|
I have prepared this - but I struggle a little bit with A1.
Prefect starts with burning hands 3rd level. This spell deals 6d6 damage with an average of 21 HP on a failed save. This is directly followed by 4d8 + 10 cold damage DC23 from the Spinkler for an average of 28 HP.
We are talking here 49 HP average damage to everyone in round 1 who fails twice in the first round of combat. What do I miss - is this supposed to be that way?
I haven't GMed it yet - so not sure how deadly it really is / if this is just a shock to the system at the start - followed by a more mellow follow on?
edit: best not to crit fail or have gimped on Con
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Am I correct in understanding that the security system fog also provides the concealed condition to all creatures during combat?
Since the fog has specific mechanics for it written into the adventure, I would assume that it has only those effects.
|
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have prepared this - but I struggle a little bit with A1.
Prefect starts with burning hands 3rd level. This spell deals 6d6 damage with an average of 21 HP on a failed save. This is directly followed by 4d8 + 10 cold damage DC23 from the Spinkler for an average of 28 HP.
We are talking here 49 HP average damage to everyone in round 1 who fails twice in the first round of combat. What do I miss - is this supposed to be that way?
I haven't GMed it yet - so not sure how deadly it really is / if this is just a shock to the system at the start - followed by a more mellow follow on?
edit: best not to crit fail or have gimped on Con
Thod ran this for me yesterday (the BLUE room), and afterwards we discussed that it might have been that we calculated challenge points incorrectly and there should have been a second wyrwood. The first one, combined with the fire suppression system, already blasted the party quite heavily. The save DC is high enough that it's likely people will fail at least one, maybe multiple saves. This would have left half the party bleeding out at the first round of combat. It's simply a lot of once-only area firepower that all gets unloaded on the first round.
I don't think you're supposed to just let all of that happening and take your beating. The PCs should have a chance to avoid some of the worst, if the players are smart. Looking at the adventure text now, I think there are a couple of key aspects for the GM to pay attention to:
- Exploration tactics: the fire suppression system could be spotted by PCs using the Search tactic before entering the room. If opening the door triggers the encounter immediately, find a subtle but not too subtle way of telling the player that "before you get a chance to really inspect the room, there's a creature in your face". Don't leave players under the impression that you rolled a secret check for them to search for traps, when you didn't.
- Describe the room before putting people into it: the complex is well-lit and the room definitely looks risky. Don't wait to describe these features until combat has already started.
I would expect it to go either of two ways: (a) the combat takes place more around the door, rather than in the room, because the party is hesitant to enter the ominous room before Prefect attacks, or (b) the party enters the room and has a talk with Prefect before combat starts, but this gives the party enough time to also notice the hazard, although whether they guess the implications on time is another matter.
---
That said, it's a fun little adventure :)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I ran this yesterday - thanks for the comments from Lau from the point of a player. I admit - I contemplated to just run green as it seemed the easiest option to run - but after checking HP for everyone (min 48) I decided I should give blue a try and see what happens.
But lets start from the beginning:
Warning in Azlanti - I used instead of the female voice the following in a male/mechanical voice: "Sicherheitssystem Fehlerhaft. Pass einfuehren und Bestaetigungsglied zuruecksetzen um weitere Fhhlverhalten zu unterbinden." I had some who grasps some of it - but that was fine.
Count-down timer - great for immersion - I told the group to start acting when I was down to 26.
30 seconds - I assume that means 5 rounds total? The quests nicely tells how many successful checks are needed - not how many you can attempt. So here is how I ran it:
Round 1: Each player had to decide for a direction. I had 2 North, 2 South, 1 East, 1 West. Round 1 was spend moving. At the end of the round (after everyone moved) I told them which skills they could use.
Round 2: I allowed each player 1 skill check. Luckily every player had ended at an actuator where he could contribute (was trained)
Round 3: Another skill check for everyone
Round 4: One player moving to back up a player who had a crit failure and was on her own. This was one round travel (would have been 2 to the opposite side)
Round 5: The last actuator is done thanks to a crit success - countering the crit failure. The backup isn't needed.
I don't know if this is truly how it is supposed to work. But it had the players on their toes - there was cheering - thanks to the crit failure there was true tension.
Blue Door:
I allowed the group to enter and 4 out of 6 went into the room. I did roll dice for one of the trapfinders (a 4) and not for the other (he still was outside and not really in a good position to spot anything). I do admit I missed the searching exploration mode from Yngvarr (Lau) which might have made the difference to spot it (I didn't deliberately let them fail - but I likely rooted for it as I wanted to see how it plays out).
With a call of 'vermin detected' I asked for initiative. Prefect was third - he took some damage - but the group was nicely clustered to allow me to hit all 4 members inside the room with a single burning hands.
I rolled 26 (6, 6, 1, 2, 6, 5) - so slightly above average. 1 save, 3 fails for 13, 26, 26, 26 danage. The player with the lowest HP actually saved.
The fire extinguisher rolled 7, 8, 4, 6 +10 for a total of 35. I had 1 save, 1 fail (I think 1 hero point reroll fail as well), 1 crit fail and seems according to the log one player had shortly left the room and I don't know (I'm sure all 4 took some damage but can't tell how much).
