Venture-Agent, Rhode Island
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Map C: Ustalav [p17-19]
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outside- Corpse (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Survival 20/25; Heal 15/20)
c2- Holy Symbol (Appraise 15/20)
c2- Holy Burst (K.engineering, Survival 15/20)
c8- Vellum (Perception 15/20, in a box; hazard)
{gust of wind can destroy the vellum when the box is opened}
c1- Prayer Scroll (Perception 15/20; hazard & dweomersink)
{the prayer scroll is in the SE top corner}
Primary- 2/6 Skill checks (ritual happened)
Secondary- 4/6 Skill checks (reproduce ritual)
c4- Crusader’s Blade (Perception 15/20)
c5- Restorative Cache
c11- Magical Reserve (Perception 20/25) (hazard)
Tier 3-4:
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c13- Skeshnil [p49], dark slayer [p46]
(remove dark slayer)
{the high ceiling gives Skeshnil room to fly. Put the dark slayer in the north kitchens where it can come out stealthed and sneak attack.
If talking w/ PCs have Skeshnil drop a normal stone in bowl of mold after Bluff/Sleight of Hand to trick PCs into thinking it's a gem.}
c14- 3 shadow drakes [p49]
(remove 1 drake)
{the linked threats make perception checks to notice the fight in c13 and show 4 rounds later.}
c10- Army Ant Swarm [p63]
(degenerate: -2 all)
c1- Dweomersink [p73] (hazard)
{covers doorways: out, c2 & c8. Designed to strip buffs cast outside the dungeon. Since the PCs must enter c2 to get both success conditions, it might strip buffs repeatedly.}
c6- Bad Air [p72]
{put candles/incense in shrines to temp players to light them}
Tier 6-7:
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c13- Skeshnil [p50], 2 dark callers [p44]
(remove dark callers)
{the high ceiling gives Skeshnil room to fly. Put the dark callers in the north kitchens where they can come out stealthed and sneak attack.}
If talking w/ PCs have Skeshnil drop a normal stone in bowl of mold after Bluff/Sleight of Hand to trick PCs into thinking it's a gem.}
c14- Weakened denizen of Leng [p46] and 2 dark slayers [p46]
(weaken denizen* and remove 1 slayer)
*Remove the Denizen of Leng’s dexterity drain and planar fast healing abilities.
{the linked threats make perception checks to notice the fight in c13 and show 4 rounds later.}
c10- Rot Grub Swarm [p70] & 2 Giant Grubs [p71]
(remove giant grubs)
c10- Rot Grubs [p73]
{separate the hazard, the swarm & the giant grubs in the three rooms}
c1- Dweomersink (CR 9) [p73] (hazard)
{covers doorways: out, c2 & c8. Designed to strip buffs cast outside the dungeon. Since the PCs must enter c2 to get both success conditions, it might strip buffs repeatedly.}
c6 - Bad Air [p72] (candles/incense in shrines)
{put candles/incense in shrines to temp players to light them}
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<GM Notes: Ran low-tier last night. As noted up-thread, the army ant swarm killed two PCs (including my wife's monk); the 3d6 one round after they fall unconscious is a killer. However, it was their total lack of tactics that killed them, not the monster. I picked the Bad Air and the Dweomersink to be weaponized vs swarms.>
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I have a question on a certain Monster, Lurker in Light.
I have ran this once and generated this encounter, and won wondering if I ran it right since I played it and found a major difference in the way I ran it and the way it was supposed to be ran.
** spoiler omitted **
Now is it an unlimited use or it a contact poison to be reapplied after each attack? It doesn't list it along its equipment and also that it does 1 str drain on the initial and not damage.
Sounds like the blade already has one dose applied, but as there is no other poison listed in gear it only gets the one dose.
So, just apply the poison effect to the first creature hit with the dagger.
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I'm a greenish GM running this for the first time this weekend. For Lastwall, I'm slightly confused with B14 "Lord's Crypt" room. It has the "wailing to Modesha" hazard which can only be closed by closing the portal to the Negative Energy Plane.
