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In the mansion, how deep is the water in G4 (The Dining Hall) supposed to be? Based on the description, it seems pretty deep considering the tables and chairs are floating. Should it be roughly 7 feet deep as in the description of G6 (The Ballroom) or closer to the 5 feet mentioned in the exterior description of the water depth close to the walls?
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So... I don't think my players are going to like Oba much. Exotic animal traders are, um, let's go with ethically problematic, and I'm not sure how enthusiastic the PCs are going to be to help her recover her animals, especially since the evidence suggests she's not even taking particularly good care of them. I predict they're going to want to confiscate her stock to set them free, and even though I doubt they would be able to succeed in convincing anyone that they should be allowed to do so, I'm guessing the players will resent being forced to help her.
I think I'm going to rewrite her as an animal rehabber, treating injured wild and dangerous animals for rerelease into the jungle, and her conflict with Froglegs was simply that Froglegs wanted to buy the griffons and Oba said no. Froglegs then sent some of her people to steal them, but that didn't go particularly well, resulting in the griffons escaping and several of Froglegs's minions getting injured. So now the crime boss is pissed and doesn't have any griffons, so she's sent her goons back to punish Oba for not just selling them in the first place.
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I'm disappointed by how thoroughly the dormmate NPCs seem to disappear from this mod. They aren't utterly gone, but their inclusion is token at best and nothing in the adventure tells us much of anything about how they are doing, if any of them (Esi) are making progress at a similar rate as the PCs, or what misadventures they might be getting up to. Is any of that going to be addressed at all in future installments?
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I'm disappointed by how thoroughly the dormmate NPCs seem to disappear from this mod. They aren't utterly gone, but their inclusion is token at best and nothing in the adventure tells us much of anything about how they are doing, if any of them (Esi) are making progress at a similar rate as the PCs, or what misadventures they might be getting up to. Is any of that going to be addressed at all in future installments?
Generally that stuff is not followed up on, because they don't want future events to retro-actively change the NPCs paths in anyone's game. The dormmates are available, and completely free for the PCs and GMs to develop.
It's obviously fun when reading the product if beloved characters get updates, but from a game module perspective it makes sense to leave writing the rest of their stories to everyone's individual tables.
I know I'm going to make them a big part of my games.
I thought this AP had been pitched in part with how those characters and relationships go. I’ll be a little disappointed if the AP doesn’t actually have a ton of that in the text.
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I'm disappointed by how thoroughly the dormmate NPCs seem to disappear from this mod. They aren't utterly gone, but their inclusion is token at best and nothing in the adventure tells us much of anything about how they are doing, if any of them (Esi) are making progress at a similar rate as the PCs, or what misadventures they might be getting up to. Is any of that going to be addressed at all in future installments?Generally that stuff is not followed up on, because they don't want future events to retro-actively change the NPCs paths in anyone's game. The dormmates are available, and completely free for the PCs and GMs to develop.
It's obviously fun when reading the product if beloved characters get updates, but from a game module perspective it makes sense to leave writing the rest of their stories to everyone's individual tables.
The specifics, yes, but I direct you to this quote from Kindled Magic:
This article presents nine fellow students of the Magaambya who learn and grow with the heroes. Although most of these students have roles in “Kindled Magic” and later adventures, feel free to develop attachments, rivalries, or even romances as matches your group’s interests and comfort.
(emphasis mine) I took that to mean we would be getting some kind of guidance about what was happening with them somewhere. Obviously, I can and will fill in those gaps myself - I'm actually thinking about making Chizire Gossip Girl, as a means to seed campus rumors into the game - I am still, as I said above, disappointed.
Paizo's fault for making such awesome NPCs. I want more!
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I'm similarly disappointed. This adventure has a lot of really good content and there's still a lot of cool teachers and townspeople in the AP as well, but I hope we get some more of the students in the future books. Even if we don't ill still be involving them more deeply in my game but part of why I loved kindled magic was because of the wonderful npc writing, and paizo has had a cast of recurring npcs before (wrath of the righteous) so I hope they don't fade into obscurity
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I'm planning for the book to take basically two years total. There will be one academic semester (four months, as I have been planning for them to last) that covers Part One, then five more semesters for Part Two. Then, of course, Part Three is basically just a few days.