So in total we had damage 30/48, 26+35?/78, 96/somewhere in the 60ties and dying 2 and 61/68.
Mistake I made: I forgot to scale and then the sidebar made no sense. I knew there was a correction somwhere but with one char dying, 3 heavily wounded I just carried on.
They killed Prefect just before he was able to act again (and try to push someone into the pit).
As far as I can tell - everyone had fun. I mainly spend the time to build the table (already had 'orders' for PaizoCon).
Summary: The combination of Burning hands and fire extinguisher dealt an average of 62 points damage on all four characters in the room. I admit Yngarr could have found the trap, the group was nicely arranged together, I rolled higher as average / the group below average - but I did try this encounter to see how it would work out.
What to do better next time:
a) Pay more attention to exploration mode - search mode can save lifes.
b) Give more of a foreboding descriptions. I did not discourage the group in any way to just blunder in / ensure it is 'safe'
c) Get a second Wyrwood in if the sclaing tells you - but don't use burning hands with that one
d) Starting positions: Let Prefect start in the North-East alcove (out of side)
e) Let Preserver start at the bottom of the stairs - that means he will take a moment to show up
f) I used the blue area = ice.
g) Deal cold damage on Prefect and Preserver if the hazard is triggered
h) Do acrobatics checks for Perfect when he approaches. Might make for a comical opening if he stumbles in and falls on the ice as part of his introduction
j) Keep ice = blue area on floor
k) Erect wall in direction of A2
Developer
|
I feel this should be noted in this thread as well:
Hi! For those of you running this, there's an error in the challenge point sidebars for Subtier 5-6 for encounters A1 and A2: they should use the standard high-subtier categories of 19-22, 23-27, 28-32, and 33+ instead of the ones from the low subtier. The scaling instructions are otherwise correct.
This was posted in the product page.
|
Developer
|
How do other people understand the mechanics of Broken Threshold for the Aeon Nexus?A broken object can't be used for its normal function, nor does it grant bonuses.Construct Armor: ... Once an animated broom is reduced to less than half its HP ... its construct armor breaks and its Armor Class is reduced to 14.It doesn't have a specific entry regarding what happens when the Broken Threshold is reached, like Animated Broom. Interpreting the Broken condition from the CRB, is it non-functional and out of the fight once it reaches the Broken Threshold? That is, not able to use the Static reaction or Routine actions?
There are special rules in the Hazard section on dealing with Broken Hazards. They can be found on page 521 under "Damaging a Hazard".
If a hazard’s Hit Points are reduced to its Broken Threshold (BT) or lower, the hazard becomes broken and can’t be activated, though it can still be repaired. If it’s reduced to 0 HP, it’s destroyed and can’t be repaired. (See page 272 in Chapter 6 for more information on damaging objects.)
Hazards’ AC, applicable saving throw modifiers, Hardness, HP, and BT are listed in their stat blocks. A hazard that doesn’t list one of these statistics can’t be affected by anything targeting that statistic. For example, a hazard that has HP but no BT can’t be broken, but can still be destroyed.
Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It seems to me that the West actuator may be missing a skill. Only two lores are given and both are duplicated elsewhere, so it seems odd that they are the only ones given.
Based on the text description and the other locations, it seems like perhaps Thievery at DC 18 was omitted. Does this sound right?
|
You can normally only buy an item level equal to or less than your character’s level (minimum 2), unless they are on a Chronicle Sheet, in which case it becomes level plus 2. So theoretically if you access to a Wayfinder of s higher level but not through a Chronicle this would allow you to purchase it. It's a minor benefit, but it may come up, which seems on par for a Quest boon.
Similarly the second half of the boon doesn't seem to do much, since the most likely way characters will have a Wayfinder they want to upgrade out of is to buy the basic one with Fame, which is effectively 0gp when upgrading it. Again though, there may be some edge cases where that comes up.
Mostly it's a nice bit of flavour.
|
Developer
|
Similarly the second half of the boon doesn't seem to do much, since the most likely way characters will have a Wayfinder they want to upgrade out of is to buy the basic one with Fame, which is effectively 0gp when upgrading it. Again though, there may be some edge cases where that comes up.
I don't think you can upgrade a magic item in Second Edition without this boon.
|
Am I missing something here, I am trying to prep this but on pg 12 and pg 14 for scaling encounter A1 and A2 respectively it relists the information for scaling the low tier for cp 10-18 instead of the high tier of 16-36..
(The date on my watermark is 6/6/2020) Is the correct scaling listed somewhere else or am I missing something? (I did check the "Converting Early Scenarios section of the OPFg but there was nothing there about it either..
|
|
I feel this should be noted in this thread as well:
Hi! For those of you running this, there's an error in the challenge point sidebars for Subtier 5-6 for encounters A1 and A2: they should use the standard high-subtier categories of 19-22, 23-27, 28-32, and 33+ instead of the ones from the low subtier. The scaling instructions are otherwise correct.This was posted in the product page.
Never mind, it is posted above I just missed it: