Since my party only had one combat in the Pagoda, they're going that night.
Kekker and Gref
So...is there an actual reason the Agents should arrest these fools? Since they hadn't successfully made the trade for the drugs, as far as I can tell they haven't done anything even slightly illegal and have nothing illegal in their possession, but we're supposed to reward the players if they arrest them? This encounter was a flop as written, AFAIC, and my players let them go although they were very suspicious of them.
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Not really. My players did the same thing.
It doesn't mention it in Book 1, but those two show up again in book 4, at the Noxious Retort, getting drunk in one of the rooms.
If I were running this AP over again, I'd play up this scene to make The Whisker Brothers as memorable as possible, and then bring them back through the rest of the AP as small-timers who keep getting in way over their heads.
Probably want to make it clear to the party that if a fight breaks out they would be severely outnumbered, hinting that they should retreat and regroup when diplomacy breaks down because of Rekarek.
It seems reasonable that the kobolds wouldn't pursue much, they already have hostages and they're trying to guard the pagoda/get their demands heard.
My players sound similar to yours. For us, both groups fought for a round or so then the advantage became obvious to the party. So they took their unconscious ally and retreated while the kobolds cried out victory and their demands again. Rekarek was particularly pleased that they were able to drive off the Edgewatch by their (perceived) own strength. And it also served to show the agents that sometimes being sneaky/cautious is better than hinging everything on talking down threats or perpetrators being reasonable.
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Additionally, Rekarek and crew are limited to ranged attacks until your party sets off or defuses the boiling water trap, AFAICT, and are bottlenecked at the entryway to the room as well, so you may find some tactical advantages to be had, there...but that plays Rekarek dumber than she should be, IMO, and she should really try and draw the party into the potential killing ground of the next room after they go through the trap, and good luck to your Level 2s at that point. Agreed that you should encourage your party to consider retreating if needed.
Another oddity of Kekker and Gref: they speak Common and Undercommon, while their Caligni Creeper trading partners speak only Caligni...I suppose we could assume that the Caligni that got accidentally killed by the Varghouilles was a Slayer? Those speak Undercommon, it seems...
I like the idea of having Kekker and Gref show up repeatedly as they very nearly get themselves into actual trouble over and over, totally going to run with that, thanks!
My players also went in diplomatically. I played up Rekarek's aggression but didn't actually have her attack while signalling how the rest of the kobolds weren't necessarily enthusiastic about her stance. It didn't go further than this so I have no advice on how to handle the rest. (What happened is one of my players then fooled her into thinking he was casting a heal spell on himself and then actually cast charm on her, which pretty much defused the situation in one stroke.)
My general suggestion is to play Rekarek as aggressive but not outright violently hostile if there's no good reason. Give the PCs plenty of chances to retreat or turn the rest of the kobolds against her or at least to talk her out of attacking.
PS: Funnily enough my players had the brilliant idea to not make any arrests at all, which made for a great read in next day's Eyes on Absalom and then I had Lasarvus order them to fix it which led to a super fun second confrontation with Rekarek and a hilarious attempt to help her avoid incriminating herself during interrogation after they charmed her again.
The Dreaming Palace is fricking twisted. I almost threw up reading Pickled Punks. What a terrible image in the mind. Sheesh. Someone must have been reading or watching some twisted material to dream this up.
Someone must have been reading or watching some twisted material to dream this up.
It's based on the real serial killer H. H. Holmes. The whole adventure is based on the book The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.
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I'm going into the Dreaming Place next session. I've read the H.H.Holmes story and kinda wish I hadn't. The material in the book isn't going to be something that all of my players can "enjoy", so I've made a thread in hopes to discuss the changes I'm planning for the final chapter. I didn't post it in here only because it turned out very long.
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The Dreaming Palace is fricking twisted. I almost threw up reading Pickled Punks. What a terrible image in the mind. Sheesh. Someone must have been reading or watching some twisted material to dream this up.
