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I am prepping this adventure and wonder how to handle a trap.
There is a fireball rune on a footlocker in Level 5-6. The rune is an invisible, spherical magical sensor with a 20' radius. And the trap reacts with a trigger of "A living creature enters the sensor area." The hut is in a 10x10 square.
How does this rune not be exploded by people just walking by the hut?
How can a PC even have a chance to see the rune considering it is in a hut and they can see the rune until they get instead. A Thievery check can erase the rune, but to do that you have touch it, thus within the 20' sensor. By by then, the rune has exploded because they had to travel 10 feet just to get to the outside of the hut. Can dispell magic the rune, but again, you have to see it and if it is inside a hut, you can't.
This is a bad trap in such a small area. I see now way for the party not to cause it to explode.
This trap is a scenario breaker.
What I can I do with this?
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Yeah that trap seems to be a problem; I'm similarly a bit worried about the degree of table variation that's going to emerge for both that trap and just in general how hard scouting/investigating the other tents will be.
Also Lt ELoqi's pronouns are generally male, but on four places I think feminine is used. I suspect in this case it's editing errors. It mots places its where there's a bit of 'too many pronouns' between Lt ELoqi's, Raikie's and other so I can see if having been confusing.
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Venture-Agent, Online—PbP
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I am prepping this adventure and wonder how to handle a trap.
My intent as the author was for the Fireball Rune to operate similarly to the Electric Lock Rune. The development team may, however, have a different response.
I would adjust the text as follows:
Description An invisible rune imprinted on a chest’s lock releases a powerful, fiery discharge.
Trigger A creature touches the lock directly or with a tool.
To me, it makes more sense for the trigger to by tied to the lock rather than a 20-foot sensor.
The error was mine and I should have caught it when I revised the encounter.
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I am prepping this adventure and wonder how to handle a trap.My intent as the author was for the Fireball Rune to operate similarly to the Electric Lock Rune. The development team may, however, have a different response.
I would adjust the text as follows:
Description An invisible rune imprinted on a chest’s lock releases a powerful, fiery discharge.
Trigger A creature touches the lock directly or with a tool.
To me, it makes more sense for the trigger to by tied to the lock rather than a 20-foot sensor.
The error was mine and I should have caught it when I revised the encounter.
Thank you. I am enjoying prepping this adventure. Short of a developer comment, I plan to use what you have suggested here.
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The scaling for Encounter B in the 5-6 Subtier looks off.
"23–27 Challenge Points: The PCs fight two debilitated
bulettes with the weak adjustment."This is the same as the adjustment in the 3-4 Subtier at 12-13 Challenge Points.
I suspect it was meant to be:
"23-27 Challenge Points: The PCs fight two bulettes with the weak adjustment."
Does anyone else have any thoughts?
yeah, I think you are right.
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Sigh... Didn't see that one.
I think they mean "If Eloqi opted not to sign an exclusive agreement with the Pathfinders, check box A on the reporting sheet."
I will mark A if the team doesn't get an exclusive contract.
So no, I would not check in your case.
The editing in recent adventures has been very poor. Do we need a VO team to review the adventures before they are pushed out?
Who do we need to tell? Maybe contact Lisa Stevens or Jeffrey Alvarez and tell them their products are less than stellar?
This is getting bad.
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The reporting conditions are a bit of a mess IMO.
So it sounds like we think
A) = non-exclusive contract or no contract (partial success to fail)
B) 'befriending' greeleep = there's not a mechanic for that, there is for convincing greeleep to turn evidence. My players did spend a fair bit of time befriending him, and got him to deliver testimony so I'm comfortable checking that box, but it seems unclear what the intent is
c) Raikie leaves and vows vengeance if the PCs foile her plans -- is this. Is this only on a critical success, or are 'her plans' making sure the pathfinders don't get a contract at all?
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I will say, in spite of the typos and hard to figure out reporting conditions, it ran very smoothly and this table was one of my best GMing experiences in 2e. The party had just the right mix of correct and incorrect theories, and both were kept in play long enough to be interesting. Also had the two untrained people crit success on nature to identify the bulettes from the zoic fetishes and of course the characters laughed off the stories of land sharks.
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yeah, I think you are right.The scaling for Encounter B in the 5-6 Subtier looks off.
"23–27 Challenge Points: The PCs fight two debilitated
bulettes with the weak adjustment."This is the same as the adjustment in the 3-4 Subtier at 12-13 Challenge Points.
I suspect it was meant to be:
"23-27 Challenge Points: The PCs fight two bulettes with the weak adjustment."
Does anyone else have any thoughts?
I ran this in this CP and it is correct. Think about the party that would make up this CP. Mine was 2 6th, 3 4th levels, and a 3rd level. I realized that I was hitting way to hard (took a 4th level to dying 2 on first round with crit) because I using just weak bulettes, not weak debilitated bulettes.
Teaches me to think I know better. Fortunately I realized it and was able to change it to the way it was intended.
Overall a fun adventure and had the party thinking all sorts of stuff during their investigation.
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I think its intended that the party is likely to be overwhelmed. The baseline 08-09/16-18 is a PL+5 creature, so its _harder_ than Extreme. This should be a party loses the vast majority of the time (and the hobgoblins save them). All of the scaling should be maintaining that level of threat, so the 5-6 is likely the wrong adjustment compared. Its the only 'fair' fight in the line up.
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My group was a Druid, Cleric, Witch and 2 Wizards. 17 Challenge Points.
