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One of my players recognized the viol, but to be fair, that player was Jim Groves, who wrote book 6.
You know meta gaming is out of control when a player actively authors the ending of the adventure their on.
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We're two sessions in, and in the fight against Scaen and Oathsday, the party paladin has been hit with a critical stab first hit. Both times. He has spent most of this adventure bleeding out on the ground. The only thing that has saved him thus far has been the Life oracle's Lifelink. Honestly, I'm impressed given that they had these fights essentially back to back with a tussle with Latchke and Argade in there as well (though they slaughtered Argade immediately when they spotted him). Sadly the paladin found the eye in the handkerchief, so his immediate reaction was to destroy it.
The fight against Latchke wasn't so hard because they chased him into the haunt, which ended up grabbing him and tearing him up. When the paladin saved him, he surrendered and agreed to tell them about Oathsday and information on how he came to be. He mostly conveyed this among insane mutterings and laughing at the party when he detected their lack of memories. They put him down when they used Sense Motive to accurately gauge that he would simply try and escape when their backs were turned.
He did nearly trick the paladin at first with his grandmother disguise, but the inquisitor asked if her appearance matched that of a body Latchke had disposed down the chute, which I had stated was of an old woman. When he rolled high, I couldn't say no. That was some clever observations from him, though they are somewhat concerned as to how Latchke managed the feat of putting the body down the chute in the first place, and are now deathly afraid of a possible doppelganger among the survivors, particularly among the guard (At this point, it was just Denman having fallen asleep from exhaustion). I think they are vaguely aware that York seems adamant about following them outside of the barrier when he can, particularly with Tulman, who I've made a sorcerer. He is still suspicious of the group, so any desire to leave the chapel seems weird to him. When they get past the Argus Wall, however, he'll probably reign in his suspicions and want the party to help set up a second barricade in the reception room, particularly with the furniture in C4 and C6.
Great session detail Garbage-Tier Waifu!
My mondo and mega mats arrived today. Looking forward to getting those detailed up for when we start come September. My players are eagerly discussing their characters which I've said need to be finalized by July so I can prep around them for the campaign/game.
I've decided to use the expanded Fear, the Corruption, and the Sanity/Madness rule sets from the Horror Handbook. I may tone down the sanity damage at first. I'm also debating auto bonus progression to encourage people to use cool things they find and not focus on "stat items" but I also don't want them to have beneficial bonuses before treasure they might have found/been able to get.
Has anyone else used ABP for this path or have any comments about how it might benefit the party? I prefer to make this hard for them; they are a talented group of players.
Thanks!
Regarding the memory loss throughout the first book. How much of a backstory are the PCs creating. (I am in a group which backstory is almost as important as the current campaign.) They are very interested in this concept, and I am just confused on what they should know and not know about their characters and the situation.
Personal Idea: I am currently thinking I would make characters and help develop backstories for them. (taking in suggestions and wishes of players of course). But I don't know. Is there any link for character creation help with this. And what all they should know going into the first book.
I am in a game with ABP which is also a horror game, and that's going interestingly. We are indeed spreading out our wealth into investments we otherwise wouldn't make normally, such as constructing a large sleighcart (our gnome is a carpenter, and we are in a snowy environment prone to blizzards), and grabbing plenty of mundane gear and alchemist's fire (which I get anyway, but at least I'm not worried about picking up cloaks of resistance or anything). For an adventure like Strange Aeons, it might work but Golarion doesn't lack for magical oddities, and this can mean some otherwise interesting items in the adventure (like Red Destiny, which I think is a reference to an anime) lose a bit of their uniqueness.
I notice that this adventure has put a LOT of early wealth in the players way, particularly with a +1 dagger so early, and a handy haversack to boot. ABP means these pieces of equipment are not as available as the adventure would seemingly like. I'd suggest possibly replacing Doctor Oathsday's +1 dagger with oils of magic weapon, probably about four, to make up the difference. I'd also make her dagger masterwork as well. You should also have Red Destiny instead have special qualities of an equivalent cost, and let anyone utilise them, even without being of a level to get their enhancement bonus. What those bonuses should be is up to you.
