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I don't think my...Some questions that came up as I explained the prequalifying round rules to my players. As you can tell they're a bit on the unscrupulous side lol.
Not a single scruple to be had in there!
Jokes aside, those are good things for me to think about. We're still a couple weeks off from starting (and I might do a bit of a team-building session or two to get used to playing at level 11)
Average age is 19, so figure, lol. When I lay down these extra rulings, they fell in line and are having fun with it.
The phoenix necklace (page 75) that each team receives has the nonlethal damage thing figured out for you. It specifically has an activated ability to encourage nonlethal attacks.Good to know! I imagine the vast majority of contestants will activate this ability. But once a side chooses to go lethal (ahem my players), then it's no holds barred.
And am I right that the phoenix necklace doesn't affect certain effects like fireball?
I'm pretty sure necklace does affect them since 1) its non lethal tournament 2) its artifact 3) some teams purely use spells as way of combat. I could be wrong, but it would be weird over sight.
Also now that I'm aware of that, pretty sure any group of players that on purpose leave necklace's special ability off after gaining it(to be fair, the friendly sparring match was before any of team would have gained their own necklace), should be disqualified by the rules considering there is no reason to not do that besides trying to kill someone :p I don't really see how it would make sense otherwise x'D
(on sidenote, your players will have hard time in the ap if they actively anger every other team on purpose x'D But I'm genuinely curious if its possible to beat ap while doing that since ap seems to give you really hard encounters later on and make them beatable by power of friendship)
I mean main reason is that 1) who wants to take part in competition where enemy is allowed to knock you out and take your stuff 2) the competition rewards (and other loot you can find) is meant to replace loot you would normally take from enemies.
I do agree that 3) its silly they can loot the bodies if they find them dead :P
But yeah, I think you just need to remind players that competition rewards are sufficient for their money problems and that there is loot they can find that isn't competitor equipment.
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I mean main reason is that 1) who wants to take part in competition where enemy is allowed to knock you out and take your stuff 2) the competition rewards (and other loot you can find) is meant to replace loot you would normally take from enemies.
I do agree that 3) its silly they can loot the bodies if they find them dead :P
But yeah, I think you just need to remind players that competition rewards are sufficient for their money problems and that there is loot they can find that isn't competitor equipment.
Yeah, I would just change the rule to "no looting" - all items are claimed by the enforcers. All gains are to be gained from the tournament or the island itself. The unlucky team is shipped to Tournament HQ and if they made a contingency plan to resurrect themselves then that happens (with their gear still belonging to them).
I think I know why the rule is written in the AP - there are some unsavory NPC teams who are meant to be lootable, namely the team that is trying to cheat and make their own silver feathers. I think the rule will be that what makes them lootable is the fact that they are caught violating the tournament rules; then their gear is forfeit (regardless of whether they're killed). The emissary's representatives have the authority to determine this when it happens.
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I mean, that IS what they said. The emissary's representatives ARE the people traveling with teams.
I do agree that regardless you should never bring it up to players as "you can loot them if they are dead" because as written, that part of rule is more of "okay you can loot them if you find them dead" but when you put it as "you can only loot them if they are all killed. Oh but you can't kill them" it sounds like shenanigans is being promoted :P
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I've been asked to set this up but I'm getting quite concerned about interactions with the tournament rules and how teams might be able to mess with them. Especially, a number of items of magic don't seem to have been considered.
Are teams required to travel together? This is sort of implied by the rules, "a team" must present their necklace and feathers at any time (what if someone else has them?) or recieve a challenge (what if someone separated from their team is challenged?)
What counts as a "lethal effect"? This is obvious enough for regular weapon attacks, but what about spells? Can a higher level team hang around casting Blindness on other teams in the hope that they critically fail, then challenge the team to a fight with a member blinded?
How quickly must teams respond to being challenged? The text seems to imply that they must travel to the arena right away. But do they get time to heal up, etc, afterwards? Otherwise, it seems that a metastrategy is to wait for another team to lose a fight, then immediately challenge them, it will take no time to get to the arena and they are already wounded or unconscious. Or have a friendly sparring match, knock a team member unconscious then immediately challenge them. Likewise, are team allowed to cast buff spells just before climbing into the arena or are they stripped before the challenge starts?
