Our group is at a loss over the Hospice, and suspect we missed something(s) important somewhere. I'm a player in this CCT anniversary edition game, so please try not to spoil anything for me if you can avoid it.
We had our first session in the Hospice, which I think is book 2; plague doctors, Gray Maidens, the reveal of where the disease is coming from, etc.
1) How does Paizo expect you to deal with the Hospice? It's full of people the Queen has decreed as legal authorities, higher even than the Guard (who we're essentially deputized by). So we're walking into a police station, as upholders of the law and keepers of the peace; they profess to know nothing about the missing guy we're trying to find, and the head doctor, our GM revealed after the fact, has a high Bluff and our Cleric rolled poorly on Sense Motive. So we're frustrated, but we're working for the Guard; if we're accused of murdering legal authorities over baseless suspicions, that's the end of the AP. Our GM had to stop us from walking out the front door by asking us to do a Heal check on what the plague doctors were doing (thankfully our Cleric has a good Heal check). He had to hand it to us, because the fiction in no way I can see supported doing what the AP demands of the party. How the everloving hell does Paizo expect the party to attack these people? How did this not get addressed in the second printing? It reminds me of the jail encounter in book 2-ish of Hell's Rebels where you're supposed to Bluff past an Inquisitor with 2 character levels on you. BAD encounter design to say the absolute least, and it gets a pass in the reprinting? How? Why?
2) What is with the CR rollercoaster in here? We're level 5. We only just hit level 5 before coming in the front door of the Hospice. We had a few doctor / Maiden / Uragothan encounters that made sense CR-wise but then there's that daemon, which we closed the door on; the GM had it kill cultists and not pursue. We negotiated with (bribed) the nosferatu for our target's release then headed for the head doc's office for evidence to cover our asses, but didn't get out before the session ended. In last night's post-session discussion the GM asked if we'd hit level 6 yet and we said no, we're still ~3000 away, why? And by the way wtf is with that daemon and the nosferatu? Our GM said he didn't get what was going on here as encounters were CR3-4 then CR7-9. CR8 is supposed to be an epic encounter, and there are several of them in there, let alone the CR9s that are supposed to be a TPK for a 5th level party. I think there must be something wrong, as we're slightly over wealth by level in gear, with cash and loot to sell that put us way over WBL and that is not at all par for the Paizo AP course. Are we missing something?
tl;dr: Is the Hospice totally f%%%ed from an encounter/fiction standpoint or did our group just miss some things that make it make sense?
Trying to find ways to explain without spoilers is hard.
Did your GM run all the other content in the chapter before the Hospice? You should be 7th level before the GM guides you to that location. A guide to all levels in the chapter can be found on page 70.
The way the book is written doesn't really block you from getting there too early if you get curious however. Ideally there are meant to be several events which give you the XP/Wealth to deal with that section of the story.
We literally exhausted all other leads we found before going to the Hospice. we went to the party house, obviously, and the sunken ship. There might've been more that we did, but I'm not recalling.w
Even 7th level wouldn't make a lot of sense because there are several CR3-4 encounters in there. I just don't understand this place at all.
Heh, heh heh.
The adventure literally tells the GM to make NPC's come and talk to you about bringing in the other quests. So I really don't know.
Granted the book is written in a way where players may go to the Hospice early and end up in over their heads, but if your GM saw your struggling to find clues they probably should have seeded one of the next quests via an overheard rumour or NPC approaching you.
My players attacked Arkminos and were getting their asses kicked till they came to their senses and paid the nosferatu to leave town.
We literally exhausted all other leads we found before going to the Hospice. we went to the party house, obviously, and the sunken ship. There might've been more that we did, but I'm not recalling.w
Even 7th level wouldn't make a lot of sense because there are several CR3-4 encounters in there. I just don't understand this place at all.
There are five missions you are expected to do before entering the Hospice.
- You're expected to be 5th level after completing the first.
- You're expected to be 6th level before the "Party House"
- You're expected to be 7th level before entering the Temple of Urgothoa below the hospice.