I knew the Bulettes would annihilate them, so I tossed 3 Bulettes at the bottom of the map, describing those as the ones the hobgoblins were fighting. One by one as the party members dropped I X'd out the other Bulettes, then when I'd knocked out 3 PCs, the hobbies came to their aid.
Helped serve as a sort of "countdown" and to signal that the battle wasn't totally hopeless.
And then the Druid trivialized the Ants with a Group Impression Wild Empathy, which made them breathe a sigh of relief.
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Venture-Captain, Tennessee—East Tennessee
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The editing in recent adventures has been very poor. Do we need a VO team to review the adventures before they are pushed out?Who do we need to tell? Maybe contact Lisa Stevens or Jeffrey Alvarez and tell them their products are less than stellar?
This is getting bad.
This. I came here to talk about this. I stopped tracking at page 14, but every single page (starting at page 3, after the credits/whatnot) had some sort of error on it, except for maybe the page that had the full-page map. I've gotten used to bad editing/proofreading from Paizo. It's been bad since the beginning. It has gotten a lot better in the last few years, but this....oh, man. This was easily the worst edited/proofread scenario in a long time. The story was great, but I kept stumbling over incorrect gender pronouns (for two different people), phrases that don't make sense, commas incorrectly placed (the least of the indiscretions), etc.
I'm not sure who this needs to be brought to light to, but someone needs to be aware.
Maybe it's just because I work in Quality Assurance that this bugs me, but I'm glad to hear someone else brought it up first.
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I think its intended that the party is likely to be overwhelmed. The baseline 08-09/16-18 is a PL+5 creature, so its _harder_ than Extreme. This should be a party loses the vast majority of the time (and the hobgoblins save them). All of the scaling should be maintaining that level of threat, so the 5-6 is likely the wrong adjustment compared. Its the only 'fair' fight in the line up.
I had not considered that as being the intent. that the party would lose and need to be rescued.
Would the party get the 1 TB if they are rescued?
Maybe I ran it wrong than.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I think the change to the rune proposed by the author makes a lot of sense, the hazard rules are solid enough to allow you to get close enough to notice and disarm it - but this is mostly a case of the trap not working properly since other camp inhabitants would have a significant chance of setting it off on accident, which does not make a lot of sense.
I have a question... was that a word count limitation? Both Hazards were reprinted from the CRB (which is appreciated) but would it not have been possible to just write a higher-level version of the basic rune, so the effect stays the same across various levels?
Considering the setup, one could argue that the higher level hazard is a lot more dangerous to your mission since those types of effects tend to be noticed from the outside.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Ran this last night and everyone had a blast. I had to scramble towards the end to figure out how the sandbox shook out, but it worked.
One of the rogues was in Reike's tent but her trapspotter missed the chest by one. So she then tried to pick the lock, and rolled a nat-one. Since that's just a broken lockpick, she kept it. But that's also when I had the fireball go off. Which makes everyone rush to investigate. She'd already found the trapdoor, so I gave her an athletics check to get down there before anyone came in, then started initiative.
Now the OTHER rogue was checking out the Aspis mook tent. And her stealth wasn't going to cut it (these are VERY perceptive guards). So initiative worked out amazing. The rogue in the tunnel just stealths. The bard casts invisibility sphere and walked over to the the mook tent to collect the rogue. The mooks go into Reike's tent but don't find anything, then debate a moment for Reike to come in before going down the hatch. The druid, I don't remember what he tried. Reike is almost to the tent and the champion of shelyn loudly asks, "Were they hiding the missing alchemy supplies there?" As a diversion roll. Which prompts the hobgoblins to investigate too. They immediately determine that No, the fireball was not a cache of alchemist fires; but while they're looking at the tent there the Aspis can't open the trapdoor to search below. Buys them a minute or so.
So, out of initiative, the rogue headsdown the tunnel towards the ladder they'd already found under kobold tent. Gets half way and finds the halfling corpse and all the alchemical supplies. Doesn't fully ID everything, but decides this is enough. Runs back up the ladder, comes into a tent full of hobgoblins and yells "I just found a body and a bunch of alchemy stuff in these aspis tunnels" and leads some hobs down.
At this point, the normal investigation time is done. Drussem tells them there's going to be a meeting in a couple minutes about what was just uncovered. So instead of having the afternoon and night to finish things, they need to run around quick and lock down the leads they've already started. They already had the cypher book, so the topside rogue runs over and plucks the vellum from Morgoar. The bard and champion try to delay procedures to give the druid enough time to translate the note (they don't have the 10 minutes the book needs). One of them succeeds, so I gave them the first line of the note and the Trial starts.
They never investigated deep enough into the tunnels to find the kobold or bulette trails, and never got Reike's chest open, so that's out. And some things they never fully identified, like the fetish's and full note. But they presented what they had. They already had Eloqi at helpful, so the first check was a 'don't botch' roll, and they were fine. The second... I gave them half credit for unfinished evidence, and it totaled up to 4.5 pieces. Which didn't matter for the check because the bard rolled in the mid 30's for the request check. So, exclusive win for the Society!
Except for the secondary success condition. Which doesn't care that you get the exclusive contract, it cares that you got 6 evidence. So that was an odd fail. And 3 missing treasure bundles (kobold and 2 from chest). But everyone had a great time with it, so that worked out at least.
Oh, we were also in that 26cp slot, and the two weak debilitated bulettes were a pushover. We ran the numbers on it, and it should definitely have been just weak bulettes.