How do the challenge rules interact with limited daily resources? This seems by far the biggest issue because it creates an entire metagame in the tournament, where challenging a team later in the day will give an easier fight because of resources they expended during the day; even potentially allowing abuses like challenging a team for 1 feather, letting them all blow spells powering up at the start of the fight, then immediately forfeit. Wait for the spells to wear off then challenge again for 2-3 feathers.
What is more concerning is that this is unfair to the players because their daily resources will be tracked...
This is a "fighting tournament" adventure, not a "let's try to do everything but a fighting tournament" adventure. Unless if this is what you, as the GM, want. The intent of the tournament is to find the best fighters in the world, not the best tricksters.
It's not really the adventure's fault if your players can't manage their resources well.
It's not really the adventure's fault if your players can't manage their resources well.No, but it is the adventure's fault that it encourages "resource management for thee but not for me" by not giving any mechanism to simulate NPC teams losing resources over the course of a tournament day.
There are a couple teams that do specifically say that they become weak pretty quickly into the match because they aren't doing so well. Other than that, your players will likely never know if the other teams were at max HP or not. The book also suggests/recommends adjusting the teams (elite/weak template) based on the player's level progression or how they are doing.
Your players have far, far more slots than any NPC does, as well as more options in general. I cannot think of a realistic way for them to introduce a system to randomly determine what spell slots an NPC has used. It just isn't how the game works.
If you want them to have less spells left over... Remove them yourself? The vast majority of players are never even going to think "uh, this NPC is CHEATING because it didn't have any expended spells". They almost definitely will not care. I don't know how this is such a colossal issue.
See some of my thoughts in this thread earlier. I think there's an aspect of entertainment to this entire tournament affair that explains some of the teams.
I will absolutely apply the use of daily resources to competing teams. I think it's fair for the players to expect that competing teams will be facing like challenges. (In fact, I'm going to be making clear that the Enforcers issuing challenges will be done evenly with all teams, to make it clear that there is some fairness being applied.)
So, minor question that takes some stuff from Book 3: Where exactly WAS Amotana (AKA Syndara’s Island)? I don’t know a whole lot about rain shadows, but I’d think that the island would have to be somewhere on the Bonmu map in order to be close enough to Mount Haminabu for it to in in its rain shadow. I’d guess that it would have been in that small lake next to D4 (before Syndara took it), but that would mean that the island would be, like, only a few hundred feet across (interestingly, we don’t have a scale for the map of Syndara’s Island, so we don’t actually know how big it is, so it’s possible, but unlikely based on the adventure saying that Syndara stole a forest to put on the island).
Word of warning: my players (remember the one with the unscrupulous tendencies) had their first session last night. They had just cleared the temple and started the "real" part of the prequalifying tournament.
The ki adept sisters issue their challenge and stake 2 feathers. The players win, of course.
They then head out to find another team.
I had them face the archers team. Sensing that this was really too quick for them to get so close to 10 silver feathers, I said that the archers wager 1 feather.
The PCs feel confident and say, "Aha! We wager THREE feathers!"
The archers were not willing to fight over 3 feathers, so they were inclined to refuse.
I look up the rules as written within the module for how wagers are handled. According to the module on page 9, the challenging team wagers a number of feathers. Then the other team must decide whether to fight over that number of feathers.
It creates an odd situation where teams that notice each other will have the incentive to "yell first," because they get to set the stakes for the fight.
I thought it made more sense for all the wagers to be agreed upon mutually by both parties. (And also, that conditions for the fight be agreed upon mutually. In this case, the archers wanted to start a long distance away, while the party members wanted to start closer while behind cover.) It only makes sense to me, in world, for such things to be mutually agreed upon.
Well, I share this story because I'm also wary about the speed by which some teams will reach 10 silver feathers. As written, the PCs should be able to find another team to compete with within 2 hours of searching. They likely can earn 10 silver feathers on Day 1.
