Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I wouldn't allow people to pass outside the numbered hexes.
Our group actually passed through every hex because our GM assumed we needed to pass through the numbered hexes in-order. We barely won the race because we generated lots of advantages. Point is, a party doing well on advantages can cover double the required distance in time to win the race. There's no need to allow a trivial bypass of the scenario by leaving the numbered hexes.
Some other tricks that helped a lot:
- Improved familiar and wolf animal companion with speed of 40+ could forage at half speed without slowing down the oread in the party. Our food supplies kept growing and growing as the jungle wizard's corap capuchin decimated the local wildlife.
- Create Water is totally a thing.
- Fatigue removal is a pretty common mercy to take for paladins; Lesser Restoration also removes fatigue. We could force march with practical impunity. (We found out about halfway.)
If I'm gonna run this, I'm borrowing just enough Settlers of Catan tiles to lay out only the numbered hexes on the table.
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So back to a previous question...
It sure would be nice to know what the intent of providing only the "obvious" paths is. It seems very, very short-sighted to list only hexes 1-8, without providing rules that you need to head due south (thought it was East there for a second, damn map makers making North not up...).
Here's why.
The two main routes that the author assumed the party would take equate to 24 movement (Likely, 1, 2, 5, 7, 8 OR 1, 2, 4, 6, 8). At no advantages taken, and no forced march (which is dangerous due to being severely under-equipped), a speed 3 party can move 7 a day. That equates to a trip time of just under 3.5 days, with likely death due to no water.
An equally obvious "direct-ish" route that takes 1, 2, plains, plains, plains, plains, plains, plains adds up to only 18 movement and bypasses the swamp altogether. Taking that route, per the instructions of when encounters occur, would yield only the first encounter. A group that's particularly ballsy and heads to plains, plains, hills, plains, plains, plains, plains, plains would also only incur 18 movement and would bypass all of the encounters altogether.
In those two cases, with only 18 phases, a group following the same exact strategy of the "main path", but adds a scavenging phase once per day for food and water (providing them a total daily move speed of 5) would reach the finish line at exactly the same time as the expected routes. Using the same deadly strategy as outlined previously (perhaps they have create water?), they'll finish in two and a half days.
In either case, only 18 phases, with zero advantages taken, a group that takes their forced march, even with food/water gathering during that phase will easily beat any competition and will avoid every single combat as they never "enter" tile 2 or 3, "leave" tile 3 or 4", or "finish progressing through Tile 8"
Was this intent?
As noted in the scenario the only squares required are 1 and 8. So no matter how stupid it seems you are forced to go through tile 8.
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I was talking about this scenario with a friend while prepping it, and showed them the map (GM version). They immediately pointed out that anyone with survival experience (him being a former Scout) would take one look at the map and start circling around all of the relevant terrain, just because traveling on plains is that much easier than the other terrain types.
Because of this, I'll also probably just provide my players with a reduced map of only the relevant tiles on it, just to avoid the dreaded "beyond the scope of this scenario" statement. It just takes everyone out of the game when your only argument for "don't go there" is "it will be a very short and boring game if you do".
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Prepping this for myself now (rather than just helping my wife out with a handout) and I'm seeing the same thing everyone else is. Is there a reason why we can't just move encounters A2 and A3 if the PCs never enter those hexes?
The whole "run around on the plains" approach appears to be something the author of the scenario didn't expect, so I'm willing to chalk it up to PC creativity and let them find their alternate solution if they want. We're generally allowed to repurpose existing encounters if the PCs go off the rails, by my understanding, and the rails in this scenario seem amazingly narrow.
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A3 as written says it can be uses as an optional encounter that can be moved with a few modifications. (I'm going from memory but I believe it's toward the end of that section).
I agree with you the author didn't expect the easiest route was to run around through the plains and off the encounter map.
An official statement from campaign management that this scenario can be changed so players can be told they can't go off the southern border of the race course would be helpful.
The party skipping encounter A2 seems like a major issue. The result is the players run the course and do not have a single hostile encounter with another team.
