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Loved the scenario, plenty of weirdness going on with the temporal anomalies. Sadly, we were burnt out after wrestling with the puzzle (which I managed to solve with the final clue) and just initiated combat in the belfry. This led to the death of our tiefling rogue.
I really like the setting and the idea of the clock tower. Replace the puzzle with something else and this scenario works.
Afterwards, one player said to another "You never have to play that scenario again." to which she replied "Thank God." =/
There were also comments like "Why would Paizo waste players time like that?"
The puzzle just sapped the steam out of the table and certain players effectively quit at that point leaving the culminating point of the scenario dead on arrival.
And yeah, full attack with bane on a character = dead. My first character kill as a GM :(
I ran this for some of the better players in the area and they got a lot of mileage out of roleplaying as they usually do and seemed to enjoy things until they reached that wall of force. I'd shutter to think what an absolute bear this would be to get through with a subpar gaming group. I had to cut time in Oaken Knot Tavern and the diplomacy at the top of the clock tower never really even got moving before a character opened fire and we still ran long. It's not one I would look forward to running again.
Assistant Developer
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I have a question about enhanced alchemical items on the chronicle sheet.
Are Alchemist/other classes that can craft alchemy able to craft these enhanced alchemical items once they show up on the chronicle?
Good question. They cannot. The limited number available for purchase on the Chronicle Sheet applies to everyone. The idea is to have a few special items that PCs can purchase from the master alchemists of Uringen.
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Assistant Developer
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OK, I have just finished running this and the final encounter against Nithra is incredibly brutal, especially given it lacks a 4 player adjustment. I brutalised the group I ran for with this. They easily get a surprise round and if they choose to the quicklings are almost impossible to get to grips with.
The missing scaling is a mistake. The following is an official addition to the scenario, which will be included in any future modifications to the PDF.
Subtier 3–4: Remove one of the quicklings from the encounter, and reduce each quickling's number of doses of poison to 1.
Subiter 6–7: Remove one of the quickling cutthroats from the encounter, and reduce each quickling's number of doses of poison to 1.
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OK, I have just finished running this and the final encounter against Nithra is incredibly brutal, especially given it lacks a 4 player adjustment. I brutalised the group I ran for with this. They easily get a surprise round and if they choose to the quicklings are almost impossible to get to grips with.The missing scaling is a mistake. The following is an official addition to the scenario, which will be included in any future modifications to the PDF.
** spoiler omitted **
No offense, but I've never seen a PFS scenario corrected. This includes faulty statblocks and missing items on the chronicle sheet (Confirmation, I'm looking at you)...so I won't hold my breath for that.
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Quadstriker, I take it you were the GM at Game Depot last sunday? I really enjoyed playing that with you, and I appreciate the effort you put into the roleplay. It's too bad the puzzle was kinda obtuse to figure out -- I really liked it as a puzzle, but the solution was kinda out of left field there, and I still don't quite get how Steven was able to figure it out. Intuitive leaps for the win, I guess.
The way the puzzle was presented was fascinating, I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to figure out.
I really liked the giant non-euclidean clocktower, and my character got to defend the amazing invention in the name of Brigh from a person trying to destroy it. (I think I didn't really explain that motivation very well, so I apologize if it came off as "I'm chaotic neutral and I'm going to bomb her because I had a whim!" when it was supposed to be "I'm a worshipper of Brigh and you will pay for attacking this technological marvel!")
Anyway. I give this a 4/5. Everything except the puzzle clues and solution were excellent.
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Quadstriker, I take it you were the GM at Game Depot last sunday? I really enjoyed playing that with you, and I appreciate the effort you put into the roleplay. It's too bad the puzzle was kinda obtuse to figure out -- I really liked it as a puzzle, but the solution was kinda out of left field there, and I still don't quite get how Steven was able to figure it out. Intuitive leaps for the win, I guess.
The way the puzzle was presented was fascinating, I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to figure out.