Regarding the memory loss throughout the first book. How much of a backstory are the PCs creating. (I am in a group which backstory is almost as important as the current campaign.) They are very interested in this concept, and I am just confused on what they should know and not know about their characters and the situation.
Personal Idea: I am currently thinking I would make characters and help develop backstories for them. (taking in suggestions and wishes of players of course). But I don't know. Is there any link for character creation help with this. And what all they should know going into the first book.
I just told my players they are all blank slates and that their backstory has no bearing on their current situation, so don't come up with one. You determine who they were before they lost their memories, not the PC's. Though, do encourage them to take campaign traits. They get a little reward down the line to make up for having their background dictated to the.
Basically, they don't know who they were or even what their names are, and they should not know it (it's part of the suspense and much of the fun in book 2 and 3), and when they wake up it's all a process of learning about the world around them and basically deciding who they are for the time being. I've told my players stuff about Golarion, for example, but not how it relates to them until it comes up.
At the conclusion of that second session, the Oracle has discovered he is marked with Pharasma's holy symbol (he took Birthmark as a trait. It's meant as an ironic twist, being a life cleric, his main concern is putting to rest the dead), the inquisitor has discovered his powers come from Desna (she works REAL well for this adventure, and he took Way of the Shooting Star so he had to go Desna), and the Paladin still has no idea why he has a celtic knot for a symbol but he at least knows the god in question is an Eldest (He's being pulled along by Magdh to stop the cult of Hastur, since their actions will unravel fate in such as way as to weaken her future sight in regards to the material plane, which she has already predicted. The paladin was originally a member of a secret Urgathoan cult, which will come up later and possibly cause a moral conflict with addressing his past actions and current situation and moral standing). The wizard seems really, REALLY knowledgeable about a whole range of subjects related to their current situation, as well as the Inquisitor, but neither know why or how they obtained this knowledge (I plan for the inquisitor to have been enslaved by Lowls along with the oracle to help guide him through the Dreamlands, while the wizard was Lowls arcane advisor.)
These are all wonderful seeds for the players to investigate down the line, and they are already talking about finding out how they came across this knowledge and who they were before. It basically sets up the following books from the get go! I also didn't have them prepare equipment. I had them pull everything out of the garbage pile, with a few pieces of equipment pre-determined by class and feat choices. The paladin's scythe, for instance, was because he wanted one and I worked that into his character. The inquisitor went Way of the Shooting Star, so his deity and starknife were already locked in. The rest was kind of hodge-podge. Here is the list of equipment I gave my players if you want to copy it.
...
I notice that this adventure has put a LOT of early wealth in the players way, particularly with a +1 dagger so early, and a handy haversack to boot. ABP means these pieces of equipment are not as available as the adventure would seemingly like. I'd suggest possibly replacing Doctor Oathsday's +1 dagger with oils of magic weapon, probably about four, to make up the difference. I'd also make her dagger masterwork as well. You should also have Red Destiny instead have special qualities of an equivalent cost, and let anyone utilise them, even without being of a level to get their enhancement bonus. What those bonuses should be is up to you.
Yeah reading ahead it sounds like ABP would be more work and less benefit than normal. The path diverges with some treasure and time handling (through constraints of location) that I'd not like to jeopardize. Thanks.
Anyone have any comment on craft feats for this path?
Relevant item creation link here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uchz?Appropriateness-of-Item-Creation-and
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Regarding the memory loss throughout the first book. How much of a backstory are the PCs creating. (I am in a group which backstory is almost as important as the current campaign.) They are very interested in this concept, and I am just confused on what they should know and not know about their characters and the situation.
When I ran ISoS, the backstory stuff didn't come up much, but when I went about developing them I basically asked them what they'd like out of a backstory for their character and twisted it to make them much more... sinister. HOWEVER, this doesn't come up until the 2nd and 3rd adventures.
