the general judgment rules. Normally the bonus would go on hiatus but the specific line "as long as the Inquisitor is alive and the judgment lasts" takes precedence.

So, we've got two conditions:

--Character is alive. Check, this is fast healing not regeneration.
--Judgment has not ended. Check, the general rule says judgments don't end until combat is over even if they do go on hiatus.

Therefore, I think the Healing Judgment continues while the Inquisitor is unconscious. Of course, you're in a better position to verify that's what was meant than I. :P However, if that's the case, they might want to simply remove the "as long as the Inquisitor is alive" line because it doesn't do anything.

[Utii]

Do the players have 3 days on the island or only 1?

it is stated after the breifing it takes them 2 days to reach the pillars and the breifing also tells them they will leave in the morning.

which leaves me to belive that they only have 1 day on the island but then how do they have enough time to get back to the ship if the travel time is 2 days?

[John Compton]

Utii wrote:

Do the players have 3 days on the island or only 1?

it is stated after the breifing it takes them 2 days to reach the pillars and the breifing also tells them they will leave in the morning.

which leaves me to belive that they only have 1 day on the island but then how do they have enough time to get back to the ship if the travel time is 2 days?

The PCs are supposed to have three days on the island, as it's valuable to provide low-level groups an opportunity to rest if necessary.

[CRobledo]

Neat scenario. Prepped and roaring to run it!

Statblocks are up on the GM shared site if anyone needs them. Cheers.

[Utii]

Thanks for the quick reply

[Ascalaphus]

I just played this. We had a group of four: a level 4 barbarian (seemed well-built), a level 3 fighter (functional but not impressive), Lem level 4 pregen and my level 3 grenadier alchemist. We chose the level 4 pregen to play up, instead of the level 1 pregen to play down, because it seemed to us that playing down would be very dull. In retrospect, we were being a bit cocky :P

playing it:

The first encounter was a bit odd. The GM took pains to make it clear that rolling initiative doesn't mean all chance of parley is gone (players often stop talking as soon as the word Initiative is heard, and go into full combat mode). However, the cannibals did immediately attack. Later on we heard that you could talk it out with them if you kill their leaders, but due to the fog you can't actually see all of their leaders. You probably have to fight a few rounds before you see both of them, and if you're still negotiating with the grunts after you killed the (tough) leaders, you're pretty hardcore pacifist IMO. I personally thought if anyone, it's the quiet dude in the back that you might want to capture alive.

After that we went in. The GM didn't really do any weird geometry or spooky vision stuff or any of that; dunno if that was intentional. For us it was more a tough slog than a paranoid slog. In retrospect, it was a good call (if it was intentional); our resources were stretched to the limit in this adventure, if we'd spent them on chasing shadows we would've TPKed for sure.

The falling statue trap was kind of predictable. The one that made you eat the corpse less so; that was cool I thought. It took our fighter quite a while to come to his senses.

We thought the water was suspicious (duh) and chucked in some pieces of corpse, which revealed leeches. At this point I was kinda afraid of there being a nasty leech swarm, because I wasn't so sure that I could bomb those in the water. So we tried to lure the leech(es) onto land with a trail of body parts. Out comes the big leech; I throw some alchemical weapons and it flees back into the water. After that we decide to just chuck in the corpse, which distracts the swarm (I was right!), and we quickly sprint past it. I thought this was a neat encounter.

Then we come to the hall with the flesh eaters. We had to make a lot of noise to get their attention, and we caught them on the other side of the doorway. Using it as a bottleneck so that they couldn't swarm us, with a fighter and barbarian whacking at anything that comes through. Lem cast a Grease in the doorway, so everything that moved through was also flat-footed. We killed most of them that way. The rest "got clever" and tried to set up an ambush on the other side of the doorway. Also known as "all inside the AoE of an Explosive Bomb". This encounter was cool because we got to beat a large number of enemies with almost no damage taken, by superior tactics.

We cleared the rubble, found a lone ghoul there and killed it. Dunno why there was a ghoul there. Because the handout said to search the entire level, we did, and found the secret door. (Meanwhile I'd used an explosive bomb to set fire to the big meatblob. It took quite a while to burn down.) Okay, stairs down, make a note but don't go down, check.