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As noted in the scenario the only squares required are 1 and 8. So no matter how stupid...Can you give me the quote on this? Because I see nothing requiring either (and I looked through after previous comments).
Page 25, left column (just under the map)
The race begins on the northeastern corner of Tile 1 and ends on the southwestern corner of Tile 8, thus requiring the PCs to progress through both these tiles to complete the race.
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Page 25, left column (just under the map)
The race begins on the northeastern corner of Tile 1 and ends on the southwestern corner of Tile 8, thus requiring the PCs to progress through both these tiles to complete the race.
Fair enough.
But what if you don't? The same write-up is clear you begin on the corner, which makes it pretty easy to not pass through tiles 1 and 8, and I don't need to sit and argue with players for 15 minutes that they can't.
More than anything, I still think this is really poor writing/design.
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I've run this at low tier. My group was justifiably nervous when I said "No Gear". I made sure to make extra copies of the handouts and took the time to review what they could do each day. They cleared it the morning of day 3 (a full day ahead due to the opening speech bonus). They did keep the stash of gear but had to make a few things (like a holy symbol).
If nobody notices the Ashen Leaves' captain talking to the official or decides to not follow them (thus losing the stash) I can see this being much harder.
As the map handout lists the beginning and end without a path I told the group they simply had to stay on the map. They did use some plains hexes to bypass swamp. I ruled that they had to cross the last swamp hex (mostly to make sure the last encounter happened).
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You don't ever need to tell a player 'No'. Just roll some dice, shake your head gravelly, and ask, "Are you sure?"
What paths are players trying to take anyway? I don't see how they can get around the hills.
The fastest route to the finish line is go southeast through 2 hill hexes (assuming North is at the top of the map) and then southeast again into the plains hex (and off the numbered hexes) and use all plains hexes from there on out (including dipping below the unnumbered forest hex). Coming up on the finish line directly from the square south of it.
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You don't ever need to tell a player 'No'. Just roll some dice, shake your head gravelly, and ask, "Are you sure?"
What paths are players trying to take anyway? I don't see how they can get around the hills.
The players can't get around every hill square without going off the map, but they can skip both hexes 4 and 5 if they want. Typically by heading south-west and following the plains.
It's actually quite smart to go that way as the costs are so low that a party could knock out two or three hexes per 4-hour period. A theoretically-fastest team of druids on horseback with a couple memorizations of greater longstrider each can easily knock out 3 or 4 plains tiles in a single 4-hour period. So Team Longstrider force-marches to get three phases, and can wrap up the whole thing in 12 hours.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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When running, my party also took the plains route, so I moved encounter A3 to occur when they were leaving Hex 2 and going to the plains below it. It fits the pacing of them encountering that team in their third hex, and also maps well to the descriptive text of A2 which implies they strike as "A narrow trail winds its way down out of the Bandu Hills".
I do wish that there had been a bit more guidance on how to handle players trying to go straight south. For my table it seemed like the first planned that route out of fear as to how tough the travel would be without any gear. The ultimately did fine, but that initial uncertainty I can see leading people to try and minimize further risk, which is what the plains hexes do.
The toughest fight for our table was the caterpillars, which they hit exactly at the end of a day's forced march so 4 were fatigued and 2 exhausted. Of course. It also sounded as though that was the most dangerous encounter at the event's high-tier table too.
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Huh, spotted something interesting as I was starting to mark the scenario up during lunch:
The PCs can take multiple routes to reach the finish line, and depending on which path they take, they might run into a hostile team who plans to dispatch them with a lethal rockfall trap, or a pack of giant caterpillars who have captured several members of a friendlier team.
I think that means PCs were intended to be allowed outside of the main 8 hexes. Also suggests that we shouldn't move missed encounters A2 and A3? (We have explicit permission to move the caterpillars as per the caterpillar encounter text itself.) Hmmm. I feel conflicted.