Two questions:
1. As far as I can tell, the portal to the Plane *does not* have to be in this room however. That portal can be in any room....
2. Is "Spotting" the portal by a PC automatic, or is there a hidden spellcraft/perception check which I'm not finding in the scenario...
Welcome to the GM side of the table! I like it better over here... More maniacle laughter and less cold sweat.
1) Correct, the portal can be in any room where you think it will add the most interest and drama for your players. The negative energy eminations remain strong at long distances, but are most deadly in close proximity. The bits of the nobles souls infused with their regret are agitated by the negative energy and manifest as a haunt.
2) Spotting it should be automatic. Imagine a very small hole in the universe where the energy of death is leaking out. Though they hole is small, you can feel free to embellish what negative energy looks like pouring forth: a thrumming pulse of darkness? Veins of inky blackness trickling out like rivulets of liquid moving in all directions? You decide.
Generally, I have the portal take up a single 5 foot square to make the mechanics easier. As it has no physical form, creatures can share the space but are exposed to negative energy. Creatures like PCs, shadow dragons and undead, for example. Enterprising PCs could also use it against non-intelligent creatures such as carnivorous plants or swarms.
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Welcome to the GM side of the table! I like it better over here... More maniacle laughter and less cold sweat.
1) Correct, the portal can be in any room where you think it will add the most interest and drama for your players. The negative energy eminations remain strong at long distances, but are most deadly in close proximity. The bits of the nobles souls infused with their regret are agitated by the negative energy and manifest as a haunt.
2) Spotting it should be automatic. Imagine a very small hole in the universe where the energy of death is leaking out. Though they hole is small, you can feel free to embellish what negative energy looks like pouring forth: a thrumming pulse of darkness? Veins of inky blackness trickling out like rivulets of liquid moving in all directions? You decide.
Generally, I have the portal take up a single 5 foot square to make the mechanics easier. As it has no physical form, creatures can share the space but are exposed to negative energy. Creatures like PCs, shadow dragons and undead, for example. Enterprising PCs could also use it against non-intelligent creatures such as carnivorous plants or swarms.
Thanks for the comments--I also found them useful. Another question about the same variant (undead crusader/Lastwall): I rolled Grythyk as the sealed monster, but since it didn't make sense that a creature capable of at-will greater teleport could be trapped by a door I had her into a very old binding circle. If any of you have had the same issue, how did you handle it?
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Thanks for the comments--I also found them useful. Another question about the same variant (undead crusader/Lastwall): I rolled Grythyk as the sealed monster, but since it didn't make sense that a creature capable of at-will greater teleport could be trapped by a door I had her into a very old binding circle. If any of you have had the same issue, how did you handle it?As I recall the whole room is dimensionally locked.
Correct!
Also, the sealed creature only comes up when playing the raiders. If you're doing undead crusader, then you shouldn't have a sealed creature.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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What is the radius of the Dweomersink hazard?
I am doing the Nightmare Dragon in Ustalav, (One of the people who is going to be there recently mentioned never having encountered a dragon in all his years of playing dungeons and dragons.
Assuming I run the low tier (I think that is the one with the tiny shadow drakes), I am really tempted to put the shadow drakes in the archery range, playing with the wind gusts. I fully recognize that this will probably make things harder for the poor little drakes, but I think it will be more than made up for by the difficulty elsewhere, and besides, the image of these little footlong drakes trying to surf the random wind gusts is just too adorable.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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The CR system isn't perfect. I'd agree that the Nightmare Dragon is better on almost all points, but I think the spell-like abilities count for a lot. The Nightmare Dragon has pretty low DCs, while the Umbral Dragon has a few tricksy spells. Don't underestimate how annoying Obscuring Mist and even an at-will Darkness (!) can be. If people don't have darkvision or a way to deal with lack of light, they're very screwed. Less to-hit doesn't matter if the opponent can't see him coming, and less AC doesn't matter if they can't target you.
