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Makes sense. Thanks for the suggestion! It's an excellent scenario!Thank you! I hope you and your players have a good time. Let us know how it goes.
Mike, my group, not related to Christopher Rowe's group, had some fun with it. We played it Core, and only had three players.
Group was:
PC Barbarian, much the normal beatstick
PC Cleric, fairly normal positive channeler
PC Rogue, standard Dex build, but only single weapon build.
NPC Ezren, to complete a fairly "standard" D&D adventuring party
After that, we decided to hit the bar next, since it was getting close to noon, and we thought we would at least take a look at it. Our plan, once we got there, went off fairly well, including using the whip in a couple of drinks sent to the agents. Only the Aspis agent drank it, while the Kortos agent was off cleaning himself off from the spilled drinks, and we then spirited the Aspis agent out, relieved him of his badge, and left him sleeping off the whip (which, amusingly, also deprived him of his memories of the last hour, so he went to the Inn afterwards, after the Kortos agent gave up).
For the warehouse, we blocked most of the doors, setup a dart trap for one of the secret doors, and waited. Using the Aspis badges picked up earlier, we were able to convince the Kortos group that we were already on top of the incident at the warehouse, speaking truth instead of lies, so they left quietly.
The Aspis came in, through the main door and the trapped secret door, and found we were a bit more than they could handle. The trap missed the cleric, but he got bashed the next turn by the Barbarian, rolling max damage. In the meantime, we had tanglefooted the Sorcerer, who had trouble making the concentration checks. The Barbarian did a Raging hit on the fighter-type, which, with other damage done, left him reeling, and down shortly.
We enjoyed it, and the GM enjoyed seeing us going weird at times during it. The Cleric pushing for using the drug on the agents in the Inn, for instance. No fatalities until the Aspis encounter at the warehouse, for another. Yeah, we even talked her into joining the Pathfinder Society. Old acquaintances, and all that.
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I wanted to add a few unique features to the warehouse. Multiple levels, skylights, a separate room, the platform and lever, and so on. Also, since the warehouse plays such a prominent role in the scenario, I figured it deserved its own unique map. Sorry for the inconvenience to those of you who own the warehouse flip-mat. :)My only complaint about it after running it is...
Why, in an EVERGREEN, do we not use the perfectly good Warehouse map when every other map is a flip mat or map set?
It's a decent warehouse. I like it. I, too, wondered if one could use the warehouse product instead of drawing yours, but I think the elevator kinda does it. Pretty hard to reasonably incorporate that into the warehouse mat, unless you drew it next to the sea doors on the back. And actually, that might be reasonable. But regardless, I think I'll print/laminate it. It's good to have more than one warehouse in your arsenal, anyway. I like to keep lots of maps in my bag in case the players go off-book!
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I wanted to add a few unique features to the warehouse. Multiple levels, skylights, a separate room, the platform and lever, and so on. Also, since the warehouse plays such a prominent role in the scenario, I figured it deserved its own unique map. Sorry for the inconvenience to those of you who own the warehouse flip-mat. :)My only complaint about it after running it is...
Why, in an EVERGREEN, do we not use the perfectly good Warehouse map when every other map is a flip mat or map set?
This deserves it's own flip-map IMO. Drawing it takes some time when you add in all the crate locations. I agree that it should be a current flip-mat, wish we could have used that one...
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This deserves it's own flip-map IMO. Drawing it takes some time when you add in all the crate locations. I agree that it should be a current flip-mat, wish we could have used that one...I wanted to add a few unique features to the warehouse. Multiple levels, skylights, a separate room, the platform and lever, and so on. Also, since the warehouse plays such a prominent role in the scenario, I figured it deserved its own unique map. Sorry for the inconvenience to those of you who own the warehouse flip-mat. :)My only complaint about it after running it is...
Why, in an EVERGREEN, do we not use the perfectly good Warehouse map when every other map is a flip mat or map set?
You'd think Paizo would realize that people often buy maps for PFS scenarios, and that the people will run the evergreens more than others, so publishing flip mats of new maps introduced in an evergreen at the time that the scenario is first published just makes sense. But it sounds like there's not that much coordination between the PFS side of things and the map publishing side of things within Paizo.
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A comment and another question.
The comment is that I've now read the Diobel material in Towns of the Inner Sea and love the integration there.
