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prepping this for an event ... and ran accross something
1 - disperse into multiple bodies
2 - form 1 single elemental
3 - if they succeed at all the bluff / sleight of hand stuff they cause her to manifest as if they had beaten more haunts as the surogates
4- as 3 but manifest as the aggregate
however without the technologist feat they can only disperse the elemental but with the AI Core they technically "have" the technologist feat
so wouldnt they ALWAYS have the choice of how to manifest her ?
Also a question about the Axe in case the PC's don't turn it over
what are the "several custom touches" or is it just "Window dressing" as the saying goes
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Well there's always the possibility they don't use the AI core. My group initially considered not touching it and coming back to examine it once they'd "secured' the dungeon.
It's probably not a coincidence that that group had a lot of overlap with players who did a Iron Gods book with me where the single biggest threat they faced was the party gnome indiscriminately pushing buttons.
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I have a quick question about the haunts (surprise) lol
First I can find no mention of Delay anywhere for haunts. It is in the stat blocks, you mentioned this but I am not sure how it should work. I believe it means they do not act in the surprise round, but in the first round of combat? I am assuming the players that make the perception get an action in the surprise round? True? Or is there no Surprise round?
Second, several the haunts list effects of destroying all the cameras. Is this the effect after the manifestation? Does destroying the cameras still stop the haunt from materializing? Or does it Materialize and then have those penalties?
Based on the stat blocks for I am assuming that it is the later meaning that the haunt still materializes but has those penalties. So basically ever haunt goes except the one in C3 which the players can disable. True?
I love the scenario and the use of haunts, using them to tell the story is way I envision haunts (and the way I use them). So no worries I just want to make sure I run this right :)
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We had a lot of fun with this, but boy did it take a while to go through all the intricacies of the various subsystems. After facing the initial gas haunt we also got spooked and had an invisible and fear immune eidolon sabotage all cameras from that point on and therefore missed much of the story. It was our choice, yes, but a cloudkill tends to discourage such reckless participation as taking on haunts.
I think, and this isn't a critique as such as there's no way to really write around a fear immunity, that it might be a good experiment to use phantasm effects(from, at least, Curse of the Crimson Throne) to tell a story. They feature similar involvement (e.g skill checks, horror effects) but aren't as dangerous.
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Sadly, my writing deadline was just a few weeks short of the CotCT hardcover release. I was going for that sort of flavor, but with everything already going on in the scenario, I wanted to stick to established rules where possible.
Another example of "no scenario survives contact with the players", I suppose. ^_^
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I ran this scenario last week and my players went to C6 without first going to C5. As close as I could figure out, that meant that they had no way to get the Isirah's Aggregate fight and were stuck with fighting Haunt Surrogates instead. The party won and had fun, but they missed out on some story, failed to get a prestige point (they also broke a bunch of cameras & stuff) and a boon over that one seemingly-innocuous decision.
I have no problems with players failing to get full rewards, but it seems wrong that it should happen over a decision like that. Did I run this incorrectly?
Other miscellaneous complaints:
1. When I was prepping for this, it wasn't immediately obvious that the players should only fight Isirah's Aggregate OR the Haunt Surrogates. The scenario is quite clear about it if you have time to read the text, but my concern would be over the (unfortunate but inevitable) GM that gets stuck prepping quickly. Could the encounter formatting be handled differently in the statblock section to make it clear that both are not to be fought at the same time?
2. There is SO much Constitution damage/drain in this scenario. I only had one character that got Con damaged to a significant extent, but it could easily have gone the other way.
3. I had a player run from the Cloudkill down the south hall from B3, and I didn't have any information to give them about what was down there.
I'm not a general fan of Numeria-related adventures, but I appreciated how this one managed to give us something different while still being unmistakably Numerian in nature. No one prepares for Haunts when they go to Chesed!