- You're expected to be 8th level by the end of the chapter
If you've only done 2 missions (ship and party house), then you'll be very short on XP, and (as I've commented in GM threads), utterly shafted in terms of end result of the plague. As written, there is no timeline of events or infection, and the death toll/outcome is entirely based on what events the PCs do, not when. So skipping missions to stop the plague early doesn't save lives. Which makes no sense, but that's how it was written. Your GM may well ignore this, and I would applaud him for doing so.
I have four questions for you (which are kind of important):
1) How many people are in your party? If you have a large party, you'll either lag behind the expected level track (which sort-of balances itself out) or the GM will have needed to adjust encounters to make them harder and boost XP.
2) How fast have you guys been running through things? The adventure has no timeline, but it has many missions which only make sense after a certain amount of time has passed - which is a serious problem with proactive/impatient parties who don't want to "sit back and wait", especially if the GM doesn't concoct distractions.
3) Have you met Andaisin? If so, how did that go?
4) Does your party have someone with the Brew Potion feat, or a whole lot of Craft (alchemy)?
If you've only done 2 missions (ship and party house), then you'll be very short on XP, and (as I've commented in GM threads), utterly shafted in terms of end result of the plague.
We did the sewers first, then the sunken ship (iirc) then the noble's house. Someone mentioned that the AP is Fast XP track and that explains the WBL and CR, as we've been using Medium. Our GM has corrected this and asked us to go ahead and level up to 6th, which puts us ~3k from 7th.
I have four questions for you (which are kind of important):
1) How many people are in your party? If you have a large party, you'll either lag behind the expected level track (which sort-of balances itself out) or the GM will have needed to adjust encounters to make them harder and boost XP.
2) How fast have you guys been running through things? The adventure has no timeline, but it has many missions which only make sense after a certain amount of time has passed - which is a serious problem with proactive/impatient parties who don't want to "sit back and wait", especially if the GM doesn't concoct distractions.
3) Have you met Andaisin? If so, how did that go?
4) Does your party have someone with the Brew Potion feat, or a...
1. We've got 4 in the party
2. We've basically moved from lead to lead as they are presented. We went to the Hospice only after we'd explored all other options because we didn't really think we'd find what we found there. We really thought it would be a place to Diplo some npcs for information at best.
3. I don't know that name. That doesn't mean we haven't met them; I just have a s~$* memory for fantasy names.
4. Nobody has Brew Potion in the party; we're playing by Society rules, so no crafting. I play an initiative Wizard, while the rest of the party consists of a Feather domain Cleric and his gorilla, a Polearm Master Fighter, and a multiclass Empiricist Investigator / Kensai Magus.
My players attacked Arkminos and were getting their asses kicked till they came to their senses and paid the nosferatu to leave town.
My Knowledge roll was really good, so the GM told me, "This looks like a powerful Nosferatu with class levels. You're sure he could kick your asses easily."
The adventure literally tells the GM to make NPC's come and talk to you about bringing in the other quests. So I really don't know.
Granted the book is written in a way where players may go to the Hospice early and end up in over their heads, but if your GM saw your struggling to find clues they probably should have seeded one of the next quests via an overheard rumour or NPC approaching you.
Pretty sure we did all the quests. First was the sewers, then I think the sunken ship then the noble's house.
If you've only done 2 missions (ship and party house), then you'll be very short on XP, and (as I've commented in GM threads), utterly shafted in terms of end result of the plague.We did the sewers first, then the sunken ship (iirc) then the noble's house. Someone mentioned that the AP is Fast XP track and that explains the WBL and CR, as we've been using Medium. Our GM has corrected this and asked us to go ahead and level up to 6th, which puts us ~3k from 7th.
Correct. Hardcover/Anniversary Crimson Throne is intended to be run with the Fast XP Track.
Pretty sure we did all the quests. First was the sewers, then I think the sunken ship then the noble's house.The adventure literally tells the GM to make NPC's come and talk to you about bringing in the other quests. So I really don't know.
Granted the book is written in a way where players may go to the Hospice early and end up in over their heads, but if your GM saw your struggling to find clues they probably should have seeded one of the next quests via an overheard rumour or NPC approaching you.
Ah. The two you missed were Mission 3: The Color of Death (in the Heights) and Mission 4: The Hungry Dead (in Old Korvosa). There's a little shy of 12,000 XP total in those two, which would have brought you up to 7th.
