Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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A pretty complex scenario, still need to prep it a whole lot more, but one bit kinda surprised me:
If at least half of the PCs have the Debt to the Scarred Sage
boon (or have earned the Chronicle sheet for Pathfinder
Society Scenario #14: The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch),
skip to the Meeting in the Desert below; in this case,
Grandmaster Torch has already been guaranteed his safety
and a place in the expedition. Otherwise, after answering the
PCs’ questions, read or paraphrase the following.
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I can understand the more recent boon, but after The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch... the guy did a lot of questionable things, most recently something players of the current special will be aware of.
The chances of this actually being relevant are rather low, but I fear that forcing a group to allow Torch to be present, might lead to party conflict later in the scenario.
I can already see the tears if one or more party members who have bone to pick with Torch destroy his gem and thus ruin the very special boon for the sages.
Thus the sages would be better of not having the fried sage present.
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The sidebar about Torch puts it mildly "Torch provokes strong feelings in many Pathfinders, and while he intends no treachery in this adventure, the PCs may decide to attack him ".
I know characters who would spend quite a lot of money to solve that particular problem.
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Whew. There is a LOT going on in here. I can't wait to run it for the home crew.
As to that bit...I think it's a fair way to call that back. A lot of people owe Torch, and it makes sense that he'd call in those favors to get his way, no matter how it makes the party feel.
I think this scenario is a good example of letting character choices play out, for good or ill. It should be hard to earn that boon, rather than a check the block for most parties.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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As to that bit...I think it's a fair way to call that back. A lot of people owe Torch, and it makes sense that he'd call in those favors to get his way, no matter how it makes the party feel.
The way I see it... I am reminded of John Wick... no matter who owed favors to whom... once you kill my dog...
Torch has done a lot of nasty things and even the scenario I am complaining about is him deceiving the Society. Using the older scenario to force the issue... well I have said my piece about it. Of course rather than destroying the boon condition, angry players could just end it with a coup de grace.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Skimming through this scenario now, and while I'm really loving it I'm also glad I'm not running it for about a month.
One question I've already come across: what counts as the "Cure" for Fading Light? The sidebar lists four steps, but then also says that two doses can be combined into Nethys' Blood.
By my read, following the listed four steps to make the azure liquid solution counts as a successful 'cure' in terms of the success conditions, with Nethys Blood being an extra tool skilled parties may attempt. Is this correct? Or do they need to distill at least one sample of the Blood?
Organized Play Lead Developer
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As to that bit...I think it's a fair way to call that back. A lot of people owe Torch, and it makes sense that he'd call in those favors to get his way, no matter how it makes the party feel.
The way I see it... I am reminded of John Wick... no matter who owed favors to whom... once you kill my dog...
Torch has done a lot of nasty things and even the scenario I am complaining about is him deceiving the Society. Using the older scenario to force the issue... well I have said my piece about it. Of course rather than destroying the boon condition, angry players could just end it with a coup de grace.
That said...
So...are the PCs going to be professionals?
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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As to that bit...I think it's a fair way to call that back. A lot of people owe Torch, and it makes sense that he'd call in those favors to get his way, no matter how it makes the party feel.
The way I see it... I am reminded of John Wick... no matter who owed favors to whom... once you kill my dog...
Torch has done a lot of nasty things and even the scenario I am complaining about is him deceiving the Society. Using the older scenario to force the issue... well I have said my piece about it. Of course rather than destroying the boon condition, angry players could just end it with a coup de grace.
That said...
** spoiler omitted **
I am very interested in part 3 mostly because of the ending.
This series of movies actually seems focussed on teaching people good manners:
Part 1: Accepting that the guy does not want to sell you his car and not attacking him and killing his dog.
-> otherwise see the results of part 1.
Part 2: No I am not out of retirement, killing those people was a personal matter and when it comes down to it basically self-defense. Now please leave and never come again...
-> not accepting a polite response like this ultimately isn't very beneficial in the long run.
I would not be shocked to learn that part 3 will involve someone really regretting not to have held an elevator or said "bless you" after a sneeze.
[quote=]Since the scenario having too many of those new and old chronicles around actually forces you to skip the bit where Amenopheus warns the PCs about harming the crispy former faction leader... I could very likely claim ignorance.
Of course, killing Torch and recovering the gem is likely not the worst outcome for the sages.
Despite what the Sages might claim, one or more player characters walking away from the mission after learning of GMTs forced involvement (the nice way) is likely much worse than the guy who has stolen a sage jewel dying, while we recover the jewel.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Alright, having read through the full scenario a couple of times, I do have a few more (non-Torch) questions
1) In encounter A, how big is the monolith supposed to be, and should it occupy roughly the same position on the map as the altar in the flip-map referenced? (the scenario seems to allow for tweaking of the exact walls and ruin layouts from what the flip-mat in question has). I'm planning on going with a 10x10 monolith, but I could see it coming up if multiple characters are trying to get next to it to shut it down.