Since I put in a bunch of complaints, I'll throw in one story. At B1, my party lined up in the hallway (somewhat of a squeeze due to the Cavalier's mount) and the Rogue went ahead before announcing that he was searching for traps and rolled well. Then I informed him that yes, there was a trap, and he was standing on it. Since the trap has a manual trigger I figured that Isirah was watching them somehow and had him roll a Bluff check when he moved to get off the trap. He rolled poorly and Isirah (who had been otherwise waiting for more people to get onto the trap) shot him up with poisonous gas.
This caused great confusion about exactly what had happened.
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The scenario tries to walk an odd path between linearity and freeform exploration... which can apparently result in such issues. Oops. I don't think you ran it incorrectly - it sounds like you did your job right. That's on me. :(
1: Probably. I didn't handle that directly, but I was responsible for the design decisions that led to it.
2: You have no idea. The Aggregate originally had an aura of cloudkill, among other things. Fortunately, development toned down some of the crueler aspects of my design.
3: That was supposed to be a dead end. It seems that wasn't clear in the final text.
(Hopefully Mr. Compton will see this at some point - he might be able to offer better advice.)
As for the story, that sounds about right. I'm glad the group enjoyed themselves, despite the issues. ^_^
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I really enjoyed this scenario, especially liked having the barbarians in it too - the scenario clearly vindicates their anti-tech prejudices. That's a nice touch.
But I'm rather scared to run it myself; it looks like it takes "don't run this cold" to a whole new level.
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1: Probably. I didn't handle that directly, but I was responsible for the design decisions that led to it.
Thanks for the reply Isabelle!
I understand that you aren't directly in charge of formatting (but you probably talk to the people who are), and I don't think the design decision was bad. Just something to think about for the future. Thanks again!
Sidenote: This scenario really did force me to sit down and figure out haunts for real, and that was a very good thing. (but still speaks to the complexity issues mentioned above)
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Well there's always the possibility they don't use the AI core. My group initially considered not touching it and coming back to examine it once they'd "secured' the dungeon.
I recently ran this scenario for the first time and this is exactly what happened.
Root causes of roughly 2/3 gp, 0 PP Chronicle:
- Lack of explicit instruction by VC to loot the target site to the masonry nails.
- Cautionary warnings against looting by on-site stakeholders.
- Lawful party ethics.
- General disregard for tech in the dungeon including the AI core ('we can't take it, so leave it undisturbed where we found it').
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Second, several the haunts list effects of destroying all the cameras. Is this the effect after the manifestation? Does destroying the cameras still stop the haunt from materializing? Or does it Materialize and then have those penalties?
Based on the stat blocks for I am assuming that it is the later meaning that the haunt still materializes but has those penalties. So basically ever haunt goes except the one in C3 which the players can disable. True?
Sorry if I missed an answer to Craig's question but I have the same question.
If PCs destroy enough cameras/monitor, this will do enough damage to the haunt to neutralized it with out becoming active. Is that a correct reading.
And if PCs do this, do they still get the development section for defeating the haunt?
I am inclined to say yes but at least one post here implies otherwise.
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If they reduce the haunts' hp to 0 - whether through destroying local features, using traditional anti-haunt methods, or both - then the haunt is neutralized and does not manifest.
Development occurs if the haunt is defeated by any such means, but does not occur if the haunt was allowed to take effect. The exception is the haunt in B3, which triggers its Development either when defeated or when the cloudkill effect ends.
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So when a party goes along with the shade's demands and is led to the core room, what happens if they end up changing their mind? The shade attacks, but which encounter manifests, the caustic stalkers or the surrogates?
Given the Guide's guidelines on "creative solutions", I'm inclined to leave it to GM discretion (based on what's right for the table). The Aggregate is more challenging, but offers greater rewards, and it seems most appropriate to leave that option on the table for creative groups.
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This is before the party does anything to activate the aggregate. The main concern is that if the party gets the surrogates, once they finish the fight the failsafes are disabled and they are on a time limit to do any further exploring, and automatically lose the ability to restore Isirah's memories.