So, one more door to go. Why go in there at all? Okay, so explore, report, cooperate. Also, mission handout. Clear enough.

Well, this fight was very tough. We quickly destroyed the Festrogs so there was no Sneak Attack, but the ghoul queen proved to be a formidable foe. She had very high Touch AC so I missed her with two tanglefoot bags and a holy water. All in all I expended quite a few consumables and bombs. At some point the fighter got paralyzed, a little later the barbarian. Lem made me invisible so I could hit her without her Dex to Touch AC, and a bomb meant she spent some time extinguishing herself (making it on the first roll). Then Lem attacked her to buy time, and she paralyzed him too. Now it was just me, and her full attack could probably drop me in one round. But I managed to put a Grease from Lem between us, and used a ready action to throw my last holy water at her when she was flat-footed from crossing the Grease.

This fight was truly scary and absolutely awesome for it; there's nothing like snatching victory from the diseased, paralysis-inducing jaws of defeat at the last possible moment.

scoring it:

Well, then it's scoring. Here's where I was a bit disappointed. The need for actual written notes and a map felt a bit like a Gotcha. The GM agreed and accepted a verbal report and (as the scenario apparently calls out) an Engineering check. We did do most of the required stuff and got the secondary success, but didn't quite earn the boon because we didn't name enough special features. We also didn't know how many special features to name; I'm sure we could've gotten up to the required number if we knew it.

I've run the Confirmation a couple of times now and I've noticed a trend in how people do the note-taking. If you hand each player a sheet for taking notes, then they will. If you tell them to take notes but don't give them any paper, they'll say "my character takes notes". In this case, I said so in pretty much every room; my character documented the dungeon, I wasn't aware that I as a player was also supposed to do so. I was already quite busy tracking consumables and buffs that came and went; it's not like I had nothing to do.

In the case of this dungeon though I urge GMs therefore to hand their players a sheet of paper for notes. Because when it comes to naming X special features, you're MUCH more likely to meet that condition if you've been taking notes as a player.

Also, making a map, really? You're basically making it a victory condition to draw a copy of the map the GM is drawing? Isn't that just busywork? Can't you just say "my character draws a map that looks like THAT"?

All in all I had a good time with this scenario. I definitely felt like a hero, back to the wall, just about out of (a vast amount of) ammo, finishing the monster while the rest of the party was paralysed :D

[Damanta]

The ghoul queen was never in a position to coup de grace one of the paralyzed guys? Sounds you guys got lucky :)

paralyze death:

Our group of 4 (Brawler 4, Rogue/Wizard 4, Barbarian/Cavalier 4 and pregen Kyra at 4) had one of us get killed there because he got paralyzed.

It was a few rounds into the fight.
My rogue/wizard utilises a whip and was fighting from 15ft away, the barbarian/cavalier got knocked unconscious by the first attack from the queen, who continues with the brawler who failed his save vs paralyze.
Barbarian/cavalier fails his stabilize roll, Kyra channels to get him back up.
I try to trip the ghoul queen but fail utterly, the queen 5-foot steps away from the barbarian/cavalier and coup de graces the brawler.

Barbarian/cavalier gets up, 5ft steps, rolls a lucky 20 and kills the ghoul queen.

That basically was/is my only gripe with the scenario, coup de grace written into tactics according to the GM.

The secondary succes condition was really easy for us, as my rogue/wizard makes logs of everything she does, every scenario has an extra A4 page with all my notes.

[Ascalaphus]

Our GM was of the opinion that monsters don't CdG unless it's in their tactics, or unless it's really the absolutely most sensible option. In our case there was always another nearby PC that she could try to also paralyse first, so she did.

If I'd gotten paralysed as well, we would've been dead though, so it was pretty damn close.

[Hrothdane]

Michael Brock has said on the forums that you should never coup de grace unless it's in tactics, so your GM is well-informed.

[TriOmegaZero]

Damanta wrote:

The ghoul queen was never in a position to coup de grace one of the paralyzed guys? Sounds you guys got lucky :)

For the most part my team managed to keep threatening to discourage CdG attempts, even as they were falling to paralysis. And of course, my incessant magic missiles drew serious ire for the steady damage they were inflicting. :)

[Damanta]

As I said, according to the GM it was in the tactics to do so, we specifically asked after he performed it.

