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That's exactly what I'm going to do when I run it next week. I was trying to find some way for this encounter to work, and that's perfect. As written, there is no guidance as to how it's NOT just make a single roll and the PCs win.
EXCELLENT encounter, just not developed enough to actually work without some creative work by the GM, which will drive RAW fanatics apoplectic.
That seems to be well beyond what the encounter actually says about how it works. How I plan to run it:
1. Determine which PC's are trying to delay/distract the guards and who is helping her escape.
2. Allow delaying people to make their relevant checks. this will lead to relevant bonuses for those trying to sneak her away using the stealth DC's in the scenario.
3. Assuming each "move action" for the PC's takes one minute (as suggested above), it looks like they need 3 minutes of distraction to move her from the Fox Den to her House.
A couple of things are missing/bizarre about this encounter. What sort of business is the Fox Den? We aren't told. Also just how idiotic is Mirelle in wanting to return to her own home when told she is being hunted by Hellknigts.
When I ran this just over the weekend this question came up for the Fox Den. What sort of establishment is this? Is it a bar, a tavern? It's never really specified. My guess that it is a closed/rundown tavern of some sort.
Oh the players at my table didn't know why she wanted to go back to her house either, considering it wasn't that far.|
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...this question came up for the Fox Den. What sort of establishment is this? Is it a bar, a tavern? It's never really specified.
I was intentionally vague so that people running it blind or just reading from the text wouldn't accidentally introduce certain themes to people they weren't prepared to introduce them to. The Fox Den is a brothel, though it is routinely re-purposed as a schoolhouse for the children of those who live and work in the district. I wanted to use the Red Light District Flip-Mat and thought it would be a disservice to shy too far away from the nature of the product. I liked the idea of using the environment in a way that wasn't exactly about the nature of the business people conduct there, and that represented a different facet of life in the "less reputable" corners of a large city.
...players at my table didn't know why she wanted to go back to her house either, considering it wasn't that far.
Though Mireille is scared of the law, it's not her that they were originally sent to find. The Hellknights are suspicious of the Pathfinders that left the meeting with Zefiro, and the Order of the Rack is almost certain that Zefiro is hiding something. They intend to put him and his associates away for good. Mireille doesn't know that specifically, but suspects that the inspection will turn up evidence of her involvement with spreading unlawful (truthful) details about Chelish history, something she's gotten into trouble for before. If she's caught again, it's likely she'll get disappeared, or worse. Since the guards weren't explicitly looking for her at the start of the encounter, and since they aren't aware of her current residence, she thinks getting back home is a good idea. She also needs to collect her things before leaving the city, something she does soon after the PCs depart, assuming they were successful in eluding the guards.
When I roleplay out the conclusion of that encounter, I have her show great interest in the library at the Grand Lodge, and the mission of the Pathfinders to rediscover the forgotten past. Ultimately, Mireille doesn't want the people she knew and loved to be forgotten. As an elf who grew up among humans, she sees carrying on the memory of her shorter-lived friends as a sacred duty. She asks the PCs if the chroniclers at the Society would be interested in learning about the people she knew before the Chelish civil war, people the current government doesn't want remembered. (This also helps reinforce the idea that Arenzo Davian is someone they can get information from later.) If the PCs speak favorably of their exploits as Pathfinders, she says she is bound for Absalom in the hopes that she might join their ranks, maybe even adventure around the world until she thinks it's safe for her to return to Corentyn.
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A good portion of that encounter is left to the GM to adjudicate as they see fit. The goal of the encounter is to keep the guards from arresting Mireille (and to keep them from arresting the party, obviously). Players have a chance to be creative here. I would encourage GMs to react appropriately to the group's actions whatever they may be, but here's my suggestion for handling the use of Disguise.