I really liked the giant non-euclidean clocktower, and my character got to defend the amazing invention in the name of Brigh from a person trying to destroy it. (I think I didn't really explain that motivation very well, so I apologize if it came off as "I'm chaotic neutral and I'm going to bomb her because I had a whim!" when it was supposed to be "I'm a worshipper of Brigh and you will pay for attacking this technological marvel!")
Anyway. I give this a 4/5. Everything except the puzzle clues and solution were excellent.
That sounds like some really cool RP at the end; I bet if you kept at that argument, you might even have been able to convince her to agree with you too!
Anyways, you should totally share that in the reviews section, where others can check it out too. Follow my link!
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Thank you for the feedback about the puzzle. John and I value your feedback, and will take it into account when making decisions in future scenarios.
I just played this. Our group mostly said that we like puzzles, if they're well done and solvable. Even after the session was over, we didn't understand the puzzle in this one. At all. I have no idea how anyone's supposed to solve this other than random guessing, and our GM couldn't explain it, either. The final clue is the only reason we knew to start on the second floor, but we still don't know how any of the previous clues were supposed to lead us to that.
I haven't read the scenario, as I was just a player, but this seems like an incredibly poorly designed puzzle. So don't take all the b@@+@ing here as a sign that players don't like puzzles. Take it to mean that the puzzles need to be well edited and proof read to make sure they make sense to random strangers who weren't involved in designing them, because that obviously didn't happen with this scenario.
As for the combats, the first one in town is absolutely brutal at the lower tier. I think parties with Glitterdust will be fine, but our group didn't have an arcane caster. That faerie dragon with greater invisibility and a level 7 scorching ray wand could have killed us all if I hadn't thrown out an obscuring mist for us to hide in. And the only reason I was able to cast that is because the cleric healed me up after I got scorching rayed down from full HP to -3 in a single round.
Our group had a good time with each other. We didn't enjoy the scenario. I'll go so far as to say that this is now only the 2nd PFS scenario I've ever played that I absolutely refuse to ever GM, and I've played around half of them overall.
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Thank you for the feedback about the puzzle. John and I value your feedback, and will take it into account when making decisions in future scenarios.I just played this. Our group mostly said that we like puzzles, if they're well done and solvable. Even after the session was over, we didn't understand the puzzle in this one. At all. I have no idea how anyone's supposed to solve this other than random guessing, and our GM couldn't explain it, either. The final clue is the only reason we knew to start on the second floor, but we still don't know how any of the previous clues were supposed to lead us to that.
I haven't read the scenario, as I was just a player, but this seems like an incredibly poorly designed puzzle. So don't take all the b**!&ing here as a sign that players don't like puzzles. Take it to mean that the puzzles need to be well edited and proof read to make sure they make sense to random strangers who weren't involved in designing them, because that obviously didn't happen with this scenario.
As for the combats, the first one in town is absolutely brutal at the lower tier. I think parties with Glitterdust will be fine, but our group didn't have an arcane caster. That faerie dragon with greater invisibility and a level 7 scorching ray wand could have killed us all if I hadn't thrown out an obscuring mist for us to hide in. And the only reason I was able to cast that is because the cleric healed me up after I got scorching rayed down from full HP to -3 in a single round.
Our group had a good time with each other. We didn't enjoy the scenario. I'll go so far as to say that this is now only the 2nd PFS scenario I've ever played that I absolutely refuse to ever GM, and I've played around half of them overall.
The answer is pretty clear to me, but I have read the adventure which makes it hard to not be biased. You can't say this wasn't tested with random strangers just because it is the nature of how many puzzles work. If your mind locks on the same train of thought it all goes well, but in many ways one can just get lost exploring other routes that don't lead to the answer. I do agree that based upon the comments, something with the puzzle doesn't work with a lot of groups.
I'm curious about how the faerie dragon fight played out since the dragon is very set against using the wand and is prone to retreating even if you haven't done any damage to him depending on the status of the other fey on the field. While it could certainly kill a typical party with the wand, the tactics avoid that outcome.
