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Roughly half the party is faces, the other half is rough faces.
:)
I'm going to have to remember that line in the future!
So... anyone got a pointer to a good map of a ship that includes lower decks? I've got several maps in scenarios that have upper decks, but the only scenario I appear to own with lower decks is We Be Goblins. And that ship might not be quite appropriate here...
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And one other question... My group has quite easily talked down the Ronin, so I'll likely be bantering with them and NPCs for another day or so until the next announcement. I presume the next announcement will be more of a 'wrap up where you are' so they aren't suspicious that an ambush will be following immediately after?
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Roughly half the party is faces, the other half is rough faces.
:)
I'm going to have to remember that line in the future!
So... anyone got a pointer to a good map of a ship that includes lower decks? I've got several maps in scenarios that have upper decks, but the only scenario I appear to own with lower decks is We Be Goblins. And that ship might not be quite appropriate here...
The map in Consortium Compact includes lower decks.
Hmm
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Considering that the Aspis just laid an ambush for them in the sewers, I would think the characters would be expecting the Aspis agents will make another attempt.
Yes, I agree.
BTW, my party has ordered baths sent to their rooms. :) Bubble bath ninjas here I come.
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I have had a look across the groups and it is a REALLY mixed bag in this act, with some having rolled through it and done interlude, and then spent a couple of days just jawing off at each other - then I have other tables who have only just got into the fight.
I have given the signal that we can move forward - because the time is up - and it might also give the dithering players a sense of urgency. I have seen a LOT of player posts that take tables nowhere, and GM's that have to really prod them for decisions...
It is fairly likely though that I will have to add on a couple of days to allow for all the catch ups though.
***
You may now begin Act 4 - Murderous intentions.
We will need to have Act 3 & 4 completely resolved in 7 days.
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I had two darts hit, but with fort saves made, and one dart miss completely.
It could have been super deadly, but the team has already killed one soap-suds covered Ninja.
What makes this combat interesting is the terrain: small rooms with the beds and bathtubs I placed in there all being present as well. My party is describing themselves leaping on beds, using bath tubs as cover... Also interesting is that the party members who are attacked are initially alone, though I gave other party members a DC 5 Perception Check to hear the sounds of battle from behind the closed doors in the next rooms.
This may be the first time I've ever used the rainbow ninja minis that I made as actual ninjas. It feels so novel. Now that one of the ninjas had her head sliced off, I gave the PC a knowledge local roll to be able to tell that she isn't actually Tien, just a Qadiran in a tien-costume.
The rainbow ninjas are my default people on slide shows because I have them in so many different colors!
Hmm
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Thanks AT!
This back-up GM system is working well, it was 30 mins from "Hey we have a problem" from one of the tables to a back-up being over there sorting it out.
***
Once we move into the next phase and the assassins are sorted, I will start getting the admin sorted out for the end game.
There's the boring parts like reporting, bit the fun parts like boons and vouchers.
There are three game boons, and a GM boon. Both GMs and players have a crack at the boons (but only GM's get the GM boon!), and everyone is in the roll off for the gift vouchers.
It should move quickly as I have all the boons etc already so I don't need to send away for distribution - I will be providing them directly to the winners.
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Feel really bad for one of my players. He has been plagued by bad rolls throughout the game so far, hitting like only once so far. And now in the assassin encounter, he is the first that has been taken down (unconscious, not dead) before he even got the chance to act. Sigh...
I liked though that one of the players insisted on spending a round to put on his pants for rp reason. Lol!
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That is my plan, Shifty.
Hmm
Rock solid plan, and it has really been great so far. The swap ins/out have been very smooth and fast, allowing minimal disruption to gameplay.
@Maga - Caught flat footed bro!
@GMK - Some days, Dicebot seems out to get us
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Is it just me or does this encounter scale horribly? I'm looking at the stat blocks for the low tiers vs the high tiers and the low-tier looks utterly brutal, while the high tier is a minor annoyance at best. I honestly think that if I was running a tier 1-2 or 3-4 table I'd have a hard time running as written without a TPK. High tier gets melees with terrible odds of hitting and str poison. Low tier gets reasonable hit chances, one-hit KO damage, and con poison...
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Tier 1-2 is going brutal. Currently have 3 down with a possible 4th here real soon. Only 1 standing is aware of one of the assassin's as the other is still sleeping as he has rolled a total of 4 on his perception checks twice in a row now. :( All assassin's still standing and group is only aware of one at the moment.
