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Hi all, figured I'd get some advice on the campaign as this is my first attempt at running an adventure path. I'm trying to run it with a group of mostly new players and we had some interesting encounters and roleplay in the first session, quite a bit of which I had to run improv.
First off, I wasn't even expecting to run this when I did; I was actually expecting the players to still just be rolling up characters. I had a few maps drawn up and other Society scenarios prepared because of another GMing session planned, but they wanted to dive into the campaign, so I went and downloaded it at the table and started, improvising maps as we went along since I didn't want to erase the others I made. This campaign is currently played during an overarching Game night event, so I plan on people coming and going; players are welcome to come into the game with a pre-gen, then make a character more or less how they wish.
Players:
carbon copy of Seltyiel - Magus, actually wants to play it Evil. Generally wants to kill anyone he meets, so definitely headed in that direction
carbon copy of Oloch - Warpriest, played as the calm, reflective sort outside of battle, which seems very unusual for Oloch, but hilarious.
Lem - Bard, new player to the table, experienced with 3.5 (see above).
ratfolk witch - time patron. Only built character ready for the game.
missing druid - his stuff was at the table when I got there, I found him playing werewolf at the conclusion of the night.
They're at a random tavern in Torch, a group of novice Pathfinders looking to band together to recover the missing wizard and explore the mystery of the extinguished flame. They roll for random gossip, and most of the rumors relate to bandits, mysterious figures, and Garmen and the Ropefists.
They fail to gather any more information on Garmen, but I can see it in their reactions that they immediately suspect Garmen of orchestrating everything. They fail some more at identifying any clues to his whereabouts, even upon suggesting to the town councilwoman that they suspect he is behind Khonnir's disappearance. They reluctantly head to Khonnir's house and rescue Val (with one crit from the Warpriest). They take Val's assistance in setting up a home base and insist that Val help them find Garmen. She suggests they wait, as Garmen is known to invite town visitors to his gambling hall.
The suspicions of Garmen continue apace, to the point where bard decides to go track Garmen down rather than sleep. He succeeds pretty well on gather information and knowledge local checks, finds Silverdisk Hall, and bluffs his way in (alone and with only 2 gp). Trying to get into the back parts of the hall fail, and he ends up fascinating 3/4 of the occupants. Remaining bouncer 1 gives him a good wallop with a sap, but bard runs, pulling off a critical acrobatics roll through bouncer 2's legs and off into the night. Players sleep.
Both Lem and the witch roll 1 on the headaches, bard assumes he was sleeping off the hit, witch can't figure out why she has a headache. Val comes with invitations to Silverdisk, including for bard. Suspicion is through the roof. Players disguise Lem and somehow all NPCs I roll for for the rest of the day fail to see through even a moderately successful check.
Quick meeting with Garmen nearly goes hostile. The PCs simply can't leave him alone and formulate a plan to go back shortly after and start a ruckus to allow the bard and the witch into the back. The Warpriest and Magus flip a table and crit with a thrown chair, starting a brawl. Bard and witch bluff and command their way into the back rooms, only to find nothing and nobody but some signs that this place is probably a front for smuggling or other illicit trade. The brawl ended with a few bouncers knocked out, the rest scared off.
Session had to end there as bard needed to leave, but the PCs certainly derailed the first adventure, gleefully I might add as said bard announced he was happy to follow this up rather than the obvious dungeon hook.
TLDR players skipped 2 dungeons to follow a lead that didn't even seem that suspicious. Thankfully all the NPCs they beat on are unlikely to go to the authorities.
Now what? I think I will have Garmen harass the players from his as yet undiscovered warehouse, regardless of whether the players go into the dungeons or stake out the town. Shall I introduce them to Sanvil, who may know where to track down Garmen? I have about a week to work on any plans.
My own players found the warehouse on the first session without going near the Weeping Pond. (See Iron Gods among Scientists.) When they confronted Garmen about it the next game session, accompanied by Captain Aaronlu Langer and two other soldiers, Garmen denied everything and redirected suspicion to Meyanda, "I rented the warehouse to an android from Scrapwall. She was a valuable new customer. I don't know what she has in there."