I wouldn't tell you to run it, but I would suggest you don't absolutely refuse to GM it without having read it. I have been through horrific scenarios that I have hated, then read through them and understood how they came to play out and hated them less for that.
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The answer is pretty clear to me, but I have read the adventure which makes it hard to not be biased. You can't say this wasn't tested with random strangers just because it is the nature of how many puzzles work. If your mind locks on the same train of thought it all goes well, but in many ways one can just get lost exploring other routes that don't lead to the answer. I do agree that based upon the comments, something with the puzzle doesn't work with a lot of groups.
As I said, our GM couldn't explain the puzzle to us. He read and GMed this adventure weeks ago for GenCon, then ran it again for us today, and he still doesn't understand the puzzle well enough to explain what we were missing. Even he thinks the only way to solve it is dumb luck.
And it's not even like that's the only jumbled mess in this adventure. Just look at all the posts in this thread about people not understanding the two hour limit to deal with the poison and traps in the early section.
I'm curious about how the faerie dragon fight played out since the dragon is very set against using the wand and is prone to retreating even if you haven't done any damage to him depending on the status of the other fey on the field. While it could certainly kill a typical party with the wand, the tactics avoid that outcome.
Well, that explains how we survived. We all said afterwards we were lucky he didn't just blast us with scorching ray every round, or we'd have all died. We knew the dragon retreated once we killed/chased away all the gremlins, but that took a while. Two of them were easy, but two ended up on rooftops from the portals, and being level 3-4, no PCs could fly to get up there and chase them.
Besides, once the dragon knocked me from max HP to -3 in a single round, we treated him as the dominant threat and focused on trying to catch him, rather than pulling out bows to shoot at the gremlins that weren't an immediate threat. But he spent two rounds going invisible and used his breath weapon twice, so he only blasted us with scorching ray 3 or 4 times.
It was enough to make it a long, difficult battle. And the other table at our store, running the high sub-tier, finished that fight around the same time we did. So apparently, it's a pretty long fight at either sub-tier.
I wouldn't tell you to run it, but I would suggest you don't absolutely refuse to GM it without having read it. I have been through horrific scenarios that I have hated, then read through them and understood how they came to play out and hated them less for that.
I've had similar situations. There are two adventures in particular I remember having awful experiences because of lousy GMs (actually, the same lousy GM twice), and when I checked here on the forums, I discovered the scenarios themselves got mostly rave reviews. Once I realized it wasn't the scenarios' fault, I was curious to learn more about what I missed from playing it in a bad situation.
That's why I came to this thread, to find out what I missed, and if the adventure might be better than my experience with it. But in this thread, I'm not seeing rave reviews or universal praise. I'm seeing universal complaints about the same parts of the adventure over and over, especially that puzzle.
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Thank you for the feedback about the puzzle. John and I value your feedback, and will take it into account when making decisions in future scenarios.I just played this. Our group mostly said that we like puzzles, if they're well done and solvable. Even after the session was over, we didn't understand the puzzle in this one. At all. I have no idea how anyone's supposed to solve this other than random guessing, and our GM couldn't explain it, either. The final clue is the only reason we knew to start on the second floor, but we still don't know how any of the previous clues were supposed to lead us to that.
I have GMed this twice. In one group I put the puzzle down and one of the players got it within only a few minutes. I don't know how but he almost immediately knew the stairs needed to be used. After that he just followed the numbers on the hand out.
What I think confuses things is the GM has to understand and explain to the party how the portals work within the tower. If the GM gets this wrong the puzzle is not solvable.
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I really liked the giant non-euclidean clocktower, and my character got to defend the amazing invention in the name of Brigh from a person trying to destroy it. (I think I didn't really explain that motivation very well, so I apologize if it came off as "I'm chaotic neutral and I'm going to bomb her because I had a whim!" when it was supposed to be "I'm a worshipper of Brigh and you will pay for attacking this technological marvel!")
