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Can do! There are a few reasons.
The second is synergy. The inspired rage buff would be more complex in encounter A (especially when taking rage powers into account), and would be beneficial to a narrower range of player characters. In addition, inspire courage stacks with the Ghost Wolves' rage, while inspired rage merely overlaps.
The third is thematic. I wanted to confound expectations about the "savage" Kellids. Skald is kind of the obvious choice, and plays into the expectations of the Kellids as purely barbaric. Making Jala a bard - a more "civilized" class - presents him as less savage and more urbane. There are a number of other elements of this in the scenario, especially the tribe's interest in spells and magical writings.
Hopefully this answers your question satisfactorily. ^_^
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Can do! There are a few reasons.
** spoiler omitted **
Hopefully this answers your question satisfactorily. ^_^
Thank you for the reply. Your choice makes more sense to me now. I still like the flavor, and it seems to me that the encounter would play out similarly enough either way. I only asked because we haven't seen skalds, or bloodragers even, in a PFS scenario. In my opinion, there was enough flavor to see one, but I respect your decision. It was also really fun to see Numerian technology in the accounts of early Pathfinders.
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On a more mechanical note, does the party count as having the Technologist feat if they decide to bring Isirah along? For example, would she allow the party to use Technologist specific options regarding disable device checks, or can the technology in the scenario be used without this feat, and or her presence?
Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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On a more mechanical note, does the party count as having the Technologist feat if they decide to bring Isirah along? For example, would she allow the party to use Technologist specific options regarding disable device checks, or can the technology in the scenario be used without this feat, and or her presence?
On page 13:
Technological Guidance (Ex) Isirah can verbally guide othersthrough technological tasks. She can grant a PC the benefits
of her Technologist feat for the purpose of performing
physical tasks (such as reversing the vents in certain areas),
but the action takes twice as long to complete; tasks that
require a standard action instead take a full-round action.
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My first quit read-through had me having positive feelings about this one. I normally really dislike the technological scenarios as I don't really like the peanut butter/chocolate combination of Pathfinder/Pew-Pew, but I really enjoyed the story. Here's to hoping it works out.
I'll try to give impressions after I run it Saturday.
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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Reading through it, I like that PCs having Technologist is not required for success, but does offer solid benefits. The story adds a meaningful human element, whereas earlier scenarios could feel way too robotic.
Between the several haunts and the abundant Con damage, it could turn very deadly. A cleric in the party will make surviving much easier.
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The entry for Isirah's Aggregate says that she has undead immunities. Since she has a CON score, would that make her vulnerable to effects that require a FORT save?
She has all the immunities of the undead type - including immunity to any effect that allows a Fortitude save - regardless of their cause or reason for being. Both my original turnover and the printed text appear to be consistent on this matter. ^_^
Ghost In The Machine (Ex) Isirah’s shade is an undead collective acting as an AI. She has all the immunities of a creature of the undead type, including immunity to mind-affecting effects. Her Aggregate is not an undead creature.
I didn't spell it out for wordcount reasons, but basically check out the Undead Traits section in a Bestiary. If it says immunity, she's immune.
That statblock was real ugly pre-development, by the way. I'm used to high-optimization players, and it showed. Fortunately, development cleaned up the worst of it. ^_^
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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So I have a question about the haunt. I'm terrible at running them. Is t he haunt persistent? When it manifests, does its effect only happen once and that's it or does it happen every round on initiative 10?
The haunt? you haven't read very far, lol.
Desperate Demand is a unique haunt in that it can be neutralized even after it manifests. It is persistent, so it activates every full round at initiative 20 until it takes enough damage or after the combat is over.
**Opinions** I think it should have been a slow haunt (activates at 0 in surprise round) instead of 20 on first full round. Haunts are weird enough already, the fewer custom rules with them the better.
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The haunts here are built with a lot of the rules from Occult Adventures and Horror Adventures - Desperate Demand's initiative of 20 comes from the fast ability, for example, and its ability to make saves comes from tenacious. Most of the haunts are spiteful as well.
In my original turnover, most of them were also belligerent - imagine if all the haunts in there had three times as much hp.
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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The haunts here are built with a lot of the rules from Occult Adventures and Horror Adventures - Desperate Demand's initiative of 20 comes from the fast ability, for example, and its ability to make saves comes from tenacious. Most of the haunts are spiteful as well.