I am thinking of making the wagers only 1 feather. The players immediately agreed to this, sensing that 10 feathers would have been too easy to get otherwise.
(I'm aware that there are some teams that are "meant" to be too strong for the party, such as Golarian's Finest which consist of eight(!) Level 12 creatures. But it would seem awfully strange if such a party trounced the party and does not end up in the final 10...)
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How do the challenge rules interact with limited daily resources? This seems by far the biggest issue because it creates an entire metagame in the tournament, where challenging a team later in the day will give an easier fight because of resources they expended during the day; even potentially allowing abuses like challenging a team for 1 feather, letting them all blow spells powering up at the start of the fight, then immediately forfeit. Wait for the spells to wear off then challenge again for 2-3 feathers.What is more concerning is that this is unfair to the players because their daily resources will be tracked while there is no described tracking of the other teams. I wondered if I would actually need to come up with a fight diary of who fights who during the 3 day tournament in order that an NPC team the PCs challenge will potentially have resources depleted.
Traditionally the tournament has favored martial classes and limited resources might be why. Mechanically spellcasters can't continually dish out their highest damage.
In my experience at high level play, mid-level spells were not used that often. My experience in PF2 high level play is not very big yet. When I could cast 6 level spells for example, I often used my highest level spell (6th) first, then the next highest level spell (5th). After that (by round three of most combats) I switched to cantrips or focus spells. Both heighten automatically so a 3rd level electric arc was preferred preparing a lightning bolt. I know the two do not quite match mechanically, but a utility spell (such as heal) was preferred for out of combat use.
If the GM is concerned about the disparity between PC and NPC mages I recommend that NPCs use their highest level spell at the start of the combat, then switch to cantrips. When a PC casts a spell, let the NPC cast a spell of the same level. That ties the tracking of NPC resources to the PCs.
Ran Session 2 last night. The PCs started at the Temple and are clearing it out. They decided to do a perimeter search and ended up fighting that Viper Vine which they did not enjoy.
It was very cool having a Monk (Cleric of Irori Free Archetype) as he knew exactly what to do with the Old Man Statue and just immediately pacified it. That part was written perfectly!
High level play is bonkers, though. Such huge hits. It's going to be interesting to see how well the players are able to manage their resources!
Session three for us tonight. The Seven Tails will face their first challenge tonight.
I am curious what folks are doing for starting placement on their the maps during a challenge. For Teeto's Toughest I had the players place themselves on the map in initiative order. (I will go in reverse initiative order going forward). With a team of seven, even TT's rogue got double teamed from the start.
Any suggestions how to start challenges in terms of battlefield placement?
Session three for us tonight. The Seven Tails will face their first challenge tonight.
I am curious what folks are doing for starting placement on their the maps during a challenge. For Teeto's Toughest I had the players place themselves on the map in initiative order. (I will go in reverse initiative order going forward). With a team of seven, even TT's rogue got double teamed from the start.Any suggestions how to start challenges in terms of battlefield placement?
Whoa! Seven players? You'll definitely be clobbering some teams!
When they fought Tino I just placed them about 30 to 40 feet away and then had the match start. They're still exploring the temple so they haven't fought any other teams yet (Session 3 last night I believe).
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Word of warning: my players (remember the one with the unscrupulous tendencies) had their first session last night. They had just cleared the temple and started the "real" part of the prequalifying tournament.
The ki adept sisters issue their challenge and stake 2 feathers. The players win, of course.
They then head out to find another team.
I had them face the archers team. Sensing that this was really too quick for them to get so close to 10 silver feathers, I said that the archers wager 1 feather.
The PCs feel confident and say, "Aha! We wager THREE feathers!"
The archers were not willing to fight over 3 feathers, so they were inclined to refuse.
I look up the rules as written within the module for how wagers are handled. According to the module on page 9, the challenging team wagers a number of feathers. Then the other team must decide whether to fight over that number of feathers.
It creates an odd situation where teams that notice each other will have the incentive to "yell first," because they get to set the stakes for the fight.
