In Pale Mountain's Shadow: How do the PCs know how much time they have left?

[Tamago]

In Pale Mountain's Shadow, under the Tracking Time sub-header in the Tomb of Tular Seft, it says:

Doomsday Dawn wrote:

On average, a group of PCs should have time to fully explore areas C1-C6 of the tomb before the Night Heralds make it through the labyrinthine eastern reaches of the complex. Remind the PCs how long they have left when they enter the tomb so they know whether they'll have any time to rest before or during their explorations.

How are the PCs supposed to know in-character how much time is left? All I can find in the adventure is that the PCs know from the briefing that the Night Heralds are on the way, but nowhere does it state where they are coming from or how long the PCs should expect them to take. They don't encounter the Heralds until that group arrives, so they don't have any way to tell what their adversaries' progress is before they arrive.

Am I just supposed to tell the players, "Hey, your characters have no way to know this, but you have 2 days to explore before the bad guys get here, sound good?" Or is there some in-character way that the PCs are supposed to know how much time is left, and I just missed it?

[Thebazilly]

I'm also curious about this. I didn't see an indication anywhere that we are supposed to give a precise countdown to our players, except this section.

[James Jacobs]

Countdowns are REALLY hard to pull off in adventures, because of the randomness of combat and bad rolls and the like. If, for example, a PC happens to get hit with a condition that takes 24 hours to resolve and the party mix just happens to not have access to magic that can lift the condition early, a countdown of 10 hours, which might not be a big deal for most groups, suddenly could become an auto-failure for another group simply due to the result of an unfortunate saving throw that's completely out of control of the players or GM.

In the context of this particular adventure, the countdown exists mostly as something to keep the players focused on moving forward and to help prevent distractions. The trip to the site in question is a linear one through a large wilderness area, and we didn't have time or space to put a lot more interesting stuff out there to explore, so in this case, the countdown is a sort of railroad element to justify WHY the players characters shouldn't divert from the path as the adventure lays out.

A good way to handle it, if you can, is to get to the end of the dungeon exploration and then tell the players, "According to your characters' notes, the Night Heralds will likely be arriving tomorrow, so you have one day to rest and recover and prepare."

It's a bit heavy handed and breaks verisimilitude, but the goal of the adventure is first and foremost to be a playtest that follows a relatively rigid structure, not a sandbox where there's a lot of variation. (We try some elements of sandbox stuff in a later chapter, but even then this adventure's not really meant to handle that style of play.)

Perhaps the BEST way, but not necessarily the most immersive way, to handle it is to just tell the players out of character that, while their characters wouldn't necessarily know this, the Night Heralds are scheduled to arrive one rest period after the PCs finish exploring, but that if the players deliberately decide to slow-motion the adventure by doing one encounter a day, then you'll have the Night Heralds show up early.

I would, in any event, love to hear about actual-play feedback of how the countdown element played out, since as I've said, countdowns are one of the trickier elements to include in an adventure.

[Thebazilly]

James Jacobs wrote:

A good way to handle it, if you can, is to get to the end of the dungeon exploration and then tell the players, "According to your characters' notes, the Night Heralds will likely be arriving tomorrow, so you have one day to rest and recover and prepare."

It's a bit heavy handed and breaks verisimilitude, but the goal of the adventure is first and foremost to be a playtest that follows a relatively rigid structure, not a sandbox where there's a lot of variation.

That's interesting to hear. The GM tracking sheet question for "In Pale Mountain's Shadow" made me assume that it should be quite possible for the PCs to arrive after the Night Heralds.

Anyway, thank you for the clarification, James. I have no doubt my players are up to the task of beating the clock, so I think I will have Kamisora Vord give them a rough estimate of the timing at the beginning of the adventure, and then adjust it to "you have 24 hours remaining" once they get to the dungeon.

[Shisumo]

I intend to have Lady Vord hire a caster for a sending to let the PCs know that her spies have informed her to expect the Night Heralds "sometime tomorrow." They already know from the briefing that they are being pursued, so they shouldn't dally, but I can do that on either day 8 or on the day the PCs finish up the exploration, whichever comes first.

[Tamago]

Shisumo wrote:

I intend to have Lady Vord hire a caster for a sending to let the PCs know that her spies have informed her to expect the Night Heralds "sometime tomorrow." They already know from the briefing that they are being pursued, so they shouldn't dally, but I can do that on either day 8 or on the day the PCs finish up the exploration, whichever comes first.

That's a great idea! I'll probably do this as well! Though I think I'll have it come across as the result of a divination or scrying, rather than spies, since it seems unlikely to me that she'd be able to get spies in while the Night Heralds are already halfway through the other side of the dungeon.

[DerNils]

I am confused - so the whole rolling survival, choosing exploration tactics (which are mostly harmful to an indicated Countdown Scenario, btw) is completely pointless? No matter how quick or slow my guys are, I am supposed to reset the timer to one rest period? What is then the Point of testing this element?

