RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I ran this last night at high tier, and everyone had a great time, although the party missed out on their second prestige due to one of the captured Pathfinders succumbing to a Wall of Fire + a triggered trap.
However, I had missed this note by John Compton in the Product Discussion thread:
Someone recently pointed out that the throne room is missing a map tag for the traps. I have submitted a revision, but in the meantime know that the traps are 10-by-10-foot squares that fan out to either side of the throne (two to a side).
I'll rectify that for next time I run it in a couple of weeks. Other things I need to work on to really sell this scenario as well as it deserves is, although I described the riled (and armed) townsfolk assisting the party against the elementals outside the gate, I received the suggestion to emphasise a good party's preparation by have the townsfolk remove the additional mobs that would be in the encounter at lower success levels.
Additionally, I did my best to make the PCs feel unwelcome to the city and emphasise how Tygora ruled it with a tyrannical grip, but I might need to insert additional vignettes to show this to the PCs, otherwise it's just Eurdan infodumping all of Crystalcrag's backstory on them, and there's really no reason for the PCs to believe him.
With a tighter beginning to the scenario, this could quickly become one of my favourites to run, up there with Nathan King's previous (and excellent) Weapon in the Rift.
Balance-wise, I ran it for a table of 7, although they only just eked into high tier with a wide spread of level ranges. High tier doesn't seem as dangerous as low tier, with a lot of advanced templates added to bump the CRs up. The one tragedy of low tier, however, is that Uktak is missing from the final encounter. I portrayed him as Tygora's eyecandy, with the male equivalent of boobplate, and he was disgusted by how hideous the Pathfinders he was battling were. He was far more memorable than poor Tygora, who quickly found herself on the receiving end of a pair of flying, optimised Swashbucklers.
I can't comment on the optional encounter, as that was trimmed for time.
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I've played this two weeks ago and am planning on running this next weekend. While playing I had fun, but it did take some pushing that our characters wanted to start a revolution. Combats were surprisingly challenging and we missed a bunch of boons but managed to get both prestige.
Read this through once and I did not get the sorcerers archetype. It sounds cool but can she use any of those abilities in combat against the PC's in any useful way? I'd appreciate some input on the matter.
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I've played this two weeks ago and am planning on running this next weekend. While playing I had fun, but it did take some pushing that our characters wanted to start a revolution. Combats were surprisingly challenging and we missed a bunch of boons but managed to get both prestige.
Read this through once and I did not get the sorcerers archetype. It sounds cool but can she use any of those abilities in combat against the PC's in any useful way? I'd appreciate some input on the matter.
I would make the assumption that her fellows know how her archetype works, so when they want to receive the benefits from one of her spells marked with an asterisk, they'll have to, out loud, go "I wish _____" (they can be as sneaky about the specifics as you want to make them as GM, IMHO).
If I'm at the high tier when I GM this (also this weekend) I'm thinking of using her "heart’s desire" ability on a PC that looks like they'd prefer talking to fighting, and if they say anything that can be twisted, using her 4th level wishcraft arcana spell would be kind of cruel, but totally fitting (and, frankly, one of the only ways I could see it being used the way the mechanics of her archetype work...).
Also, remember that
A wishcrafter gains a +1 bonus to her caster level when using a creature’s wish as a verbal component in this manner.
Hope that helps!
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I GM'd this at high tier, and I really enjoyed it. Several thing that could be tightened.
1) Finding a way to explain the politics of Crystalcrag without the Council leader simply telling the PC's everything.
2) The fight at the alchemist shop was well designed and the mechanics with the burning building was fun, but Martial Flexibility is a (insert obscenity here) to figure out with 4 lvl 7 brawlers. Maybe have their feats already factored in when the combat starts?
3) The faction missions were really not laid out for the PC's, and I felt like this could cause a lot of frustration at the end of the scenario, especially for newer players.
Tygora and her minions was a really fun encounter, and I felt like it could be very challenging for high lvl PC's when run by a crafty GM.
Overall, a really solid scenario and one I'd like to play in the future.
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"She's racist against oreads" was a hilarious reason given that our group contained a human raised by Bellflower halflings.
"But she's lawful evil" also made us laugh, considering at least one faction leader in the society shares the same alignment.
Basically, life in this city seemed a lot better than life in Cheliax or Geb--not to mention Absalom, if you're a slave! Every reason we were given applied even more to cites that my Liberty's Edge characters have had to bite their tongues, shut up, and just deal with it, because "we not here to fix the government".