In my original turnover, most of them were also belligerent - imagine if all the haunts in there had three times as much hp.
Goodness.
Rather than act on the surprise round, the haunt acts on initiative count 20
This line is a bit confusing. A fast haunt would still act in the surprise round, but it reads like it doesn't. What was your intention?
BTW, thanks for making this thread and helping us out with this one.
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Rather than act on the surprise round, the haunt acts on initiative count 20This line is a bit confusing. A fast haunt would still act in the surprise round, but it reads like it doesn't. What was your intention?
The haunt skips the surprise round entirely (there essentially isn't one, since the encounter is prefaced by social interaction). Instead, it acts on initiative count 20 in the normal initiative count.
If it helps, think of the Desperate Demand haunt as a "creature" with haunt statistics. She acts on her initiative count, just like everyone else; she just does her haunt thing rather than normal move/standard/swift.
BTW, thanks for making this thread and helping us out with this one.
Happy to help. ^_^
(Among other things, I knew there'd be a lot of questions, especially with all the haunts. They're a particularly obscure and arcane branch of the rules.)
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ugh.... two books that I don't have rules on. that makes it more difficult to run the haunts. The blurb at the bottom of the index page for GM resources doesn't mention those books at all.
About that - you won't need either of those books at all. Everything you need from those books is reprinted in the adventure itself. (I only mentioned them here as an insight into how the haunts were designed.) That's also why they aren't mentioned in the GM resources section.
My understanding of haunts is they act on initiative 10 in the suprise round. any player that notices the haunt act in the surprise round. I know they can be damaged with positive energy or haunt siphons. if you do enough damage to it, it can't manifest and must wait the reset period. Haunt siphons also cause the check to reset to be made at -10. That's my basic understanding.
Mostly right. Haunt siphons don't reset the initiative count or slow the haunt in combat, but they do affect its potential reset. That shouldn't come up here, though.
Specific questions because I want to run this right for my players and I do not have Occult Adventures or Horror Adventures:
How does Delay effect the haunts? If the haunt has delay 1 round, does that mean it doesn't manifest in the surprise round but 1 round later?
I actually just now noticed the Delay entry in the haunt statblocks. That was added during development, and I'm not entirely sure what it means - I've never seen it before.
What about Slow? I'm guessing that simple means it happens on initiative 0 but I'm not certain.
Correct. ^_^
The haunt in C2 is really confusing. As I read it, the haunt possesses one of the players and has that player attack the others. Does it get full use of character abilities, like spells, barbarian rage, kinetic blast, things like that? Also this haunt in the module doesn't state it's a fast haunt but does tell me initiative 20 for it doing things. maybe a misprint
The term "possess" is there for certain Faction Card goals. Rules-wise, it works just like the dominate person spell.
As noted earlier, it doesn't work precisely like a fast haunt. That's probably why the term was cut. Not a misprint, though.
Finally my initial questions were around the Haunt from encounter C5. After reading the blurb in the PRD about radiation effects, I believe the intent here is the effect only happens once, when the haunt manifests.
That is correct - hence the line about not having a secondary effect.
Basically for the haunts in this one that's pretty much it for questions to help understand them better.
On a side note, I think on Page 5, the knowledge local check if for Kellids and Ghost wolves in the first paragraph. It states the same as the first paragraph under knowledge Geography above it on the same page.
It's similar, but there are subtle differences. Geography focuses on the city and population, while Local tells more about the Kellids themselves.
All and all, this looks like a really fun scenario. I'm both excited to run it for my players and a little worried about running it correctly. If someone can answer my question on the haunts, that will help me run it right. thanks in advance
Hopefully I've cleared up most of the confusion. ^_^
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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Good News! Occult Adventures is on the online PRD. Check out Haunt Rules (you will have to scroll down a bit or ctrl + f) or Haunts(d20pfsrd)
Your basic understanding is correct for haunts. Just be aware of the unusual nature of C2 (it goes on 20 of first round instead of acting in the surprise round).*
If you look at the second link above, it shows "slow" as a haunt template that reduces the haunt's initiative to 0 like you expected.