The guards aren't expressly aware that Mireille is at the Fox Den, though she has been arrested before and will recognize her. The PCs can use Disguise to prevent this. Creating a disguise sufficient to avert the guard's attention takes 1d3 minutes of work as noted in the scenario, though otherwise works as a normal Disguise check. This may require some PCs to hold the guards at the door (or somewhere else) long enough for another player to disguise Mireille in an adjoining room. When the guards do encounter Mireille, they would make a Perception check against the result of the Disguise check. If they exceed that number, they recognize her and shift their questioning to reflect their suspicions. They know she's been caught disseminating "false" history in the past. I would have them make a show of discrediting her in front of the children, PCs, and the proprietor of the Fox Den. Have them make thinly veiled threats about the dangers of freely associating with people tarnishing the reputation of Thrune and its agents. At this point, PCs may have to interject with some Bluff checks, bribe the guards to look the other way, or take some other action to keep the guards from taking Mireille back to the Order of the Rack for further questioning, which would be a failure of the mission goals.
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I ran this at an event last weekend along with a couple of other GMs, and there were differences of interpretation in the customs/contraband laws of Corentyn and its hinterland.
The two main questions are:
- Do the PCs get chance to reclaim their 'contraband' equipment from the Harbourmaster's office/Sea Sylph before travelling out of the city proper and on to Anglemire? (I assumed yes)
- What weapons can be bought in Corentyn? (I assumed only light weapons, i.e. those not considered contraband)
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Do the PCs get chance to reclaim their 'contraband' equipment from the Harbourmaster's office/Sea Sylph before travelling out of the city proper and on to Anglemire? (I assumed yes)
If they declared the offending goods and left them on the ship, then yes. If they are caught trying to hide some offending piece of gear, then Tamrin confiscates it and the PCs have to pay a fee (10% of the item's market price) to get it back on their departure from the city.
What weapons can be bought in Corentyn? (I assumed only light weapons, i.e. those not considered contraband)
If the PCs are determined to replace their gear. I'd use the normal rules for item availability, but require a Diplomacy check to persuade a shopkeep to sell currently restricted inventory. I'd probably start a shopkeeper's attitude at friendly, but count the request as "giving dangerous aid" for a total DC of 21. In a high-tier game, I might start the shopkeeper at indifferent for a DC of 26.
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Hello,
I am running this as my first Pathfinder Scenario at a Con mid Msrch.
Lots of great advice here. Thanks Lau, and explanations Brian!
One question remains in the Ember hold area B1:
A rusty iron gate still stands at the center of the pit’s northern wall, rising from the densest portion of the gourd patch and fencing off a descending set of stairs
Where is this on map? Can the PCs get through, over, around gste?
Thanks, again
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Ok yes. Climb gate DC 10? To go over.
Break through gate ( not leshy advised) I believe there are stats for gate. Assume it's rusted in place.
PC have a 10 ft drop from front door to cellar floor. Drop a rope, feather fall, options you've seen as GM?
Don't forget acrobatics to reduce falling damage or climb to get down without falling.
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I'm running this weekend as my first time GMing ever, and I think I'm unclear on how interpret the low-tier template for Arenzo.
The ghoul template has paralysis and disease elements to bite and claws, however Arenzo's melees only mentions the disease. Then, directly under, paralysis is mentioned again in the special abilities. I'm interpreting this as Arenzo using paralysis. Is that correct?
Ghouls paralyze with all of their natural weapons, but they only transmit ghoul fever with their bite. You can see that by looking at the standard ghoul entry, among other things:
Melee bite +3 (1d6+1 plus disease and paralysis) and 2 claws +3 (1d6+1 plus paralysis)
Special Attacks paralysis (1d4+1 rounds, DC 13, elves are immune to this effect)
The stat block on page 18 of F&F1 has a bit of a different format to it, like you saw:
Melee bite +5 (1d6 plus disease), 2 claws +5 (1d6)
Special Attacks ghoul fever, paralysis (1d4+1 rounds, DC 14)
but I think they're still reflecting the same thing: paralysis on all three natural attacks (bite/claw/claw) and disease only on the bite.