In my game they started only with their character sheets - but no names. Later on they found some files that are marked for destruction (Since Lowls makes the request of Losandro that there be no record of the PCs in the asylum, I assumed that they still had to go through patient intake and she was just going to dispose of the documents later).
These files as written pretty much only have the PCs names and descriptions so they could learn their names (I asked each of my players for a pool of names I could pull from - so they still had some choice but it would also be a surprise). I also wrote little tidbits about who they were. In the fugue state they don't really talk or do much, but I figured that some of their personalities would shine through, like the Inquisitor of an obscure god carving symbols all around the chapel, even though she didn't really know why.
I think this AP works best with those little breadcrumbs of backstory being dropped in by the DM, and a shared ownership of the character's stories between the DM and the players. They SHOULD have some say in their story and their creation cause otherwise I don't think they feel invested - but I also think that the DM should be able to expand on that, add in details to help grow the backstory, etc.
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The Chain of Nights is the book that the release nightmare occult ritual is found in. They can sell the book if they want and receive gold. If they perform the ritual, they get the results listed in the ritual on page 54. The ritual is pretty specific, so if the PCs aren't suffering recurring nightmares or haven't been targeted by an outsider capable of casting nightmare, there's not much there for them. The ritual is essentially a key part of the background to this adventure, as it was the thing that Losandro used to cure Zandalus, which released the Tatterman.
Two sessions ago, the party found a puppy dog trapped in a crate by ghouls. It was immediately adopted by one of the party members and named Mr. Wigglebottom. She then spent the next two session loving the dog, protecting the dog, and fearing for the safety of her adorable puppy.
Other party members joked about people needing food in the chapel, and how they would need to eat the dog, constantly. Every time a fight ended, every time rest was mentioned, they talked about eating the dog. Until finally the character who had adopted it stopped all forward progress to deliver an impassioned speech about the dog, how it was the only good and pure thing they could even remember, that the rest of the party should be ashamed of themselves for even joking about destroying something so innocent, and that if need be she would fight the rest of the party to defend her sweet Wigglebottom.
** spoiler omitted **
This is so perfectly evil. Thanks for sharing. Love the Idea
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I have an idea to ratchet up tension. I'll be handing the players a card and tell them to leave it face down in front of them until the end of the first session and not share it.
On the card it basically says 'You are normal'. Naturally all of their cards are the same; though I'm known as a lover of Mafia/Werewolf and hidden ally games so they might buy into it.
Ideally when should I allow them to read it for maximum Doppelganger/The Thing type tension? I kind of want to end on it as some sort of cliffhanger; so where's a good break point?
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For a brief time my players believed they were in fact dopplegangers.
I used the side quest where one of the people inside the chapel is, in fact, a doppleganger (or becomes one). I made him act when the PC brought a survivor, after a long discussion with the guards about if it was safe to bring more foreigners.
The Doppleganger killed one guy, then framed one PC, leaving a bloody knife in his pack. PCs tried to argue, one of them tried to track, and discovered flour steps near the victim. One of the players actually went to check if HE had flour in his boots...
gustavo iglesias, you know you're doing it right when the players question if their PCs are the villains.
My game finally starts Saturday! I've been drawing up the big map this week while prepping music, fear and madness details, extra info for the NPCs, etc.
PSYCHED!
Shout out to the Order of the Amber Die for all the assistance through their Patreon!
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Our first session was a smashing success!
The Syrinscape sounds were amazing. I used a mix of yellow and orange lights from Phillips Hue to set the original scene and then a mix of blues with a Thunderstorm app for once they got above ground. I had those storm sounds come through my Echo while the Syrinscape came through my computer (I need to get some good bluetooth speakers) but it still worked. I did a little bit of fog from the fog machine for the initial scene too.
I'm using fear and sanity rules, 6 players, and modified encounters to ensure everything is still as difficult due to the 6 players. i.e. +1 CR encounters thus far.