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It seems to me there are 2 authors, maybe the author and an editor? Another section of the scenario explains that the finish line is on the southwest corner of hex 8 requiring the party to go through hex 8 to reach it. but that is clearly not the case if you come at it from the west.
Experience has shown that to expect a scenario (or module, or adventure Path) to be totally consistent within itself (let alone consistent with other published setting or rules material) is, perhaps, just a tad optimistic.
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It seems to me there are 2 authors, maybe the author and an editor? Another section of the scenario explains that the finish line is on the southwest corner of hex 8 requiring the party to go through hex 8 to reach it. but that is clearly not the case if you come at it from the west.Experience has shown that to expect a scenario (or module, or adventure Path) to be totally consistent within itself (let alone consistent with other published setting or rules material) is, perhaps, just a tad optimistic.
Yeah. I don't know a ton about how the process plays out, but I know enough to know that there's an author version turned over to editing, and then editing may change/improve/etc. parts, but they frequently miss some of the little notes and details when they update.
Think I'm just going to go ahead and move the encounter if the party misses the hex. There's no gold penalty for not fighting them so I think it's quite legitimate to simply not run the encounter, but it seems like it's an important part of the story the scenario is trying to tell.
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If I ever run this again, I'll just mention (emphasis in the knowledge nature checks) that some materials might be easier to get in the jungle (wood etc.).
Oh, this is interesting... looks like that info is already in a knowledge check. And it suggests that we're not supposed to let players make weapons (etc.) in the plains--that the 0 advantage limit affects those advantages as well, and on purpose.
20+: The Bandu Hills are largely made up of volcanic rocks and contain abundant deposits of obsidian. Sharp stones are harder to locate in the M’neri Plains, but the Laughing Jungle has plenty of hard woods and vines suitable for making weapons and tools. The PCs also locate diagrams and descriptions of such items produced by the native Sargavan tribes, granting all members of the party a +2 circumstance bonus on checks made to use the Craft or Modify Tools advantage (see page 26).
Derp, I missed your note about emphasis in the knowledge nature checks. Observation about the advantages is still perhaps valid.
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So, is the consensus to allow the PCs to leave the numbered hexes or not? If they leave them (my group did when we played it), do you move the loot/plot yielding encounters that they would miss? Do you require that they must navigate hex 8, regardless of their path, which seems reasonable given the scenario instructions?
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So, is the consensus to allow the PCs to leave the numbered hexes or not? If they leave them (my group did when we played it), do you move the loot/plot yielding encounters that they would miss? Do you require that they must navigate hex 8, regardless of their path, which seems reasonable given the scenario instructions?
Not sure there's a consensus on either issue. It looks like there's evidence for every interpretation, even when the options are mutually exclusive.
When I run this I think I'm just going to run the full map and move encounters as necessary. IMO that creates the least friction for the players, although it might not even come up. Your mileage may vary?
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Not sure there's a consensus on either issue. It looks like there's evidence for every interpretation, even when the options are mutually exclusive.
When I run this I think I'm just going to run the full map and move encounters as necessary. IMO that creates the least friction for the players, although it might not even come up. Your mileage may vary?
What I found worked at my table was to imply heavily that there is a "course" down the middle. "You will head through some hills or mountains, you will head through a swamp". It got my table immediately thinking only down the middle.
A more savvy table might not fall for it though.
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I ran this last night and when I pointed out they must go through hex 1 and go through hex 8 to reach the finish line they didn't even think to go south into the plains.
Encounter A3 at high tier is brutal. 3 tough CR 4 monsters against a party who does not have it's normal gear.
The party ran into this one and had 2 people knocked below 0 by the second round of combat. The rest of the party fled. I was pretty liberal in letting the party get their 2 comrades out of cocoons. I let the summoner summon 7 straight earth elementals to fight them. we were on a time crunch so I waived hand waived the figght and said between the elementals and their long ranged bow shots they would take them down. If we played that fight out it would likely eaten an hour of time with only 3 of the 6 players getting to do anything. And we would have ran out of time before the store closed.
The party crossed the finish line in 1.5 days, way ahead of the next group.