The only detail that made us stop and think (taking away the ifrit children of the oreads), actually made it less likely for us to start a violent revolt. The oreads didn't want to use violence against their (possible) children, and it seemed like adding children born of the lower caste into to upper caste made it more likely that a peaceful social evolution was possible. We had also negotiated a possible trade agreement with the queen (our bard had a stupidly high diplomacy bonus), so we were pretty convinced that gradual outside influence was the best way to help the oreads (like a "Coca-cola and blue jeans revolution").
We debated out of character for over an hour, trying to find some excuse for the four lawful characters in the group to believe a revolution was justified. We came up with nothing.
If I ever run this, I'd have to embellish the society a lot to make it worthy of a revolution. Heck, my Liberty's Edge character was also a blacksmith, so all it would have taken for her was the phrase "the giant is a slave" or a chain or slave collar or anything. She even specifically asked if he was free to leave, and he said he hadn't tried because he's doing what he loves. Well, OK then. Call us if you change your mind, and we'll come back and rescue you, I guess.
Was there some deep dark hidden secret that we missed? Because we couldn't come up with a single reason why this city's government needed to fall but the Cheliaxian government is fine, except for "Well, this one is small enough that we can overthrow it."
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Valsog, the slag giant, is basically a slave in everything but name. No, he's not allowed to leave.
recent creations inferior to what he could accomplish given more time.
When I ran it, he was impressed by the PC's well-made weapons and armour, and made a little comment about how he wished he could spend time and make masterpieces like those instead of cranking out shoddy, serviceable gear. The PCs ran with it from there.
I also set up the interaction by having Eurdan mention that Valsog had been captured and brought into the city against his will.
2) The fight at the alchemist shop was well designed and the mechanics with the burning building was fun, but Martial Flexibility is a (insert obscenity here) to figure out with 4 lvl 7 brawlers. Maybe have their feats already factored in when the combat starts?
Step Up/Deflect Arrows didn't apply to my party when I ran it, but as a Move action the Brawlers can take two feats, so they can get Combat Expertise + Improved X (Trip, Disarm, etc) for combat manoeuvres, which lets them do some cool stuff. That was my plan, however a combination of poor rolls on my part, and well-built PCs meant that they didn't pose much of a threat to the PCs.
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I just ran this and the PC's wanted to start the revolution surprisingly fast. I had thought that if they don't feel like starting anything they would pass the alchemist's shop while the ifrits are burning the place down, witness the militia beating up common oreads for something made up and so forth.
I also thought to let players to just walk to the gates of the keep and see the maximum defenses (magma elementals etc.) just to point out how hard an assault would be.
The scenario does take in account that PC's would not be interested in revolution or the future of the oread people. You can just walk and talk the whole scenario through. It's decidedly hard to accomplish that and it does leave the war-mongering tyrant in power to wage war against Qadira in the future thus hurting society's chances of exploring the area.
Not the easiest scenario to run, but I still give a big thumbs up. My table had three paladins, which made the RP-side of scenario interesting. One wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the place, but holding pathfinders prisoner or being tortured without any evident crime tipped the scales for him too.
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I am doing a last Min read through right now for a table Im running in an hour and 1/2
I have found 4 of the tasks ... but cannot find the 5th
Task 1 - Convince Eurdan Stonemantle to fully Commit
Task 2 - get the Drunken Oreads Support
Task 3 - Successfully reducing the ifrits’ supply of weapons by any 1 of the ways in the forge
Task 4 - prevent the shop’s complete destruction and defeat the ifrits
whats the 5th one Mentioned in the sidebar
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I just ran this and the PC's wanted to start the revolution surprisingly fast. I had thought that if they don't feel like starting anything they would pass the alchemist's shop while the ifrits are burning the place down, witness the militia beating up common oreads for something made up and so forth.
I also thought to let players to just walk to the gates of the keep and see the maximum defenses (magma elementals etc.) just to point out how hard an assault would be.
The scenario does take in account that PC's would not be interested in revolution or the future of the oread people. You can just walk and talk the whole scenario through. It's decidedly hard to accomplish that and it does leave the war-mongering tyrant in power to wage war against Qadira in the future thus hurting society's chances of exploring the area.
We didn't get any sense that the tyrant was war-mongering. Hiding your city is from outsiders is more of an isolationist move. If the city was gearing up to attack neighboring peoples, we didn't see any evidence of it.