The haunt in C2 is really confusing. As I read it, the haunt possesses one of the players and has that player attack the others. Does it get full use of character abilities, like spells, barbarian rage, kinetic blast, things like that? Also this haunt in the module doesn't state it's a fast haunt but does tell me initiative 20 for it doing things. maybe a misprint
The haunt is using dominate person. This is not a possession effect, it is a compulsion (like suggestion). The PC will follow orders to the best of its abilities using any relevant abilities. As for initiative, it's just weird because it skips the surprise round.
Finally my initial questions were around the Haunt from encounter C5. After reading the blurb in the PRD about radiation effects, I believe the intent here is the effect only happens once, when the haunt manifests.
Only persistent haunts persist to act more than once. The haunt in C5 is not listed as persistent, so you are right it only manifests once until it resets (1 day).
*Edit: super ninja'd while I was checking links. As for the "delay" keyword, I'm not sure either. But, I would guess that is a delay on the proximity trigger. It doesn't activate immediately when triggered, allowing PCs to get into a more compromising position. Then have a surprise round like usual.
I think Isabelle could have called for surprise round here, even though there is negotiation. Just use Sense Motive instead of Perception to determine who acts.
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I'll be running this scenario this sunday, and I must say I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm especially glad with the way the trigger for the Haunts is written. Now they won't easily fall prey to the sacrifical monkey that is sent in first.
I do have a mechanical question.
The other ability is Infrasonic Field. I noticed it does not have the clause of "Once saved, free from saving throws for 24 hours". So does one have to keep saving every round till its dead, or was that an oversight. Since it is quite nasty.
All in all, an amazing scenario. Thanks for writing it!
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Combined Arms is a common ability for robots - think of it as making two separate full-attacks simultaneously, one with its melee weapons and one with its ranged weapons. ("Arms", in this case, refers to weapons rather than limbs. I believe "combined arms" is a military term.)
The field is, indeed, save-every-round. (The warden wasn't my design - it comes from the Iron Gods Adventure Path.)
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One last thing I bumped into, how does the AI core the players can find effect these or interact with the shade? I got to about page 19 or so in the scenario before turning in for the evening. Is that explained in the encounter other shortly after that point?
Isirah's AI core doesn't do anything to the haunts, but she does have a potential effect in the final battle. It's in the text, and fairly hard to miss. (If you have questions, as always, feel free to ask.)
It's a really good story you wrote. I hope my players enjoy it as much as I did reading it.
Thank you! ^_^
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Thanks for your anwsers, Isabelle.
I haven't really ran any Robots before, so I thought I better ask the writer when she is so active on the thread.
Haunts on the other hand, I ran a lot. Usually they have a small write-up, but not so elaborate on when they activate (just a proximity for the first person that entered). I'm really happy that you did describe the "when" they decide to activate.
I'm excited to run this on sunday, I'll let you know how it went.
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Here you go:
As a standard action, a PC adjacent to either a camera or a monitor can sabotage the device with a successful DC 25 Disable Device or Knowledge (engineering) check. A PC with the Technologist feat gains a +5 bonus on this check, and once per day that PC can attempt to disable two adjacent devices as part of the same action.
Any other questions? ^_^
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Robots!! Haunts!!
I think I know what the second PFS scenario I buy is going to be. :-)
The Waking Rune was the first.
Venture-Captain, Iceland
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I´ll admit to being a member of the anti robot and anti haunt crowd ( purely for rules reasons, or lack of understanding of said rules perhaps ) . Haunt´s are traps with story.. they just rarely get run as such, but they are a great tool for storytelling.
But reading this thread alleviates a lot of my concerns. I actually look forward to running this soon, it looks like a lot of fun.
Thanks for doing this. It will prove invaluable I´m sure when I prep this in a few weeks.
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So I ran this scenario today, and I wildly mis-prepared this scenario. Like wow. I prepped like I usually do when I'm running a scenario soon after it comes out, and I picked up on the encounters, but I missed the fact that each haunt has a development section afterwards with additional visions that help tell the story. That was awkward while running, since it led to an awkward "all right guys, back up a second, something else happens."
This was an awesome scenario that I just ran badly. Now that I fully understand it, I wanna go back and run it again with proper timing and more of a focus on the haunts.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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The field is, indeed, save-every-round. (The warden wasn't my design - it comes from the Iron Gods Adventure Path.)