This scenario is very sloppy, it seems there was no play testing done at all. There are 3 obvious things that simply don't work. The plains hex route, the time it takes to cross the finish line is too easy, and the caterpillar encounter at high tier should be against one of them not three. 3 makes it a CR 7 encounter and the party does not have it's gear.
If I had to re-run this which I won't, I would have the caterpillars go all out on the half-lings first giving the party a few rounds to attack the caterpillars freely before they turn their focus on the party. But the barbs on the caterpillars will likely still do significant damage on melee characters without them even attacking the party
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This scenario is very sloppy, it seems there was no play testing done at all. There are 3 obvious things that simply don't work. The plains hex route, the time it takes to cross the finish line is too easy, and the caterpillar encounter at high tier should be against one of them not three. 3 makes it a CR 7 encounter and the party does not have it's gear.
I generally agree with your assessment; however, it took my group, who were absolutely terrible at time management and spent way too much time having only one person in the group craft, five days to cross the finish line.
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This scenario is very sloppy, it seems there was no play testing done at all. There are 3 obvious things that simply don't work. The plains hex route, the time it takes to cross the finish line is too easy, and the caterpillar encounter at high tier should be against one of them not three. 3 makes it a CR 7 encounter and the party does not have it's gear.I generally agree with your assessment; however, it took my group, who were absolutely terrible at time management and spent way too much time having only one person in the group craft, five days to cross the finish line.
OK, I guess it has allot to do with the party makeup. My group found the cache, had create water in the group, got a divine focus tattoo before leaving Eleder, and 4 of the 6 characters had relevant skills to help the movement, there was a Eidilon in the party. They are also get tactical players and made good use of the Hustle and Forced March option.
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I played it this past Monday.We had no advanced warning as to the nature of this scenario. We had a 1st level fighter-type, a 1st lvl Slayer, a 2nd lvl Hydro-kineticist(me), a 2nd lvl Summoner(w/Eidolon), a 2nd lvl Orabard(or was it a Bardicle), and a 4th lvl Blood Kineticist. So all the magic users were spontaneous. We noticed, and caught the cheating Ashen Leaf, and so knew about the cache. We got to the ruins fairly quickly, and found the weapons, armor, and food, so we didn't need to do any crafting. We handily defeated the Trail hounds, and took their stuff. With consistently high perception rolls(as well as plenty of Aid Another) we easily found the best routes through mountains, hills, and forest. We made fairly quick work of the caterpillars and zombies, and finished in 3.5 days, winning the race for the glory of the Pathfinders.We completed the scenario in just under 3 hours.
I can see, though, how this one could be tough for some groups. If you don't notice the cheaters, and need to craft your own stuff, and gather your own food, it has the potential to be brutal.
Three questions for the module author:
1. What was your intention if the players do have magic on them at the start, but they disclose it and cannot be rid of it? For example, if a player got a magical tattoo and couldn't turn it off, what do the judges do? You have described how they would detect it, but not how they would handle things if the PCs disclosed it and stated they had no wish to cheat but couldn't be rid of it. Would it be reasonable to cast Dispel Magic on them, or is that too harsh? Or should they just be stuck with the magic AND a half-day penalty?
2. Were you aware that ability damage can go into the negatives? That was not the case in D&D 3.5, so it's understandable that you might have put ability damage into the module thinking it couldn't stop the PCs much. However, in Pathfinder the blood caterpillars could drop a PCs strength to -10 or -20, needing weeks to come out of unconsciousness. With Lesser Restoration spells being very limited & restricted in this particular product, it's entirely possible that groups are stuck convalescing for days on end. I'd bet that if high-tier tables ran this fight as-is, by the book, then many games should end with "Sorry, you took too long to rest, so you've lost the race." Were you intending for that to be the case?
3. Did you intend for "crafting (any)" to mean anyone with any craft skill could make armor or weapons? In our game, if someone had craft (underwater basket weaving) then they qualified to use that to make armor. Was that intended by you, or was it intended that GMs should restrict crafting to the relevant crafting skill? That of course would make an already difficult module even harder, but if that's the right way to run it, then I intend to run it like that.