Question from me: I'll be running this in a week, I'd like some input on what to run. People I'll be running this for roam the forums, so I'll use spoiler tags. It looks like it'll be a mostly level 4-5 party, so already on the powerful side of things on the low tier (some haven't decided yet, so could be high tier). They're all bringing fairly powerful characters, and while I don't want to straight up kill them, I'd like to give them a run for their money. I've decided on the following:
Ice Golem has some tricks, but I'm not sure if he'll last long enough, depending on whether they can pierce DR. Slithering Tracker is a nice scary enemy, don't expect the swarm to last long. Assassin Vines are with two, so action economy is nice. But I don't want two enemies that can grab, for variety's sake.
This might all be moot if they're going to high tier, so I'll poke them soon to see which tier it'll be, but I'd like some input if it's low tier. Thanks!
I also plan to run the Raiders arc, and I see there's no real reason for the PCs to engage with the sealed encounter. I plan on planting a clue/thing they need behind that door, so people have to open it if they want to complete the scenario. Does that sound too unfair?
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The umbral dragon can also heal from Lastwalls rift, so it can be very tricky.
For the sealed creature, remember that there is supposed to be loot in there. If the PCs decide not to check it out, they'll get less gold for the adventure.
For the encounters, I'd look at varying the types of threats. You don't want it to be too same-y.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Just finished running this on low tier. I have to say, while the Raiders arc is interesting in that they're not "kill on sight" enemies, their actual stats are incredibly disappointing. There was a nice bit of roleplay, but once combat broke out, they fell hard. I chose the Cave Stalker (Rogue 6) and two Murderous Halflings (Fighter 4), and they offered no resistance at all. It didn't help that my dice ran cold and barely hit, but even then, why outfit Fighters with daggers? It isn't the author's fault, but one of my players bemoaned the NPC codex for being full of "meh" NPCs, and I have to agree. I had a quick look through it, and I'm not impressed at all.
On the other hand, the sealed encounter was a nice curveball. The Catrina isn't the most powerful enemy on that list, but it baffled my players for a bit. "Okay, it does what after I kiss it?" And of course, them positioning themselves in such a way that it was damn hard to break him free.
One thing, though: I found it hard to convey the mission of the Raider arc. You find some clues to a ritual, but there's no real indication why it's necessary to do so. I had to spoon-feed it to them, which could've gone a little bit more elegantly. As I'm typing this out I'm already coming up with better ideas, but alas. I feel like the handout could've been a bit more informative, now it's mostly words and a location. In fact, all of these complaints are related to the Tome itself. It's a decent way to start the adventure, especially since it opens up three possible routes, but it feels a bit... uninspired. It's a MacGuffin to get the adventure started and is forgotten thereafter.
Similarly, the sealed encounter comes sort of out of nowhere and I invented a "great and terrible ancient evil" being locked away, but there's only one evil creature on that table in the low tier (3 in high tier). Why was it locked away? I had a story in mind about the creature gone insane or something, but it felt kind of half-hearted.
To not let this post end in too much negativity: I like the feel of most of the rooms of the dungeons. Some could've been a bit more interesting, but there are enough rooms with curiosities that can make combat there pretty interesting. I really like the archery range, for instance. It's a small detail, but it's an interesting setup for a fight.
Also, one final thing: I noticed in the Raider arc treasure bit on page 23 it says there's a Miser's Mask in tier 6-7, but it shows up on the sheet in tier 3-4. I just lined it through presuming it's an error, but I'd like some confirmation.
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Wall of Text
First, thank you SO much for taking the time to create constructive criticism. Feedback like this really helps authors and developers make future scenarios better.
Raider Arc: The NPC codex NPCs are generally not as powerful as standard PCs, especially built by someone with a lot of system mastery; we agree on that. Conjecture: they were going for balanced and flexible NPCs rather that power houses. That's OK, in this instance they work. There is a probability that PCs make a deal with the raiders, open the door to fight the sealed monster, and then are immediately betrayed. If the PCs have a rough time with the monster, then powerful NPCs might steamroll the PCs and TPK them. So it's OK if they're not all optimized. That said, some of the caster's really can turn fights around.
