7-02 Six Seconds to Midnight


GM Discussion

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5/5 5/55/5

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Wow, how is this scenario supposed to be played in 4 hours? There are 5 combats, 6 role playing encounters, some with multiple skill checks involved, and a lengthy puzzle to resolve?

Several of the combats are exceedingly lengthy due to the special abilities of the baddies against a tiers 3-7 who are usually not prepared for this.

I mean literally this should be run in a 8 hour slot to fit it in properly.

I am known for running games fast and I had to skip 2 combats, call 2 combats early, and steer the party in the right direction several times just to get this one completed in 4.5 hours.

What happened to the initiative to improve PFS play by shortening scenarios to insure they fit in under 4 hours. please get back to the scenario shortening or I will no longer be able to schedule games at my local FLGS which has a hard 4 hour stop time.

For this scenario I'm going to have to decide to schedule this over 2 nights or pull it off the store schedule all together.

Sovereign Court 2/5 *

We played this today in 3.5 hours actually and finished everything successfully.
Obviously if you have 6 murder hobos who have no skills, then yes this will take forever. Our group was 4 clerics, a gunslinger, and a wizard and we blew through all the challenges, both RP and combat.
I agree the puzzle was annoying, though admittedly I had a terrible headache and chose to let the others do thinking on that 1 :)

Sovereign Court

I prepped this today to run tomorrow and my first thought to improve the design was to cut the portal puzzle. There's just too much going on in this scenario for those kinds of shenanigans, and I HATE puzzles anyway. Among my tables, they are uniformly negatively received every time one pops up, and the first question is, "can we make an Intelligence check to bypass it?"

5/5 5/55/5

Hi,

Here is the issue with this scenario you are fighting creatures that turn invincibility, creatures the debuff the good guys with unluck auras, creatures that fly and if you can't get to them then the fist encounter can be a TPK with wands being used and dropping 16d6 damage a round on the high tier party for 10 rounds. (8d6 a round on the low tier)

If the GM plays them to the fullest it makes these combats double in length.

It's not that I don't like the scenario I do, i think it's really creative it just the length is inappropriate for a 4 hour time slot.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5

RoshVagari wrote:
Among my tables, they are uniformly negatively received every time one pops up, and the first question is, "can we make an Intelligence check to bypass it?"

I understand where you are coming from.

I'm more inclined to them when we have the luxury of not being on such a tight timer, and I'd be happier if they provided a way to gain an advantage for solving them rather than just allowing progression or being 'speed bumped'.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

roysier wrote:
Wow, how is this scenario supposed to be played in 4 hours? There are 5 combats, 6 role playing encounters, some with multiple skill checks involved, and a lengthy puzzle to resolve?

I'm not sure we're reading the same scenario. I ran this 3 times at Gen Con, and every table (including the Core table with mostly level 4 pre-gens) finished in 4 hours or less.

Combats:

1 - Town under attack: Can be a little lengthy at the high tier depending on how the PCs are at dealing with invisibility, but the tactics make it less difficult time-wise (i.e. gloom dragons fleeing once they're the only ones left)

2 - Supply sack: 2-3 rounds of comedy, max.

3 - Gremlins in the gears: More gaming-with-portals comedy, but only takes awhile if nobody has cold iron and nobody tries to use the portals.

4a - Henbane: BBEG fights are supposed to be tough and long-ish.

4b - Grig/Quicklings: Remember, they ONLY fight this one if they don't fight Henbane. If they fight Henbane, the fey here flee instead of fight, so there can only be 4 combats, max.

RP Encounters:

1 - Briefing with Smine: Not the longest intro ever.

2 - Visser: Always pretty quick and to the point as far as I've seen.

3 - Mayors: Also pretty quick.

4 - Cerotius (sp): Again, pretty quick.

5 - Henbane: Potentially longer, but it's the BBEG, so it's supposed to be involved.

Skill Encounters:

1 - Traps/Heals: If you're under a time limit, it's pretty easy to explain the mechanics and what it represents in terms of travel time adjustment and then just let them roll with some RP embellishment highlighting their successes/failures.

2a - Investigating the tower: A little lengthy, yes, but it's one of the reasons they're there - do this for Ogden so they can get the Essence and access to superior alchemical goods.

2b - Tavern: Same as 1, can be sped up if needed, or skipped entirely without any major problems to the plot. Wholly optional or good for groups with more social than mental characters.