(A fun thought experiment regarding #2. Due to how poison stacks in Pathfinder (+2 DC and 50% more saves), let's look at what happens if someone is struck multiple times by the caterpillar bristles, and fails to save against 3 such bristle poisons. In that case, the DC increases to 19 (15 base, +2 for each extra failed save), and the PC must save 12 times before the poison has run it's course (6 base, +3 for each extra failed save). 12 saves at DC 19 is bad -- probably going to fail those. If all are failed, that's a possible -48 max to the PC's strength score! They're not coming out of unconsciousness for a LONG TIME. I hope it's allowed for other PCs to craft a stretcher/travois!)
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So was my group the only one that intentionally wanted to go through the hills and mountains? We heard you could get advantages that would make up for the tougher terrain, and realized the climb speed on my grippli would make those automatic, so we intentionally went that way.
When I played it we went through 2 hills hexes and all plains after that. Our GM did not require us to go through hex 8. We were making a bunch of skill check rolls in the plains hexes. I don't know if he missed that there were no plains skill checks. He also did not seem to understand how progress points worked, i think he took the group average instead of the lowest. He told one player that having a faster movement then the 20' speed character did not matter. But it actually does if run correctly. So it ended up being, lots of role playing with other teams the first night, 2 combat encounters, frustration with the system, that no one seemed to understand, and a whole bunch of skill checks. Most players at this table disliked this scenario.
When I ran it they went the upper route (Hill, Mountain, ,Plains, jungle, swamp) and ran into all the encounters, Running into the Trail Hounds in the course made for a fun encounter. The party was so far ahead of all the groups that having the Song-o halflings at the caterpillar encounter did not make sense. but I had them there anyway. This run most people seemed to enjoy it but were pissed of at the upper tier caterpillar encounter for being way to hard. One player was a witch who had a harrow deck instead of a familiar, he was not happy that he could not bring his deck and hence could not recover spells. I told him he could craft a semi-harrow deck out of the spellbook if he wanted to. He never did.
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He also did not seem to understand how progress points worked, i think he took the group average instead of the lowest...
So it ended up being, lots of role playing with other teams the first night, 2 combat encounters, frustration with the system, that no one seemed to understand, and a whole bunch of skill checks. Most players at this table disliked this scenario.
That's very unfortunate. I dislike when players have a bad time because the GM misunderstood/didn't prep for the scenario (which is why running cold is my #1 player pet-peeve). Fortunately for you, it was just as bad properly run as improperly run! ;-)
The party was so far ahead of all the groups that having the Song-o halflings at the caterpillar encounter did not make sense.
I want to mention this/ask a question to see if anybody else has had this experience. The party I ran for did not find the cache and was so badly hurt after the first encounter they gulped down their potions they found. The result was that when their oracle went down at the beginning of the next day, they wound up spending nearly two days gathering supplies and getting her back into operating condition (a heal check for cure deadly wounds was used, believe it or not). Because of this (and a few other poor choices), they didn't just lose the race, they failed the race disastrously (five days).
Has anybody else had this experience?
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Ran this not too long ago... my notes:
- Warned the players ahead of time that they probably should avoid any character dependent on having one particular item, but added that many types of characters will do just fine.
- Gave each team a set of colored arm-bands to identify them as a member of a given team. Helps with identification and telling a story--no, this isn't just a random halfling, this one's wearing a green armband! This thing ate one of the racers!
- Let the party choose where they wanted to go, whether in the 8 predetermined hexes or not (they chose to stay inside on their own)
- Had Cornella Yorke flee after a particularly disastrous combat (entangle solves a lot of PC problems...)
- Noticed that, when you look at the four groups, the PCs can disqualify one, and defeat a second in combat. Of the other two groups, the Resistance and the halflings, everything bad happens to the halflings. That... seemed a little odd to me. The Resistance are participating in the race too! So once the PCs started to leave the hills and could see across the plains, they made a very difficult perception check and saw a group of people who could maybe be the Resistance fighting something that looked an awful lot like an ankheg colony up ahead, and off in a direction they were not going.