Sealed Monster: The idea is that either the crusaders accidentally locked it in there and forgot about it or died before letting it out, or the raiders locked it in there while fighting it and are conning the PCs to finish it off. Imagine that there's an outsider protecting the armory, then a fight starts outside. Everyone dies and no one can let the outsider out. Because of the abjuration effects, the outsider cannot teleport out. 900ish years later it is finally freed. PCs, meet a very pissed off outsider.
Missions per site: They are intended as a framework and a bit of a McGuffin, but hopefully left open-ended enough to integrate with the story of the BBEG and other dungeon denizens. It's a necessity for having everything else being so flexible.
Miser mask: It is for subtier 6-7 only.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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but one of my players bemoaned the NPC codex for being full of "meh" NPCs
That would be me. I'm still a bit sore about running Siege of Serpents and having the players roflstomp everything thrown at them before they even got to draw weapons.
There's a couple of exceptions, but most fodder from the NPC codex has trouble scratching the paint on PCs. (The mini box is amazingly useful though.)
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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two Murderous Halflings (Fighter 4)
The Feather Token (Whips) are nasty though. In one of the playtests our party had a very hard time with those. Selaed monster attacking from one side, Raiders from the other side and two party members (one of which a halfling alchemist) useless due to those whips.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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We'd noticed the sealed room and decided to deal with the competition first, based on "if my phantom can't get in there, whatever is in there won't be coming outside either".
The feather tokens weren't deployed. Those would have made it a bit harder to be sure; it's one of those details in a gear block that make a big difference in difficulty. We would've still dealt with them easily enough though, we were hardly going full throttle here.
The looks on people's faces when Beaudy was compelled to kiss the Mexican death lady were the high point of the evening :P
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Andrew, thanks a lot for the explanation and understanding of my complaints. I totally get the MacGuffin-ness, you have to sacrifice a lot of story for ease of (re)play. My own fault for not thinking hard enough about integrating the handout in the story.
I think the betrayal part could be an issue, but it didn't happen with us. The enemies weren't geared towards deception (the Halflings have a +4 on Bluff, for some reason, the Dwarf a -2), and one of our players always seems to max Sense Motive.
I sort of forgot about the Feather Tokens, but their tactics kicked in way too late and I called the combat before they could use them. One fell pretty much immediately, and then I just sort of gave up on them being an actual threat.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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The looks on people's faces when Beaudy was compelled to kiss the Mexican death lady were the high point of the evening :P
As I've said, there are nastier things behind that door, but this one is the coolest by far. And I got the best character with it, too. +2 Will save, nice.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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Okay, in that case I simply blame my players for not falling for this obvious trap. :P
As far as I know, I hadn't given them any inclination to make them believe I'd backstab them, they just rolled Sense Motive, my baddies lost their Bluff, and panicked. :P
The raiders are opportunists. At the start they are not actively trying to trap the players, it's just when the pathfinders are hurt, they seem like an opportunity too good to pass up!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Eh... I think it was more a case of us not wanting to share the dungeon with anyone else, so we talked with them long enough until they did something to give us a pretext for attacking. I'm not sure Beaudy would recognize LG if it hit him in the face :P
Also I think I was just spoiling for a fight with something not mind-immune.
And of course that we're used to NPCs you encounter in odd places not being trustworthy. I think scumbags have been accosting adventurers in dungeons since the '70s. But between "hey, my faction goal is to have maxed Sense Motive" and the inquisitor's alignment detection, it wasn't going to work out for them anyway.
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I ran this last weekend with the Undead in Ustalav. The party had a difficult time with it, but survived. We did run long, though. A lot of that, I think, had to do with half the table being out of tier. It was a 7 player table with, I believe, one 7, three 6s, 1 5, and two 4s. I'd heard (and could tell by looking at it) that the undead track is one of the harder ones, so I tried to pick easier creatures. I believe the classes were Ninja/Sorcerer 7, Druid 6 w/ companion, Slayer 6, Fighter 6, Psychic 5, Cleric 4, Cleric 4, which put them at high tier with the 4-player adjustment.