Pickled punks of all sorts of deformities (of the non-necromantically animated nature) were a regular carnival sideshow attraction in our world; odds are good your great-grandpappy giggled and pointed at one as a boy. As a monster, they were introduced in the PF1 Bestiary 4, and have appeared in at least one other AP that I'm aware of, 1E's
All that aside, yeah, they're super nasty.
I ran the encounters in The Dreaming Palace. Made me queasy while running them. I'm glad they're over. Someone watched It's Alive and Silence of the Lambs before writing this. Blech!
Kobolds & Caligni & Vargouilles, Oh My!
So my party, having let Kekker and Gref loose, went down the stairs towards the Caligni ambush...but Morviggus managed to crit-fail his avoid notice roll and our Rogue noticed him right away at the bottom of the stairs. She backed up and let the Fighter go first, who tried diplomacy but, of course, didn't speak Caligni. I had the other Caligni cast Darkness (it wouldn't affect any of my party but the Half-Elf and the Druid's Animal Companion) and Morviggus basically tried to hide again. Diplomacy having seemed to have made the one Caligni the players were aware of back off, the Druid thought maybe they could skip the combat and make for the Back Door itself, but after getting out next to the pond she had the Badger Seek for hidden creatures, which it nailed, smelling the Vargouilles to the Southwest and the Grick to the North. She shouted back a warning, but the Rogue came out that way as well. Next round, the Caligni regroup and attack, and then come the Vargouilles. Suddenly what was one easy-ish encounter became two at the same time, and the Druid and the Sorcerer both failed their saves against the Vargouille's shriek. Fortunately for them the other Caligni failed its save and was paralyzed, poor Morviggus had already been taken out by the Fighter and Rogue and got himself Kissed. The Fighter managed to get the Druid to safety while the Rogue and the Badger ran interference against the winged menace, but before they could take them out both the Rogue and the Fighter were envenomed and the Rogue badly wounded.
After a long time healing up, the Druid decided to gut a cave fish to use its glowing innards to make herself some glowing glitter makeup. Kobolds, what can you say? The Rogue crept up on the Grick pit, got beaten by it in initiative and took a solid hit from it, and then managed to crit it twice in one round, knocking it out before I even got to make an AoO.
We've got a solid start on the House of Planes, now. I did make sure I included some notes about the Lore of each plane during prep, which has already paid off. My players are almost entirely Golarion neophytes, and at least one of them thought they were going to the House of the Plains, and I dunno...expected Ingalls sisters, or something? They've wrapped up their interactions with Pharasma and Leila (whom, after a lucky Society role I decided had some history with our Thief Rogue), but they're having some trouble figuring out a pretext to bring up the missing persons with the Patrons, and I'm having some trouble thinking up a way to guide them without being too Deus Ex Machina about it. Any ideas?
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My players had a similar problem.
I ultimately just had the various NPCs have open-ended conversations with the PCs, and tried to work as much information as I could organically as possible.
Frex, the guy who's been abducted by derro spent the time ranting about his crazy theories, and brought up his experience with the statue guards as part of that.
The lady who sells real estate was bragging about how much money she was making off the various rubes investing for the festival, and talked about some of the ridiculous floorplans she's seen.
Ultimately, they have a definite hook in Jeremin Hoff--asking him about the missing workers--and even if they get nothing from the other people, he can still point them to the Dreaming Palace.
One of the players decided to go for it and full on debauche himself. He went into the Abyss area and picked up a girl, drank himself drunk, and just stayed in the room.
One other player asked around about Jeremin Hoff, then did a direct questioning. Hoff didn't care much and told them he barely talked to them and that they went to The Dreaming Palace Hotel. That's all they really needed, so they went there next.
I kept it simple. Find Hoff, question him, go from there.
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Hendrid was pretty tough. He gave my party a good run for the money.
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So my party went straight from the house of planes to the murder hotel in the middle of the night. After a heated questioning with Ralso and Pratchett, I ended up having the two villains lock up some of the party in the Irriseni room, and ditch them as fast as possible. Combat ensued and after a quick picklocking, they managed to knock out Ralso while she guarded Pratchett as he ran off to the basement.