- At the very end, when the alchemist appears, I placed Yorke off in the distance in front of the party where she was pulled into the muck, never to be seen from again. And then out of that same muck rose a bony figure with a tattered and stained red armband. ("Hey, that must be one of the murdered racers from last year!" It seemed to really pull the whole story together, instead of being a random "hey what the hell, why is this undead guy fighting us?" moment. None of them really had any useful means for understanding his book, unfortunately.)
As long as you warn the party about the whole equipment thing, I think this is a pretty good scenario. My group started complaining about the race rules almost immediately but they had grudgingly quieted down after a couple of hexes. One player said he even enjoyed the race, although he kind of hated himself for it. (Talk about mixed feedback!) Anyway, despite all that, they seemed to have a good time. Would run again.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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- At the very end, when the alchemist appears, I placed Yorke off in the distance in front of the party where she was pulled into the muck, never to be seen from again. And then out of that same muck rose a bony figure with a tattered and stained red armband. ("Hey, that must be one of the murdered racers from last year!" It seemed to really pull the whole story together, instead of being a random "hey what the hell, why is this undead guy fighting us?" moment.
Very nice!
As long as you warn the party about the whole equipment thing, I think this is a pretty good scenario. My group started complaining about the race rules almost immediately but they had grudgingly quieted down after a couple of hexes. One player said he even enjoyed the race, although he kind of hated himself for it. (Talk about mixed feedback!) Anyway, despite all that, they seemed to have a good time. Would run again.
I think some people have managed to cultivate such a hate of minigames that they don't give anything new an honest chance anymore.
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As long as you warn the party about the whole equipment thing, I think this is a pretty good scenario. My group started complaining about the race rules almost immediately but they had grudgingly quieted down after a couple of hexes. One player said he even enjoyed the race, although he kind of hated himself for it. (Talk about mixed feedback!) Anyway, despite all that, they seemed to have a good time. Would run again.I think some people have managed to cultivate such a hate of minigames that they don't give anything new an honest chance anymore.
Thanks!
Oh, and as far as the party goes, they're relatively new to PFS. Which made the reaction, at least to me, even funnier.
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I think some people have managed to cultivate such a hate of minigames that they don't give anything new an honest chance anymore.
You're likely right. However, a great deal of that hatred of minigames is very much warranted.
And a great many of the minigames will fail even when they are given an honest chance.
"fail" in this context means something like "The players would have been happier if the scenario did not have the minigame".
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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- Noticed that, when you look at the four groups, the PCs can disqualify one, and defeat a second in combat. Of the other two groups, the Resistance and the halflings, everything bad happens to the halflings. That... seemed a little odd to me
When I ran it this actually made my party very paranoid about how well they were doing. After all, in order to see the terrible fates of the halflings, that means there's always a halfling ahead of you :p
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When I ran it this actually made my party very paranoid about how well they were doing. After all, in order to see the terrible fates of the halflings, that means there's always a halfling ahead of you :p
- Noticed that, when you look at the four groups, the PCs can disqualify one, and defeat a second in combat. Of the other two groups, the Resistance and the halflings, everything bad happens to the halflings. That... seemed a little odd to me
Yeah, my group thought we may have fallen behind going for the supply cache and foraging for water. It turns out, we won the race easily.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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It's one of those showcase scenarios where I end up feeling that the mechanic is an interesting non-combat challenge, but that I'd be able to use it much more smoothly in my home campaign than it was done in the scenario.
Idem for the debate mechanics. I'm considering some sort of barbarian boasting contest in my Iron Gods campaign.
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I ran this today for a local group; 5 Wizard, 4 Grippli U.Rogue/Monk, 4 Grippli U.Rogue/Swashbuckler, 4 U.Rogue, 3 U.Summoner, 2 Alchemist.