If you think the players would like combat with the Ropefists, then playing Garmen as a heavy is a good tactic. If you think this is a distraction, let Garmen try to redirect suspicion to a more interesting suspect, such as Meyanda or Sanvil.
This adventure path can end up very freeform. Have fun.
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I love these players, they can't be convinced something is a bad idea.
Some points from session 2:
One player got a preview of one of the subterranean creatures thanks to a random encounter while the others rested, but there was no combat. They did make it into the first part of the first dungeon and mostly cleared it.
Rather than arranging to return a dead body, they hacked off the head only with plans to return it. That will not turn out as well as they seem to hope it will.
They now have a "pet" from one of the early encounters, currently unconscious but stable and in one of their packs. 4/6 of the party think it will turn on them at the worst possible time, the other two have sympathy for it and handle animal skill, so they plan on training it. I have the DCs planned out.
PCs did remarkably well at being diplomatic, but still managed to thoroughly insult some NPCs. The party paladin crit on a sense motive check and now knows these creatures will keep their word but plan to betray the characters at the first opportunity. Thanks to thoroughly average perception rolls, players do not know how many of these creatures are present.
As requested, the PCs scared off some tiny fey, which proved remarkably resilient until the players figured out that a combination of grappling and acid flasks works well. They're learning during combat, I'm so proud.
PCs leveled up at the end of the session and decided to allow their water breathing spells to expire and continue exploring the complex without resting. Bad decisions, but I'm rolling with it.
I think I'll continue with these updates, writing down these thoughts help me think through the next session.
Poor Emelia Otterbie. The party will say, "Sorry, your fiance is dead, but we brought back his head."
They have precedent, though. Khonnir Baine in the third expedition must have passed bodies from either the first expedition or the second expedition, depending on his route, but brought back a damaged repair drone rather than a body. I had Mylan Radli, cleric of Pharasma, plead with my party to bring back any bodies they found, provided them with body bags, and offered to pay 25 gold or a Potion of Cure Light Wounds for each recovery.
Lord Fyre and I figured out that the gratitude of Emelia Otterbie is the best way to pass one adamantine weapon to the party, rather than the masterwork weapons the module suggests, for fighting robots later. With only the head, they will miss out on that option.
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Third session complete.
Still haven't quite solidified the group yet, we had a new interested player show up and the table helped her level up Seoni to 2 for the sake of joining. Everyone else leveled to 2 from the last session and gained campaign traits.
We have:
Oloch (like), half-orc warpriest of Gorum. Highly interested in getting or forging the best possible suit of armor and weapons from Numerian technology.
Seltyiel (like), half elf magus. Interested in gaining as much personal power as possible. Convinced the secrets of Numeria are alien in origin.
Vivian, ratfolk witch, friend of Khonnir, convinced the local ratfolk are not at fault for much of the banditry in the area.
Cleric (has not selected a name), using leveled Kyra sheet, but planning a sylph worshiper of Isis. A wanderer who has determined the Technic League are a plague on the natural order of magic.
Leelnau, minotaur (3pp) paladin of Ra, and companion to the cleric.
Seoni (like) human sorceress. Also a Stargazer and wanderer, but not as paranoid as the magus.
After a few minutes of considering the metal wall ahead, the players reconsidered proceeding and instead returned to town. As they exited the spring, they came across a couple of characters preparing to enter after them, Senven and a sorceress. Senven was disappointed the players hadn't heard of him and that despite a jaunt under the hill, they hadn't brought back any technological items. He said he was planning to go in the caverns and at least find the group with Seoni, but now that the expedition had returned, he would set up at their home base in the tavern. Returning there, Senven demonstrated some of the items he was hoping to find under Torch now that he had heard there might be a technological ruin there, and offered money for silverdisks and other technology. The magus bought Senven's zipstick and ion tape.
The other players got to work setting up for a more prolonged expedition. They voted Vivian leader, with Oloch as second. Vivian started crafting basic alchemical flasks and potions after buying needed equipment and reagents. I'm running with accelerated crafting, but I'm worried this player will try to take advantage of that.