My question is, how do I justify these actions with the plot of the book? When running it, I got really worried that the combined threat of Ralso and Pratchett would end up in a tpk and so I had Pratchett go to return to the basement area where he's listed in the book. I'm having a hard time figuring why he would do that though. In addition, I'm not quite certain how Pratchett should act going forward given now that he's well aware that the pc's are on his tail
I had Pratchett go to return to the basement area where he's listed in the book. I'm having a hard time figuring why he would do that though. In addition, I'm not quite certain how Pratchett should act going forward given now that he's well aware that the pc's are on his tail. Or he just wants to try out his new creepy twins ghost?
Indeed. Pratchett is obsessed with his hotel and his traps. They are far more important to him than Ralso. He wants to see how well his traps work, and if they can defeat any interlopers.
He's also an overconfident psychopath who's more than a little insane. He prioritises murdering people, particularly murding people with his hotel traps, more than his own safety. The litany of clues left behind across the city doesn't speak to someone with a lot of forethought.
So my party went straight from the house of planes to the murder hotel in the middle of the night. After a heated questioning with Ralso and Pratchett, I ended up having the two villains lock up some of the party in the Irriseni room, and ditch them as fast as possible. Combat ensued and after a quick picklocking, they managed to knock out Ralso while she guarded Pratchett as he ran off to the basement.
My question is, how do I justify these actions with the plot of the book? When running it, I got really worried that the combined threat of Ralso and Pratchett would end up in a tpk and so I had Pratchett go to return to the basement area where he's listed in the book. I'm having a hard time figuring why he would do that though. In addition, I'm not quite certain how Pratchett should act going forward given now that he's well aware that the pc's are on his tail
I made it so he didn't actually want to kill the party, at least not in battle and quickly. He would knock a PC out, then torment them about what was going to happen to them if they fail. He took down the rogue and ranger, then taunted the monk telling her he was going to flay them in front of her. He would dance around her doing nonlethal damage slapping her with this blade and sheathe telling her, "Which one first? You decide. Or maybe I'll have them watch you flayed. Turn you all into a coat, go and visit the police station while I'm wearing your skin as my undergarments."
Hendrid isn't the type to ruthlessly cut down the PCs. He wants to toy with the, maximal fear, let them know what he plans to do with them should they fall to him and Ralso. It's all a game of death to Hendrid.
My players decided that they didn't have to question anyone and went straight to infiltrating the Palace. They both rolled nat20 on their deception checks to fool Ralso and are currently set up in the Irriseni and Galt rooms. They managed to disable both traps and pinged the entire ground floor with detect magic before dinner. Probably won't even bother with the brass and chelish rooms now.
I think I'll have Hendrid and the other Residents join them at the table next session, maybe try some shenanigans with the food. Would be funny if they failed some Fortitude saves and woke up in different rooms. Also going to let Ralso check on the traps as a backup, while they're at dinner. She'll be more suspicious of them going into the night.
If anyone is interested I reskinned a knights/knaves type puzzle to use in the house of planes in place of the boatman puzzle since I knew my party would know the answer to the given riddle immediately.
Puzzle handout here:
https://imgur.com/LIsobA9
This is good! I wanted something more Planar-themed and wound up using a variant of the "Logical Draw" puzzle rethemed around the plane of Axis, copied below:
An Axiomite summons three aphorites they had created to a chamber, then raised illusory walls so each could not see the other and touched each of them on the forehead in turn conjuring there the glyph of Axis and telling them "I have marked you each, but not all bear the glyph of Abbadon. I will reveal to you your fellows, and the first of you to tell me whether you bear the glyph of Abbadon or the glyph of Axis shall be granted the privilege of a mission to the Material Plane." The axiomite drops the illusory walls, and each aphorite looks left and then right at each of their two fellows, pauses a moment, then they all announce simultaneously "Axis!"