Now that you mention it here it makes sense and I do remember you asking about whether the tower seemed to have a Brigh influence during the scenario. At that point, though, I figured it was a 'enough is enough' moment - one that would have been completely understandable given the frustration of 'that darn puzzle' that led up to that point.
I'm still really disappointed with the editiing of this product.
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Player here. I got the impression that most of the problems I had with the scenario lay with the circumstances (loud con, not-loud GM). I guess not.
I was aware beforehand that there was a puzzle coming and that it was hated from reviews and I can definetly see why. My problem, however, is not the puzzle - I really did not find it to be especially difficult once I figured it out. The problem was more the presentation.
First off: I don't get the dice at the wall. They confused me. I didn't get the logic behind "Well, of course it's 4-6-8-12-20" instead of "1-2-3-4-5" - it just seemed overly gamy to me.
What's more, using the stairs was something I expect from a game like Antichamber. For those of you who don't know, Antichamber is a puzzle game based on the notion that you have to unlearn everything you learnt from playing puzzle games. An example, as spoilerfree as I can be:
Every FPS ever has taught you that it doesn't matter whether you go left or right around a pillar, you will always reach the same spot. Antichamber forces you to unlearn this to solve a puzzle because you reach DIFFERENT places.
Why did I feel like it? Because as soon as you think "I have to use the portals" you ignore everything BUT the portals. Which is a cool idea, don't get me wrong - I love stuff like that in puzzle games - but unfortunatly this can be extremly frustrating in the more abstract form of a P&P where we don't see the stairs, not really anways.
And as soon as you view the puzzle as a computer game you figure out what's missing: FEEDBACK.
I honestly think most groups would figure it out sooner if there was some sign of progress that reset as soon as they did something wrong. If I solve a puzzle in Myst and after three steps everything resets I usually come to the conclusion that my third step was wrong. So maybe have the NPC flying around suggest that the force field at the top weakened when they stepped through the first portal, but returned after they picked the wrong one afterwards. Maybe the force field emates a deep sound that goes silent the closer the party gets to the solution. Something more than "Well, you tried something and it didn't work, but the puzzle won't tell you where you failed!", you know?
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Played a great game of this at Gencon. I have to agree that it will run long which is a shame, so much good roleplay, so little con slot play time :(
The puzzle for me was pretty easy to solve once we had the hand out note with the arrows and scratch marks. Adding the effect on someone entering the portal and getting moved a floor confirmed it.
So as people have said I think you either get this puzzle or dont. Perhaps at the end of teh day as GM's we have to come down to using a dice roll mechanic, that allows the characters to solve it rather than the players themselves. Maybe Int, Wis or Both checks to see the correlations and how that correlates to solving the problem.
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difficult once I figured it out. The problem was more the presentation.
First off: I don't get the dice at the wall. They confused me. I didn't get the logic behind "Well, of course it's 4-6-8-12-20" instead of "1-2-3-4-5" - it just seemed overly gamy to me.
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People normally get the puzzle by just counting low to high but not really knowing the reason for it is not 1-2-3-4-5, etc.
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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To be honest, the only thing about the puzzle is that I don't understand where the future versions of the PCs got the hash marks from. It's like knowing the password is banana because future you told you so. And if that's the explanation, that's fine.
It's not the most obvious labeling scheme, but it is not that much of a stretch to mark each floor based on the symbols that dominate that floor's decoration.
What strikes you as unreasonable?
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To be honest, the only thing about the puzzle is that I don't understand where the future versions of the PCs got the hash marks from. It's like knowing the password is banana because future you told you so. And if that's the explanation, that's fine.
If I recall correctly, the initial handout is in Sylvan and comes from a source other than the future PCs. The future PCs only add the new clues.
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What strikes you as unreasonable?There are symbols on each floor that match the handout?
Each of the floors has carvings that match one of the platonic solids. Each of the hashmarks are equal to half of the # of sides of the platonic solid of the the floor they are on/point to. Given that it was part of the original note in Sylvan, that means the faeries decided it was more important to write down the halves because who knows?