The initial scene they kept running. I killed the bardic gnome first. They went along with it but I think after the second death they realized it likely wasn't permanent. They all stayed in character. Unfortunately the final character to life failed their will save by 1 so they too died before realizing what was going on.
Doctor Scaen got away but that same final character (a psychic) recognized what dopplegangers were, warning the others they could encounter it again and not even know.
I had one of the cells filled with dead NPCs, but actually PCs from an old Ravenloft game a few of the PCs played in. I was a player of that one too. It creeped out everyone and I got small smiles from the original players of that game. They spent a lot of time and effort moving bodies. Two caught filth fever, but don't know yet. Some varied sanity damage, plenty of spooked and even a couple shaken characters.
They had terse comments with the barricade guards (used the three female guards and Vork joining them) + 1 random dude guard. They were not happy about needing to kill dopplegangers or learning that the one they got away tried to pretend to be the psychic of their party to get through. They know "she" is out there.
They killed the centipedes without issue, skipped the furnace room for now, and went and fought Dr. Lakhte. The bard picked up the old lady had a transmutation area as the doppleganger rose, cursing them. It was a +1 CR fight and they felt it! The healer struggled to keep up. The Druid's firepelt cougar and the rogue both went unconscious, as the Druid right at the end. They struggled to get in the final blow. It was at 1 hp for two rounds! But the alchemist (grenadier) took it out finally with a good shortbow shot (dang free point blank and precise shot) and then hitting it with the tail end of splash damage to get rid of that 1 hp. The rogue finished it off.
They dragged the corpse back and I had Vork still be tough, but sympathasize. He stressed two more bodies before he'd let them in. They tried to barter with healing but he and the women noted they had to protect the children. They wouldn't give their names either to protect them from dopplegangers who might pretend to be them.
We left off with the furnace room door opening...
My players had a blast. We played from 5:30 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. with two breaks for dinner/bathroom and so I could clear the dwarvenforge from the table to use the map underneath. I need to finish drawing in the showers/poolish area but then my giant asylum map is done!!!
So much rubble, but the players are thrilled!
Image Album link of my dwarvenforge for the asylum basement. It's a bigger version than the map but I think it worked just as well.
And again, shout out to the Order of the Amber Die. The extra info, quick replies, and patreon access have helped make this a great success!
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My apologies for spamming this thread. I would have edited my last if I could. Here's a google album with my asylum map.
Not quite done but so very close. I'll fill with DwarvenForge and dungeon dressing later. It's not on FB yet so my players don't see it.
Thanks for the ideas with the lights!
For your map, do you reveal the whole thing, or keep parts covered with paper or some such and reveal them when the players go there?
Welcome! I bought some black mat boards and some smaller versions. I'm covering up sections and then slowly revealing.
I'm using the big pieces to cover sections they won't get to that game session and the smaller ones to cover rooms they will explore that session. I may have to cut some down for pieces.
The Order of the Amber Die pointed me to the idea! So props to them yet again.
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Welcome! I bought some black mat boards and some smaller versions. I'm covering up sections and then slowly revealing.
I'm using the big pieces to cover sections they won't get to that game session and the smaller ones to cover rooms they will explore that session. I may have to cut some down for pieces.
The Order of the Amber Die pointed me to the idea! So props to them yet again.
Fantastic mapping job! It's exciting to see another full version of the asylum, and all the hard work shows. I hope the hours didn't drive you too crazy, and if anything, that the temporary insanity only added to the immersion. I like the way you handled the tiles in the shower room, that one needed a judgment call and will probably stay unique to each artist that recreates it. The basement looks great in Dwarven Forge, too! May this be the last rubble you draw for a long time, though I'm sure your players appreciate the hard work. Oh, and no drinks on the table ;)
Best,
Adam
GM
Order of the Amber Die
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Awesome to see people using (and liking!) Syrinscape with Strange Aeons! Working on those sets with Ben has been a blast, but its even better when you know people are using it and getting good results!
