Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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So I'm happy I got chance to sign up on author table and sad I had months prior signed up to run this at con prior to paizocon x'D Ah well thats the life sometimes, at least I get chance to both run and play the season finale
But yeah, just to check I understood right, the final combat ends then portal opens regardless of whether players did enough damage right? So in best case scenario it lasts one round and worst case 3 rounds?
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That matches how I was reading it too.
A different question: for the 'split the party' bit at the beginning: anyone have thoughts on how to reconcile narratively the
"we need to split the party in order to have time to reach all the sites", with if you get a crit on your first check, you can go to another site. I know mechanically they don't want to "waste" the second action of a character, just because they rolled a crit on the first, but it does seem to undermine the "we have to spread out to cover all the sites"
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Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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From what I understood the logic is "all go to different sites and try check there twice. If you get lucky and get crit success, you somehow manage in nick of time to go to second place to do your second roll". That is how it makes sense to me, you are just that good/lucky you get chance to do extra
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Just confirming that I haven't missed anything regrading encounter B:
The trolls living or dying have no connection to the ability to disable the runes, correct? (Other than attacking people who try to disable the runes.)
The only way to disable is "The PCs can attempt to disable the runes with a variety of skills. Each attempt is a 2-action activity which has manipulate trait. The heroes must succeed at a DC 24 Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Occult, or Religion check (DC 27 for Levels 9–10). PCs fluent in Cyclops gain a +2 circumstance bonus to their checks. To attempt a check to disable a rune, the PC must be adjacent to the rune, which puts them in reach of the attacks of the troll who is bound to it"
And while the trolls are chained to the runes, are said to be fueling it, and "The ritual sucks its body dry, shriveling the troll into a withered husk in just a few seconds.", that is entirely descriptive and doesn't imply that a dead troll depowers that rune. (Perhaps it would depower it over a longer timescale than a couple of rounds of battle, but that's not relevant here.)
If a rune is disabled, but the troll still lives, the rune doesn't flare back into life.
If The troll is dead, and the rune is not disabled, the rune doesn't go out automatically, etc
The narrative almost implies both of those things should happen, but there's no rules for it, so I'm assuming they are entirely unlinked for the encounter purposes.
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Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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Just confirming that I haven't missed anything regrading encounter B:
The trolls living or dying have no connection to the ability to disable the runes, correct? (Other than attacking people who try to disable the runes.)
The only way to disable is "The PCs can attempt to disable the runes with a variety of skills. Each attempt is a 2-action activity which has manipulate trait. The heroes must succeed at a DC 24 Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Occult, or Religion check (DC 27 for Levels 9–10). PCs fluent in Cyclops gain a +2 circumstance bonus to their checks. To attempt a check to disable a rune, the PC must be adjacent to the rune, which puts them in reach of the attacks of the troll who is bound to it"
And while the trolls are chained to the runes, are said to be fueling it, and "The ritual sucks its body dry, shriveling the troll into a withered husk in just a few seconds.", that is entirely descriptive and doesn't imply that a dead troll depowers that rune. (Perhaps it would depower it over a longer timescale than a couple of rounds of battle, but that's not relevant here.)
If a rune is disabled, but the troll still lives, the rune doesn't flare back into life.
If The troll is dead, and the rune is not disabled, the rune doesn't go out automatically, etc
The narrative almost implies both of those things should happen, but there's no rules for it, so I'm assuming they are entirely unlinked for the encounter purposes.
Yeah trolls are there (mechanically) mostly for preventing players easily disabling the runes by attacking those characters. They don't automatically disable the rune upon being defeated or get freed or killed upon rune being dispelled. Do note that all trolls die by explosion when Demoniac Spirit is defeated
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Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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I'm not sure I understand how the Abyssal Firestorm works. It seems to automatically happen X times and isn't a complex trap (so no initiative). When would PCs be able to disable it?
Where should PCs enter Area B? Assuming on the right.
I assumed that if players manage to notice it with search they can react before it happens and try to disable it one instance of it happening, but if they fail to disable the ones who succeeded to find it still get saving throw bonus
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I assumed that if players manage to notice it with search they can react before it happens and try to disable it one instance of it happening, but if they fail to disable the ones who succeeded to find it still get saving throw bonusI'm not sure I understand how the Abyssal Firestorm works. It seems to automatically happen X times and isn't a complex trap (so no initiative). When would PCs be able to disable it?
Where should PCs enter Area B? Assuming on the right.
That's how I interpreted it as well.