3 - Portals/Puzzle: Several other GMs and I spent hours, days actually, looking at this. The only conclusion I've reached is that the clues that the PCs find during their investigation and the Player Handout both line up to a certain puzzle...but the actual solution presented in the scenario is something wholly different and has no connection to anything else present. I wonder if something got changed part-way through the process that left us with clues for one puzzle but the answers from a different one. I'm going to take time to review my notes on this part and probably do a scenario review and elaborate further on this one.

5/5 5/55/5

I ran it again and it clocked in at about 4:15, still on the longish side but not unreasonably long. I did miss that the last 2 combats were either or. Also I like to let the players do the choices of how they do things but in this scenario I had to guide them allot to get through things faster.

For example I tell them they test the portals in the tower and this is what they find, instead of what I normally do: a player is going to step in this one and what happens, now I step in this one and what happens, until they figure out through trial and error what that some go up and others go down.

5/5 5/55/5

The section about all the sybmols in the tower really confused my first group, they spent allot of time trying to figure out the meaning but in the end as far as I can tell it does tie to anything else in the scenario. The second group solved the puzzle in about 10 minutes with only 1 extra clue given.

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/5

I ran it twice at Gen Con. I don't think clues 2 and 3 were helpful at all because both times they figured out those two details before getting them. I think the most important clue is that the puzzle requires also using the stairs. Since their future selves are sending back the notes, I made that a clue to replace 2 and 3. One group figured it out from that and the other didn't. The portal puzzle seemed the most rushed in terms of game development, but there were other obvious things that this was still being edited for Gen Con.

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Muncie

From the Players Side we were able to get this one done in just under the time limit with a bit of Gm hand-waiving on the stairs.. With the table I was with we had 4 very good puzzle solvers 2 were bored but the combats we had 2 uber social characters and that made things very easy with the BBEG.. we would have not finished in time if we had to fight him this is a long one. the clues we got didn't help because the came after we figured out hot to do the puzzle.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

After playing, running, and talking with other people who've run this scenario, I realized that the clues weren't actually that helpful and did nothing to actually deter the players from paths that weren't actually helpful to completing the puzzle. But that's okay - one of the benefits of a puzzle in a RPG session is that you have a GM there to help provide hints and nudge the players onto the right path while still letting them make key insights. I was all prepared to post an analysis of the puzzle and break it down into key clues that the GM can give.

Except that in this one you can't, since the rewards are tied to the specific clues that you give out.

Granted, it's not a ton of money, but it still exists, and that fact makes me hesitant to change anything about the cluing, despite the fact that it could be much better. I haven't seen anyone solve the puzzle without getting Clue 4 yet, and that's the sign of an unsuccessful puzzle. I can understand the desire to reward the PCs for doing better at the puzzle than others, but this scenario does so in a way that ties the GMs hands (as opposed to, say, Weapon in the Rift). It's very frustrating.

Which is a shame because the rest of this scenario is kick-ass amazing. Seriously, despite the puzzle I want more Liz Courts scenarios.

5/5 5/55/5

Here would be my recommendations for speeding up the scenario:

Don’t role play the "Travelers" just tell the players the rangers need help with Healing and Traps and make the Kn. Nature roll. Let the players decide how to divide and conquer.

After the Mayors talk don’t let the players fumble around in town, just outright tell them there are 3 things of interest, the bar, the tower, and the alchemist items.

Ignore the specifics of the symbols in the tower (d4, d6, etc.) this avoids players spending time figuring out the significance. Just have them make the roles and if they find a discovery just say they did it.

Treat the Animated sack as an optional encounter if less than 90 minutes (even though it is really cool).

Don’t let the party sample the portals, tell them that they experiment with them and they find that some of them don’t act as others and transport you to another level, and what floors colors do that, for example on floor 1 a red portal transports you up but not down, etc.

On the puzzle look at the time left and know that the last encounter will need about 45 minutes and let that drive you on how fast the additional clues should be handed out.

With the Dryad diplomacy if the party fumbles trying to come up with a solution but are still trying - let the Dryad make the terms of the deal. (it takes a long time for the players to figure it out).

Sovereign Court 1/5

I'm not understanding the timeline and requirements of the Traveler's skill challenge at all.

The core mechanic is clear. Make some heal checks. Perceive and disarm some traps. Yay.

When do these take place?

Jamel starts off saying "They'll all need to be cleared or disabled before we go back into the woods" That sounds like making these checks before we head out. Then the text goes on to say that the traps are all along the roads in the Embeth Forest. So are the challenges handled before the party sets out, or during?

"A PC who succeeds at a DC 22 Knowledge (nature)
check (DC 25 in Subtier 6–7) has heard that these forests
do contain some benevolent fey, who occasionally assist
those who provide them offerings of bread, honey, milk,
or alcoholic beverages."
Later: "If the PCs provide offerings to attract friendly fey, the rangers are impressed with their skill and wisdom."
So the PCs have to have bread, milk, honey, or alcohol with them? Do they have to set it out themselves? How long does this take?

A heal check takes 1 hour. Does this occur while they are traveling or before?

"If the PCs do not trigger any traps or spend time treating poison...they arrive in Uringen at 6:30 in the evening... They have a total of 2 hours worth of time to perform additional tasks to help the rangers..." So you have 2 hours to perform 3 heal checks that take an hour each? Are the PCs making these checks separately and concurrently or together as a group?

I really don't like the way this was written up as it's really confusing. Without some helpful clarification I'm just going to call for 4 heal checks, 4 perception/disable, fill it with traveling fluff and move on.

Sovereign Court 1/5

Reading through it, I'm really surprised at just how bad the puzzle is.

Why are there a random number of tally marks (in a non-standard method nonetheless) indicating each path? Any person actually trying to figure out a path is going to use either 1,2,3 or A,B,C etc. to label their paths. Players are going to be focusing on deciphering what in the world the significance of "3, 4, 5, 8, 12" is.

That using the stairs as well as portals is required definitely needed to be included in one of the clues.

I can see by the reviews this scenario is getting that I'm not the only one disappointed here.

4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

Quadstriker wrote:

I'm not understanding the timeline and requirements of the Traveler's skill challenge at all.

The core mechanic is clear. Make some heal checks. Perceive and disarm some traps. Yay.

When do these take place?

I did my best to run as written while going through the scenario. I deducted an hour when they stopped to treat poison at the start, and later on when the party had to clear a path after a trap hit I noted that people could either help clear road or help with treatment of the poisoned and took off the other hour.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Assistant Developer

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.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Assistant Developer

Quadstriker wrote:

I'm not understanding the timeline and requirements of the Traveler's skill challenge at all.

The core mechanic is clear. Make some heal checks. Perceive and disarm some traps. Yay.

When do these take place?

Jamel starts off saying "They'll all need to be cleared or disabled before we go back into the woods" That sounds like making these checks before we head out. Then the text goes on to say that the traps are all along the roads in the Embeth Forest. So are the challenges handled before the party sets out, or during?

The traps are along roads that the rangers wanted to clear before heading to Uringen, which are also the same roads they take to get to Uringen. Ultimately, the GM can decide if they want to have the rangers and the PCs go on a special trip to clear them first or clear them along the way.

Quadstriker wrote:


"A PC who succeeds at a DC 22 Knowledge (nature)
check (DC 25 in Subtier 6–7) has heard that these forests
do contain some benevolent fey, who occasionally assist
those who provide them offerings of bread, honey, milk,
or alcoholic beverages."
Later: "If the PCs provide offerings to attract friendly fey, the rangers are impressed with their skill and wisdom."
So the PCs have to have bread, milk, honey, or alcohol with them? Do they have to set it out themselves? How long does this take?

It only takes a few rounds to set out food, so that time doesn't count against the PCs in any way. PCs can set out their own bread, milk, honey, or alcohol if they have some with them. They could use a creative solution to acquire it (such as convincing the rangers to trade, or looking for honey in the forest).

Quadstriker wrote:


A heal check takes 1 hour. Does this occur while they are traveling or before?

"If the PCs do not trigger any traps or spend time treating poison...they arrive in Uringen at 6:30 in the evening... They have a total of 2 hours worth of time to perform additional tasks to help the rangers..." So you have 2 hours to perform 3 heal checks that take an hour each? Are the PCs making these checks separately and concurrently or together as a group?

Whether the Heal checks happen before departing or along the way is up to the PCs.

These Heal checks work like typical skill checks, other than how long they take. Each PC can roll separately, or PCs can help each other with aid another.

Sovereign Court 1/5

Thank you for the clarifications.

5/5 5/55/5

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Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:
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.

Are you planning on doing anything to keep scenario length down to under 4 hours? This one was particularly long but 6-22 and 6-23 are also super long.

I honestly don't believe this scenario can be kept to the rule "Run as Written" and keep it under 4 hours something has to broken.

Was there a reason why there was not a optional encounter written into this scenario and why there was no 4 player adjustment in the final fight? (3 Quicklinks at high tier is brutal if played correctly with their spring attack and sneak attack they wiped out one of the groups I was running)

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

Ran this for the 11th slot at GenCon, and ran it cold so I had a bit of trouble navigating it initially. Reviewing it post-run I answered most of my own questions, but one still remains.

Regarding the portals. My understanding is that one with the appropriate bloodline can navigate them, or that someone with a high enough Will save can navigate them, but everyone else is sent to a random legal portal (opposite colored in the same area) when they use them.

Here is my question: when a portal is activated, either purposefully or randomly, is its destination portal permanently defined for the scenario? The puzzle at the end seems to indicate as such, but elsewhere reading about the puzzle makes me think that each jump is always random unless determined by the PC (as above) otherwise.
-------------------
That aside, the scenario was not without its fun. We enjoyed the NPCs, and the setting, although the plot device present seemed a bit hackneyed. Well, the whole time travel aspect of S7 is feeling a bit like that. I liked the selection of foes for the combat, but my table of 38 stars (6x 5-star and 1x 3-star players and myself) had little difficulty in any encounter, so I was unable to get an accurate feel for the normal difficulty a party would have.

What I was most intrigued about was the idea of this former adventuring party having disbanded and each leaving its mark somewhere on the world, it reminded me a great deal of Order of the Stick, which I didn't mind. I'd be interested to see if the Society further explored the legacy left behind by Uringen and his companions.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Nope, except for the 6 predefined portals in the tower, every portal's end location is chosen at random or by the person jumping in, depending on the result of the will save.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

roysier wrote:
Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:
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.

Are you planning on doing anything to keep scenario length down to under 4 hours? This one was particularly long but 6-22 and 6-23 are also super long.

I honestly don't believe this scenario can be kept to the rule "Run as Written" and keep it under 4 hours something has to broken.

Was there a reason why there was not a optional encounter written into this scenario and why there was no 4 player adjustment in the final fight? (3 Quicklinks at high tier is brutal if played correctly with their spring attack and sneak attack they wiped out one of the groups I was running)

Scenarios are not meant to be run in under 4 hours. They are designed for 4-1/2 to 5.

5/5 5/55/5

We'll then that's changed again originally the guide said 4 hour time slots. It changed to 5 hours in the season 5.0 guide. And with Mike Brocks big mid year updates/improvements it was supposed to go back to 4 hours. And so scenarios 6-10 to 6-19 were shorter and awesome. Then suddenly they got longer again.

If it goes back to 5 hours then PFS is just shooting itself in the foot and hurting its own attendance. Almost half the stores in the bay area only have 4 hour slots to play. A hard stop is mandated, so having 5 hour scenarios just wont work. In fact if that ends up being the case I'll have to stop the games at the store I organize due to time constraints.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Prepping this now.

Having real trouble with the Embeth Forest segment.

It says they have 2 hours to perform additional tasks. It then says that each PC can try 4 heal checks, each of which takes 1 hour. Are these separate from the 2 hour time limit? Or are they in addition to it?

Also, since it sounds like the heal checks would be done before traveling, and the trap removal done during, does this mean they essentially have to pick one or the other?

4/5

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Andrew Christian wrote:
Scenarios are not meant to be run in under 4 hours. They are designed for 4-1/2 to 5.

Not according to Mike Brock and John Compton

Grand Lodge 2/5

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

This was the one scenario that I got to play at Gen Con between my tier 1 HQ Volunteering, and I loved it though I can see the comments about the puzzle and run time.

We played high-tier with a heavy melee comp, a Unchained Barbarian, a Bloodrager, a War-priest, a Paladin/ Hell-Knight (me) and an Arcanist. I don't remember a 6th player (which would make sense as I was seated as a generic).

We didn't have anyone to make the knowledge nature checks, so we resorted to heal checks from the warpriest augmented with the paladin casting lesser restoration daily on the Desnan guides and ample anti-toxin.

We split our group up after meeting with the mayors, having one group head the investigation of the tower and the other (those of us with social skills) head around town and gather information at the bar.

The combats all went pretty quickly, with our 3 no-ac all dmg characters dishing out big numbers and me alternating between tanking and providing ranged support with my comp longbow and +1 feybane arrows.

Henbane was an intriguing encounter -- we didn't jump to fight her, but when she indicated that she wanted to build the fey circle again my hellknight decided it was time for smite chaos. Burned a boon (Tanbaru's Respect from Tapestry's Toil) to area dispel her invisibility (since our arcanist didn't have glitter dust, that fool) and she went down quickly.

GM called the final fight (Two smites remaining, and with no allies it was going to be a short fight anyway).

The puzzle portion was interesting. Our GM used colored markers to highlight which portals were what color (which was essential to understanding the puzzle). I agree that the polyhedra markings on the floors seemed to be a red herring and had us wasting some time. Same goes for the hash marks on the floor note. Ultimately it was only the colored indicator arrows and trial and error that helped us solve the puzzle.

One thing I noticed today while sorting through my gen con boons and records, it seems like the high-tier slow progression gold is wrong. The normal gold for high-tier is 3252, so the slow progression total should be 1626, not the 813 that's indicated on the chronicle.

4/5

Juniperkitsu wrote:
One thing I noticed today while sorting through my gen con boons and records, it seems like the high-tier slow...

This appears to have been fixed in the final version.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

How are people running the portals?

Do they fill the whole square? As in if you enter the square you enter the portal? And then you appear on an opposite portal? what does it take to then go through that portal? Do you have to move off and back?

I was thinking of printing them upright on transparency paper, and mounting them so that they sit on one edge of the square. (So that you only enter the portal if you go through that edge.)

Among other things it avoid the dilemma of a portal appearing under a PC when the battle starts and dumping him (all alone) right in the middle of the oncoming army.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
GinoA wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
Scenarios are not meant to be run in under 4 hours. They are designed for 4-1/2 to 5.
Not according to Mike Brock and John Compton

Yeah -- and, in any event, many groups are restricted to a pretty hard 4-hour cutoff (from the moment of sitting down to the moment of "must be out the door") in the venues they have to play in. So, either all those people shouldn't be playing PFS, or PFS scenarios that can't be completed in 4 hours are done wrong. It seems that the "4-hour scenario" is a standard in the roleplaying world in general; if PFS can't conform to this, it makes things very difficult.

(What's more, this 4 hours is really more like 3.25 or 3.5 hours. In my experience, if a game starts at 6, you don't have everybody sitting down and ready to go at 6. Oddly, with online games, often you do. But, this has almost never happened at a store game or a gameday game. Then, at the end of the game, it takes at least 5, and more like 10-15 minutes, to fill out all the chronicle sheets. After that, if I'm GMing, it takes me 10 minutes to clean up all the mess I've made around myself running the game.)

5/5 5/55/55/5

Am I the only one hearing one way ticket to midnight every time i hear the title?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
FLite wrote:

How are people running the portals?

Do they fill the whole square? As in if you enter the square you enter the portal? And then you appear on an opposite portal? what does it take to then go through that portal? Do you have to move off and back?

I was thinking of printing them upright on transparency paper, and mounting them so that they sit on one edge of the square. (So that you only enter the portal if you go through that edge.)

Among other things it avoid the dilemma of a portal appearing under a PC when the battle starts and dumping him (all alone) right in the middle of the oncoming army.

This is how I've been running them, although this may be some GM interpretation.

Portals fill the whole square, so if you enter the square you enter the portal. If you were already on a portal, you need to step off and step back on. Your destination is chosen as per the rules of portals. Going through the portal is part of whatever action it took you to step on the portal, which means that you still have whatever movement left.

(Okay, so that last part can be a little confusing especially given the speed up/slow down of the portals. Say that a PC with a movement of 30ft walks two squares into a red portal. They come out a blue portal somewhere and they get sped up, so for the rest of their turn their movement is 45ft. They've already spent 10ft of movement this turn, so they still have 35ft of movement left in this action and can continue moving.)

I like this interpretation because it gives the PCs incentives to hop through portals to speed themselves up, and the combats get way more fun when everyone is jumping through portals.

4/5

James McTeague wrote:

(Okay, so that last part can be a little confusing especially given the speed up/slow down of the portals. Say that a PC with a movement of 30ft walks two squares into a red portal. They come out a blue portal somewhere and they get sped up, so for the rest of their turn their movement is 45ft. They've already spent 10ft of movement this turn, so they still have 35ft of movement left in this action and can continue moving.)

I like this interpretation because it gives the PCs incentives to hop through portals to speed themselves up, and the combats get way more fun when everyone is jumping through portals.