The question has to do with Area C, the alchemist's sewer laboratory, and is this:
What's the lighting situation in that stretch of sewers? There's no mention of it in the text that I can find, and one assumes it's pitch black down there. However, there are four people (unidentified as to race, so I suppose they could have darkvision) living down there. The beetle (or beetles) have the luminescence extraordinary ability, which means they provide "light" (level ungiven) in a ten foot radius, but that seems inadequate to Laszo's needs. Speaking of Laszo, I note that he has no enhanced vision ability or even a light source listed in his stat block.
Before I decided to write this post, my plan was to just assume there was some sconces on the wall with torches providing normal light throughout the encounter area, given its function as both a (pathetic) living space and a (creepy) work place, and I imagine that'll be what I wind up doing, but there are nine and ninety ways of tinkering with encounters and somebody here is bound to have noticed something I missed or come up with a better idea.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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What's the lighting situation in that stretch of sewers?
Sorry we didn't call that out.
When I ran it, I gave Laszo a lantern. I generally am willing to have NPCs carrying relatively mundane gear even if it's not specifically listed in stat blocks. (After all, how often do you see explorer-type NPCs encountered in the wild without any source of food or water listed in their stat block?) Having some torch sconces on the walls also seems reasonable.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Mike, my group, not related to Christopher Rowe's group, had some fun with it. We played it Core, and only had three players.Makes sense. Thanks for the suggestion! It's an excellent scenario!Thank you! I hope you and your players have a good time. Let us know how it goes.
Thanks for sharing! Glad you had a good time.
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My own solution (link) to the warehouse map issue is proving slow going, but I should be done before Saturday's game.
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A little more done now. This view shows the platform at the half-way point. Still need to put in the lower walls and make about a zillion more crates and barrels. And the ladder! Gotta make a ladder! And the operating lever for the platform. Man, there's a lot to this thing!
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My own solution (link) to the warehouse map issue is proving slow going, but I should be done before Saturday's game.
That's some resampling!
Venture-Captain, Ohio—Columbus
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Christopher:
Looking great!!
What kind of construction technique are you using? Card stock, Pink foam, foam board....? I can't quite tell from the photo.
I am thinking to make 3D terrain for this one for Origins, and trying to improve my technique from last year's efforts.
Also, do you plan to convert the other maps to 3D? I'm undecided on how to do the ship map in 3D. I would like to have the levels assemble neatly into a whole ship, but..........
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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A little more done now. This view shows the platform at the half-way point. Still need to put in the lower walls and make about a zillion more crates and barrels. And the ladder! Gotta make a ladder! And the operating lever for the platform. Man, there's a lot to this thing!
Wow! That is awesome! I want one!
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Glad you like it, Mike!
Cirithiel, thanks! This is pretty much card stock modeling, using mostly Fat Dragon Games designs. Some of the barrels are from another company, and the water and docks (in 2D) are from Paizo's Waterfront MapPack pdf. If I'd really been ambitious I suppose I should have made it three levels (the rises are just styrofoam blocks from a craft store, by the way, and everything is based on foam core), and made the docks 3D as well.
Here's the near final view. My favorite bit is the ladder. Still need to make the level for the platform and then I'm going to just make as many barrels and crates as I have time for, as well as a few more chairs for the table in the office. Oh, and when I was doing my prep I rolled for the dog, so I suppose I might come up with a cage somewhere for the poor pooch.
This is the first time I've done any 3D terrain this large, and the first time I've done it for Pathfinder or PFS at all. Hopefully the players will like it, especially coming on the heels of the assigned two flip-maps and sewer map, all of which I happened to have. So it'll be a colorful game, anyway!
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So I was just looking at the chronicle for this, and realized that I get a +2 circumstance bonus on charisma based skill checks against nobles on Kortos.
This would be great for a skill based character like mine, with +10 or better bluff and diplomacy at level 1, except for one major problem: I got this boon on a character who doesn't use charisma for his social skills. Thanks to the Student of Philosophy trait, the social skills are intelligence based skill checks for me, not charisma based. D'OH!!!
On the other hand, I'll be grabbing that partial wand of Cure Moderate by early level 2, for sure. As a divine caster skill monkey, my character isn't the best in combat, and inquisitors aren't great healers, so that wand will let me fill the role of combat healer in an emergency.
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PS No wait, not the ladder, now this is my favorite bit. The lever for the loading dock is made from a collapsed barrel model (well, just never uncollapsed, really) mounted on black foam core with a mortar from a Warhammer 40K Imperial Guardsman stuck point down into it at an angle.