2. We've basically moved from lead to lead as they are presented. We went to the Hospice only after we'd explored all other options because we didn't really think we'd find what we found there. We really thought it would be a place to Diplo some npcs for information at best.
Not sure why the GM chose not to present the leads for the other two missions then; they represent both a significant chunk of XP, and a significant boost to the Survivor count at the end of the chapter.
3. I don't know that name. That doesn't mean we haven't met them; I just have a s~*# memory for fantasy names.
She's the boss lady with the scythe. Given the events around her, she should be reasonably memorable.
4. Nobody has Brew Potion in the party; we're playing by Society rules, so no crafting. I play an initiative Wizard, while the rest of the party consists of a Feather domain Cleric and his gorilla, a Polearm Master Fighter, and a multiclass Empiricist Investigator / Kensai Magus.
Ouch. The end-state of the Chapter is heavily tied into making Craft (alchemy) checks. Hopefully your GM adjusts accordingly and permits a Heal check or such instead.
It's a quirk of the module as written to be brutally punishing on groups that miss/skip missions, or miss any of the assumed requirements at the end.
For reference, the difference between the lowest and highest tier of reward is quite marked.
1) How does Paizo expect you to deal with the Hospice? It's full of people the Queen has decreed as legal authorities, higher even than the Guard (who we're essentially deputized by). So we're walking into a police station, as upholders of the law and keepers of the peace; they profess to know nothing about the missing guy we're trying to find, and the head doctor, our GM revealed after the fact, has a high Bluff and our Cleric rolled poorly on Sense Motive. So we're frustrated, but we're working for the Guard; if we're accused of murdering legal authorities over baseless suspicions, that's the end of the AP. Our GM had to stop us from walking out the front door by asking us to do a Heal check on what the plague doctors were doing (thankfully our Cleric has a good Heal check). He had to hand it to us, because the fiction in no way I can see supported doing what the AP demands of the party. How the everloving hell does Paizo expect the party to attack these people? How did this not get addressed in the second printing? It reminds me of the jail encounter in book 2-ish of Hell's Rebels where you're supposed to Bluff past an Inquisitor with 2 character levels on you. BAD encounter design to say the absolute least, and it gets a pass in the reprinting? How? Why?
In hindsight (and having GM'd both the original and hardcover versions), I should point something out: The Hardcover version did change things somewhat, and most notably they changed the hooks to take you to the Hospice.
In the original version, the wreck of the Direption was not a red herring, but one of the two avenues of infection and the last or second last of the missions before the Hospice. Reason being that the pilot of the ship (who sank with it) was:
- Wearing a black robe and unholy symbol of Urgothoa
- Wearing a plaguebringer's mask like the plague doctors
- Had not lost his face to marine life and thus able to be communed with via speak with dead
- In possession of an unopened coffer
The overwhelming evidence of "THESE DOCTORS ARE UP TO NO GOOD!" was.... well, somewhat heavy handed, but did aim the PCs squarely at the Hospice for the finale of the book.
In the Hardcover version, most of this was stripped out. The Direption was entirely a red herring (if a poor one, as it arrived after Brienna got sick), and no evidence was presented linking Urgothoa and plague to the physicians.
Indeed, the listed reason of why the PCs would investigate the Hospice in the Hardcover version is because the PCs will probably get "suspicious", or if they don't, that an NPC like Ishani or Cressida will "get suspicious and ask them to investigate". The main reason to be suspicious written, is the fact that the Hospice doesn't seem to be doing a good job at healing people.
Which leads to problem #2: In the original version (3.5) diseases didn't have a "Cure" listed, because it was just one save unless listed otherwise. Thus, doctors and nurses with Heal using the treat illness option were the best bet for curing lots of people and failing to do so would be suspicious.
In Pathfinder, diseases always have a cure listed, unless they cannot be cured naturally - i.e. magical healing or death. In the Hardcover, Blood Veil has no cure listed. This might be a typo (at which point, suspicion of the doctors is feasible), or it might be that the Heal skill and thus the physicians are merely delaying tactics at best. In either case, some details have been lost in translation.
Also, you're really not supposed to fight the Nosferatu. The book warns the DM attempt to avoid the fight. He's an unlikely victory, especially since he shows up in later APs.