I thought it made more sense for all the wagers to be agreed upon mutually by both parties. (And also, that conditions for the fight be agreed upon mutually. In this case, the archers wanted to start a long distance away, while the party members wanted to start closer while behind cover.) It only makes sense to me, in world, for such things to be mutually agreed upon.
Well, I share this story because I'm also wary about the speed by which some teams will reach 10 silver feathers. As written, the PCs should be able to find another team to compete with within 2 hours of searching. They likely can earn 10 silver feathers on Day 1.
I am thinking of making the wagers only 1 feather. The players immediately agreed to this, sensing that 10 feathers would have been too easy to get otherwise.
(I'm aware that there are some teams that are "meant" to be too strong for the party, such as Golarian's Finest which consist of eight(!) Level 12...
It's fine if they get 10 feathers on day one.
You have to accept a challenge issued, and the challengers set the bet. You can only reduce the number if you don't have enough to cover the bet.
You cannot challenge anyone if you have 10 feathers, but anyone with less than 10 can challenge you.
Any feathers over 10 are taken by the enforcers.
Winning 10 on day one is easy enough. Keeping them until day 3 could be a challenge, especially once word gets around you have that many.
Yeah, I can see teams with nine feathers lining up to challenge them on the morning of the third day. First team just has to soak up a lot of resources & if they lose, challenge again at the end of four other challenges.
Session three for us tonight. The Seven Tails will face their first challenge tonight.
I am curious what folks are doing for starting placement on their the maps during a challenge. For Teeto's Toughest I had the players place themselves on the map in initiative order. (I will go in reverse initiative order going forward). With a team of seven, even TT's rogue got double teamed from the start.Any suggestions how to start challenges in terms of battlefield placement?
Whoa! Seven players? You'll definitely be clobbering some teams!
When they fought Tino I just placed them about 30 to 40 feet away and then had the match start. They're still exploring the temple so they haven't fought any other teams yet (Session 3 last night I believe).
30-40 feet away? From each other? That could place archers & casters at an advantage, but is probably fine. Reverse initiative worked pretty well last night. In the first match, one sister went first (low ini), then our team went with the front liners starting adjacent to her caster/healer farther back. The second sister went last (highest ini) and got flanking against immediately.
In the second match I got to place an agile warrior in the middle (bait) archer on a cliff & a caster on the rocks.
As for the seven players, I have been doing actual XP. Also, not all seven have been at the table all at once.
In the temple, Once my team found the three feathers they quit looking & didn't clear it. Then the barbarian wandered into a fight with cursed damage. So they spent the next four hours (game hours not RL!) making heal checks (only one PC has magical healing). As a result they are still level 11. After winning the first match (2 vs. 5) they decided to get all feathers and initiated another challenge. Second match (4 vs. 5) was against characters 2 levels above them. It was a little humbling for them when they lost.
Ran Session 2 last night. The PCs started at the Temple and are clearing it out. They decided to do a perimeter search and ended up fighting that Viper Vine which they did not enjoy.
It was very cool having a Monk (Cleric of Irori Free Archetype) as he knew exactly what to do with the Old Man Statue and just immediately pacified it. That part was written perfectly!
High level play is bonkers, though. Such huge hits. It's going to be interesting to see how well the players are able to manage their resources!
We just finished Session 1 yesterday and the goliath spiders were enough to stop 5 PCs in their tracks. Even after the huge crits from the witch's spells, the spiders venom and attacks nearly downed 2 people and abducted the kobold while the triceratops freed itself and trampled away.
As for the ghost monks the party had a ring of ethereal sight ring, so the monk decided to charge up an attack to get the ghosts by surprise. Since they are ghost monks they knew exactly what he was doing and attacked first. Kobold got into the middle and flanked by two of them, but the rolls were poor even with flanking.
Players haven't found their momentum yet, but by session 2 I also expect the Temple to be cleared, or people to opt to change a few things before the next leg of the adventure.
I have it recorded, but I don't know if I am allowed to post it here or if there is a thread elsewhere to show recorded module play for this adventure path.