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I suggest that any GMs who are drawing the maps by hand as opposed to using map packs, that you are EXTREMELY careful with the sewer map. And perhaps extend it in various directions with extra sewer.
I don't know why I didn't see it before (I can't UNsee it now), but it is really quite phallic. My players pointed it out to me today. :/
Just putting that out there.
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I'm nearing completion of my fourth run of GM-ing this. As others mentioned, the lack of notes on lighting in the sewer was frustrating the first time. After that, I simply made sure the PCs had light, and described Laszo as working in light.
I also agree that the Disable Device roll for the ship is a wee bit high for Tier 1 characters. In four tables, I think there was one person with any ranks in that skill. (Although two of the tables didn't even do the ship.)
One little missing piece I brushed over when running: the scenario doesn't describe a way for the PCs to distinguish between Kortos and Aspis in the final encounters. No tabards, insignia, badges, or even descriptions of how they introduce themselves. I "solved" that problem by having the Kortos enter with a spoken challenge and having Aspis try to sneak in afterward (process of elimination meant they were Aspis), but I'd have liked that to be clearer.
I loved the creativity possible in the tavern. One table spent the morning catching rats and other vermin while the table's "face" tracked down (and diplomanced) a health inspector. They released the rats during the surprise inspection, and got the place closed down.
Lastly, and this is a little thing, but was frustrating: Please don't put half of the stat blocks in the appendix and half in the scenario description. (Sewer encounter in particular, where Laszo was in the scenario and the beetles were in the Appendix.) Having to bound back and forth each round was a pain. Put all stats for an encounter in the same place. The appendix is fine.
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One little missing piece I brushed over when running: the scenario doesn't describe a way for the PCs to distinguish between Kortos and Aspis in the final encounters. No tabards, insignia, badges, or even descriptions of how they introduce themselves. I "solved" that problem by having the Kortos enter with a spoken challenge and having Aspis try to sneak in afterward (process of elimination meant they were Aspis), but I'd have liked that to be clearer.
Really? I've played this twice already, but not read/GMed it yet. I could have sworn the Kortos guys had insignias of some sort, or could be recognized by their clothes or something. I don't remember exactly now.
Both times I played it, my groups went all Three Stooges causing a bar fight in the tavern. The first group planned it intentionally to attack each other and fall into bystanders, and then it all went wrong when my reach weapon tripper rolled a natural 1, so we had to improvise.
The second group didn't plan it as well, and half the group was trying something else that didn't work. We improvised starting a brawl, and things just got silly, but it worked.
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Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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I'm nearing completion of my fourth run of GM-ing this. As others mentioned, the lack of notes on lighting in the sewer was frustrating the first time. After that, I simply made sure the PCs had light, and described Laszo as working in light.
I got overly worried on this when I ran it as well, but the beetle gives off light for Laszo to use in his work. I kinda forgot that in the heat of the moment.
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Preparing for my second run through of this tomorrow, and digging in a little deeper this time on prep (snowed in!), I find I have some questions about the Diplomacy options on the ship and with the Kortos agents at the warehouse. In both cases, there are directions for what to do (and DCs provided) if the PCs use diplomacy in making requests of the NPCs--asking the first mate to get on to the ship in the first case and asking them to leave the warehouse and not raise an alarm in the second.
However, the starting attitude of both the first mate and of the Kortos agents is listed as Unfriendly. And the rules for Diplomacy state outright that "[i]f a creature's attitude toward you is at least indifferent, you can make requests of that creature." Now, I've always interpreted that as meaning that if the creature's starting attitude is NOT at least indifferent (that is, unfriendly or hostile), then you CAN'T "make requests of the creature," by which I mean, you can't use Diplomacy to get it to do stuff.
Thoughts, Pathfinders?
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Preparing for my second run through of this tomorrow, and digging in a little deeper this time on prep (snowed in!), I find I have some questions about the Diplomacy options on the ship and with the Kortos agents at the warehouse. In both cases, there are directions for what to do (and DCs provided) if the PCs use diplomacy in making requests of the NPCs--asking the first mate to get on to the ship in the first case and asking them to leave the warehouse and not raise an alarm in the second.