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Prepping to run this this weekend.
Just wanted to double check on the Embeth Hound boon. It sounds like it's basically just a trained animal, so that means everyone gets a free dog if they get that boon, not just animal companion classes?
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To be honest, the only thing about the puzzle is that I don't understand where the future versions of the PCs got the hash marks from. It's like knowing the password is banana because future you told you so. And if that's the explanation, that's fine.
Wait a second. Future PCs? As in time travel?
Is that the GM only-explanation or are the PCs supposed to find this out?Because that would've been one hell of a revelation!
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Or the horizontal slash is meant to represent doubling the number?Sure. Why not?
I have a vague recollection that there is a tally system out there where a number is denoted by a horizontal line, and it's value is the number of lines on each side. This allows you to count quickly by twos. (a line across is a two, a line that starts at the bar and goes down is a one.)
But I have no clue where I am remembering that from.
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To be honest, the only thing about the puzzle is that I don't understand where the future versions of the PCs got the hash marks from. It's like knowing the password is banana because future you told you so. And if that's the explanation, that's fine.Wait a second. Future PCs? As in time travel?
Is that the GM only-explanation or are the PCs supposed to find this out?
Because that would've been one hell of a revelation!
If I remember correctly, the GM is encouraged to use phrasing to make it sound like a PC wrote the clues as they appeared, and then the players can get involved in adding little additional style flourishes once they figure it out.
EDIT: As TOZ quoted!
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Further it is a DC 10 linguistics check for a PC to recognize their own handwriting. (DC 20 to recognize your team mates handwriting.) And although linguistics usually needs to be trained, it can be used untrained to detect forgeries, and I would say identifying your own handwriting counts as detecting forgeries. So if anyone has linguistics in the group, they should figure it out pretty quick, and even if no one has linguistics, they should get it on a take ten if they didn't dump INT.
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Further it is a DC 10 linguistics check for a PC to recognize their own handwriting. (DC 20 to recognize your team mates handwriting.) And although linguistics usually needs to be trained, it can be used untrained to detect forgeries, and I would say identifying your own handwriting counts as detecting forgeries. So if anyone has linguistics in the group, they should figure it out pretty quick, and even if no one has linguistics, they should get it on a take ten if they didn't dump INT.
Our GM didn't bother with rolling for it, and just assumed that everyone would recognize their own handwriting. I think that makes sense, and the linguistics check should just be used if they want to examine it more closely to try and determine if they really wrote it and don't remember doing it, or if it's a forgery.
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Or the horizontal slash is meant to represent doubling the number?Sure. Why not?I have a vague recollection that there is a tally system out there where a number is denoted by a horizontal line, and it's value is the number of lines on each side. This allows you to count quickly by twos. (a line across is a two, a line that starts at the bar and goes down is a one.)
But I have no clue where I am remembering that from.
I find it rather strange that my future self would use a tallying system that doesn't make sense to my current self
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I find it rather strange that my future self would use a tallying system that doesn't make sense to my current selfOr the horizontal slash is meant to represent doubling the number?Sure. Why not?I have a vague recollection that there is a tally system out there where a number is denoted by a horizontal line, and it's value is the number of lines on each side. This allows you to count quickly by twos. (a line across is a two, a line that starts at the bar and goes down is a one.)
But I have no clue where I am remembering that from.
Paul, the origional note (written in sylvan, with the tally marks) is from someone else.
The notes that appear on it if you get stuck are from the party.
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Assistant Developer
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Prepping to run this this weekend.
Just wanted to double check on the Embeth Hound boon. It sounds like it's basically just a trained animal, so that means everyone gets a free dog if they get that boon, not just animal companion classes?
** spoiler omitted **
Yes, its for everyone.