Oloch was interested in more blacksmithing, but disappointed he could not forge his numerian steel item into anything better without Torch working. He also set to work training the creature captured last session; feeding it, buying a medium cage to house it, and trying his daily handle animal check on "Heim-ee". It seems to be rather hostile to the group still, and thoroughly dislikes the blinder hood placed over its head, but appears to have reached an indifferent attitude towards the warpriest.
Most of the remaining players just hung out in the tavern listening to more rumors. They heard of a noblewoman searching for her fiance, who was presumed lost in the expeditions below the town, along with a number of halfling and human Brigh worshipers on a separate expedition. After determining the head they returned did not belong to this missing person (this was a half orc head acquired elsewhere) they did decide they should try for the noblewoman's reward as well and would recheck a corpse spotted but not approached earlier. Oloch fed the head to Heim-ee despite protests from the other players; The PCs are gaining some infamy for such callous disregard for a corpse. Some additional rumors seemed interesting, but not more important than returning to the caves the next day.
Vivian attempts to poison Heim-ee on the way out the next day, but gets caught after Oloch notices she's missing. The group has stern words; this is as close to PVP as I'm willing to allow. I don't know if there will be more attempts to kill the "pet".
With another cast of underwater breathing and a hike to the spring, the PCs return to the caves. the players did determine from a distance that the corpse in the fungus-covered cavern might be the missing fiance, but could not mount a rescue (somehow my description and their knowledge checks made this seem like a more dangerous hazard than usual). Instead, they talked to the two skulks from earlier, who offered them the reward of silverdisks and cards the players missed asking for earlier and were then convinced to retrieve the corpse for the players while the players continue ahead.
Ahead, the players were stunned by the presence of a working but stationary construct that allowed them to pass, mostly. The magus chose this time to arcane mark the construct, which it took to mean the PCs were producing destructive graffiti. The construct set about cleaning, meaning it attacked the magus. Combat ensues, it takes several rounds for players to determine that most attacks do not do much to the constructs here; Vivian chastises Seltyiel for attacking despite warnings.
At this point the magus has decided that he will detect magic and try to identify everything even in combat, and that his campaign trait should allow some bonuses to that. I settle by allowing him to flavor his detect magic cantrip to be "detect alien", and that if his detect magic does not ping normally at an item or creature, he can make a d20 roll to determine if the object or creature is "alien". I do not tell him that nearly every time he does this, he will get a strong feeling that the object or creature is alien.
Players find some items in the rubble, and actually manage to open a side door. They plan to return to clear rubble later. Magus determines everything is alien. Others find beastly skeletons in cages. Oloch thinks the skulls would make great trophies or shields, but the bones crumble to dust when disturbed. Magus convinced the items, the walls, and the skeletons were alien.
In the next room, players are certain the pipes and nozzles are a trap, and disable them thoroughly despite clearly triggering any mechanisms there and having no ill consequences. Magus convinced the trap was alien.
Fight in the cave mouth goes quickly, though most of the melee characters got entrapped. Magus convinced the creature was alien.
Out in the sands, everyone is convinced the area is strange, but only the magus can see far enough to determine there are cliffs and a massive metal roof. Magus is convinced all of this is alien. Players follow an obvious trail and are attacked by creatures no one can identify properly. Magus is convinced they're aliens, especially the one with glowing eyes. Many, many attacks are useless or resisted, but a channel from the cleric, who at least suspected these were undead, and relentless attacks from the others dispatched the attackers.
Magus leads on to a glowing cavern, which he's convinced is alien. All players realize the glow is an illusion and proceed through a door. I missed triggering a trap (no biggie). Now that there are closed doors, and at least some blinking lights, etc. the players turn to their bit of technology that helped open a door earlier. Failing this attempt and zapping the witch, one of them remembers a card, which seems to fit the console. Magus is convinced the console and door are alien.
For once, someone other than the magus finds an interesting thing in the next room to interact with, and most of the surroundings spark to life. The magus is overjoyed, he sees flashes of alien life on the walls despite not knowing what a recording is. The others see a map of the previous rooms, but don't know what a hologram is. Oloch pries open a random panel and tries to get Vivian to disable everything to no avail. Seltyiel presses random buttons, causing several minor earthquakes and blaring messages. He uses a scroll of comprehend languages and delights in the responses so much he doesn't notice the rest of the group has exited and locked the door behind them. He doesn't have a card, so he really would have been stuck had they decided not to return.