Edit:

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Damanta wrote:

The ghoul queen was never in a position to coup de grace one of the paralyzed guys? Sounds you guys got lucky :)

For the most part my team managed to keep threatening to discourage CdG attempts, even as they were falling to paralysis. And of course, my incessant magic missiles drew serious ire for the steady damage they were inflicting. :)

Well, my rogue was using her whip, so I was in no position to threaten (I can only do that now since I got whip mastery at 5 thanks to retraining),

the barbarian was prone and Kyra was some 20 ft away. So I guess we were just unlucky.

[TriOmegaZero]

Damanta wrote:

As I said, according to the GM it was in the tactics to do so, we specifically asked after he performed it.

Tactics:

During Combat After ordering his minions into battle, Rajhan-Vol moves in to support them and tries to flank his enemies whenever possible.

Morale Rajhan-Vol has nowhere to run. He fights until
destroyed.

[AxeMurder0]

Hrothdane wrote:

Michael Brock has said on the forums that you should never coup de grace unless it's in tactics, so your GM is well-informed.

Note that Mike clarified his statement here.

A GM should not coup de grace unless tactically appropriate. Not a GM cannot coup de grace unless explicitly called out in the tactics.

[Ascalaphus]

Well, sounds like we did well to keep it's attention focused on those of us that were still moving around then.

[bugleyman]

I was Steven's GM.

Spoiler:

As Steven pointed out above, unless it was buried someplace there was no explicit mention of the coup de grace. Hence I would have only considered it if there was paralyzed victim and no immediate threat (in the form of non-helpless PCs) nearby. This was never the case, hence no coup de grace.

In contrast, I recently ran Black Waters, and the party retreated from the final encounter and left a paralyzed companion behind. Needless to say, in that case the ghast did perform a coup de grace and start chowing down. Yummy!

[Talgeron]

If a teleportation subschool wizard attempts to use the shift ability, what spell level is used to determine the damage received? It functions as D-Door, but it's a supernatural ability gained at first level. Teleportation specialists are common in my area and I'm running this next week. Any thoughts?

[TriOmegaZero]

I would rule it to be 1d6 for the minimum level possible for the ability. However, you would not be out of line to rule 4d6 damage due to functioning like a 4th level spell. You could also use half character level as that is how DCs are determined.

[Talgeron]

Fair point. I was just reluctant to stack 4d6 on a possible first level character who's probably shifting to avoid being eaten. :)

[TriOmegaZero]

Until I can find something more specific, I'd say this is up to the GM. I'd probably go 1d6 in low tier and 4d6 in high. :)

[Damanta]

Aren't you like warned several times not to use teleportation like spells or effects?

I vaguely recall something like that, but I'm too lazy to get out of my chair to walk to my notes.

[John Compton]

Nick Greene wrote:

If a teleportation subschool wizard attempts to use the shift ability, what spell level is used to determine the damage received? It functions as D-Door, but it's a supernatural ability gained at first level. Teleportation specialists are common in my area and I'm running this next week. Any thoughts?

I recall several other abilities treat the effective spell level as half the associated class's level, rounded down. 4th- and 5th-level characters would take 2d6, and everyone else would take 1d6.

[TriOmegaZero]

It's only communicated through the knowledge checks on the spires, if they roll high enough.

[Ascalaphus]

Nobody told us anything about that. Then again, none of us had any teleportation effects anyway. I was more puzzled that nobody seemed to consider aerial travel; Citadel of Flame starts with "a travelling Pathfinder wizard saw this from the sky..."

As for level: if a SLA mentions a specific spell, it's considered to be that level. For example the Trickery Doman->Copycat power used for early entry into Mystic Theurge. I'm not sure if the same logic applies to Supernatural abilities thoug.

[TriOmegaZero]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Nobody told us anything about that. Then again, none of us had any teleportation effects anyway. I was more puzzled that nobody seemed to consider aerial travel; Citadel of Flame starts with "a travelling Pathfinder wizard saw this from the sky..."

The constant fog limiting vision to 20ft deals with that.