I chose Michiko, because her fight seemed the most straightforward and least lethal of the undead bosses. Akina would have likely killed one of them via negative levels unless I was nice and had her two-hand the Katana. And if it ever came to dominating one of the group, it could go south quick.
But they really struggled with the fight with Michiko (weakened) and the Dullahlan (only 1 because of the 4-player adjustment). I placed them in a large room so they'd have space to use their mounts. The party had the ninja ahead by 25 feet just past the edge of their light spells. The ninja was an elf, though, and only had low light, so he could only see another 15 feet normal and 40 feet dim. This meant that the 60 foot Darkvision creatures saw him before he saw them. Round 1 was a surprise round. I just had Michiko and the Dullahan summon their mounts that round, and I let the ninja hear the neighing and clopping of hooves from the Dullahan's mount. Then, on the first full round... nobody wanted to go into the room. The Slayer did enter and cross to another opening. That ended up effectively splitting the group and putting him out of range of the channels from the clerics. Michiko advanced and attacked the main group in the central hall, and the Dullahan attacked the Slayer in the smaller side hall (he was right by the opening, so it didn't have to squeeze). The ninja did, by vanishing, move past Michiko and get into the room, but that made him a target once he did become visible and put him out of reach of any healing or support other than the channels.
What I expected to happen was for there to be plenty of room for everyone to attack, and for the clerics to channel to harm for 4d6/round (total) to both enemies, slowly whittling them down and offsetting the Dullahan's fast healing. What ended up happening was a lot of isolated characters becoming the focus of a strong melee combatant, the fighter with a glaive having to attack over the animal companion and deciding not to power attack as a result, the Slayer lasting four or five rounds before being knocked unconscious, the ninja and animal companion being knocked unconscious by Michiko, the clerics having to channel to heal instead of harm, and a very long (easily 10+ rounds) fight where the players at one point decided to attack the horses just to get something out of the way and clear some room to move around.
The druid was a Naga Aspirant and had offensive wizard spells like Magic Missile. She also had a Quarterstaff of the Entwined Serpent. She struggled with the SR check for the quarterstaff, and was about 50/50 making it with her own spells (6th level caster against SR 18 and 19). Same for the Psychic and the Ninja/Sorcerer (who actually ran into the cold immunity trying to use Snowball).
The slayer, admittedly, was rolling horribly. He was two-weapon fighting, but with Studied Target he had a good chance to hit. He just kept rolling low single digits on the die.
Anyway, to me it was a challenging fight that they still had the ability to win. But it definitely took a lot longer than I thought, and it could have gone even more wrong. I rolled several crit threats from Michiko and the Dullahan with their Keen weapons and failed to confirm on all of them. Otherwise there may have been a death or two in the group.
We were out of time at the shop, having already gone close to 6 hours, so I hand waved the fight with the greater shadow that they hadn't run into yet. It's a potentially deadly fight as well, but they would likely have rested after the boss fight. With two channelers, two characters with magic missile, the undead bane sword, and everyone having something that would affect it at least at half, I don't think it would have laster long enough to kill anyone. Especially not with the reduced damage on its strength damage attack.
I chose Undead/Ustalav because that location and those enemies hadn't been used locally yet, but I'll definitely reserve them in the future for groups I know are highly optimized. I've played against the Orcs twice and the Raiders once, and neither of those groups came anywhere close to the difficulty of the Undead. I haven't played Dragons yet, so I don't know about that one. I knew our VC had prepped it and tried to run it once, so that's why I avoided it, as he was at the table. Another lesson learned is that I should pay more attention to what's in the treasure when deciding where to place it, as the undead bane longsword ended up in the room with the boss instead of in the room with the Cephaloophore. That was totally my bad, and it would have made a big difference in the fight.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I've played Undead twice now (once in each tier), I think I agree with that being noticeably harder. In both tiers I fought against Michiko. Graveknights have a whole bunch of nasty abilities on their own, and the adds are pretty tough cookies as well. The Dullahans are pretty heavy hitters, especially considering Michiko is fond of melee as well. They just form a steamroll together. Phantom Armours are decent challenges.