Why?
Answer: Each reasons "My companions both are marked Axis. If my sibling on the left saw that I were marked with Abbadon, they would reason 'My sibling on the right is marked with Abbadon, but my sibling on the left is marked with Axis. If I were marked with Abbadon then my sibling on the left would see two marks of Abbadon immediately announce for Axis, but they are silent, so I should announce Axis.' But my sibling on the left is silent, so I should announce Axis."
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Ha! I did something similar:
You meet a devil and a velstrac on the road. The devil lies every Moonday, Toilday and Wealday and the other days it speaks the truth. The velstrac lies on Oathdays, Firedays and Stardays, and the other days of the week it speaks the truth. “Yesterday I was lying,” the devil tells you. “So was I,” says the velstrac. What day is it?
they're having some trouble figuring out a pretext to bring up the missing persons with the Patrons, and I'm having some trouble thinking up a way to guide them without being too Deus Ex Machina about it. Any ideas?
My players pretended they were private goons hired by the Minkai delegation to track down their missing colleagues. I was a bit disappointed they didn't actually try to talk to everyone in the House of Planes but they did talk to quite a few people.
Speaking of wasted preparations, when my players got in the hotel basement, they found Pratchett's secret door and blocked it before confronting him so no dramatic chase scene in a flaming hotel for me.
By the way, we just finished this book. It only took us... 15 sessions over the course of 2 months and 3 weeks. Pretty sure that's way above average but I'm fairly confident they rather enjoyed taking their time.
My players pretended they were private goons hired by the Minkai delegation to track down their missing colleagues. I was a bit disappointed they didn't actually try to talk to everyone in the House of Planes but they did talk to quite a few people.
Oh, that's pretty good.
By the way, we just finished this book. It only took us... 15 sessions over the course of 2 months and 3 weeks. Pretty sure that's way above average but I'm fairly confident they rather enjoyed taking their time.
We're running at about the same pace. We can usually only play for about 2-3 hours a week, so...gonna take us two sessions to get through the HoP, but they're determined to visit every room, I think.
After enjoying dinner with Pratchett and Honeywall - leaving none the wiser - the party wanted to take another look around the outside of the hotel and managed to not detect magic / read aura on the windows! Meanwhile Ralso reset the traps, but knowing they were capable of disabling them one time she offered them a free upgrade to 2nd-floor rooms. They were hesitant first but agreed as to not raise any more suspicion, and she eventually got them trapped in the room with the animated statues. They believe maybe Ralso is innocent and might be able to help them: boy are they in for a surprise!
So I'm at the House of the Planes, maybe 1/2 done with that part, and the party has NOT picked up on the missing people thread. I keep mentioning missing people and folks who haven't come back home and co-workers who never showed up the next day but...nope. Just going along with the flow. This is gonna be hilarious.
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My players took him out before he could light the room, so it didn't end up mattering for me.
I'd say for the oil in the stove, have it do 1d6 fire damage to anyone within 5 or 10 feet. For the rest of the hotel, since that basically only happens if Pratchett escapes, I'd handle it out of combat--since Pratchett got away, he was able to set an unstoppable blaze in the hotel (too many parts catch fire too quickly for the party to deal with). Give the PCs a chance to escape the burning building, maybe requiring some level-appropriate Athletics or Perception checks if you want to amp-up the tension.
If you do want to run the fire in Encounter mode, each square of fire should probably do minor environmental damage (1d6-2d6). Have each square spread to an adjacent square each round. Treat all the rooms on fire as full of smoke, penalizing Perception checks and causing creatures to be concealed. As for putting out fires, let the PCs come up with their own plans, and use the level-based DCs as a guideline.
Off the top of my head, that's roughly how I'd run it, if I needed to.
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So I'm at the House of the Planes, maybe 1/2 done with that part, and the party has NOT picked up on the missing people thread. I keep mentioning missing people and folks who haven't come back home and co-workers who never showed up the next day but...nope. Just going along with the flow. This is gonna be hilarious.