2) What are the Scarab Sages saves? Giving how tight they can be in encounter Reflex saves could come up, in addition to Fort saves from cloudkill.
(An especially dick move: Ermias could attempt to take control of Sinuhotep with his Undead Mastery.)
3) In encounter C, at least one, and possibly two, of the sages are being controlled by Tahari. Is it possible for the PCs to break this control by entering that sage's mindscape like the others? Or is that sage or sages unable to be freed so long as Tahari is still manifesting?
4) How long is the ritual in the third act? I am planning on it taking 5 or 10 minutes to conduct. I'm thinking specifically about buff durations regarding this: casting spells during the ritual itself causes a backlash which I imagine is meant to discourage buffing to the gills, but extra-long duration buffs could still be in effect.
4a) Does the damage from failing a skill check by 5+ or casting spells during the ritual stack per spell/failure? Or just if any was done, they take the damage as the ritual ends? (If the former, that co go badly very quickly.)
5) There are a few chances that the PCs could become infected with an incurable disease in this scenario. Would the specific cure for Fading Light that they could find and make still remove the disease even in this strain? Other than that, the only way I can see this possibly being taken care of is from the sages pooling their resources if no sage jewel is destroyed, as PFS players cannot access miracle otherwise (I suppose they could buy the luckblade)
All in all, this looks like a really fun and epic, but very challenging adventure.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Hi,
I'll try to answer the questions as best I can, though John or Linda have final word and may have changed things during development.
I intended the monolith to be the altar on the flip mat, so about 5 wide and 10 long, and approximately 15 feet tall.
In handout 6 - "A sage automatically succeeds at saving throws during combat."
My goal was to minimize the rolling for the sages, so everything is fairly simplified for them. In this case they're just assumed to make their saves.
The mindscape distortions form around each sage jewel, including those being mind controlled. In my playtests I allowed the players to attempt to free those sages the same as the others. It's just riskier.
4) I had the ritual take one hour between preparation and enacting it.
4a) I had them take the damage for each instance as your first example.
I feel like I'm on a bit of slippery ground for this one since this is just a description of how I tested it and my intention.
For the timing, the scenario does specifically call out that the PCs only have 3 hours to explore in the intro text to Area B, with Amenopheus guessing the facility will collapse in 4-6 hours, with him playing it safe and assuming 4. So the ritual can't take more than an hour.
The specific cure the PCs can make during the scenario should automatically cure any version of Fading Light, even if normally incurable.
As an aside, my paladin playtester described being infected by the magic-resistant version as one of the more visceral RP experiences he has had, suddenly realizing his vulnerability. Good opportunity to build atmosphere even if they make their save.
I hope that helps!
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Just played this today with my level 10 Kineticist. Overall I thought it was a really neat scenario. Not sure how I feel about Torch being around, I know some of my characters would have outright attacked him, even if they owed him a favor they'd consider it null after he helped demons and undead attack Absalom.
We did destroy his sage jewel during the final encounter and felt perfectly happy with that result, even if it cost us some boons.
The first encounter felt pretty good to me, wasn't very tough just because we had a party that could tear apart the swarms and the big whatever it was failed a save against blind. It gave us a little work out, but wasn't too bad.
Exploring was neat, having the realization set in of what the disease did was interesting, you could see the casters all start stressing out very quickly. That said, it seems a bit too hard overall. I don't mind it being incredibly hard to remove the disease, but from what I understand the only way to cure it is to make cures.
We had all of the party eventually fail a save with the number of suffered exposures, and with a hard time limit in getting a cure added to the fact that if you can't make a cure here your character is out of Pathfinder... that seems a bit too much. Because if someone ends the scenario stuck with an incurable disease, the character is considered dead for PFS play. I believe the disease should be nasty and hard to deal with, but with all the time you need after the end to remove it... or far less nasty to remove.
I think if I lost my character as playable because of 1 bad roll and I couldn't cure it I would have been left with a rather sour taste in my mouth.
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The final fight was interesting, and I think it had a lot of neat moving parts. The only issue I had was with the DCs on a lot of those checks. From what I was able to tell, we were looking for rolls into the 30s which is okay... except I couldn't find a single skill check my character had a fair chance of passing.
It's weird to say because I complained that the saves were way too low in the 12-15 from Season 8, but I think the checks are a bit too high in this one and swung too far the other way. I get that it's meant to keep min-maxed killers from just auto-succeeding, but it made me feel sort of useless.
Maybe at least adding some checks for more physical characters related to acrobatics, swimming, escape artist, etc so there were skills I'd have a chance to beat as well.
