So... add two and two together: Gage wished to be part of the upper class and he got his wish: he's outwardly rich yet the upper class won't accept him as one of their own. His wish got monkey pawed, he got the "gold plated" version of being in the upper class.
I quite like this as a back story.
One of my PCs is a Suli. Gage is probably not going to like her.
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I made troop statblocks for the two gangs that appear in this book. Here's some direct monster.pf2.tools links for convenience:
Chapter 2 the heist doesn’t seem fitting for me if the PC's muck up the heist it seems there's no ramification for it just glossed over and just having the PC’s to act like criminals doesn't seem in the spirit of the book.
So looking at having the PC's being hired as security for the gala or night or could be sent by starwatch to keep an eye on the place due an informant gave some info of shady stuff going down on the night of gala, was looking to run it the evening in two parts
On the run up to the Gala night could still look recruiting other officers to help and which could give bonuses on certain checks to overcome some of the random event’s i'm planning
Explosive devices hidden around the lucky nimbus and few issue's need to handle, something like a total of six devices in the casino but the PC’s will only find three, and the other three will go off to set up for the carnage and hostage situation in the vault for part two.
All this is cover to give Scathka to get into the vault
Part one
Firstly, few of the bouncers and staff have become seriously ill so it kinda forces PC's to be in the spotlight and be more involved around the casino. Can use D22 location on the map as a staff room which PC's can investigate on the day of the gala locate poisoned drink/food to suspect something is afoot.
Using skills to locate the devices around the casino and to overcome obstacles similar to the dock chase.
e.g kitchen has two new staff members which have planted a device in the kitchen/storage room which need to locate which need to be and disable or remove
Subsequently if the device has been removed then the kitchen backdoor could be used as safe passage to get people out, if not then would need debris/fire cleared to be used in part 2.
And if the offending employees are not discovered they draw weapons and start fight against PC/bouncers during part two
Part two
Hostage situation around the vault area, PC's have x turns to get there otherwise hostages will be killed or could start at wounded 1
For some carnage before the PC's can head to the vault need to deal with a few random events people trapped under debris, social skill to clam to people to move safety, stop someone from being mugged etc
Just a rough idea to changing it up and few ideas thought of on a whim which needs some more fleshing out on my side, looking for thoughts or suggestions
Seems a bit predetermined as you've presented it now, and this chapter as written is interesting for being very open as to how the agents actually achieve their goals.
Making the devices able to be stopped and giving the agents a big advantage in part 2 if they manage it (perhaps reducing the amount of support Scathka gets) or a further complication if they don't disarm that many might be more engaging in this respect.
I do want to keep it as free form as possible, it will be a backup option to run the chapter as I will see if the PC's feel like the heist doesn't break from character too much
My players also didn't seem too keen on robbing the casino so I let them try to get a search warrant. They were told they needed some personal connection with a judge to expedite the process so they asked Orvington (the bank owner from book 2) and he so happened to know a guy. They went to the courthouse in disguise and were introduced to Judge Brett who in turn they had to convince that it was of utmost importance that he signs a search warrant right away. I ran this as an infiltration subsystem so the longer they stayed in the courthouse and the more attention they drew to themselves the more awareness points they accumulated. The judge asked for three things:
1. To get him the official search warrant seal from the seal storage room. They got it although not without alerting the clerk.
2. Some evidence to justify the warrant. They went back to the Docks and got Berleth's account in writing.
3. A completed A9 form which is needed to properly declare the evidence. They got it but drew some suspicion.
By the time they returned from the Docks the judge had gone home for the day. And when they returned the next morning there was definitely something up because the judge was missing on sick leave.
This is where we left off. I don't know what happens now, I don't even know who exactly got wind of their plans and stepped in to scare the judge. But there will likely be no casino heist if things keep going this way.
If you guys have any ideas to help me with the next steps with who was Gage's inside man in the courthouse/council and what they did to the judge, that would be great.
Also my players will likely get to the vault before Franca so I need a plan on how she reacts. OmegaZ mentioned he had Franca just fight the PCs but I'm afraid that might be a tad too anticlimactic since it's almost impossible she manages to take the bomb from them and escape both the PCs and everyone else in the casino going after her. Any ideas would be most welcome.
Kerr Batiste from book 1 is clearly a wrong-un. In my universe she's on the take as part of a slavery syndicate, but she could equally have thrown her lot in with the casino.
Or, more likely, the Token Guard are involved. The Token Guard are seriously corrupt, taking payments from the major commercial institutions in exchange for security, while ignoring or bullying the smaller institutions. This is essentially a legalised protection racket, out in the open.
In my universe they need somewhere to launder all this off-book money, and this is what the casino is for. So they have an alliance of sorts with Gage.
I had one persistent token guard harass them while they were there so it makes sense he and the rest of that guard are involved. Thanks, I'm gonna use that. That would probably be enough to scare the judge but what about the Grand Council and Starwatch? The book says
Asilia relates a story about a prior investigation a few years ago in which she herself requested access to the Lucky Nimbus’s lockboxes and came up empty-handed. She suspected foul play, but the next morning, a powerful grand councilmember’s adjutant suggested— not so politely—that Asilia drop the matter, which she did.
I'd have the informant be the judge's wife, who then called Carlile who doesn't like official raids in his casino and this nixed the whole thing politically.
As for them getting there before franca, why? There's no specific time frame in the AP, just have franca have already taken the thing when they get there.
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I'd have the informant be the judge's wife, who then called Carlile who doesn't like official raids in his casino and this nixed the whole thing politically.
Hmm not sure I get what you're getting to here. Why would the judge's wife put her husband in peril? Also that doesn't answer who in the Grand Council Carlyle is connected to and what threats they would use against the Starwatch.
As for them getting there before franca, why? There's no specific time frame in the AP, just have franca have already taken the thing when they get there.
I wanted to give the party a chance to get to the vault before her because I thought automatically failing and achieving nothing at the casino was too underwhelming. I was expecting that they would either do the heist slow and steady and Franca would get it before them or they would rush to do the heist and catch Franca unprepared forcing her to intervene mid-heist. What I didn't expect was they'd un-stealthily get a warrant.
Okay it's done. I will recount here what happened:
The players successfully convinced a judge to sign a warrant but their efforts were noticed by some corrupt token guards and court employees. Also it got late before the PCs returned with all the required evidence so the judge went home. When the judge returned the next dawn he found his office had been broken into. He got paranoid and took the day off, promising himself he'd just lie low and wait for this all to blow over. In the meantime, the leaked information started trickling to the halls of power, first to the Token Guard HQ, from there to Gage and from Gage to some grandcouncilmembers.
Meanwhile the PCs tracked down the judge to his home. Despite his butler's best efforts to conceal him they realised he was there, then talked to him appealing to his courage and conscientiousness. He agreed to sign on the condition they offered him assurances he'd be safe from retribution, both physical safety and job-wise.
PCs went to the Grand Council Hall to do that but there they discovered that the political repercussions were under way. There was talk about the council having enough votes to investigate Asilia of Gyr for skirting her duties. It was obviously Gage's doing that tipped the scales. After this the PCs decided to back off and try a different approach.
They issued a posthumous fine to Morrisa for her crimes then did a civil forfeiture on the key and by extension on the contents of the vault, ostensibly to pay off the fine. They greased the wheels of Starwatch bureaucracy to finish this faster and convinced Alasmin Sarulamon to sign it off. Then they tracked down the Second Lady of Laws and urged her to offer her official judgement/opinion on the matter in writing which she did.
They were still in time to catch Franca in the act but at the last minute they decided to wait until morning so that the casino will be less busy. They woke up Gage early and, flabbergasted, he couldn't say no to their airtight legal argument so he opened the vault for them... only to find it empty.
I hope my group's experience might inspire anyone else looking for ideas on alternatives to doing the heist.
Oggvurm is there in the arena before the party, so they might decide to investigate him directly and discover the bomb early. There's all sorts of ways the Irorium encounters could work out depending on how the party chooses to approach it, that statement just covers what happens if the party figures out who has the bomb beforehand.
Has anyone done the extended games for the Irorium in the back of the book? If so, how did that go?
I want to make more of the arena challenge, and the PCs are keen to enter an Edgewatch (Major Crimes) team in the competition. I want to run Chariot Chaos, Whirlpool Warriors and the finish up with the Oggvurm fight (which I'm calling Blood City Showdown).
I have a question that I haven't seen anyone else bring up before:
My players are at the end of Book 2, and about to start Book 3. As stated in Book 2, the info that they are potentially able to learn from the Skinner reveals the existence of the Twilight Four, as well as their pseudonyms. It also details the basics of the Skinner's role among the four.
Yet at the start of Book 3, the summary states that the players should have learned that the Twilight Four have the "basic aim... to remove the primarch and seize power for themselves."
Where is it stated that they could have learned this? It's not mentioned as something the Skinner would reveal, and Mobana did not appear to know anything about the group's higher plans. Asilia likewise doesn't mention anything about this plot point in her opening speech at the start of Book 3. It seems like a huge plot hole that Asilia, as head of Starwatch, wouldn't have put way more resources into the problem at the start had she known the Twilight Four's goals. She wouldn't have trusted newbie officers with a threat on the head of government. It seems like a huge plot hole for her to gloss over that fact.
Besides this, the PCs knowing about the target on the primarchy feels like a major piece of information this early. Knowing the ultimate goal this early, to me, feels like it would lessen the impact of dealing with the current threats of a gang war or a doomsday device bomb. It would give things away too quickly.
Did any of you let your players know about the Twilight Four's goals this early? How did your players react to the info if you did? Maybe I am overthinking things, but so far my players have been very keen to always go straight to the "big problem" and ignore the smaller problems along the way.
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Where is it stated that they could have learned this?
I'm pretty sure it's not stated and it is a mistake. Here's how I handled it in my campaign:
PCs killed Skinner so they couldn't learn anything from her.
From Mobana & Violeta they learned about the existence of the T4 but not its exact aims.
They still had no lead about Skinner's dealings with the Washboard Dogs so I brought in Niervok from the Absalom book to connect his story about witnessing an abduction and the abductions the Washboard Dogs did on behalf of the Skinsaw cult.
We are currently in the middle of book 4 and my players still have no concrete idea about the T4's plan. They have some theories that it has to do with taking advantage of a political power vacuum since the whole "revolt is being puppeteered by the Infector from the shadows" bit at the end of book 3.
I wanted to foreshadow the Harrowland from book 4, so I ran the module The Harrowing to do so. The idea was that Vancaskerkin used an occult ritual or darkside mirror to create the Rabbit Prince out of the essence of one or more PCs. As a side-effect of this, the PCs stumble into the Harrowed Realm and have to escape. Vancaskerkin's alter-ego inside the Harrowed Realm is the Nightpeddler.
Here's my notes for converting the module to 2e.
(I'm linking it from this thread too since this book is the best place to foreshadow Harrowland and the encounters in my conversion are semi-appropriate for a level 10-11 party.)
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If you're looking for a low-key early foreshadowing of Olansa as the Gray Queen, I have a treat for you. To make a long story short, it's a case they receive about how Olansa stole a High-Council seat but presented in such a way that it will be dismissed until it's too late. You can run this scene as soon as the PCs get promoted to the Starwatch.
I ran this a second time. I've changed my mind on the heist. I think the Heist works in fine if you have the right players and characters to do it well. It's not too limiting in the possible ways to do the job. It's not too difficult.
Gage's personality is such you can justify the heist. Even if he has no interest in helping the terrorists and employs a very good dwarven champion as his bodyguard, he still might decide to move the item inside himself to criminals outside the city or area or dispose of it himself and cover up any chance of investigation to maintain the security of his club. This would stop the Agents from finding out who took the bomb and all associated evidence. So I can see justification for the heist on the basis of Gage's personality and connections with the power players in Absalom.