The PCs enter the last available room to discover the local boss fight. Magus still has comprehend languages up, so understands most of the primitive scrawls in the room. Boss does serious damage to several players, focuses on the warpriest after seeing a certain unholy symbol taken earlier, and is immune to much that is thrown at him, but does succumb to a combined beatdown. Players looted the body, almost failed to detect magic on the one magic item found, and will continue from there.
So, I have ideas of what to do with most of the potential actions from here. The players want to return to town; they will probably take the body the skulks retrieved, likely leading to an early encounter with another creature type as there has been plenty of time to incubate. There will almost certainly be more interactions with Senven, who will inform them of a warehouse occupied by one of their potential enemies. I will try to prepare another off-target encounter or two if the players insist on their mining operation on returning to the caves. Ideas for that would be appreciated. I think if enough of these potential side quests are taken, I will give the players level 3 before getting deep into the next section of the ruins. There will be a couple weeks probably before the next session.
Gum out.
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Fourth session.
One neat thing about the session that I'm running is that it's done during a larger weekly game night, so I get new players coming in all the time.
Our regulars are the warpriest, the magus, the witch, the paladin and the cleric. The cleric has settled on a sylph cleric of the osirion god Isis. I won't go into the particulars because name choice and behavior was rather frivolous.
We also had Arwen, Ezren and Quinn join up. Since most of the characters were still in the observation room, we determined these three, being good trackers, were sent in as an additional expedition to retrieve the others. They arrived just as the others finished off the kasatha.
Thanks to some recommendations here, the new group noticed the machines starting to return to some semblance of functioning, including a night sky above the desert. As the group gathered, dawn broke through the window, lifting the curse on the kasathans. With the curse broken, the spirit of Hethuath appeared, showing peace and some regret over the curses written on the walls and pointing out the kasathans caves out in the desert.
The PCs didn't much care for following that up. The magus translated the wall, figuring out considerably more information about the aliens, then went back to hitting random buttons as before. The group mostly wanted to go back to town to rest.
On the way back, the group found the corpse they had requested earlier from the skulks. The warpriest and paladin immediately picked it up, triggering a fortitude save. The witch identified the russet mold, and also means of cleaning it off. Thankfully she had several flasks of acid, and immediately applied them (at max damage) to the exposed PCs.
The skulks got a good laugh in, and when the PCs confronted them about how they got the corpse without exposure, indicated they had dragged the corpse out with some ropes and other engineering.
The players took this as indication of how they should treat the corpse, and immediately started dragging it out the caves. Thankfully, the newcomers were considerate enough to notice it might now be a great idea to drag a corpse through the streets, and suggested retrieving a coffin.
There was still some time in the evening for some of the actions the players wanted to accomplish. The witch took a while to track down Sanvil, determining that the merchant had been seen scoping out Silverdisk hall. Unfortunately, due to the luck of the roll, she only managed enough time to sell the silverdisks they had found so far. Sanvil was not able to determine the value of the fleshnets, and didn't see the other tech items yet, but offered to accompany the players on their next expedition below. He also offered to track down Garmen, whom he suspected had more tech hidden away.
No suspicion whatsoever.
The warpriest, paladin and hunter tried training the blindheim. There is no specific training done, but "Heimy" was at least kept calm and positive.
Others went looking for supplies; the investigator found the coffin. Nothing strange about an Ustalav native wandering town with a coffin. Everyone gathered to bring the corpse in for a prize. Fiancee rewarded them with masterwork weapons to be delivered the next day. Mostly normal, a couple players showed off their collected masterwork swords and convinced the lady of the house to provide them with silvered weapons instead.
Sleep, no random encounters. Two players woke with headaches, the witch's was bad enough she didn't think group should return below that day. I was surprised she was so convincing. The others decided to either continue training the blindheim, sleep, or drink excessively in the tavern
Drinking (and drugs) might become a problem based on the cleric's amusing reaction, he got drunk enough to trigger penalties (easy enough with a low con) and just decided to continue seeking more alcohol.