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Fantastic mapping job! It's exciting to see another full version of the asylum, and all the hard work shows. I hope the hours didn't drive you too crazy, and if anything, that the temporary insanity only added to the immersion. I like the way you handled the tiles in the shower room, that one needed a judgment call and will probably stay unique to each artist that recreates it. The basement looks great in Dwarven Forge, too! May this be the last rubble you draw for a long time, though I'm sure your players appreciate the hard work. Oh, and no drinks on the table ;)
Best,
Adam
GM
Order of the Amber Die
Thanks Adam! It would not be nearly as good as it is without you! Thanks for noticing the detail! I worked hard on those tiles to try it out. I don't know if I'll try to get in the mid square diamonds. Difficult. Also my doors are no way near as good or accurate as yours. I got too lazy with spacing those and I regret it. Also I messed up the large rubble section making it one inch/square wider than it needs to be. I didn't erase it as I was already doing rubble when I noticed and it's not a gameable space. But oi, I must truly be crazy for giving myself MORE rubble to do!
DEFINITELY no drinks on the table! We talked about it twice!
Again thank you so much!
And Black Bard, yes! One of my players brought up the Strange Aeons syrinscape options an hour before our game start and I laughed. I bought them quite a while ago! Keep 'em coming, as I will certainly buy them all. The whispered, moaned words during the first scene? Amazing. They really add to the scene. I just need to get my laptop to either connect to my Echo Show for the sound or get blue tooth speakers separately. My phone connected just fine for the storm sounds. Thank you for your work with Syrinscape!
I'm looking forward to a week from tomorrow!
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I'm running this in a week, and I'm thinking of letting my players pick names, and then coming up with different ones to put on their files.
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My players gave each other nicknames during the first session, based on personality/appearance.
Frex, one character was missing an eye and had an eyepatch, so he became “Patches”
Another acted very greedy during the first session, so he became known as “Vig” (the ‘vig’ being the bookie’s take from a bet)
They really enjoyed this part of the adventure.
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My players started without names, and by the end of the first room were Grumpy, Shorty, Pretty, Heidi (the bard spent the first fight hiding) and Red.
They never found their patient files, so they didn't learn their names, which I did eventually let them pick, until the second book.
My wife is playing an olderly gnome lady which my other players simply called granny. They keep calling her that ingame although they got their names out of the files.
Remember she's a Chaotic Evil creature. Even if she swears anything, it can always be dropped if a better offer arrives.
She stuck with my players throughout most of the first AP, but went back to the ratlings (they used her to help negotiate with Ratch) at the end of it. She wasn't too useful as anything more than a scout throughout, and there were some fun RP sections where Winter was kind of disgusted that they brought back this rat... thing back with them. Later on I could even see her becoming a bit of a liability.
She stuck with my players throughout most of the first AP, but went back to the ratlings (they used her to help negotiate with Ratch) at the end of it. She wasn't too useful as anything more than a scout throughout, and there were some fun RP sections where Winter was kind of disgusted that they brought back this rat... thing back with them. Later on I could even see her becoming a bit of a liability.
I´m running this AP for 2 Partys. Both did not trust the ratling enought to take here in Group.
For the second group i used her to guide a charakter to the libary of briarstone asylum. This particular player missed on of our session and i decided to give him a solo run. He was happy to get out all information out of the libary about the tatterman and the briarstone which with the help of the ratling. She was like: "Here look at his book. I market the page by gnawing pieces out of the corner of it".
Every time I come across the (gorgeous) piece of artwork opening the chapter (page 4), I wonder: why is the scene so different from what actually happens in the depicted encounter? The "doctor" looks afraid of the "patient" and the "patient" looks like he has the upper hand in this. Did the tone and content of the scene change at any point in development after the art had been ordered? Or am I just misreading things?