The main problem is, I think, that the undead bosses are kitted out with a whole lot of racial bonuses. Graveknights, Ghosts, and Vampires have problematic DR and heavy debuffs all the other bosses seem to lack. And hell, even the Phantom Armours, while they have a lot less HP, are much better at dishing out pain than Small-sized Monks and Fighters. Soften the party up a bit for the leader, who hits much harder.
Hell, practically every encounter is easier to deal with than the "easiest"/lowest encounter on the Undead table (all going by tier 3-4 here, it's worse in high tier), and the Raiders seem almost like easy mode. The Orc Thugs are much harder to deal with than the Murderous Halflings, despite being the same CR. They have less AC and HP, but Ferocity makes up for it, and much, much higher damage output. Skeletal Champions have less HP but potentially problematic DR, pretty high AC, and good damage. The Shadow Drake has problematic breath weapons, and Dark Slayers have a very annoying tactic. The Dragons might give the Undead a run for their money, but the Orcs and Raiders are definitely the underdogs. I wish I'd realised this sooner. I like the Raiders setup a lot more, but challenge-wise the others are much more interesting.
Also, final thing: most Major Threats have a decent party composition, but a lot of the additional threats could've been spicier. The Slithering Tracker is a scary opponent, but is still easily outnumbered. Hell, half the combat encounters are single enemies versus a full party (again, low tier). Action economy-wise, they'll never be a challenge (okay, the Mouther is nasty). I'd rather have three of four enemies of roughly the same skill level than one heavy hitter that can dish out one or two hits, then gets pounded on by the party.
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The unfettered phantoms was the other encounter they had, and they handled that one no problem. Looking back over things, I'm not sure if the vampire is a harder fight or not. She has fewer hit points, and the wights have far fewer hit points than the dullahan. I may have put too much wright into the negative levels. I was really worried about throwing 3-4 creatures with level drain at a group that could potentially include level 3 characters. Tactics could keep the vampire from using her drains, but that's pretty much what the Wights do.
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Loot question The gust of wind wand is listed at 18 charges cost 4050
For a second level spell wand that would be 45 charges should it be a 45 charge wand or cost 1620 for an 18 charge wand. (there is no mechanical reason to give a gust of wind wand a higher caster level)
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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two Murderous Halflings (Fighter 4)The Feather Token (Whips) are nasty though. In one of the playtests our party had a very hard time with those. Selaed monster attacking from one side, Raiders from the other side and two party members (one of which a halfling alchemist) useless due to those whips.
Well sundering that whip helped, once we stopped hitting ourselves ^^
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A quick note from when I ran this about a month ago: the gargoyle can be VERY hard to kill for a level 3-ish party. It's not entirely unreasonable to think such a party should have magic weapons by this time, but it's not guaranteed either. Some builds have to save all their early money for mithral breastplates and such. The DR 10/magic is pretty brutal if they can't.
My party had to talk it down/negotiate or they all would've died.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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A quick note from when I ran this about a month ago: the gargoyle can be VERY hard to kill for a level 3-ish party. It's not entirely unreasonable to think such a party should have magic weapons by this time, but it's not guaranteed either. Some builds have to save all their early money for mithral breastplates and such. The DR 10/magic is pretty brutal if they can't.
My party had to talk it down/negotiate or they all would've died.
People should have at least an oil of bless weapon. 50 GP and in the Core rules, so no excuses!
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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A quick note from when I ran this about a month ago: the gargoyle can be VERY hard to kill for a level 3-ish party. It's not entirely unreasonable to think such a party should have magic weapons by this time, but it's not guaranteed either. Some builds have to save all their early money for mithral breastplates and such. The DR 10/magic is pretty brutal if they can't.
My party had to talk it down/negotiate or they all would've died.
I agree with Auke, it is very tempting to try to save money until you can afford that mithral breastplate or that adamantine weapon, but that is no excuse to forgo the basics.