[Iammars]

The problem is, it's a supernatural ability and not a spell-like, which means it doesn't have an equivalent spell-level by default.

[Ascalaphus]

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Nobody told us anything about that. Then again, none of us had any teleportation effects anyway. I was more puzzled that nobody seemed to consider aerial travel; Citadel of Flame starts with "a travelling Pathfinder wizard saw this from the sky..."

The constant fog limiting vision to 20ft deals with that.

Let me clarify. Apparently these things moving around makes it hard for pathfinders to reach them by ship. So why not take a flying carpet?

[TriOmegaZero]

Ascalaphus wrote:

So why not take a flying carpet?

How do you plan an expedition when you don't know where the return trip will start from and how long it will take to get back to a base?

Sure, a high level character could fly in on his carpet, and when he was done teleport from wherever the spire had moved him in the meantime. But how do you justify that expense, when you can just send a ship for much less cost?

[Damanta]

Ah, yeah our knowledge checks were fairly high on the spires (local and history I think were used in any case, arcana might also have been rolled).

I like having characters with knowledge skills.

[Grey_Mage]

Ascalaphus wrote:

So why not take a flying carpet?

I was just impressed they gave us a folding boat...

Geez. You just can't make some people happy. =)

Seriously, a flying carpet is expensive and has a limited weight capacity that is quickly reached with multiple people with food and excavating gear. The captain had investigations of her own going on at the Gloomspires to explain why she was unable to assist the party on so momentous an occasion. So there is more going on than just the party's expedition.

[John Compton]

Grey_Mage wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

So why not take a flying carpet?

I was just impressed they gave us a folding boat...

Geez. You just can't make some people happy. =)

Seriously, a flying carpet is expensive and has a limited weight capacity that is quickly reached with multiple people with food and excavating gear. The captain had investigations going on at the spire of her own to explain why she was unable to assist the party on so momentous an occasion. So there is more going on than just the party's expedition.

Venture Captain: I am providing you this folding boat capable of carrying everything you desire.

PCs: We want a flying carpet!
Venture Captain: *sigh* Very well, I am providing you this carpet capable of carrying all six of you.
Druid: What about my animal companion?
Venture Captain: Y'know what? I'm going to go find a new team.

[Talgeron]

Thanks for the responses. I had one other question.

Area B2:

If one or more allies is in the area of the trap, it's a good bet one will be put to sleep. Presumably the intent for the horror factor is to have a party member start eating another party member. While this is a pretty awesome effect, how much damage do they do when they start eating a sleeping ally? Do I rule it as a bite attack? (1d3+str for a small creature, 1d4+str for a medium creature) Or is a coup de gras attempt? (2d3+2x str for small, etc with a fort save vs death)

[Grey_Mage]

Nick Greene wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I had one other question.

** spoiler omitted **

Sounds reasonable, but CdG is normally a full round action so moving, biting is more likely, especially seeing how others players will intervene before the CdG attempt gets to be made.

Actually, its a hunger thing moreso than a murder thing so I would stay away from the CdG anyway. They don't need to start biting at the jugular.

[John Compton]

Nick Greene wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I had one other question.

** spoiler omitted **

I would not perform it as a coup-de-grace, both out of fairness and because eating an unconscious ally doesn't require going for the jugular. There's not a "right" amount of damage to deal, but I think fair options would be bite damage (if the PC has a bite natural attack), unarmed strike damage (including the nonlethal aspect), or even just waiving damage but playing up the horror factor.

[Grey_Mage]

Nick Greene wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I had one other question.

** spoiler omitted **

When my players went through, only two people were in the room. The Slayer (my son) and the Paladin.

The Slayer failed the save vs hunger, the Paladin made his vs sleep.
So the Slayer proceeds to the body in the corner and starts chowing down while the party is reeling in shock.

The Paladin decides to go for a grapple then pin to stop him but misses horribly. Slayer fails save and continues to eat.

Paladin succeeds at the grapple, but the Slayer makes his save before the pin attempt can be made.

Basically, the Paladin walked over to him and grabbed his shoulder, at which point the Slayer looks over his shoulder with a chunk of meat in his mouth and irritatingly replies.. "WHAT?! I'm trying to eat here", then proceeds to puke when he realized what was going on.