Every time I come across the (gorgeous) piece of artwork opening the chapter (page 4), I wonder: why is the scene so different from what actually happens in the depicted encounter? The "doctor" looks afraid of the "patient" and the "patient" looks like he has the upper hand in this. Did the tone and content of the scene change at any point in development after the art had been ordered? Or am I just misreading things?
I think that art is referring to the part of that encounter where Campre (the "patient") gets free and manages to kick Scaen (the "doctor") away - it's the moment that gives the PCs an opening to try and steal the keys away from Scaen and escape her clutches, before she starts to just murder Campre instead of playing with him. It's just depicting that moment of shock and surprise that Scaen feels about her supposedly helpless prey getting free, before she lashes back at him in anger.
Hello, my pc's wondered if there was a check to understand what is happening to Eliege Losandro and what the Book of Nights actually is.
Are there checks to these? Did I miss something?
Check out the "Concluding the adventure" passage. There is a description of the Chain of nights including an ritual extracting nightmares of a person.
As described in the "encounter" within her office, Zandalus was not able to transform her into a portal and she is trapped in her own mind. I allowed my players to perform a knowledge the planes check or a knowledge arcana check to get that information.
In my Game the PC´s used the magical insense they found earlier to connect minds with her to learn that she´s still alife.
The AP does not explain how to safe her, but you might come up with a solution on your own (Psychic surgery, a special ritual out of the Chains of night)
Not sure if you noticed, but there is an inconsistency regarding the Tatternam stat block and the background presented...
According to his stat block, the Tatterman can use his nightmare spell-like ability 3 times per day, and his Nightmare Transformation takes 1 hour to kick after a creature is slain.
This causes a couple problems. First of all, with only three uses per day, the Tatterman would only be able to target three patients/orderlies per night and pray for them to fail every single save (Will to resist the effect, and many Con not to stabilize). This already seems unlikely, but even if all of them fail, he would still end up with only three monsters for the upraising.
Also, taking in consideration the number of monsters and the time schedule, there would be not enough time for the Tatterman to create so many monsters from the upraising until the beginning of the adventure (once more assuming all his victims are reeeaaaly unlucky). The ghoul's ability to create more of them is also out of the table, since it would take many days (and many failed saves) to turn someone bitten (who is lucky enough to not be devoured) to turn into a ghoul.
The other problem is the time it takes to turn someone into a monster. Area D5. Communal Ward states that Jeprin Mears dies from the nightmare and soon after turns into a ghoul. I believe this encounter was placed to tell the players what is really going on, but according to the Tatterman stats, it should not be this quick, but instead take an hour! Time enough for the PCs to wander off and, if they find the Jeprin-ghoul thereafter, not link it to the nightmares.
As a GM, I always like to play by the rules, so I'm trying to figure out someway to "fix" the Tatterman to reflect the background. The Nightmare Transformation part is easy, since we can simply change it to kick a minute after the death of the target instead of 1 hour later, however the nightmare is trickier...
Thinking about the background, I could increase the number of times per day that it can use its ability... but this would also mean that he would have more uses NOW, creating the question of "why hasn't he turned everyone in the northern halls into monsters?"
Perhaps changing his X/day uses to some charge based ability? What are your thoughts?
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One of my fundamental issues with APs is that they say things like, "The bad guy of this module used Charm Monster to convince this monster to join her, and then..."
...and you look at her caster level and save DC, and her chances of succeeding on her first try are under 5%, and in a head-on fight she'd be killed. And so forth and so on. SOOOOO many instances of, "In order for the story to work, this powerful creature with a high SR had to fail multiple easy saves" that defy belief.
So yeah, if you want the math to work out, you either have to give him more uses per day, or hand-wave it with, "When he first pierced the veil of this dimension it unleashed a wave of his power, allowing it to hit everyone in the facility at once and adding +4 to the DC of the save."
I personally like the latter approach. One-offs tend to be more acceptable to players, at least in my experience.
EDIT: And just wait until you get into Book 2 and the AP pulls the whole, "I cast Charm Person at another person at the dinner table," stunt.