You usually buy that oil of bless weapon/oil of magic weapon so at least you have a way to deal with certain encounters, the reason is that, everyone should be able to deal with enemies like this.
Just like you by that ranged option / potion of fly that you never want to use.. sometimes your group setup just isn't ideal and having those options is the difference between victory and defeat.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I think Andrew stated that one of the design goals for this dungeon was to confront players with problems that you need learn to handle as you rise in level. One of the lessons to be learned is that you always need to have a plan for DR.
(Other options include: grapple->pin->tie up->coup de grace; paladin Smite; alchemist bombs; slumber witch; throwing all the alchemist fire you were lugging around in case of a swarm; barbarian with 2H weapon and power attack...)
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Full credit to Thea and what she did with PurpleBunnyCon in Murfeesboro, TN...
This mod is going to be our backup if we don't make enough table for our special. I can't believe I hadn't seen how well it can be a "special" of it's own for small cons.
#1 - Initial Briefing is done for all pathfinders in the room.
Don't pre-seat players at tables.
Have the handouts in a format all players have access to them.
As it is determined that three locations are uncovered, start dividing people into tables to head to each location. Let groups pick locations if you can. Have the VC assign people to tasks if you need to.
#2 - Play the rest
Once teams have been assembled, send them all on their respective quests.
Try to make sure all tables are different if it can be organized that way.
PBC gave out prizes for tables accomplishing certain things during the quest. (First to deal with an encounter, first to handle the BBEG, etc.) I'm less a fan of that part, but it does keep things at least a bit interactive once the room breaks up into tables. I'm thinking some kind of debriefing at the end to tie everything back together may be the better way to fit the groups back into one event.
I'm sure there is more that can be done to make it special. I have a month to come up with more ideas.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Robert: that sounds pretty neat. I'd make sure I had a convenient mechanism to mostly sort people into tiers though, there can be a significant difficulty leap between them. Playing down may make things too easy and playing up waaaay to hard. (As in, this was scary with a full high tier party.)
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Very aware of the difficulty. We've had about 8 tables of this in our area already, with 2 TPK's. I think Memphis has seen about 4-5 TPK's in the past 3 years, so a high percentage have come from this.
As far as other things to make this special as a special, although the map is cool, it doesn't have any significant relevance. For a special I think all custom 3D maps would help make the event stand out.
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The mini special sound really cool! What an awesome idea!
Very aware of the difficulty. We've had about 8 tables of this in our area already, with 2 TPK's. I think Memphis has seen about 4-5 TPK's in the past 3 years, so a high percentage have come from this.
I'd be curious to learn what encounters caused the TPK, if they were rolled or chosen, and if rolled whether the GM altered the results at all.
I ask partially because I've only had one PC death while playing this, and we had asked for "hard mode." I've run it multiple times: a few times selecting challenges for tables who ask for it but usually rolling completely random. I've had some close scrapes, but no TPKs nor PC death.
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I read through this thread, and I don't recall whether or not this was answered...
In Belkzen, (boss=Blemia, if it matters) you are expected to add the Yohanatatsu's body and katana. Is there a place they go, or is that also up to me?
I was considering having her interred in the Shrine to Shizuru (seemed the most logical place). Is there anything wrong with swapping the room descriptions of A2 and A18 so that their primary and secondary objectives aren't both in the first room?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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The mini special sound really cool! What an awesome idea!
Very aware of the difficulty. We've had about 8 tables of this in our area already, with 2 TPK's. I think Memphis has seen about 4-5 TPK's in the past 3 years, so a high percentage have come from this.I'd be curious to learn what encounters caused the TPK, if they were rolled or chosen, and if rolled whether the GM altered the results at all.
I ask partially because I've only had one PC death while playing this, and we had asked for "hard mode." I've run it multiple times: a few times selecting challenges for tables who ask for it but usually rolling completely random. I've had some close scrapes, but no TPKs nor PC death.
We had a death at a local con, but it was self inflicted. (4th level wizard, had not purchased *any* gear since he started.)