Not the easiest scenario to run, but I still give a big thumbs up. My table had three paladins, which made the RP-side of scenario interesting. One wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the place, but holding pathfinders prisoner or being tortured without any evident crime tipped the scales for him too.
Huh. Our pathfinder prisoners confessed that they were in fact guilty of the crime they were imprisoned for. We never saw any prisoners that were held for no reason.
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I am doing a last Min read through right now for a table Im running in an hour and 1/2
I have found 4 of the tasks ... but cannot find the 5th
** spoiler omitted **
whats the 5th one Mentioned in the sidebar
The sidebars on pages 14 and 15 should answer that question.
Hope you see this in time!
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Played this on Saturday with a small group (3 players + pregen Seoni). I really enjoyed it.
It became clear to my character that the queen had seized control of the area in a subversive manner, but was not guilty of any crimes that would warrant overthrowing her. We talked with many members of the populace and arrived at the conclusion that the majority of the city wanted another form of government and were not happy with their immortal ruler.
Since the elemental guards refused to acknowledge my character's own nobility and grant us an audience with the queen, we forced our way into her chambers to begin discussing the situation.
We expressed to her that her subjects are restless and warned her that rebellion will be continuous if she does not abdicate her throne and go into exile. Due to some misconstrued messages between player characters, combat began when the party monk/cavalier tried to free to Oread captive before we could negotiate for their release.
When the dust settled, I used my magic to prevent the Queen and her lover from dying, and revived them. She plead to be allowed to leave and offered our group wishes in exchange. Our group discussed it, agreed to let her live in exile (as befits a noble), and used the 3 wishes for the following:
- 1) that she return to the City of Brass and never leave its confines so long as she draws breath,
- 2) that she never set mind upon Crystalcrag again, and
- 3) that she is always able to find contentment in the City of Brass
As a slight critique, I really really wanted to know the names of the captive Pathfinders... now I just have to make-up names for the 3 follow vanities I just purchased :-p
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Dorothy Lindman
Most of the background information is scattered through the scenario text and there is no direct way to let the PC's know all of it. I can't remember excactly but I believe you need to ask a bunch of questions from the elder oread to get more of it. I don't have the scenario on me so I can't check right now. I don't believe that there were any public knowledge that the prisoners had committed crimes, only that they had been apprehended for something and never heard of since.
I wonder if the author could give some tips for GM's on how to motivate players to start revolting against the tyrant? The scenario is a bit vague in that.
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I am doing a last Min read through right now for a table Im running in an hour and 1/2
I have found 4 of the tasks ... but cannot find the 5th
** spoiler omitted **
whats the 5th one Mentioned in the sidebar
The sidebars on pages 14 and 15 should answer that question.
** spoiler omitted **
Hope you see this in time!
yup spotted that as I was playing ... Massive brain fart ... shows what happens when prepping in a rush
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as for the direction ... I find that the Hook is in the elderly NPC at the begining ... as long as you play that part smart hooking the PC's isnt TOO Difficult
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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as for the direction ... I find that the Hook is in the elderly NPC at the begining ... as long as you play that part smart hooking the PC's isnt TOO Difficult
In the hands of a good GM, it's certainly "good enough," but the scenario could definitely be improved by more "show, don't tell" when it comes to conveying to the PCs how Tygora is an utter despot.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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My Sarenite paladin and Monkhound's living monolith have recently played Rats of Round Mountain, so when we came here we quickly fell into the mindset that "toppling small Latin-American evil regimes in isolated places is something that Pathfinders just do".
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Ran this one last night, and had very interesting results. Had two Silver Crusaders and a Liberty's Edge member in the party, but the defacto party leader (who dominates all the OOC conversation too) and the party face were both on the shadier side, and really cared only about getting the mission done, and weren't worried about the side components. As a result, there was no attempt at a rebellion at all. Although some of the players (who weren't the talkers) felt like they should help, they were all convinced by the party leader to get the mission done.
They negotiated with the enemy to get the pathfinders back, including turning over maps and notes the pathfinders had about the valley.
As the GM, I never actually rolled a single die the whole night, which is something I saw as a possibility in this scenario, but never thought would actually happen.
So the pathfinders got full prestige (since all the captives survived), but all the side quests (and boons) were passed by. No check boxes for A, B, C, D in the results. I doubt many will have these kind of results, but if the enemies survive often enough, love to see them back in a future scenario because it's a very interesting town and setting.