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Thanks for the clarity! It was the fact that the stat block highlighted disease but not the paralysis that was throwing me through a loop. It's clear as day now!
Happy to help!
One other thing that stood out to me was during the encounter with the leshys. In the subtier 1-2 encounter, their tactics read as follow:
During Combat [...]They use ranged attacks from the cover of the gourd patch undergrowth, attempting to disappear between attacks to make full use of their sneak attacks.This could be a lack of understanding on my side, but I was under the impression that sniping, re-hiding and sniping again does not allow for additional sneak attacks. The PCs would literally have be so unaware or forgetful that they are legitimately surprised all over again in order to subsequent sneak attacks to apply.
That's pretty much the only reason you'd want to snipe, as it turns out!
Although the text of the stealth rules for sniping is not crystal clear the idea is that you take a standard action to snipe, use a move action immediately after to hide (with a beastly -20 penalty on your stealth checks!) and then attack next round with sneak attack. It's almost exclusively used for denying opponents their dexterity bonus vs. your attacks when that's valuable to you--which usually means you're a rogue of some sort. (Also see slayers, ninjas, vigilantes, and the not-legal-for-PFS archetypes that give sneak attack like vivisectionist.) It's not usually a worthwhile tactic if you don't have a big pile of sneak attack damage available.
I can't guarantee it, but it sounds to me as though you may be thinking of the awareness rules--especially in how they relate to the Hidden Strike class feature of the Vigilante. Unlike the rogue, a vigilante's Hidden Strike is especially effective when the target is completely unaware of your presence, but is less potent when that person knows you exist, even if they don't know where you are. Rogues don't care about that distinction--they just do d6 damage regardless--but for the stalker vigilante, it's the difference between d8 damage and d4 damage.
There's more about awareness in Ultimate Intrigue, on page 188 under "States of Awareness".
States of Awareness: In general, there are four states of
awareness that a creature can have with regard to another
creature using Stealth.
Unaware: On one end of the spectrum, a sneaking
creature can succeed at Stealth well enough that the other
creature isn’t even aware that the creature is present.
This state allows the sneaking creature to use abilities
such as the vigilante’s startling appearance. The Stealth
skill description in the Core Rulebook says that perceiving
creatures that fail to beat a sneaking character’s Stealth
check result are not aware of the sneaking character, but
that is different from being totally unaware. This is also
true of a creature that has previously been made aware
of the creature’s presence or location (see below) but is
currently unable to observe the sneaking creature. In
those cases, the sneaking creature can’t use abilities such
as startling presence.
Aware of Presence: The next state is when the perceiving
creature is aware of the sneaking creature’s presence,
though not of anything beyond that. This is the state
that happens when an invisible creature attacks someone
and then successfully uses Stealth so the perceiving
creature doesn’t know where the attacker moved, or
when a sniper succeeds at her Stealth check to snipe.
A perceiving creature that becomes aware of a hidden
creature’s presence will still be aware of its presence at
least until the danger of the situation continues, if not
longer (though memory-altering magic can change this).
Aware of Location: The next state is awareness of location.
This happens when a perceiving character uses an imprecise
sense, such as hearing or tremorsense, to discover what
square a hidden or invisible creature inhabits.
Observing: The f inal state is when the perceiving
character is able to directly observe the sneaking
character with a precise sense, such as vision. This is
generally the result when the perceiving character rolls
higher on its opposed Perception check than the sneaking
character’s Stealth result while also having line of sight to
the sneaking character and the ability to see through any
sort of invisibility or other tricks the sneaking character
might be using.
I'm running this weekend as my first time GMing ever[...]
That's awesome. Good luck! I'm glad to see you're taking the time to prepare the scenario--keep prepping and keep looking up what you don't understand and you'll be an excellent GM in no time.
I hope you have fun!