Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I have run this at Paizocon, and while the players had a good time, the challenge it offered was, unfortunately, a bit underwhelming in high tier.
Unless I am mistaken, the map of the last encounter needs some sort of location marker where the at which point the encounter is supposed to start, I let my players decide from which side of the map they wanted to approach, north or south with same vogue descriptions.
I still want to play this month's releases but from what I learned GMing them, just adding more monsters of a level that is at the average party level or below can result in some relatively easy encounters.
There are also a lot of things I can praise in this one, but that is a better topic for a review. That said, I agree with Gary, the GM should have a firm grasp of the climbing, swimming and affliction rules.
Venture-Captain, Oregon—Portland
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I believe there is a misprint in the stats for the elite Boggard Swampseer in Tier 5-6. It looks like the destructive croak language was copy and pasted from the regular Swampseer without adjusting the DC by +2. Since all other stats were adjusted as per the elite adjustments I feel comfortable raising the DC for this ability by +2 when I run this. Just wanted to let others know.
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Also pay attention to the skill activities that are 'search' as they cut that character's base land speed in half. Which makes the time aspect more meaningful.
This isn't entirely true, it cuts it to 10ft regardless of their speed, unless its somehow slower than 10ft. Max of 300ft per minute, which is still a good clip.
*Note- This doesn't match to their overland speed calculation if you do a straight conversion of ft/min to mi/hr. Math says 3.4 miles per hour. Rules say 8 mi/day.
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I think the half speed is still an option:
You can usually make an educated guess as to which
locations are best to check and move at half speed, but if you
want to be thorough and guarantee you checked everything, you
need to travel at a Speed of no more than 300 feet per minute, or
150 feet per minute to ensure you check everything before you
walk into it. You can always move more slowly while Searching
to cover the area more thoroughly, and the Expeditious Search
feat increases these maximum Speeds.
So yes, you can Search at 1/2 speed. You can also choose to search even slowly. Nothing in the scenarios description forces you into the even slower mode.
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Other questions that came up:
In the Sodden lands, if the PCs go w/o skill checks, they get 1/2 speed for 1/2 a day so 1/4 progress, but no exposure to sodden fever.
If they at least attempt something, but fail everything, they get 1/2 speed for 1 full day, so 1/2 progress, and exposure to sodden fever.
Is that the correct reading?
Eight of the treasure bundles in this one look a little rough:
The Elephant graveyard, and its treasure bundles, are only encountered if the tables is at the "best" 3+(4+ 6 player) level of success.
Ditto for the Stone Serpent Obelisk.
For the Sunken Idol, if the PCs fail the perception check, the support team gets them what they need. Do they lose the 2 treasure bundles there or does the support team earn them their treasure bundle?
The Honor Spire treasure bundles are tied to looting (with permission from the inscription) a pathfinder's final resting place. If the party can't read the inscription (Draconic) and needs to rely on the support team to translate to get the 'permission' do they get the treasure bundle? Can they 'go back' after the support team translates it for them?
Is there an ongoing re-adjustment of 'treasure bundle expectations' in a scenario?
Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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Eight of the treasure bundles in this one look a little rough:
The Elephant graveyard, and its treasure bundles, are only encountered if the tables is at the "best" 3+(4+ 6 player) level of success.
Ditto for the Stone Serpent Obelisk.
For the Sunken Idol, if the PCs fail the perception check, the support team gets them what they need. Do they lose the 2 treasure bundles there or does the support team earn them their treasure bundle?
The Honor Spire treasure bundles are tied to looting (with permission from the inscription) a pathfinder's final resting place. If the party can't read the inscription (Draconic) and needs to rely on the support team to translate to get the 'permission' do they get the treasure bundle? Can they 'go back' after the support team translates it for them?
Is there an ongoing re-adjustment of 'treasure bundle expectations' in a scenario?
Getting 3 success for a party of 5 or less is not too unreachable. That said, my 6 player table missed the checks by one.
I would say that if the party has relies on the support team to find stuff than they don't earn the treasure bundles.
Unsure what you mean by "ongoing re-adjustment of 'treasure bundle expectations' in a scenario" but I think I gave my view on it.
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'Ongoing re-adjustment of treasure bundle expectation' refers to since ~perennial crowd onward, its feeling like 7-8 treasure bundles is the expected value, while prior to those scenarios 10 seems generally expected.
I've been carefully signaling to the PCs that there are rewards at stake in these situations. (for example, "This is the Mwangi Expanse — full of lost treasure and opportunity waiting to be found. It's there for the taking, in fact — but only if you are exceptionally fast trailblazers.")
Hero Points are a tactical resource that the PCs can and should be using on these checks, even if there's a tiny bit of meta regarding what's at stake.
When you think of it this way the high bar on successes makes more sense from a design standpoint. I've been more conscientious of this lately and have seen an uptick in my players' bundles earned. They don't always get them all, but now if they miss out they feel okay about it because I made the stakes clear at the time.
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Gotta say I am not a fan of the extraneous skill checks at the Elephant Graveyard and the Stone Serpent Obelisk. These checks do not seem to be mechanically required to locate the treasure bundles. (And at the obelisk, PCs might be punished for playing a spellcaster whose carefully investigating).
Please do not foist checks on tables where there's no risk of failure. Instead, allow PCs who are trained/expert in the relevant skills to automatically learn about the flavor info as it just adds to the setting and isn't mechanically relevant. (This may also be a case where editing could make it more clear checks are required; for example, I don't see how PCs would miss saddlebag even if they failed all the checks about the context of the ancient trade road. They're PATHFINDERS — they're gonna loot the bag on the skeleton even if they don't understand the historical significance of it.)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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Are the values in the challenge points per PC table correct?
The table in the scenario is showing a level 6 PC worth 5 challenge points.
The Player Guide shows they would be worth 6 points since they are the base level +3.
Which one do we go by? I assume the guide.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Question about the storyline: the scenario hints that once the message is decoded the Pathfinders will be called in again, but since this is already scenario number 20 of season 1, I can't find the follow-up to this. Or was that the season 1 special? I played that a while ago and as a player I didn't get a lot of information about the story, just "go beat up a lot of fey."
So, is there a follow-up to this, or did I just miss it?
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Venture-Captain, Washington—Seattle
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Yes, the follow-up to 1-20 is the special 2-00 which is the culmination of the "Pact of the Open Road" storyline and involves (amidst the beating up of fey) finding the last, lost member of the Pact.
- Scenarios that contain some lore tidbits related to the 2-00 metaplot: 1-00, 1-08, 1-11
- Scenarios that actually have the metaplot tag: 1-16, 1-17, 1-20.