However, the starting attitude of both the first mate and of the Kortos agents is listed as Unfriendly. And the rules for Diplomacy state outright that "[i]f a creature's attitude toward you is at least indifferent, you can make requests of that creature." Now, I've always interpreted that as meaning that if the creature's starting attitude is NOT at least indifferent (that is, unfriendly or hostile), then you CAN'T "make requests of the creature," by which I mean, you can't use Diplomacy to get it to do stuff.
Thoughts, Pathfinders?
Usually means you have to use Diplomacy, first, to improve their attitude toward you, before you make the attempt, again via Diplomacy, to request the favor.
You can change the initial attitudes of nonplayer characters with a successful check. The DC of this check depends on the creature's starting attitude toward you, adjusted by its Charisma modifier. If you succeed, the character's attitude toward you is improved by one step. For every 5 by which your check result exceeds the DC, the character's attitude toward you increases by one additional step. A creature's attitude cannot be shifted more than two steps up in this way, although the GM can override this rule in some situations. If you fail the check by 4 or less, the character's attitude toward you is unchanged. If you fail by 5 or more, the character's attitude toward you is decreased by one step.
DC: Unfriendly 20 + creature's Cha modifier
If a creature's attitude toward you is at least indifferent, you can make requests of the creature. This is an additional Diplomacy check, using the creature's current attitude to determine the base DC, with one of the following modifiers. Once a creature's attitude has shifted to helpful, the creature gives in to most requests without a check, unless the request is against its nature or puts it in serious peril. Some requests automatically fail if the request goes against the creature's values or its nature, subject to GM discretion.
DC: As listed in the scenario, I would suppose.
So, initial Diplomacy, schmoozing the Kortos agents, trying to make nice with them. Under standard rules, the roll could make them hostile (DC-5 or less), no change (DC-1 to DC-4), make them indifferent (DC to DC+4), or even make them friendly (DC+5 or higher), in some rare cases (Diplomancer Bard with the right feat or ability, IIRC), it can even make them helpful (DC+10 or more).
If you are lucky enough (or just plain good enough) to make them indifferent or better, then you get to make the check to get the appropriate assistance.
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Just ran this again and while overall it was a blast that last (well only, in this case) fight was a grind and could have been a TPK if a couple of dice had fallen differently. Ran it Tier 2 with the four player adjustment and rolled the careful initiate and the mercenary healer as two of the four Aspis agents at the end. The players had blockaded most of the warehouse, so I figured the Aspies would know something was up and, maybe this was overreaching on my part, thus I had the monk consume two of his potions (mage armor and magic weapon),before they burst in, which turned him into an absolute monster. The cleric cast longstrider in his first round, and then between that and his agile feet domain ability basically bippety-boppety-booed all around the place channeling negative energy the full six times he was capable of. Two party members went down for a little while anyway, and a third got stunning fisted and so was out for a bit. The bard managed to use Use Magic Device with her wand of color spray or I'm not sure they would have survived.
It was pretty tense, really. But they had a good time, though probably more so in the earlier two encounters (tavern and ship) than in the warehouse.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Sounds like an encounter they might remember for a while, at least! You certainly played those NPCs with some strong tactics. No problem there. You're the best judge of what your players can handle, after all. I'm glad they made it through.
Thanks to kinevon for clarifying the Diplomacy question.
PS - Thanks for continuing to share your experiences with the scenario!
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I'm nearing completion of my fourth run of GM-ing this. As others mentioned, the lack of notes on lighting in the sewer was frustrating the first time. After that, I simply made sure the PCs had light, and described Laszo as working in light.I got overly worried on this when I ran it as well, but the beetle gives off light for Laszo to use in his work. I kinda forgot that in the heat of the moment.
Right, but the flash beetles are "hiding in the pipes near the statue", and thus are not initially visible and usable as a source of light.
The beetles' light works for the fight, though.
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Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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I'm nearing completion of my fourth run of GM-ing this. As others mentioned, the lack of notes on lighting in the sewer was frustrating the first time. After that, I simply made sure the PCs had light, and described Laszo as working in light.I got overly worried on this when I ran it as well, but the beetle gives off light for Laszo to use in his work. I kinda forgot that in the heat of the moment.Right, but the flash beetles are "hiding in the pipes near the statue", and thus are not initially visible and usable as a source of light.
The beetles' light works for the fight, though.
I'm preparing to run this scenario again, so I revisited the encounter in question.