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Assistant Developer
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The erroneous list for Subtier 6-7 in #7-02 is the same as the list for Subtier 8-9 in #7-03, in case that helps the folks at Paizo understand the problem. Cut-and-paste error?I played this scenario at Gen Con (July 30) and I am preparing to GM it locally. The Chronicle sheet from Gen Con, however, has some differences from the Chronicle sheet in the PDF (downloaded today, Aug 23):
<...>
** "Item access" spoiler omitted **Did my GM at Gen Con print the Chronicle sheet from an earlier/unofficial PDF?
It was a cut and paste error, which was in the unofficial version of the PDF but which we caught before the official release.
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I ran this last week in the low tier. A player solved the puzzle right away.
One question I had---Henbane doesn't have knowledge(local), at least not at low tier, didn't check high. To use her bane ability, she has to be able to id the creature. Can we assume she knows the basic Society humanoids? Does she have to roll a 10 untrained to target them?
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I ran this last week in the low tier. A player solved the puzzle right away.
One question I had---Henbane doesn't have knowledge(local), at least not at low tier, didn't check high. To use her bane ability, she has to be able to id the creature. Can we assume she knows the basic Society humanoids? Does she have to roll a 10 untrained to target them?
I've seen some variation on whether an inquisitor can set their bane to "THAT THING!" or not.
Most humanoids are going to be a DC 10 though.
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I ran this last week in the low tier. A player solved the puzzle right away.
One question I had---Henbane doesn't have knowledge(local), at least not at low tier, didn't check high. To use her bane ability, she has to be able to id the creature. Can we assume she knows the basic Society humanoids? Does she have to roll a 10 untrained to target them?
I've seen some variation on whether an inquisitor can set their bane to "THAT THING!" or not.
Most humanoids are going to be a DC 10 though.
Yeah, or less even. Since goblins are the CRB example of something that's common and thus DC 5, humans, at the bare minimum, would also be DC 5.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I don't have a lot of experience with inquisitors. Any sugguestions on what judgements she should put up?
Also, her swift action economy is going to be sorely overtaxed.
First round: Create allies
Second Round: Judgement
Third Round: Bane (unless she needs more allies... In which case, more allies.)
Also, I am not sure what this line means.
During Combat: Henbane prefers to avoid direct confrontation
by frightening potential foes into seeing matters from
her perspective. If combat seems becomes unavoidable,...
For one thing, is seems odd to see it in "during combat" since it should theoretically be before combat.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Yeah, or less even. Since goblins are the CRB example of something that's common and thus DC 5, humans, at the bare minimum, would also be DC 5.I ran this last week in the low tier. A player solved the puzzle right away.
One question I had---Henbane doesn't have knowledge(local), at least not at low tier, didn't check high. To use her bane ability, she has to be able to id the creature. Can we assume she knows the basic Society humanoids? Does she have to roll a 10 untrained to target them?
I've seen some variation on whether an inquisitor can set their bane to "THAT THING!" or not.
Most humanoids are going to be a DC 10 though.
She does have knowledge planes. That should get her native outsiders, right?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I think I will go with
DC 5 : Core races
DC 10: Tengu, Kitsune, Wayang, Nagaji
DC 15: (Which she can't make untrained) Anything that requires a race boon. (Changeling, Damphir) On the grounds that part of the reason they need race boons (supposedly) is that they are very rare. (Well, except goblins, who are canonically common.)
Don't forget she has a +7 untrained to ID creatures. (Monster Lore)
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Assistant Developer
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It was a cut and paste error, which was in the unofficial version of the PDF but which we caught before the official release.Thanks for the response.
The unofficial/earlier version also has a different wording for Henbane's Favor:
** spoiler omitted **
Did all of the GMs at Gen Con have the unofficial version? Should I replace the sheet that my GM gave me with the official version?
We updated the PDF to the official version before Gencon, so most GMs had the official version. It sounds like your GM printed his or her Chronicle Sheets before the update. If you have an easy way to get a copy to the new sheet, then that would be ideal.
Otherwise, make a note about the correct action type on the Chronicle Sheet. I'll PM you the revised treasure list for the high Subtier.