Tears at Bitter Manor

[Malikjoker]

Hi all. I received this module as a gift and I'd like to run it for my local PFS lodge. There aren't any notes on running this for pfs on shared GM prep so I thought I'd ask the community for your advice/ideas/help on prepping it. Thanks in advance.

[Woran]

I've read trough it only once, but the nature of the side quests might make it a little tricky.

I am planning to run this in campaign mode, that will make it a lot easier.

[Magabeus]

In my opinion it is a good idea to register what side quests where resolved on the chronicle when you hand out the chronicle for part 1.

And I also agree with Woran that it might be best to run this in campaign mode.

[UndeadMitch]

I ran this back at the beginning of the year in campaign mode, which I think is better than PFS mode for this module. I had people make characters that would otherwise be PFS legal (20 pt buy, use the AR for legal options) with the average WBL. If you run in campaign mode, be sure to keep people from skipping part two, as they'll need the exp for part three. I'll see if I can't get some stat blocks when I get home, one of the things in the module doesn't have a stat block and only appears in a campaign setting. Otherwise, Combat Manager should have all of the stat blocks in it and is free to download, now that I think about it. Also, picking up Book of the Damned III wouldn't be a bad idea, to get an idea for how some of the things think/act.

[The Fox]

I played in this one. It was a lot of fun, but I do have some remarks.

1. Most of the stuff in town is pretty cool. The side quests are a lot of fun, and they tell a couple of great stories.

2. That said, some of the side quests in the forest feel a bit forced. Consider dropping some of them entirely.

3. The map of the forest is very much not to scale. The mansion is not two miles on a side.

4. There is a poster map of Cassomir in the Cities of Golarion map folio. If you own that, you might find it useful. But it is also completely unnecessary.

[UndeadMitch]

Some of the stuff in the forest is a little forced, I ended up handwaving a couple of the fights. Fighting the same group of enemies multiple times gets old.

[UndeadMitch]

If I got to go back and run this again in campaign mode, I would probably go back and have the PC's start in on part two before I ended part one. Once the old folks went missing, my players felt they had to skip everything in the forest to help out, which would have put them in act 3 under leveled.

[RoshVagari]

I ran the four part Devil We Know scenarios as a prelude to the mod, dropped in the module NPCs as sources for knowledge checks and the like, and then ran the mod in Campaign Mode. I cut several of the forest quests because they were redundant and made for a more streamlined story.

[roysier]

I ran this in PFS mode. It went really well.

It took about 20 hours of play to play both parts. The quests were required on the boon for part 2. So. they are in essence required in PFS mode.

The tricky part is that the players don't know they are bypassing some of the quests in the forest in part 1 until after they clear the manor in part 2. (unless as a GM you want to give players knowledge that they wouldn't otherwise have) I allowed them to go back into the part 1 forest section to finish the quests and acquire the boon.

[The Fox]

They only need to complete 18 of the 24 quests.

[Malikjoker]

This is some great help. I especially like using the devil we know as a prelude to build up the NPC's for Tears

[TriOmegaZero]

I'm rather amused that no consideration was given to the party just burning the house down. I guess they inherit the plot of land and can rebuild. :)

[roysier]

It's been a long time since I played this but I believe they are looking for missing people. And if they burned the house down they could kill the people they are looking for.

[TriOmegaZero]

After searching the entire house and not finding them, they felt pretty safe burning it down. Damn dirty neutrals.

[Julien Dien]

I just read this Module. There are too many branch(side quests) in chapter I and II, most of them are not so relevant to the mainplot. If I run this in PFS, I'm afraid my PCs may skip to the end, chapter I, searching Flinn’s House, then Mother's Care, and then jump to the Tristeza House.

I wanna keep my PC's concern on the mainplot, resucing the last couple of Gold Watch, reveal Flinn's plot. The quests in chapter II are just for rending the chaos and lawlessness of Verduran Forest. On the other hand, if my PCs skip this part, it will be too short for a sanctioned module. I have not decide how to show this module to my PCs yet.