It really is as if many of the AP authors are not familiar with even the core rules of Pathfinder such as verbal and somatic components, or being aware that you were targeted with a spell if you succeed on your save. I mean yeah, I can rewrite the NPC to be a bard and have Spellsong and to offer to play music for the PC's enjoyment during dinner, but why am I having to do such an easy rewrite myself?
Big question:
Why Wren Elbourne is 100% certain the PC's are not dopplegangers? He just let them enter the camp and tell them his plan to neutralize the mist.
There's no explanation why and no written dialogue to gain his trust.
That's seems weird.
I had him cast Charm Person on the PC's at distance, and seeing that the spell works (but presumably fails) he knows they are humanoid and not monstrous.
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Big question:
Why Wren Elbourne is 100% certain the PC's are not dopplegangers? He just let them enter the camp and tell them his plan to neutralize the mist.
There's no explanation why and no written dialogue to gain his trust.
That's seems weird.
I don't think he has to be 100% certain. I played him as pretty desperate to get out of there and willing to risk trusting strangers since he's running out of hope the longer this nightmare goes on. At the point the PCs show up, he's probably fearing that the ghouls could get him or (more likely) Zandalus/the Tatterman/Apostles/Aggra Loomis will discover his deception or just do him in if they feel like it that day.
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Aren't all the doppelgangers pretty much confined to the southwest corner of the asylum by the rubble and the Argus Wall?
I mean, I know it's possible for people outside of that area to have turned into doppelgangers by dying in their dreams, but considering they don't show up in the rest of the adventure, it's also possible that everyone in Wren's neck of the woods turned into a ghoul rather than a doppelganger, so he may not even realize doppelgangers are an issue.
About the Tatterman "Killing" players right at the start of the adventure. How do you handle that? My players usually don't care too much about their character dying, but I'm worried of their reaction after I tell them the Tatterman is just "killing" them one by one 10 minutes into the game. I'm trying to imagine a way for the Tatterman to disable them instead of killing them and then waking the pc before he starts buchering them.
Anyone tried somethings different for this part?
About the Tatterman "Killing" players right at the start of the adventure. How do you handle that? My players usually don't care too much about their character dying, but I'm worried of their reaction after I tell them the Tatterman is just "killing" them one by one 10 minutes into the game. I'm trying to imagine a way for the Tatterman to disable them instead of killing them and then waking the pc before he starts buchering them.
Anyone tried somethings different for this part?
I was really worried about the same thing, because my wife invests a LOT in her character creation, but I decided to roll with it as-is. And yes, it went over like a lead balloon.
She was very upset that her character was the first to die, and nearly stormed out to go roll up another character. Telling her to please wait and sit at the table to hear how things worked out lessened the immersion for the other players, and she's still bitter about the whole thing. Nobody in my group liked the start.
So, if you suspect your group will dislike it, definitely change it. I've read a lot of groups who thought it was awesome, but you know your group.
I'd just fudge things a bit so the Tatterman never does more than 14 points of damage to any individual PC, so the person knows they're unconscious, but not necessarily dead, and then the others hear the slick sound of a bloody, rasping body being dragged into the fog.
They never know whether they're alive or dead, it's creepy as heck for the other players, and it makes it even more desperate as the final PC needs to find a way out or there's going to be a TPK...
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I'd just fudge things a bit so the Tatterman never does more than 14 points of damage to any individual PC, so the person knows they're unconscious, but not necessarily dead, and then the others hear the slick sound of a bloody, rasping body being dragged into the fog.
They never know whether they're alive or dead, it's creepy as heck for the other players, and it makes it even more desperate as the final PC needs to find a way out or there's going to be a TPK...
^ This is good.
In addition or as an alternative, you might also strip out the mechanical elements of the scene--don't roll for initiative, don't make attack or damage rolls, just describe what the Tatterman does to them (assume they make the Perception checks and give them that info too).
That should make it a little more obvious that something hinky and unreal is going on.