Laszo is diagonally adjacent to the beetle at the pipe's entrance (labeled B1 on the tactical map for the encounter, and thus presumably the one to be used if only one beetle is present), so any light it emits should fall on Laszo. Nothing in the beetle's description indicates that it is capable of neutralizing its luminescence; in fact, since neither Laszo nor the beetle has darkvision, sacrificing its own vision seems counter-intuitive.
The only remaining variable I can see is the location of Laszo's workbench. I'd probably put it to his north, as that would also be illuminated.
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Just GM'd this for the 2nd time yesterday.
This time the group went after the meeting in the bar. One player thought burning the place down was a good solution. While I was trying to figure out how much of the dockside he was going to burn down, another player running a witch went in and hexed "Pal", the barkeep, then cast charm person on him. This allowed her to convince Pal to throw the Aspis agent out. The Aspis agent objected but when all the others in the bar started paying attention (many of them Pathfinders posing as patrons) he backed off. The witch and another party member kept the Kortos agent busy so he couldn't interfere.
As for Laszo, his fights both times have been pretty short. In the crowded tunnel he just can't stand up to 6 PCs. The beetles only seem to last part of 1 round. The 2nd time I ran it the party went in early and lay in wait. I had Laszo using the fire beetle as a walking lantern as he reentered his lair.
My only complaint is that the Aspis party at the warehouse isn't tough enough. I even put in an extra guy this time and though they got in a couple of good shots, there was never any doubt that they were going to be quickly overwhelmed.
Morag
Fun scenario overall
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I'm running this on the boards, and the party just got through the tavern meeting (though they're going to wait a bit to see if the agents are going to meet somewhere else now that the place is closed--that'll be the unexpected twist, I think). I was very glad that I wasn't running this on a tabletop, though, because they did something similar to Morag's players, and it took me a bit to work out how to handle it. One of the PCs is a dhampir mesmerist with charm person as an SLA 1x/day, and another has the misfortune hex. They charmed Flynter, warned him that someone unspecified was going to come after him for selling fake pearls, and advised him to leave town for a few days. I ended up having the dhampir roll a Bluff check to keep his use of the SLA from being too obvious, and had other PCs use Diplomacy and Intimidate to distract Gregon and the other patrons.
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I have a PbP party that's going to try an interesting tactic (behind spoiler tag), and I'd like to get some input from folks here. Any GMs who've run it before--your thoughts?
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Helps if they have someone good with Bluff and/or Diplomacy.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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The first time I played this scenario we went the bluff route the whole way. In the bar I first pretended to be the Aspis agent, and acted all smug and superior to the Kortos agent (telling him we didn't need the help of a bunch of amateur wannabes, etc. - we had it all covered), with the result that he stormed out in a huff. Then, when the real Aspis agent turned up I, pretending to be the Kortos contact, said we wanted to renegotiate the deal because we were getting shafted - we were doing all the dangerous work, while the Aspis guys were taking the lion's share of the credit and profit. I believe I also said I wanted to talk to somebody higher up the chain of command, not some jumped-up little lapdog. That (along with a couple of good bluff rolls from me, and disguise, sense motive, perception, and intimidate from the rest of the party) meant that while the planned contact never took place, both sides thought that it had, and were not exactly happy with the way their supposed partners had behaved.
(Note that this entire plan depends on the Aspis and Kortos agents not having met face-to-face before. The scenario doesn't state one way or another, but we had asked our GM, and were told that they had not).
Later, in the warehouse, we persuaded the Kortos group that there must have been a mix-up, as we were guarding the warehouse that evening, based on a tip-off and suspicion of underhand Aspis activity. We even managed that (by this time we did have fairly good circumstance bonuses from our earlier activities), so they went off leaving the warehouse under our protection. That meant that all we had to do was deal with the Aspis gang when they turned up, which was something we were well prepared for.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I haven't read this yet, and only played this once. The final combat is really rough, though. Those rogues had Greater Invis and Silence and Arcane Eye up and max ranks in Spellcraft and Gaze of Flames to let them see perfectly through Obs Mist and 20+ daggers on them each.
I'm not sure if you're serious or pulling our leg. None of that is in the scenario.
Also, there's the weird thing in the earlier part of the scenario that requires PCs to succeed at three different Stealth checks in order to attempt a Sleight of Hand check.
And all these things were written in a 1-2 scenario. At least, according to the GM.
The earlier encounters are very skill-based, but there's a lot of different ways you can do that and different skills you can use.