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Also, it seems suspect to me that the ritual sites' diplomacy/deception check is the same in both tiers (this means it is lower than any of the more specialized skills in high tier). Is this in error?
I suspect its an error, but I ran as written (but only one PC wanted to use diplomacy and nat 20'd it so it wouldn't have made a difference).
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Real quick detail I just thought of: The skills listed to disable the runes in the last section; can any of the skills listed be used for any of the runes? Or are they in the listed order appropriate for the sequence? Acrobatics for the "Noon" rune, Arcana for the next one clockwise, etc.
I'm thinking any on any, but I figured I'd ask the smart people.
Thanks!
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Awesome! Thanks.
BTW, is the storm supposed to inflict the same damage at both sub-tiers? The save DCs are higher in the 9-10, but the damage amounts listed are the same.
I'm sure I'll have more questions as I prep this for Friday night.
That appears correct -- I would run as written. Same damage, but different DC's.
This is either something the devs did intentionally or it is an error. I mention it may be an error since GMG Table 2-16 tells us the damage for a lvl 7 hazard should be 2d10+9 and the damage for a lvl 9 hazard should be 2d10+13. It appears in this case the lvl 7 hazard is using the lvl 9 damage. Of course, the GMG table 2-16 is a guideline and the devs may have had their reasons for using the 2d10+13 dmg on a lvl 7 hazard. So again, unless the PDF gets updated it would be the usual 'run as written'
and best of luck to the indy folk. Hope you manage to get 1 more player to avoid 'hard mode.' I would probably discourage them from doing hard mode and reschedule for a time four players can be mustered.
Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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I'm not sure what you mean. For the Ritual section:
Each PC gets two attempts.
A Success it 1 point, a Crit is 2 points.
If they crit on the first roll they need to pick a different site, and thus a different skill, for the second roll.
To Significantly Weaken the Ritual, you need twice as many points as players. So 5 players would need 10 points, which is achievable if everyone succeeds on all their rolls. Any Crit Successes offset any Failures.
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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Yea, even if they fail and only minimally weaken the ritual, the rest of the scenario is totally possible, just more difficult. The secondary for this one is automatically achieved when you complete the primary, so there's no need to worry about reputation. And there's only 2 TB tied to the Ritual, one for getting Half the needed points (so 3 in a party of 6) and one for getting more than the needed points (so 7 in a party of 6). Both are totally achievable.
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So just ran this last night in the low tier. It was fun, but we did run into one issue.
In the first bit, what happens if someone crit succeeds on a check to turn off a ritual sight for the second check? Like, if someone normal succeeds to turn off a sight, then crit succeeds on their normal check. The RAW says that the crit success counts as two points, but there's only one point to turn off? My thought is that the PC does so well that they turn the ritual back in on itself so that instead of just 'off' it is actively interfering with the ritual. Luckily for my group everyone either succeeded or crit succeeded on all checks so it wasn't an issue (they got super lucky with that.)
Also, not a problem but a fun note, on the very last boss fight against the hand, right before his one round was up, the last person to act (an elderly witch) successfully hydraulic pushed the hand who, through a nat 1, crit failed and got pushed back 10 feet. I ruled that she hydraulic pushed Urexhel back to hell and he spent his last moments cursing her. Her response was priceless.
Urexhel: "CURSE YOU (Character name)! You will rue the day you." (portal shuts)
Character "Oh dear . . . Looks like I made another enemy for life. Anyway, who wants cookies?"
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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Great ending to the scenario there. I would rule the hand is normally unmovable, so that the first person to go doesn't just end the scenario immediately, but I think you handled that well.
As for the rituals, yea if the succeed then crit they would get the 3 points. For some characters, it's going to be more optimal to do that since they get to roll the same skill twice, than to crit on their best skill and then have to go to a different skill they aren't so great at.
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I'm not sure what you mean. For the Ritual section:
Each PC gets two attempts.
A Success it 1 point, a Crit is 2 points.
If they crit on the first roll they need to pick a different site, and thus a different skill, for the second roll.
To Significantly Weaken the Ritual, you need twice as many points as players. So 5 players would need 10 points, which is achievable if everyone succeeds on all their rolls. Any Crit Successes offset any Failures.
Oh it is Ritual POINTS… not number of rituals… makes more sense
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Venture-Captain, Tennessee—East Tennessee
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For Encounter B, if the Demonaic Spirit drains life 3 times, it under goes Ritual Transformation. Part of that increases its strength from -5 to +0. Does that also increase melee attack's to-hit and/or damage by 5?