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This was a pretty good scenario for my ifrit oracle of flame. We played 3 and a Kyra, with a gnome sorcerer and Huge wild shaped druid. From proclaiming his search for wayward slaves, to introducing the gnome as his jester and the T-rex as his pet, the party stomped about like a bull in a china shop. No one was offended by the oppression of the oreads (save NPC Kyra) but the gnome was Exchange and found the economy appalling. (Way too much weapon and armor production and burdensome taxes on the oread population.) The druid was offended by the unnatural births of ifrits from oreads. (We were a little unclear on how this was even possible. I claimed wishcraft.) However, the last straw was the brawler vandals using a knockout blow on my oracle, which he took as a sign of grave disrespect. We proceeded to march on the castle, diplomacize the elementals into an audience with Tymora, free our captive allies, and then demand the efreeti queens resignation. Naturally, this became aggressive negotiations between the four of us and every encounter in the fortress. Thanks to a grappling dinosaur and glitter dusting sorcerer, plus spontaneous resist energy (fire) spells, we overthrew the government single-handedly, earning only the Silver Crusade boon and Oread's Favor in the process. No one thought the oreads would be any help in a rebellion, and Valsog seemed like someone we could talk to afterwards to secure his services. However, we apparently did not say the right things to him to gain his employment. The druid crunched the evil queen to death, preventing wishes even being offered. Overall we had a great time, but that was more due to our character personalities rather than the scenario itself.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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However those sidebars don't have an entry for three tasks, and the entry for four tasks says 'No change'. The only way to get more than four tasks is with the four player adjustment.
Should there be an entry on the sidebars for three tasks which says 'No change'?
Should the default assumption on page 12 be that the PCs complete four tasks successfully?
I am puzzled by this.
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While it could definitely be slightly clearer, the default assumption is three, as the first line you quoted states. There is no "no change" line for 3, because 3 is the baseline from which things are or are not changed.
Effectively, what this means is that, for parties of more than 4 players, there is no mechanical difference whether 3 or 4 are completed, and they both face the encounters as they appear.
For parties of 4, encounters are run with no adjustment if 2 or 3 are completed successfully.
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I'm going to be running this tomorrow, not sure which subtier. I can easily imagine my party wanting to convince the guards in E1 and E2 that they would like to speak with Tygora on behalf of the people, which I'd think is Diplomacy and not Bluff. DC for that is only 20 for E1, 24 or 25 for E2, which even a level 5 party with assists could make. Has anyone experienced a party who blew through E1 and E2 with Bluff or Diplomacy? (Or am I reading the scenario wrong for the DCs for this approach?).
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Just remember to monitor how the PCs "get" the Oread population to help them - if they're going to try diplomacy with a small army following them up the long, long avenue towards the palace... diplomacy might be tough, but if they told the Oreads not to approach unless they see fighting first - maybe?
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Thanks for the tips on E1 and E2. The party had a mob behind them and went on the attack -- and didn't try diplomacy. In E2 low sub-tier they took 3 fireballs, one PC (in a 4-player table) died...and they smartly negotiated their way out of the final combat in order to survive. Better to lose a prestige point than to TPK!
:)
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Got an issue here....every time I use adobe reader to extract the map images from the pdf (filtering out the text), copypaste gives me a black image. Is anybody else having this problem?
Just to make sure it wasn't me, I opened up another scenario pdf from season 5 and copy paste of the maps worked just fine.
At least it's not just you ;)
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Got a question about the Alchemy store fight....are there supposed to be stats for Morak?
The map clearly tells you his starting position and that he uses aid another. Yet there's no stat block.
They give you his levels...but he stays out of the fight. His aid other action is listed in the hazard description. That is all he will help the PC's do from my reading, and he is automatically successful in his aid attempts to do so.
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GM note about area E8: Someone recently pointed out that the throne room is missing a map tag for the traps. I have submitted a revision, but in the meantime know that the traps are 10-by-10-foot squares that fan out to either side of the throne (two to a side).
I think this quoted text is important to have in the GM discussion. I found it in the product discussion. As of this posting, there hasn't been an update.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Huh...
Running this tomorrow night. Chances are, my wife will be playing her liberties edge scroll scoundrel. She can make every single diplomacy check in the scenario, unaided, on a take ten. Most she can make on a 1, and she has the gauntlets that let her tell if someone plans on going back on a deal.
There is every possibility that there will be no combat till the throne room, and that the hostages will still be in the prison. In this case, is it safe to assume that she has not armed the traps in the throne room? It sounds like from the scenario she arms them when she brings in the hostages.