I just played the scenario this afternoon, and got hit hard with "yeah, you passed the save the first round, but you have to save every round". I'm not convinced your interpretation of the original monster is 100% correct. While ostensibly the Warden's statblock does read:
Infrasonic Field (Ex) Warden robots constantly emit powerful sound waves at a frequency below normal hearing. These vibrations can debilitate living beings within 30 feet. Such creatures must succeed at DC 17 Fortitude save or fall prone and be nauseated for 1d4 rounds. A warden robot can suppress or resume this ability as a free action. This is a sonic effect, and the save DC is Intelligence-based.
I'm not sure it's supposed to be a repeat experience, because later on in the description of the robot it says:
Unlike golems or similarly mindless constructs, wardens possess an intelligence that allows them to employ tactics, either on their own or as part of a unit. When acting in groups, the robots are smart enough to suppress and reactivate their nausea-inducing sound waves in concert, maximizing the length of time their opponents are incapacitated.
Now, if a single robot could nauseate the same person multiple times, this wouldn't make any sense. However, if a given robot could nauseate a person only once (as is normal in such aura abilities), then the paragraph makes total sense. By staggering the activations of their sonic fields, multiple robots each get their one chance to nauseate people, without wasting that chance on nauseating people who were already nauseated.
I've run into monsters in this AP before that had such "imperfections" in their statblocks, such as the CR 2 blindheim that triggered a save vs. hour-long blindness every round because the usual "if you make it it's done" text wasn't included explicitly.
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Apart from that, this was an awesome scenario to play. I really dug how my paladin (channel) and the savage technologist (Technologist-disable device) could work together to get past the haunts.
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I could well be incorrect about the infrasonic field. The lack of the "successful save grants immunity" text was my primary reason for that belief, and it's hard to be sure without more information.
Still, thank you for adding this to the discussion here - this will, at least, help other GMs make their own rulings on this matter. ^_^
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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ran into a couple issues. the party did not successfully impress the chieftain, so no ghost wolves lead them to the gulch. that didn't slow the party down and they got there in the same time. the optional encounter left me confused as to whether it should happen or not if the ghost wolves don't travel with the party. they ran out of time so the encounter didn't happen but if there was time, should it happen? Judging by the way the scenario reads, it sounded to me like the ghost wolves show up anyway regardless of whether the chieftain was impressed or not. However do they not show up at all if the group fails to impress the chieftain?
If you would skip the encounter for lack of time, it's entirely reasonable not to have the Ghost Wolves show up at the end at all.
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So, I ran this yesterday for a party of 5: Paladin 11 (which was Lau), Savage Technologist Barbarian 10 (With the Technologist feat), Ninja/Paladin 8, Alchemist 7, and Bloodrager 11 on the high tier with four player adjustment.
Even though the Barbarian was loaded with Tech, they had no problem with impressing the locals and easily got them on their side. The Haunts they triggered were not a problem either; a combination of channeling and disabling camera's put them out before they started. I still gave them a visual of it trying to do something, but they got snuffed out. The Paladin eventually decided to detect for evil (making sure it was gone), and got to see the entire ruin to light up before his eyes. They also surprised themselves after that, when they realized nobody could use Detect Magic (on the high tier...).
The AI unit was a blast to play, and the players happily conversed with it. Seeing a Gnome for the first time, witnessing magic, finding a Barbarian who understands her lingo, and a Paladin who desperately tries to figure out what is wrong with her and who locked her up. There also were a lot of back and forths, like:
AI: "The image is then send to a monitor"
Player: "What is a monitor...?"
AI: "That is like a piece of glass, on which you can see images of things or people, that are physically far away from the glass."
Player: "Oooh, like Scrying!"
AI: "What is Scrying...?"
Further in the scenario, they were very compliant with the BBEG, and helped her plan (only to foil it). They only barely managed to keep their sabotage a secret, and pulled her forth in one piece (making multiple adjustments to statblock right during initiative kinda broke the immersion though). Their complience however, caused them to miss a lot of the haunts in the area (still made them do the Fight in C2 without the extra "hazard" on their way back. Those things are known to lash out quickly at things in their close proximity).
The only thing I forgot about, was the help from the Ghost Wolves during the fight they are present. I moved towards the printed stats of the creatures, and the sidebox on the earlier pages which presented their help moved out of my vision. I retconned the dead of the Ninja/Paladin, because she would have survived the fight if they would have helped (one of the options was DR, and the Ninja/Paladin died due to taking 1 damage over negative Con).