I missed that the attack was Finesse, so to-hit wouldn't increase, but damage should?
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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I am just prepping to run the adventure this saturday - one question immediately popped into my mind when reading the ritual section at the start:
How do you decide which sites the characters go to? Randomly? Do you tell them the names of the sites? Or do you actually tell them the skill they will need to attempt there? The difficulty of that section will vary WILDLY with the answer to this question!
Just let the PCs know the skills so they can pick. Otherwise it will go very poorly.
Also, the final event feels REALLY strange to me for two reasons:
1. It is commpletely unnecessary to do ANYTHING other than to survive for 1-3 rounds. Nothing else matters at all. Or do you need to kill the hand to get any reputation? That would be really weird as more successes earlier would make this a lot harder since you had fewer rounds.
2. Why does the fear aura only do evil damage instead of mental damage? In many games, most of the characters will be immune to it since they are neutral anyways. One more incentive NOT to play good characters :(
It's just a survival gambit, but the PCs will be VERY inclined to attack. Don't tell them that the portal closes in X rounds though, otherwise they will just go full defense instead of trying to stop a literal demon lord for breaching into their world.
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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I just realized the Spirit is suddenly LE instead of CE. In 2-22 they were CE, and it just makes sense that something summoning a Demon Lord would be CE. I'm assuming this is a mistake, and was just left there from the base creature they were developed off of, which appears to be a Dread Wraith.
They also had their spells change from Divine to Arcane, and for some reason their Abyssal Spite has the Occult tag.
I just noticed that all the spells on the list are Arcane spells, which is probably why they're Arcane. It's totally unnecessary to match the creature's tradition to the spells. The Brimoraks earlier in the scenario for example have Fireball as a Divine Spell. The Spirit should have Divine spells as well, as their power is derived from their devotion to Urxehl rather than researching Arcane power. They can still have the exact same spells.
The reason this matters is for certain spells that work against Divine casters, such as Crisis of Faith. Since they aren't technically a Divine Caster, that spell would do less damage, even though it realistically should work just fine.
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It's just a survival gambit, but the PCs will be VERY inclined to attack.
Ayup
Put yourself in the position of a player. You're playing probably your highest level PFS character in a pretty epic adventure that was billed as both epic and very, very important. You're fighting the hand of a Demon Lord literally trying to claw his way out onto Golarion.
From both a character and player perspective its obvious that the demon lord is much weaker than normal (you're just fighting his hand) so you have a chance. Do enough damage so it loses its grip. Before it can clamber up
When I played it every character unleashed everything they had left. Hanging back never even occurred (or, at least, wasn't voiced) to any player. It was actually rather disappointing to me to find out that the portal closed so quickly. I'd have preferred if we had to defeat the hand in 5 rounds or the like.
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I am just prepping to run the adventure this saturday - one question immediately popped into my mind when reading the ritual section at the start:
How do you decide which sites the characters go to? Randomly? Do you tell them the names of the sites? Or do you actually tell them the skill they will need to attempt there? The difficulty of that section will vary WILDLY with the answer to this question!
The VCs said that they will send the PCs to the sites where they could do the most good, so I just asked all the PCs at the start for their 4 highest skill modifiers and chose sites based off those skills making sure not to repeat a site.
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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I ran this a couple of days ago. The most frustrating thing about this scenario was the lack of a clear timeline of events. There's nothing about how long it takes you to get from the camp to the center of the storm, or how long between each surge. There needs to be a timetable since a lot of PCs will have a Pearly White Spindle Aeon Stone, which automatically restores 1 HP per minute. The scenario also doesn't mention anything about if they can rest after reaching the eye, which I can infer as a "They do not have time" since they get the single 10 minute rest after the Ravener.
These times need to be explicit. The scenario needs to say something like "It takes 5 minutes to reach the eye of the storm, and these surges happen along the way. There is no time to rest before the next encounter."
It was also frustrating that the High Tier version of the Demoniac Spirit only has a 4th level Paralyze, when the PCs are levels 9-10. This triggers the Incapacitate trait. There's no reason for a BOSS to have spells that can't adequately affect the PCs; it's there so the PCs don't one-shot the boss. They could have easily had a 6th level Lightning Bolt (7d12 isn't that strong, considering the Ravener has a 12d6 breath weapon), and had Paralyze as a 5th level spell. Also their spell DCs are the same at level 9 and level 11, which also makes no sense but that's likely a copy/paste error.