They still have a chance to pull it out though.
Is poison cumulative? That is, if someone gets struck with a poisoned blade twice, do they potentially face two separate poison 'tickers?'
Is it just me or does this encounter scale horribly? I'm looking at the stat blocks for the low tiers vs the high tiers and the low-tier looks utterly brutal, while the high tier is a minor annoyance at best. I honestly think that if I was running a tier 1-2 or 3-4 table I'd have a hard time running as written without a TPK. High tier gets melees with terrible odds of hitting and str poison. Low tier gets reasonable hit chances, one-hit KO damage, and con poison...
I'm running a high-tier table. I daresay the assassins are outmatched, even though I've erred on the side of being hard on the party (they've proven their brutal effectiveness in the previous fights - I definitely think they could have taken the naga and oni at the same time, even without the use of one player's controversial ability), but I wouldn't mind if Shifty or Hmm peeked in to judge whether the parameters I've set have been fair.
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IDiYC - I think that's a tough call.
On one hand, the player is correct that his Int 3 animal has scent and is able to detect people coming within 30', but that only really means it can notice people coming into the room itself.
With that taken into account, you are at a really busy Inn with people coming and going continually, all night long, so the poor animal would be continually detecting scents coming and going past - are the party going to be woken continually by barks and roars? What about other guests?
It gets hard to strike a balance.
With that said, the party did not appear to have set watches or the like (even though they were talking about common rooms) so you gave them the benefit of the doubt and have just rushed the room and hit them unawares.
A much rougher interpretation could have had some of the less perceptive eating a CDG.
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I don't think the tactics as written let us try to CDG the party :-(
Actually, speaking as one of the tier1-2 GMs, I'm probably not as worried as the rest of you, as it doesn't look that bad. The Con damage is only for four rounds, so that won't kill anyone, and their stealth is not that great, as opposed to your average pathfinders perception checks - which typically are.
Low tiers will usually have a higher beta.
What does this mean?
I can see why you called this act "controversial". The scenario tries to impose helplessness on the party. Given the circumstances, the degree to which GMs impose this is determinative. In the interest of fairness, it doesn't seem right to for one group to have the GM attack them as individuals in separate rooms, asleep and naked, while others may get attacked as a group, and awake. I've not read anyone else's game, so I'm not pointing any fingers at all, but I don't see how a naked, unarmed, level 1 player has any chance of surviving an individual encounter with an assassin? How is that fair or fun?
And here I've been having an argument with a player who's...well...not a terribly reasonable person, it would seem. I was not exactly easy on "my" party, but because they prepared well (i.e. all shacked up in the luxury suite at the bottom), they're probably going to win this fight with, at most, 1 or 2 KOs to show for it, and this guy STILL is making a federal case about everything I haven't conceded to him, even though I let him keep his armor and prevent the party from being caught prone as I initially stated. I understand the virtue in making a federal case, but I save them for things that are actually more like federal cases. At the same time, this is also the person who brought the controversy into another player's signature ability - I'm not sure what that means.
I've never been in the position of "admonitory authority figure" before (except sort of once, but it wasn't quite the same for a few reasons). I find it distasteful.
I liked though that one of the players insisted on spending a round to put on his pants for rp reason. Lol!
And here I'm dealing with a guy who insists he wears his cestus 24/7, and starts off the act by metagaming the s@%! out of the inn and trying to literally search every room for traps and bad guys (locked doors and an irked concierge dealt easily enough with that, though).
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It is a nasty encounter, intentionally so, and where it gets untidy (including CDG) is when the players all just go off and do their own thing. Seriously, the last time I ran this two of the players specifically went off to the local bordello and one picked up the barmaid, of course those left behind went to bed with no guards posted, and all players had insisted on individual rooms 'for privacy'.
Unfortunately, this is one of those scenarios where the party really determines most of the how and why of the encounter - if they don't post guards, or be vigilant, then they might find themselves in some very horrible positions. The writers obviously wanted to chill the blood of the players, and this scene certainly does that on a 'Bonekeep' level.
I had a look at IDiYC's guy, and apparently, he went from crawling in a sewer and off to bed without cleaning his armour (which he is sleeping in) wearing his cestii. No bathing, no washing, just fresh from a cistern and into bed, with all his gear on. Not even a shower. Funky.
My conflict with my player has been improved on. As is the case with most conflicts, it was mostly a miscommunication. Guy's just really used to an exceptional degree of rules lawyering, apparently.