The stink eyes I got from the group was satisfying.
playing up, they were excited to find out about the Ashen Leaves' stash and raided it. While the Wizard was busy prepping his spells, one of the grippli's planted the flag elsewhere [i ruled this as delaying the Ashen Leaves' progress by half a day], and the party crafted some rapiers for the rogues before they fought the three dragons.
The gripplis also made short work of the Trail Hounds attempted Ambush [even after recalculating Cornelia's HP as a 5th lvl Rogue].
The Grippli Mouser [Rogue/Swashbuckler] suffered 8 Str Damage from repeatedly stabbing one of the Blood Caterpillars; still it wasn't a difficult fight.
Then came the fight against Morius. To make it interesting, i had two him animate the two Trail Hounds that has just booked it [read: Forced March'd and became exhausted] before getting pwnt by Morius- which, ironically, doesn't have any lose of spells or abilities.
So, the fight began with Morius throwing a bomb at the party, then after the party moved in close enough to swarm Morius, one of the Zuvembies used Corpse Call to enthrall half the party. After that, Morius dropped Darkness- which didn't hinder the party much. The two humans- the summoner and alchemist were mostly non-combatants anyway.
When the 'corpse caller' went down, the second one picked up the slack with another Corpse Call.
The party knew to take out the Corpse Caller so they weren't enthralled and Morius didn't last too long after- especially after a critical attack.
The party finished and had fun, despite being stripped of all their gear.
I'll be running this scenario tomorrow, i'll have a quick break down of that game as well- as the party composition is completely different.
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Game #2-
Smaller party, playing down because a 5th didn't show up.
4 Grippli Vigilante [Warlock], 3 Nagaji Druid [Naga Aspirant], 2 Swashbuckler, 2 Arcnanist
The look of dumbfoundedness from the Arcanist when the whole "nothing but the close on your back" twist was dropped. The Swashbuckler and Warlock inquired about secreting away a weapon and spellbook pages- i told them that the Venture Caption had done his job of cautioning you against cheating- and hinted at that he didn't outright condone it.
The night before the race, they too caught the Ashen Leaves trying to cheat- and this time they turned the Ashen Leaves in. While they were talking about trying to memorize the map, they saw guards go out to reclaim the stash, the VC told them that cheating like this isn't uncommon and that the organizers only care that you start the race with nothing. What you craft, or scavenge, during the race gets a pass. Thus they found an old stash and the Arcanist was happy to get a spellbook.
Since playing down, they only fought one Amiphtere. A magic missile brought it down before it could flee. While the Druid got a fancy suit of "dragon hide" leather armor, his comrades failed to craft him a decent weapon from the spikes and claws.
Fight against the Trail Hounds was interesting as the Arcanist went down to a Atlatl dart, and the druid's croc couldn't climb the slope.
While Cornelia and her two lackeys were poking the kitsune swashbuckler, a Sleep spell from the Warlock took out on ranger, the other was staggered, and the druid took no pity on Cornelia as she was surrendering- and only knocked her to -1 HP.
caterpillar fight was unremarkable- and my dubious laughter as they approached the Morius Juju Zombie fight approached, brought an air of caution to the table. They soon found out why- A 'Produce Flame' fireball did no damage, the Warlock's magic missile did no damage which brought most the party's tactics to a standstill. Though, with only a handful of HP and a Warlock crit'ing with Acid Blades, Morius didn't last long. He failed his attempts to cast spells defensively, so he effectively wasted his turns.
Party had fun, and like the challenge offered as you start off with nothing.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I played a summoner through this, so I was fine. Our gunslinger was pretty unhappy though. We went 1-2-plains-plains-forest-plains-done, as that's what looked fastest. But because of that, the only creatures we faced were the amphipteres (which the Eidolon made fast work of).
We also ratted out the cheaters, and collected the hidden stash. Our biggest problem was thinking that ALL the race organizers were in on the Ashen Leaves cheating, so reporting it would just get US in trouble. Something to keep in mind when GMing it.