One small thing. I'd pro-rate the increase. They moved 10 of 30. They have 20 base move left. That becomes 30.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

While the mathematical part of me makes that seem like a good idea, I know better about the math skills of the average table that I would rather just have the set numbers that are easier to memorize. Definitely a GM interpretation, and I wouldn't fault anyone for doing it your way.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

Quadstriker wrote:


Why are there a random number of tally marks (in a non-standard method nonetheless) indicating each path? Any person actually trying to figure out a path is going to use either 1,2,3 or A,B,C etc. to label their paths. Players are going to be focusing on deciphering what in the world the significance of "3, 4, 5, 8, 12" is.

The tally marks correspond to the number of sides on the dice used to represent each floor. They are "4,6,8,12, and 20." The horizontal line through the tally marks doubles the number of vertical lines.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

I think I may give players a linguistic check to recognize this if they seem confused by it.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Right, those tally marks make sense for the black boxes representing each floor of the tower, and they make sense for labeling the portals as to which floor they're going to. They don't make sense for the last step where they also get used as the ordering of the portals.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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hmm... we seem to be a red portal short on town map.

Sovereign Court 3/5 ****

At Gencon our GM told us multiple times that the hashmarks weren't relevant to solving the puzzle, so we ignored them. Sadly that meant we took much longer to solve it.

4/5

One of my players figured it out on his own tonight. Unfortunately, he was the one that stayed behind to deal with the Sack and was a 20' base move pally, so it took the entire Vex battle for him to even get to the second floor.

5/5 *****

OK, I am prepping this for Sunday and I am really not clear on how the Travellers section is supposed to work.

The scenario tells me that the trip takes a couple of days and that the PC's arrive at about 6.30pm on the day the clocks align. It also says that the PC's have two hours to help the Rangers if they do nothing to help out.

However, making a single heal check takes an hour, clearing the results of a failed trap detection takes four hours with a potential reduction. How is that supposed to fit in with the 2 hour time limit? That seems to leave the PC's with almost no time to actually make the required checks.

5/5 5/55/5

It also says at the beginning of the scenario it takes 3 weeks to reach Urngien(Sp?) and 2 week trip upriver to get to the Travelers.

I just assumed the traps were set up near the docks and the party spent a few hours clearing them. Then they took a week to get to Urnigen, the time spent helping the travelers delayed the start of the week long trip and they arrived in town at the hour the scenario implied based on the delay of time at the start of the trip used helping the Travelers.

Sovereign Court 1/5

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The timing of the journey is blah and the scenario contradicts itself.

On page four it clearly says "The PCs have at least one day to prepare, gather notes, buy supplies, and rest before the clock tower's alignment begins..."

So whatever. I'm calling for 4 heal checks and dealing with 4 traps. Then they get to town at the speed of plot.

I also like how you're supposed to track time down to the minute the entire time in the clock tower to know if you get out of the tower before 12:34 for the final confrontation with Naithra to determine if the portals are still there. That's not happening.

5/5 5/55/5

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At the end of the VC Smine's speech in the boxtext on page 5 it says it will take 2 weeks to get to Visser and the clocks align in 3 weeks.

The page 4 quote is in the summary and seems to have to do with after the players arrive in Uringen. But they don't get that much time in the details of the module.

So yeah no wonder why everyone is confused. It seems like the scenario got partially edited prior to release.

5/5 *****

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Is it just me or are there only 9 Red Portals on the main town map? I have counted and recounted them and I cannot find 10.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

Not just you. I counted 9.

Is there a four person adjustment for the final encounter?

5/5 *****

There is for Henbane but not for Nithra. Remember you only get one or the other fight.

4/5

Hmmm... the rules for enhanced alchemical goods state that they increase the saving throw DCs to resist by 2 and the damage dealt by 50%. However, the Supply Sack lists enhanced antitoxin in the treasure which don't have a saving throw DC nor do they do damage. What exactly is enhanced by these? It seems reasonable that their alchemical bonus would be increased by 50% (from +5 to +7), but it's not clear that is intended. How are others treating the enhanced antitoxin?

5/5 *****

I am just doing a final pass over the stats for this module before I run it in a few hours. The quickling rogues are listed as having a +93 acrobatics to jump and I am struggling to see where this has come from. It looks like someone has added the +36 bonus they get for speed twice and I cannot find anything that would do that within their stat block. Am I missing something?

5/5 *****

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.

4/5

I ran this last week. Optimized, dazing channel. The fights were rather boring.

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