The interactions with the sages were great, the setting was really cool, and the end results were awesome. Despite how brutal a few bits are, it's a nice wrap-up for most of the Scarab Sages story. I'll want to run this for myself to apply it to one of my Sage characters for the boon when they grow up.
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So reading over the scenario now as I prep it a bit, the skills aren't as bad as I initially thought. Our GM just didn't do the best job of conveying potential options or guiding us when we tried to suggest alternatives. We also weren't aware we could help each other in the same jewel and were under the impression it was 1 person inside at a time. So I rescind my critique of that.
When running this I'm going to try and be extra clear to the players as to how they can interact with and within the jewels. As well as rewarding their creativity.
I will also note that you should not be surprised if your party opts for the solution of "Hit it really hard in one round" to end the final fight, as that's what my group wound up doing. After spending over an hour with just her alive, her being almost out of spells, and us having trouble with the jewels we all delayed till after her turn and threw the hardest stuff we had at her to take her down.
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On further, further reading. Our GM did not run the disease correctly, either. He didn't use the contamination protocol correctly, and had all of the disease forms being incurable.
Based upon my read the only version that's incurable is the one Tahari can choose to activate with her touch in the final fight at a reduced DC. I still don't really like an incurable version being around, as it could potentially just flat out remove a character from society play with no recourse, but it's not as bad as I was lead to believe.
Please be very conscious of what severity of disease the PCs are exposed to when running this. I believe only Tahari's version can work on people immune to disease as well, as there's nothing in any other version of the disease that states they can bypass immunity.
It's also interesting to note that anyone utilizing life bubble severely limits the threat the disease is supposed to provide for the entire middle third of the scenario.
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I need to stop commenting here piecemeal, I keep getting so many things wrong! There's more than one spot for the super disease.
I do have a question, though. For the contamination trap, it only targets the diseased with its effects. Does it stop going through all 5 rounds if the disease is removed before it reaches burning them?
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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One more question (so Suede's not alone :)
After the ritual, Tahari gains strength from each of the sage jewels until they are either destroyed or the link broken. Does this only apply to those jewels present at the ritual?
I'm thinking specifically about it the party declines Torch's participation. If he isn't there, do Tahari still get the benefits of that jewel's enhancement to her disease DCs? Or is that benefit automatically stripped from her? It seems weird that the PCs could benefit from not trusting Torch even when he's being fully cooperative.
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7+ hours Saturday night. Party was not the best, APL 9 playing high. Circle of Death nailed the low tier character when most of her other spells were expended. Needed to study her spell prep more to be better able to take care of it. Life Oradin managed to keep everyone else mostly alive, but the sheer number of unfair tools leveled at the party was impressive.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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I'm very interested in any feedback about the difficulty of the final encounter and thoughts on challenging higher level PCs. I went through several iterations of the final spell selection and the composition of that last encounter and I'd love to hear what did and didn't work. Please feel free to PM me if it's off topic for this thread. Thank you!
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I'm very interested in any feedback about the difficulty of the final encounter and thoughts on challenging higher level PCs. I went through several iterations of the final spell selection and the composition of that last encounter and I'd love to hear what did and didn't work. Please feel free to PM me if it's off topic for this thread. Thank you!
It was a very epic level difficulty fight and thats what it should have been. It was a very epic level event. Good job.
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If its available to players it should be available to the enemy. It was enjoyable to have a scenario which felt genuinely dangerous.I have to say I was pleased to see an NPC finally usingCasts anthaul on themselves and still needs to drag over the appropriately sized ban-hammer.redacted
I have no problem with that enemy having it.
players shouldn't have it, and as the new go to tactic for NPCs it would be annoying.
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I had 4 players at APL 9 playing low last night. We finished in about 4.5 hrs, but I was definitely pushing them, doing some speed reading, and running some things simply, e.g. didn't bother with insect plague minis, just said one was on each of the close PCs.
The first encounter was quick as the party dimension doored next to the monolith and deactivated it within 2 rounds, while Tanhonikepsu hit the 3 troops with lightning breath.
The initial disease exposure got 3 PCs and they had some fun with the decon chamber. The ranger who didn't make it in the first time through was displeased with his 2 negative levels when he cast resist energy before entering. The rest of the dungeon level was mostly uneventful, though there was some bad luck in the mindscape.
Ermias didn't get a turn in the final encounter as they ate gunslinger and archer full attacks. The PC magus went after Aryana, but I made it clear his intensified empowered shocking grasp did pretty much nothing to her, and used it as a reminder of the presence of sage jewels and mindscapes. I nearly killed the PC wizard with a suffocation, but they had freed Sinhotep by that point who made his dispel magic check to save him at unconscious. It took 4 tries, but they eventually got someone to free Tahonikepsu and Aryana fell immediately after to archer and gunslinger full attacks.