I'm a bit worried as my players went around the temple and entered through the entrance in the back, thus avoiding the goliath spiders. They know there is one spider but not that there is a second. I'm hoping they just set the webs on fire and hang back so that I don't have to deal with the ramifications of the fight.
I'm a bit worried as my players went around the temple and entered through the entrance in the back, thus avoiding the goliath spiders. They know there is one spider but not that there is a second. I'm hoping they just set the webs on fire and hang back so that I don't have to deal with the ramifications of the fight.
If the spiders are active at this point that reaction will definitely crit two of them in surprise.
My group of five didn't do anything about the webs, and still managed to burn down the spiders, but as a first encounter using their best spells.
It really help set the mood for what was inside, but that wronged monk encounter crit two people. The Ki storm even put them down with resistances. They just weren't prepared for haunts and ghosts.
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You can always use video game and anime OSTs, as well as movies. Also do not use the word "oriental" to describe something Asian.
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There are lots of good traditional Chinese or Japanese bands that have excellent music for backgrounds. Japanese Taiko drums are also excellent for combat. If you have spotfiy there is loooots and lots of that kind of music. Otherwise there is lots of YouTube as well!
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Welcome to GMing!
3. I use a lot of soundtracks: Godzilla, Akira, & Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon among others.
2. Did you get the PDF of the books? If so the 'interactive maps' chapter should be easy to print (though pricey) by asking the print shop for 1" grids. Personally, I printed two maps on standard (8.5x11) in color. I ask one of the players to draw the maps while I prep the combat. I only did this for the combat areas since I will use them more than once. (Book 2 I may spring for the full size maps. (I plan to make a model of the ruby tower map. ) I also ask one of the players to track initiative, just to let me work on the multitude of opponents.
1. This is up to your game & group. There is a lot of backstory that is hard to get through (in most of Paizo products). At my table I do everything I can to get out these details. Most, but not all my players want it.
I am using any of the skills granted by FotRP backgrounds to learn more about the other teams, enforcers, and to a smaller degree, Danger Island. My players even started a spreadsheet for the thirty-two teams. As far as the information they gain about the team, I pre-rolled a couple random teams from the players-guide that a 'true fan' would know.
I have also used the phoenix necklace to 'broadcast' a highlight reel a few of the teams' progress.
My players are definitely not rushing through this game! After the initial first session I think they've been in the temple for 4 sessions now. They should clean it up in their 6th session.
Sounds like a lot of people have had things go much faster than that!
My players are definitely not rushing through this game! After the initial first session I think they've been in the temple for 4 sessions now. They should clean it up in their 6th session.
Sounds like a lot of people have had things go much faster than that!
Well, it also depend on the length of your session. We just finished session 4 last night, and my players are about half way or a bit more in the temple. But we usualy have about 3h sessions.
Also, don't rush it. Every group is different. If you and your players are having fun, no need to change anything.
My players are definitely not rushing through this game! After the initial first session I think they've been in the temple for 4 sessions now. They should clean it up in their 6th session.
Sounds like a lot of people have had things go much faster than that!
Well, it also depend on the length of your session. We just finished session 4 last night, and my players are about half way or a bit more in the temple. But we usualy have about 3h sessions.
Also, don't rush it. Every group is different. If you and your players are having fun, no need to change anything.
Oh no worries about rushing! It was more an anecdote. They like to take their time and we all get sidetracked with random conversations and stuff!
But it's nice to hear others with a similar pace!
The purpose of heightening True Strike is probably to have a lot of True Strikes available while also have spell diversety across all levels.
So instead of having 3 True Strikes prepared at level 1 it has True Strike across more levels but also Fleet Step and Ray of Enfeeblement at level 1 as well.
Yeah, true strike itself doesn't heighten, so I figured this was just a way to get more of the spell. This matches their preferred fighting tactics. At 5th level though, it means one less heightened shocking grasp. You could switch it to a fourth level spell, and remove fly per your other question.
I presume fly was used up in the Glowing Embers very first encounter or combat, because like you said it addresses the problem early.