To expand a bit on the Exploration tactics - from the very beginning we tell the Players "This is a race to the mountains. Choose your tactics".

If I see it correctly, travel speeds in parties of Level 4 varies from 10 feet (Gnome in Heavy Armor) to 40 feet (all on horseback)
Only the Gnome in Heavy Armour will arrive at B4 (where they need to climb) after the 9 days Limit. Everybody else does it in 7 days or less.
But - and here it gets interesting - if ANY tactic except "Wander" is Chosen, you halve your movement Speed. As far as I can see, no "sneak at full Speed" is available at Level 4, and even if fast track is, we are not following any tracks.
That means, even a relatively quick group (all elves with light armour) takes 8 days to get there. Only a fully mounted group can realistically choose any of the tactics without almost autofailing the Countdown.

Now, the Groups do not know the exaxt numbers as I do, but coming back to the Basic premise:
"This is a race. Choose your tactics to ensure you are at the mountain first."
"You have no tactics to go quicker, any you choose will slow you down."
"Roll X Survival checks. Congratulations, your travels took X days."

How is that supposed to make for an interesting challenge in any way?

And the last leg of the journey is 8 miles, 4 of which are climbing. This is supposed to take two days - how, I cannot imagine, as even the Gnome in full plate walks this in a day. I guess he could evade the gnolls for +2 hours and then fail something like four climb checks in a row.

I guess all of them could be using a tactic this time - sneaking or be combat ready seems appropriate, given that they encountered enemies. Even then you need to be seriously slow (below 20 feet) to make any Impact, but then you come up to the estimated two days.

TL;DR. I do not know what meaningful Feedback is expected from this countdown challenge. To make any kind of countdown relevant, there need to be relevant decisions to be available, e.g. risk vs. time, and ideally the countdown needs to be visible for the players to make any kind of judgement.

[Matthew Downie]

DerNils wrote:

I am confused - so the whole rolling survival, choosing exploration tactics (which are mostly harmful to an indicated Countdown Scenario, btw) is completely pointless? No matter how quick or slow my guys are, I am supposed to reset the timer to one rest period? What is then the point of testing this element?

According to one narrative school of GMing, this is a perfectly reasonable way to handle time limits, as long as your players don't figure it out. So they'll end up saying:

"Thank goodness we got here so fast! We've only got one day left! If we'd been any slower, we'd have been too late!"
Or maybe it'll be:
"We were so slow! We've only got one day left! If only we'd got here sooner!"
Either way, it seems like an exciting race against time.

[Castilliano]

What I find odd about staging this test at level 4 is that the guidelines suggest/insist on a Druid or Ranger, but Signature Skills don't matter until 7th+.

The PC with the highest Wisdom and the willingness to get Expert Survival will do best regardless of class. Feels a bit wonky that the nature classes have no advantage with nature skills for so long. (Except that Druids like Wisdom that is.)

Or did I miss some ability?

[DerNils]

@Matthew
I get the GM style at work here. But if I do it like that, we can save half a page of rules description with how a crit success makes them travel 4 miles more, etc. In tha case, the whole page just say - let your Players roll for survival 7 times, make a mysterious face and Scribble behind your Screen, then tell them there is one day left.

In short - if we have a Subsystem for a race, I want it to have meaning. Otherwise, we can skip it and narrate, but there is nothing to playtest then.

[Greyblade23]

Remember, it is possible for the PCs to show up too late.

When I run this, I plan to give them an estimate - something like "you think, if you don't run into any trouble, the shortcut might give you a day or so to explore until the Night Heralds show up." They've got a sense of urgency (hopefully), and will need to balance their desire to get there first against their desire to not be bushwhacked along the way.

After they make their rolls, tell them how that affected their ETA. Then they can decide whether to push themselves (and possibly arrive fatigued, wounded, or worse) or shave their exploration margin.

[DerNils]

Look at the numbers and what James said. Realistically, the PC's can't be late. And the pure travel can't actually do anything to them - there are no encounters and the tactics they could use are not fatiguing. There is no push onward under duress option.

[Captain Morgan]

Castilliano wrote:

What I find odd about staging this test at level 4 is that the guidelines suggest/insist on a Druid or Ranger, but Signature Skills don't matter until 7th+.

The PC with the highest Wisdom and the willingness to get Expert Survival will do best regardless of class. Feels a bit wonky that the nature classes have no advantage with nature skills for so long. (Except that Druids like Wisdom that is.)

Or did I miss some ability?

Well, druids do have all those primal spells to use. I'd imagine some of those can come in handy for these shenanigans. They also have a few feats that could come up.

Rangers, meanwhile, pack some of the best perception which may come in handy against the monsters that try to ambush the party. Hunt Target also looks like it can really excel at the gnoll camp, by pre-buffing and then firing from all the way across the river. And Snares could shine not just in that encounter but in getting ready to ambush the Night Heralds.

So I feel like those are still good classes to use, just not for the reasons you'd think.