So you can run this module with or without the heist fine and come up with whatever scenario best fits your PCs personalities and your preferences as a GM. It can all be written well into the narrative.
The first time I ran it with PCs contacting Gage and making a deal. The second time with the heist. Both worked well.
Even after the heist, I did still prefer to use Scathka and the Svartalfar as a hit team at Franca's house. I find that a more interesting use of their presence than the module recommends.
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I ran this a second time. I've changed my mind on the heist. I think the Heist works in fine if you have the right players and characters to do it well. It's not too limiting in the possible ways to do the job. It's not too difficult.
We just completed the infiltration last night and it's definitely been the highlight of the campaign so far. It took a while for my group to liberate themselves from thinking of combat rounds and the combat grid, but when they did the creativity was amazing. It felt like we were all improvising around a well defined framework and the group took things in delightfully unexpected directions to achieve their success.
If anyone wants to get a sense of how good the infiltration can be (or to get ideas for running the heist), the Role for Combat Edgewatch podcast (Season 3, Episodes 9 to 15) gives a really good sense of what's possible when players lean into the roleplaying possibilities of this chapter.
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I realized I had lot of strong feelings on this book from our table's experience when i was reading and writing review on this :'D
I can say that our party absolutely hated spending three sessions of preparing and infiltration and roleplaying on "lol, someone else stole it first, consolation price, a name!"
(we went super in-depth)
This book also continues AP's meatgrindery themes, police being morally dubious and has highlight of saying "severe encounter that should pose no difficulty or make pcs spend resources"
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I made a homebrew sidequest addon. It uses information mostly from book 4 but level-wise and story-wise it fits betters somewhere during book 3.
The sidequest involves uncovering a circle of norgorberite assassins in the Ivy district that might have some tangentially useful information for the Twilight Four. It can be used to replace parts of book 3 or add to it.
Woof, just played through a chunk of Chapter 1 and it's already wildly off-script. They sussed out basically everything there could be learned without talking to any of the NPCs via Criminal Connections and Esoteric Lore checks. They only wear their uniforms when they have to, so there's zero reason for the Alley scenario to even occur. I managed to steer them to the Duck's Back, but when they went to case out the Arrowhead they opted to tail the trio instead of interrupt the crime in progress? I had to invent a warehouse dead-drop, suggestive smuggled goods, and a romantic assignation for Giord from whole cloth.
Speaking of: does anyone have any suggestions for what a set of ledger books written in Tien might be what Giord was looking for? It was maybe not my best improvisation...
Anybody have ideas for Gurbo Mongsley, the guy with the stained wrinkled outfit who Gage tolerates who the mod says might have "some significant dirt on the casino owner."
It seems like a fun angle, and he has artwork and everything! But we don't have any guidance on how it might be part of the Infiltration.
(Gotta say, the 20+ page section on running the Infiltration (if you include the gambling games) could have been organized better!)
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Anybody have ideas for Gurbo Mongsley, the guy with the stained wrinkled outfit who Gage tolerates who the mod says might have "some significant dirt on the casino owner." It seems like a fun angle, and he has artwork and everything! But we don't have any guidance on how it might be part of the Infiltration.
How about that idea I had a while ago?
It's heavily implied that Gage got his fortune by aid of a djinni vizier. RAW the djinni is dead when the players get in the vault. There's also some info on Gage that says he really desires to be part of Absalom's upper class but the other rich and nobles aren't accepting him. Now here's where it gets interesting. The Bestiary entry for djinn viziers says
Djinni viziers prefer to manifest wishes in physical, often gaudy displays, but cut corners in quality. Wished-for gold, for example, might only be gold platedSo... add two and two together: Gage wished to be part of the upper class and he got his wish: he's outwardly rich yet the upper class won't accept him as one of their own. His wish got monkey pawed, he got the "gold plated" version of being in the upper class.
You can say Gurbo has first hand knowledge of this or simply figured it out so now Gage is paying him off to keep his mouth shut.