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So I'll be starting this probably in like a month. Are there any recommendations for encounters to be tweaked or things to change or add? I've heard a lot of the teams are really dangerous, especially Golarion's Finest, and may apply a Weak template here or there just because the players aren't used to *quite* this high a level previously.
So far I've run everything as is and they've mostly clobbered everything. You have conrol as to what wandering teams they fight so if you don't want them to come up against Golarion's Finest they definitely don't have to.
The biggest challenge will be the number of combats they have to do before resting. They might blow through all their spells right away and then be hurting later on.
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Yeah, I have been running encounters as written. They won one, got overconfident and lost one. Overall they are 60/40 against teams.
The largest obstacle is healing, with medicine checks taking two of their hexploration activities minimum after each encounter (dedicated healer rolling checks). Still, none of the other players are willing to pick up feats that will help healing.
If I could change anything, it would be the tone. Even though Tino's Toughest offer a friendly match as the very first encounter, my players are too suspicious that this tournament should be 'fun.'
I gave them quick previews of all the teams disembarking with my best impression of a Kentucky Derby introductions. One of the characters has the Super fan feat and I had the enforcer sign his trading card from the last tournament for him.
I recently tried to correct this by saying the party could benefit from thinking of this as the Superbowl or the Olympics and not the Hunger Games, Battle Royale or the Running Man. One of the players actually argued
You get tons of prize money just from winning bouts even if you don't take first. There's plenty of reward in it, even aside from the game and glory of being a finalist.
So far I've run everything as is and they've mostly clobbered everything. You have conrol as to what wandering teams they fight so if you don't want them to come up against Golarion's Finest they definitely don't have to.
The biggest challenge will be the number of combats they have to do before resting. They might blow through all their spells right away and then be hurting later on.
Running things as intended works well enough, and I've had to slap elite on a few of the teams to balance out having five players. What you can't do is force players to do the ghost towers and beast dens, of which the majority of the island makes up. Skipping all of these like my group did, will make the tournament significantly easier. So it really depends on what your players decide their path is going to be, and preping 105 unique locations, encounters, and enemies in addition to the teams themselves which are scattered throughout the module is a huge time sink.
I also recommend using iconography for the locations on Bonmu as they are discovered. Listing Alpha numeric is just highly confusing for over 100 locations without using a color code.
Yes, that's the danger my group soon realized. So they took 0 risks with the dens and the random events. The bird stealing the necklace was their least favorite, but having just a lone enemy made it easy to focus down even with Ingdani and a team member confused and being controlled by it.
You've also got massive amounts of treasure around that give an unfair advantage to the pcs if they happen to come across it, 500gp per feather won, and shrines which is in my player's opinion useless, but they quickly changed their tunes when they found the boats and could cross rivers more easily.
I don't feel that the tone is wrong to make the tournament fun, but that's your call as a DM. This contest is voluntary and Tino's team represents that element of it that Syndara is trying to ruin.
We're almost done here, with just that last battle between PCs and Lightbearers. I've uploaded my sessions in case anyone wants a look on how the group handled all of module one with highlights as well, if anyone can recommend where on the forums to post that I'll do so.
Why is everything in the temple +2 or +3 levels above the party? We're getting clobbered out there! And we're supposed to clear it in a single in-game day? What the heck are we missing?
It also didn't help that the party split up and the barbarian bashed a hole in a wall thereby managing to aggro three separate encounters into one.
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Why is everything in the temple +2 or +3 levels above the party? We're getting clobbered out there! And we're supposed to clear it in a single in-game day? What the heck are we missing?
It also didn't help that the party split up and the barbarian bashed a hole in a wall thereby managing to aggro three separate encounters into one.
I would say your party splitting up AND barbarian combining three encounters into one IS the main reason there. Both of those are EXTREMELY dangerous things in 2e.
I mean, temple enemy levels are 7, 9, 13 and 14. But the thing is that level 14 creature is skippable with roleplaying, which I think your barbarian's shenanigans probably made impossible or at least really hard to notice because it requires recall knowledge check to learn how to pacify :'D