Perhaps...
When they get back to the watch station, Lavarsus has just had a meeting with the Watch Commanders where he's had to present his current crime stats including open cases. He looked terrible in front of his bosses, and has once again been reminded that Edgewatch are one of the worst performing forces, despite significant investment leading up to the Radiant Festival. He's been told that if he, Lavarsus, cannot manage crime in his small district, especially during such an important period, then perhaps his position should be reconsidered.
So Lavarsus is now super pissed. And you know what they say about sh*t flowing downhill.
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So I'm at the House of the Planes, maybe 1/2 done with that part, and the party has NOT picked up on the missing people thread.
How does that even happen? The players are supposed to only learn about the House of Planes as a potential source of evidence about the missing persons at the Pagoda.
I'm wondering how people handled Pratchett lighting the room on fire... The book description seems a bit 'draw the rest of the owl' to me.
What mechanics did you use? How much damage do people in the flaming room take? How fast does it spread to the rest of the hotel? What types of checks can the PCs make to put out the fire
Sadly I didn't get a chance to run this because my players were too smart for it! (They snooped around stealthily in the basement and blocked the secret door before confronting him).
But I don't think it's that hard to "draw the rest of the owl". I would advise using the Chases subsystem from GMG. Basically you come up with a bunch of potential obstacles and each of those takes a few succesful checks to bypass, if they bypass enough obstacles in a timely manner they catch up with the pursued. Take inspiration from things in the hotel the players didn't interact with or interacted with but didn't fully resolve.
Here's some potential obstacles for this chase scene along with some example checks that the characters could use to bypass them:
- secret door closes behind him (acrobatics to jump in before it closes, athletics to hold it open, thievery to re-open)
- flaming mass (acrobatics to jump through, athletics make a path, or they can just walk through it and take some damage)
- Pratchett throws down the shelves with the jars in E31 (Athletics to throw them out of the way, Acrobatics to squeeze through the gaps, maybe some spell)
- leftover monsters attack (acrobatics to tumble through, Athletics to shove away, recall knowledge or deception to distract them)
To these, you can add an "always available" activity to put out the fire, which would create an interesting dilemma between either catching up with Pratchett and sacrificing the hotel or letting Pratchett go to save the hotel or anything in-between. Do note that putting out the fire should become exponentially more difficult the more time they let it burn.
@Evil Paul: I had Reginald Vancaskerkin be unwittingly helpful as he is investigating a string of missing persons he's noticed. They STILL didn't think about it until I rolled a secret Intelligence check for the party. The ratfolk investigator got the highest, so she got to have the "Oh snap!" realization moment that they've heard of a lot of missing people lately.
@Naurgul: I had Sgt. Ollo point the party towards the House of the Planes and Jeremin Hoff because he suspects Hoff is involved with the Stonescale kobolds and the panic at the zoo. The party has been a lot more focused on the zoo poisoning/sabotage (understandably) and simply didn't pick up on the string of missing people until I kinda-sorta shoved it in front of their faces with Vancaskerkin at the House. When they got back to Ollo he was very keen on this case as well.
@Evil Paul: I had Reginald Vancaskerkin be unwittingly helpful as he is investigating a string of missing persons he's noticed. They STILL didn't think about it until I rolled a secret Intelligence check for the party. The ratfolk investigator got the highest, so she got to have the "Oh snap!" realization moment that they've heard of a lot of missing people lately.
@Naurgul: I had Sgt. Ollo point the party towards the House of the Planes and Jeremin Hoff because he suspects Hoff is involved with the Stonescale kobolds and the panic at the zoo. The party has been a lot more focused on the zoo poisoning/sabotage (understandably) and simply didn't pick up on the string of missing people until I kinda-sorta shoved it in front of their faces with Vancaskerkin at the House. When they got back to Ollo he was very keen on this case as well.
Did you skip the assignment of the missing persons case to the players at the start of Chapter 2?