But besides that little mess-up of mine, the scenario was amazing. The players had lots of fun and everyone could shine.
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That's... a very interesting question. ^_^
I'm in favor of it working, both logically and based on similar boons - there's a Season 7 Chronicle* that raised similar questions, and I believe that one also functions in Core. Think of it as finding a non-Core item on a Chronicle, except it's a feat instead. (Since this is the GM thread, I'm being a bit loose with spoiler tags for this scenario.)
However, I'll obviously defer to Mr. Compton in this regard, if he chooses to give his thoughts.
*
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OK... OK... This scenario is plain awesome. Just got done GMing it today and it is top notch. Seriously. (I left a review too)
If there was one thing that I would have liked, some rooms were missing some box text and a more vivid room description. But that detail is VERY MINOR (and might even have to do with word count?) compared to the awesomeness of how this scenario plays, and the story it conveys to the players (which is a huge, huge, huge, HUGE plus compared to other scenarios where the players are left wondering what happened).
We need more from this author. :)
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So I ran this scenario today, and I wildly mis-prepared this scenario. Like wow. I prepped like I usually do when I'm running a scenario soon after it comes out, and I picked up on the encounters, but I missed the fact that each haunt has a development section afterwards with additional visions that help tell the story. That was awkward while running, since it led to an awkward "all right guys, back up a second, something else happens."
This was an awesome scenario that I just ran badly. Now that I fully understand it, I wanna go back and run it again with proper timing and more of a focus on the haunts.
I'm going to echo Iammars on this one. I ran it last night and thought that I was prepared for it, but was vastly under prepared in a lot of ways (mostly with regard to the final fight). It seems simple but I definitely recommend taking the time to highlight and ensure you know exactly what's going on so that way this scenario gets it full due. Likewise, I look forward to running it again to get the full experience running it.
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Prepping this to run next weekend,and noticed that the aggregate's initiative modifier seems to be wrong?
Also,how have people found this scenario in terms of running time? Seems like a tough one for a party unable to deal with the haunts at all.
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Even with a Technologist and a gunslinger pregen, the party fighters were breaking cameras left and right, and we still ran about five and a half hours. And I totally botched the final fight too. Is there any way to end the final fight with diplomacy? I didn't see any, as the shade attacks no matter what the checks made are.
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I knew this one would run long a lot of the time. (Sorry about that.) It's part of why I've tried to help people whenever possible - anything to make it easier to handle.
Re: initiative, that's an aspect of the AI aggregate template used to make her. She's using the shade's Intelligence modifier, not the elemental's (superior) Dexterity.
Re: Diplomacy, while the Aggregate can't be "one-shotted" by Diplomacy before the fight, it can be used against her in battle. See the Aggregate's Sentimental weakness.
Hopefully that helps a bit - this is a complicated scenario, and the way it's laid out (particularly the Synthesis Core encounter) makes it even easier to miss things. ^_^
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I knew this one would run long a lot of the time. (Sorry about that.) It's part of why I've tried to help people whenever possible - anything to make it easier to handle.
Re: initiative, that's an aspect of the AI aggregate template used to make her. She's using the shade's Intelligence modifier, not the elemental's (superior) Dexterity.
Re: Diplomacy, while the Aggregate can't be "one-shotted" by Diplomacy before the fight, it can be used against her in battle. See the Aggregate's Sentimental weakness.
Hopefully that helps a bit - this is a complicated scenario, and the way it's laid out (particularly the Synthesis Core encounter) makes it even easier to miss things. ^_^
Thanks Isabelle. Looks like a fun scenario - looking forward to running it.
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Isabelle - count me in with the multitudes who enjoyed your adventure.
I played it last weekend with my deaf shoanti oracle-barbarian, who at one point cast Comprehend Languages to understand what was coming out of the speakers (he was the only one who could understand the Andoffyn), then quickly realized that there were no lips to read... sad, but funny.
Anyhow, I'm wondering of the exposure to the AI core personality would be sufficient justification to allow a PC to learn Androffyn. Thoughts?
Joe
(player of Ferrus Stonecaller, metal oracle of Gorum)