Edit: I was looking forward to describing to someone how they wake up with a party member actively trying to eat them, but alas, the dice weren't in my favor that day.

*silently curses Paladin saving throws under breath

[Ascalaphus]

John Compton wrote:

Grey_Mage wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

So why not take a flying carpet?

I was just impressed they gave us a folding boat...

Geez. You just can't make some people happy. =)

Seriously, a flying carpet is expensive and has a limited weight capacity that is quickly reached with multiple people with food and excavating gear. The captain had investigations going on at the spire of her own to explain why she was unable to assist the party on so momentous an occasion. So there is more going on than just the party's expedition.

Venture Captain: I am providing you this folding boat capable of carrying everything you desire.

PCs: We want a flying carpet!
Venture Captain: *sigh* Very well, I am providing you this carpet capable of carrying all six of you.
Druid: What about my animal companion?
Venture Captain: Y'know what? I'm going to go find a new team.

Haha :)

I've only played this, not read the scenario, so maybe I'm just not understanding it right here. From what I was told, the major obstacle to exploring the Gloomspires was that the damnable things keep moving around through a reef-riddled patch of sea, so anchoring a ship to them is suicide. Hence why getting that orb was so crucial.

That's why aerial transport seemed a logical option to me. You could even go there by ship, but land people by carpet, basically turning your ship into an aircraft carrier.

[John Compton]

Ascalaphus wrote:

John Compton wrote:

Grey_Mage wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

So why not take a flying carpet?

I was just impressed they gave us a folding boat...

Geez. You just can't make some people happy. =)

Seriously, a flying carpet is expensive and has a limited weight capacity that is quickly reached with multiple people with food and excavating gear. The captain had investigations going on at the spire of her own to explain why she was unable to assist the party on so momentous an occasion. So there is more going on than just the party's expedition.

Venture Captain: I am providing you this folding boat capable of carrying everything you desire.

PCs: We want a flying carpet!
Venture Captain: *sigh* Very well, I am providing you this carpet capable of carrying all six of you.
Druid: What about my animal companion?
Venture Captain: Y'know what? I'm going to go find a new team.

Haha :)

I've only played this, not read the scenario, so maybe I'm just not understanding it right here. From what I was told, the major obstacle to exploring the Gloomspires was that the damnable things keep moving around through a reef-riddled patch of sea, so anchoring a ship to them is suicide. Hence why getting that orb was so crucial.

That's why aerial transport seemed a logical option to me. You could even go there by ship, but land people by carpet, basically turning your ship into an aircraft carrier.

You're partly right. The Gloomspires move around a lot, which makes them hard to count and study properly. The nasty reefs around them are what make it difficult for any seaworthy craft (or at least anything with a draft deep enough to normally make long ocean voyages) to approach. Generally the spires are just a tough site to reach thanks to their elusiveness, mobility, and ship-breaking defenses.

Oh, and fog. Lots of fog.

[Ulfen Death Squad]

Grey_Mage wrote:

Nick Greene wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I had one other question.

** spoiler omitted **

When my players went through, only two people were in the room. The Slayer (my son) and the Paladin.

The Slayer failed the save vs hunger, the Paladin made his vs sleep.
So the Slayer proceeds to the body in the corner and starts chowing down while the party is reeling in shock.

The Paladin decides to go for a grapple then pin to stop him but misses horribly. Slayer fails save and continues to eat.

Paladin succeeds at the grapple, but the Slayer makes his save before the pin attempt can be made.

Basically, the Paladin walked over to him and grabbed his shoulder, at which point the Slayer looks over his shoulder with a chunk of meat in his mouth and irritatingly replies.. "WHAT?! I'm trying to eat here", then proceeds to puke when he realized what was going on.

Edit: I was looking forward to describing to someone how they wake up with a party member actively trying to eat them, but alas, the dice weren't in my favor that day.

*silently curses Paladin saving throws under breath

Farenth (female aasimar paladin from the encounter) hears you and responds: "what can I say, Torag blesses me so." :)

[Ascalaphus]

There was a sleep trap? We didn't notice - maybe the barbarian made his save? The fighter was second into the room and he got the munchies.

A sleep/hunger trap combo is hilarious.