@GreatGraySkwid: ...oops. Yeah, that's on me. Totally just had Lavarsus send them to the Dragonfly Pagoda.
I also put off having Graveraker stolen until this coming session (I don't like that it happens "off-camera" plus I'm going to use it as a distraction for all the other Edgewatch officers, so when my players go to the Dreaming Palace they don't have the option of going in with the entire precinct).
Well, gave the players/PC's a chance to be the ones to figure out the missing people issue.
Enh. The players have only circumstantial evidence and hearsay before they go in the Hotel, anyway. There's no justification for a raid in force until after they're in, and then it's basically too late to call for backup.
I'm curious how you plan on having the excavator disappear "on camera," as they'd basically have to be looking at it to see it vanish, and presumably they're hot to get after investigating Pratchett now, right?
@GreatGraySkwid: I had planned on having Primarch Starborn, Blume Bandersworth, Councilor Olansa Terimor, and other officials involved in the Radiant Festival do a big speech presenting the Graveraker to the crowd as a way to repair the damage from the Whispering Tyrant and the earthquake the ruined the Precipice Quarter, then have it disappear right in front of everyone. Think David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear, but its actually gone and no one knows who did it or how.
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The whole point of Graveraker's disappearance happening off camera is so that the actually qualified Agents of Edgewatch (i.e., not "our" party) can be dedicated to tracking down an established and well-known exhibit of the Festival, leaving our teams of rookie misfits to investigate a batch of people who may or may not actually be missing. If you emphasize it happening in front of your team, it's goes from being a Chekov's gun to a massive red herring, as you get them all riled up wanting to pursue a mystery there are no leads for them to follow and no way you can allow them to solve until several books later.
Also, Graveraker is an exhibit because it accomplished the mission it was designed for: reshaping the Precipice Quarter into the Festival Fairgrounds. It's a bit odd to give a big speech about something that's already done (and has been done for a while) like it's about to get underway?
The whole point of Graveraker's disappearance happening off camera is so that the actually qualified Agents of Edgewatch (i.e., not "our" party) can be dedicated to tracking down an established and well-known exhibit of the Festival, leaving our teams of rookie misfits to investigate a batch of people who may or may not actually be missing. If you emphasize it happening in front of your team, it's goes from being a Chekov's gun to a massive red herring, as you get them all riled up wanting to pursue a mystery there are no leads for them to follow and no way you can allow them to solve until several books later.
Fully agree here. Putting too much emphasis on the Graveraker disappearance will make players pursue it which will give them GM a bunch of work to do (make up some clues and at the same time not reveal too much because that might break events in later parts) or lead to party disappointment (because they try to investigate a case but it leads nowhere).
With that said, I think it's fine for the disappearance to happen on-screen, as long as it's clearly communicated to the players that "this is above your paygrade, leave it to the pros".
In my game, I have Bolera frequently talk to the players about the case because she's one of the detectives assigned to it and vent about her frustration about how the clues are leading nowhere etc.
Also, Graveraker is an exhibit because it accomplished the mission it was designed for: reshaping the Precipice Quarter into the Festival Fairgrounds. It's a bit odd to give a big speech about something that's already done (and has been done for a while) like it's about to get underway?
Not sure I agree here. The Graveraker's original purpose is to dig up artifacts from the Tyrant's Grasp. Check out what Bandersworth's biography at the end of book 6 says:
Blune met the Arcadian inventor Wakeiwa Atikak in the aftermath of the Whispering Tyrant’s failed assault on Absalom in 4719, while the Radiant Festival was still in its initial planning stages. Wakeiwa presented her vision of an excavator that could scrape up the remains of the mass graveyard that is the Tyrant’s Grasp and asked to collaborate with him. Blune agreed to help Wakeiwa on the condition that he could first use Graveraker to clear the Precipice Quarter for the Radiant Festival.
Ah, I had missed that, thanks.
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You guys...my party created a Murder Board, and it's the greatest thing ever:
Kobolds & Qonn - DO NOT ERASE!