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I'm uncertain how to officially handle this, what with the rules about encounter modification.
My personal inclination is to have the C2 creatures and haunt manifest, using the (much harder to damage) core in place of the monitor and cameras. Once defeated, the shade gives her response as given in C2, then sulks in the computer long enough for the PCs to do something else. If they hang around for long (say, longer than it takes to burn through some CLW wand charges and discuss what to do next) or start smashing things, proceed to the encounter with the surrogates.
Of course, this is hardly a perfect solution. It relies on the hope that the PCs will then decide to start poking around the other rooms, which seems overly optimistic.
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So when a party goes along with the shade's demands and is led to the core room, what happens if they end up changing their mind? The shade attacks, but which encounter manifests, the caustic stalkers or the surrogates?
I think it matters when the PCs change their mind.
As I read it, this is what happens:If the party goes along and makes it room C6, the process is outlined on page 17. The party has one last chance to change their minds. If the party change their minds while in C6 and does not follow the process on page 17 then I would run the encounter as outlined at the top of page 20. I need to remember to factor in the impact of any defeated haunts.
Otherwise they help the shade.
The party assists as outlined in area C2 (page 17).
If the party has someone with Technologist feat, they are allowed to make a choice, the surrogate or the aggregate, depending on the skill rolls. The AI core would be used to do this. But if the party does not have the feat available and they do as instructed by the shade, they get the surrogate as shown on page 17.
If they do have the feat and chose the aggregate, I would allow the party to try Diplomacy one time during the combat against the aggregate's sentimental weakness but only if they have the AI Core with them.
If the party diverts and looks at other rooms on the way to C6, or change their mind and don't go to C6, the shade becomes hostile. To me that means the haunts function as described and the adventure continues.
If party goes straight to C6, I don't see the shade as activating any haunts they may cross on the way there. In fact, there is a path that the shade can direct the party to C6 from C2 that would not go through any haunts.
I will say, I have not played this adventure. I have been studying it extensively now.
And of course, I defer to Isabelle and John.
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If they reduce the haunts' hp to 0 - whether through destroying local features, using traditional anti-haunt methods, or both - then the haunt is neutralized and does not manifest.
Development occurs if the haunt is defeated by any such means, but does not occur if the haunt was allowed to take effect. The exception is the haunt in B3, which triggers its Development either when defeated or when the cloudkill effect ends.
Thank you for the clarification!
This is going to be a fun adventure!
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Friends! I have just returned from Sulfur Gulch and among the fantastical objects there we discovered this "camera." It possesses the ability to make temporary images, like a mobile scrying device. One can even take images of oneself! These are known as "selfies."
As you can see, with this amazing device I was able to document our entire exploits! And for a mere 600 gp, the Society has agreed to loan me this camera for future missions! I intend to take many more of these selfies and other images. I imagine it would be quite easy to take these camera images and turn them into actual paintings or other works of art.
Oh, that stuff? I guess it's interesting as well. But nothing beats this camera!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Everett
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When I played this, the GM played up the Ghost wolves Competence and seriousness, so we ended up leaving most of the tech behind. (we still got full prestige, when we got back, I bought 2 scrolls of teleport and went back for as mush tech as I could carry) however after reading the adventure, it actually isn't that hard to sneak stuff by them, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I plan to try and make the ghost wolves(or at least jala) seem a little more reasonable.
Other than that I had a great time playing, I picked up an necklace of adaptation right before the scenario, which prevented about 2/3rds of the con dmg; but then I got dominated be desperate demand and procedded to cone of cold the party for half of their HP, fortunately our cleric had prepared protection from evil, or I would have done it again on the next round. :)
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Venture-Captain, Virginia—Yorktown
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Lots of fun this one! Quick question - as it'll spare me spending a couple hours going through every scenario's chronicle sheet for Seasons 6-9: anyone know where/how you can get access to the skillslot cybernetic implant (i.e. the item required to make the skillchips you find in the adventure into something useable)?