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I'm getting ready to run this in a couple of weeks, and I noticed that Tahari can cast her spells without verbal or somatic components so long as she has control of the Amethyst jewel.
Does this mean that she doesn't provoke for casting while in melee, or does she still need to cast on the defensive?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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From the Knowledge Checks at the beginning:
30+: The Sarenites sanctified the remains of the Usij
cultists they slew in order to keep their spirits at rest (PCs
who openly carry Sarenrae’s holy symbol or invoke her name
gain a +2 bonus on saving throws against Tahari’s spells and
abilities in area C).
Does the parenthetical only apply if someone made the 30+ knowledge check?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Torch's Intro says he carries a bag with 1500 / 3000 gp of consumables of the players choice.
Torch's card says he can produce up to 1500 gp of consumables.
Is that meant to be he gives them 1500 / 3000 pg of goods as a welcome present, and then if he goes with them, he has another 1500 gp of goods? Or is this all from one stock?
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Can you site where it says that for me Sebastian? I'm reading the combat rules and magic sections from the core rulebook, and all I'm seeing is that it takes 1 standard action to cast a spell, so it normally limits you to 1 spell a round.
Cast a Spell
Most spells require 1 standard action to cast. You can cast such a spell either before or after you take a move action.
And
Casting TimeMost spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. Others take 1 round or more, while a few require only a swift action....
A spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn't count against your normal limit of one spell per round. However, you may cast such a spell only once per round. Casting a spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.
If never explicitly states you can only cast 1 spell a round for any other reason besides that it takes a standard action, so if that limitation is broken I would operate on the assumption you can cast again.
I'm interpreting the intention to be that on the first round she chucks 3 spells at the party (Cloudkill, Glitterdust, Flaming Sphere), as being able to cast as a move action means she still have a standard to cast as well. Her tactics have her focusing on spells and avoiding her other abilities. I don't want to run this too hard or too easy, so I'd like to make sure I'm doing this fight right since it can be crazy and very complicated.
That would also mean certain abilities that provide extra standard actions such as the bard spell Heroic Finale wouldn't allow an extra spell casting, and the same with the Mystic Theurge Capstone ability.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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The pool on Torch's stat sheet is intended to be a separate resource available to the PCs if they select Torch to accompany them for a section of the adventure.
As always, subject to developer review.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Also worth remembering that you can only cast one spell per turn (and in addition to that a spell with a swift action cast time) so the will have ample opportunity to use her other abilities.There is no such rule.
There is, but it is hard to find if you don't know where to look:
Casting Time
A spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn’t count against your normal limit of one spell per round. However, you may cast such a spell only once per round. Casting a spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.
Note that even if you have an ability that grants an extra swift action, you cannot cast 2 quickened spells.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Facility Index
The pillar provides directions around the facility in Ancient Osiriani, indicating the names of rooms and the direction to go to reach them.
Does that include the names of all the rooms in Area B?
Yes.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Okay, maybe I am just blind, but I can't figure out how the players are supposed to be able to leave the mindscape in B5.
I can't find it either unfortunately. I apologize for the oversight. I would suggest using the rules for exiting and entering from Area C, "...enter or exit the mindscape as a free action."
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Can you site where it says that for me Sebastian? I'm reading the combat rules and magic sections from the core rulebook, and all I'm seeing is that it takes 1 standard action to cast a spell, so it normally limits you to 1 spell a round.
Cast a Spell
Most spells require 1 standard action to cast. You can cast such a spell either before or after you take a move action.
And
Casting TimeMost spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. Others take 1 round or more, while a few require only a swift action....
A spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn't count against your normal limit of one spell per round. However, you may cast such a spell only once per round. Casting a spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.
If never explicitly states you can only cast 1 spell a round for any other reason besides that it takes a standard action, so if that limitation is broken I would operate on the assumption you can cast again.
I'm interpreting the intention to be that on the first round she chucks 3 spells at the party (Cloudkill, Glitterdust, Flaming Sphere), as being able to cast as a move action means she still have a standard to cast as well. Her tactics have her focusing on spells and avoiding her other abilities. I don't want to run this too hard or too easy, so I'd like to make sure I'm doing this fight right since it can be crazy and very complicated.
That would also mean certain abilities that provide extra standard actions such as the bard spell Heroic Finale wouldn't allow an extra spell casting, and the same with the Mystic Theurge Capstone ability.
Jared already quoted my reading of the limitation, it came up during the mythic adventures playtest, where getting more standard actions was pretty regular.
EDIT: For the scenario and NPC in question, if this was supposed to be an exemption, something like this should be spelled out in the scenario.
Seeing that the author stated that she is supposed to cast 3 spells per turn, and no developer has clarified the situation thus far, everything goes.