Since the players weren't really pursuing anything in particular, I rolled two random encounters. Interestingly enough, they came up as Ropefists and vexgits. With 8 players I boosted the numbers, the Ropefists (6) would pay the players a visit during the day, and the vexgits (2 plus 1 advanced, the ones that got away earlier) would try to plunder the place at night.
Paladin was trying to keep the cleric upright in the tavern, witch was sleeping off the headache, Ezren and magus were eating, Quinn was patrolling, and the warpriest and Arwen were training Heimy when the Ropefists showed up to bust down the doors. Quinn managed to warn them all.
Magus braced the door. Ezren ran to a front window and managed the best use of color spray I have ever seen, knocking two ropefists out immediately. Quinn crit on an acid flask to take out more, one ran off on their turn. The other ropefists managed to break through the door held by the magus. The other players with Heimy came around the corner, but weren't quite close enough to attack. The minotaur paladin smashed through a window (Oh Yeah!), the cleric badly missed with a crossbow out an open tavern window.
Second round, gonna have to cut out there.
I'm planning to play a campaign of Iron Gods with another group, starting in their Lords of Rust group. Thankfully I haven't read ahead much.
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Realizing I'm going a bit long on writing the campaign notebook now. I'll try to keep to highlights, ideas and questions.
Second round pretty much mops up the remaining ropefists, including a coup de grace by the minotaur, a crit with alchemist fire that continued to burn several unconscious Ropefists, the magus using a door as an improvised weapon, and Heimy trying valiantly to bite a Ropefist while still wearing a blindfold.
The players got into an alignment argument about how to best interrogate one of the Ropefists, who was knocked unconscious and pretty much unaware of how thoroughly the party had killed his companions. They settled on hanging him by chains in the foundry above the witch's cauldron. He told them everything he knew (Garmen was still ordering the Ropefists from a warehouse in the northern part of town, they were guarding something there, but no one knew what it was or where Khonnir was).
I think the magus needs to find an archetype or retrain into someone that uses improvised weapons, any suggestions?
Players decided to turn in the remaining Ropefist, not letting the authorities know about the rest of the fight, then turn in for the night. They paid Val for some repairs to windows and doors. No one noticed the Vexgits returned and plundered most of the foundry. They paid Val for the missing supplies. The cleric and the wizard developed terrible headaches. The cleric blamed the alcohol and proceeded to try to find more hair of the dog. He succeeded and rolled a -6 sleight of hand to hide his drinking from the rest of the group.
Everyone except the minotaur (player needed to leave) and Heimy (bad handle animal checks) headed to find the warehouse and hopefully finish off their pursuit of Garmen. After trying a boarded up door, the witch found an easier entrance in the back, but could only open one door, to the office. No one was in the office (Garmen had heard the first attempts and moved off into the other room, invisible). The players just barely found the payment and completely forgot who Meyanda was (I don't think she's been mentioned by name so far). Several of the party developed further headaches.
The witch proceeded to the other room through the easy door, the others were gathered around a blocked door, thinking the source of the humming headache was coming through that door. Witch gets surprise stabbed and immediately surrounded by 6 Ropefists and Garmen (added 2 because of group size). Witch runs back, triggering AoOs and getting knocked out. Half the group (mostly warpriest and hunter) tries fighting through the open doorway, the others try breaking through the other door to get better positions (it takes 3 rounds, but they burn and slam their way through). Drunk cleric can still somehow heal.
Garmen gets tripped by hunter's wolf and taken down to surrender. Ropefists give up, too. Players open crate, turn off artifact. They bring it to Sanvil, who offers them 1250 gp and an animal training book. A sense motive check determined that the merchant despite his enthusiasm was having a hard time pricing the item, but the players didn't take it any further. The town council is grateful for the end to an underhanded organization, but curious how the party hasn't completed other tasks.
So, plans:
Meyanda knows there's a problem above, the first wave of her fanatics will be headed up shortly. I'd say depending on how fast the group gets back under Black Hill, they will either encounter the thugs on their way (where I expect the Scrapwallers will be busy humiliating and killing the skulks for not following directions) or the Scrapwallers will attack the foundry tavern.
Sanvil has what he wants, the artifact is already being prepared to be sent to the Technic League, and Sanvil will accompany the group on the next expedition below. He may be in a position to hire a couple of merchant guards to accompany him and "hold the rear" while the party continues to scout ahead.
The players could continue the way they went previously towards the science deck, or might figure out that Meyanda has sent her followers out the other door they found from the engineering deck. Should that be locked? I'm really unsure if the players will figure out the normal way to the engineering deck; they might not even remember the door to the science deck.
This subforum contains some accounts of Meyanda and her Scrapwallers attacking the party in the Foundry Tavern, and it isn't pretty. If Meyanda uses common sense, such as attacking at night when her and her orcs' darkvision gives an advantage, then she can kill PCs. Two accounts tell of her kidnapping Val Baine and trying to exchange her for the power transmitter. In one of those accounts, Val Baine died.
I noticed that Meyanda's alignment is Chaotic Neutral rather than evil, so I played her as a misguided revolutionary who wanted to free androids and other mechanical beings from Technic League oppression. When she met my party, she told them, "You're not Technic League. You're not mercenaries. You are townsfolk. This is beyond you. Go home."
Your party consists of adventurers rather than townsfolk, but they seem publically inept. Maybe Meyanda will underestimate them based on rumors as she hunts for her missing power transmitter. Instead of waiting another day to prepare the Locate Object spell, she will knock on their door and bluff, "I heard you found a power transmitter. I know a buyer interested in purchasing one."
If the party responds, "We sold it to Sanvil Trett," then she will depart. Sanvil is later found murdered and robbed. Or she bribes him to turn the power transmitter back on, and he lies to the party to doublecross her.
If the party responds, "Hey, you are the android the skulks described," then she can retreat to where her Scrapwallers wait around the corner. If she starts losing the fight, she tells her minions to retreat and a round later flies away on her collector robot.
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Good points, thanks.
I'm not sure I would have Meyanda find the players directly, though it might be interesting to have an encounter there, especially where so many of the players were unsure if their actions with the Ropefists were appropriate. Considering the players have been doing awful at perception at night, even with the guards, I think I'd have to set something else besides a night attack.
I do think Meyanda could figure out that Sanvil was searching around town for tech like the transmitter, even more than the players, and she'd immediately recognize Sanvil as Technic League. I suppose I could also have Meyanda show up at the tavern while looking for Sanvil, but the timing would have to be just right. If Sanvil stays with the party, I doubt he'd be caught and murdered, but Meyanda might get her hands on the transmitter before it disappears, then she can set it up again. I'd say that the only other reasonable place to put it would be the water purification plant, since I would imagine it doesn't require a great deal of manpower to run and some of Meyanda's Scrapwallers could guard the place while Meyanda returns to the engineering deck. The lack of headaches for a day or two, then their return would be a decent clue, along with Sanvil discovering his place at the inn and wherever he hid the artifact have been trashed (if he hasn't betrayed the players by then). If Sanvil's gone and the headaches aren't enough, the Scrapwallers can just trash the plant sufficiently to cause Khonnir's equipment to break down and the water supply to return to dangerous.
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So we’ve had three sessions since I last posted. Some highlights:
The party almost completely forgot about their merchant “friend” on their next foray into the Black Hill, despite rumors that some thuggish half orcs and ratfolk were seen asking a lot of questions around town. In the caves, they found only one of the skulks alive, and quite traumatized by Meyanda’s retribution against the skulks for not fighting off intruders.
The nozzles outside the desert, now powered, keep self-repairing, despite the PCs best efforts.
A lockbox full of technology only opened when smashed, triggering all of the grenades inside. It knocked out and blinded several PCs.
Boilborns gave every PC leprosy. This went unnoticed, thankfully this was about the time everyone remembered their friend and headed back to town, getting a full dousing of cleaning foam.
Next sessions later, I have some questions regarding whether some limitations I’ve set are reasonable to keep the PCs from getting so distracted.