The trouble I've been running into is figuring out when the events that precede Part One happened - i.e., when did the flooding actually occur, and when was Salathiss actually doing his research at the Hababe Building.
So far, I think my plan is to break up the events that involve Goss and their friends in Part One - basically, the PCs go and interview them, learn about their strange sense of connection to the Magaambya, and have it stay there at first. Then they can go off and deal with the griffon hunt. Then, toward the end of the semester, the anadi will reach out to the PCs (since they are among the few at the school who have shown any interest in them) and ask them for help checking out some recent weirdness at the Hall. That gives Salathiss anywhere from two to five months, potentially, to have been testing the Vesicant Egg before the PCs interrupt that project permanently.
I don't think it's all that weird for doing some real, down-to-the-foundation repair work on a house to take well over a year - I've known people in real life who were dealing with contractor issues and supply problems and the like that meant their house renovations took more than a year. Two does seem long, but that's also the point: by that time, people are already asking what the heck is going on.
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I'm planning to mix the semester long "downtime" with the events. So the investigation of Chapter One will take place during a single three-month semester which will cap off with the Study/Cram rolls. This gives me the ability to potentially provide bonuses or other benefits (or penalties) to their study rolls based on roleplay, etc. It might take Froglegs some time to determine that Oba hasn't "suffered" enough and send her thugs back to unlock the animals. The Anadi aren't going anywhere, so approaching them can happen at a relaxed pace as well. I'm planning to have Janatimo pitch it as a "look into this when you have time this semester." It gives them a deadline, but they don't have to chase it immediately.
Chapter Two's events are a little trickier and I'll need to read them again, but I'm planning on holding off a bit on the ones more directly related to the flooded manor like the flooded basement until a slightly later semester. Just on my gut, I might tackle them in the following order:
- Suspicious Alchemy & Busker Woes
- Ghost Stories & Oozing Into Trouble
- Flooded Workshop & Tell a Tale
- Fiery Debt & Finding Froglegs
- Trouble From The Skies & Carving Trouble
Carving Trouble definitely needs to go last. It directly pushes into Chapter 3. I moved Flood Workshop later in the order because it's a direct consequence of the manor flooding. This order also front-loads the Froglegs side story, making her seem to be a bigger threat. It makes that fourth semester kind of rough. Depending on their level, I might swap Fiery Debt and Tell A Tale, making the Tell a Tale invitation a "reward" for catching Froglegs. That also makes it so there's a combat-oriented event in each semester to keep the combat aficionados among my players happy.
If I put those pairs each in one semester, I'm look at 15 months of in-game time provided the characters don't need extra study downtime to keep their branch levels up. I need to discuss with my players whether they prefer milestone leveling or XP-based, but in either case, I'd look for them to hit 6th level during/after the third pair of events.
I'd bet it's a typo, and the levels were intended to not be doubled, as in the rituals were given levels like items, not spells.
Really I'd bet you should half the rituals levels.
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Should the Mutated Sewer Ooze have a little bit more HP rather than 45? Considering it's level 1 variant has 40 HP this one has 45 at level 6? Was the intent for it to have 450 HP?
about Rajata, She begins combat by Fading into the Light and then uses her Menacing Growl, making its noise emanate from the pile of burning filth. She prefers to attack frightened creatures, and if there aren’t any, she lurks around invisibly until she can use Menacing Growl again.
If the hellcat uses a hostile action, the invisibility ends after that hostile action is completed.
Menacing growl inflicts frightened, so by the rules of hostile actions is def one - so as soon as she's done menacing growl, she'll go visible!
I think i might have to be meta to the Player and say, "The adv assumes the rules work differently than they do, so for this 1 instance, i'm houseruling them to work as assumed!" either that or just change it and tell em afterwards
Should the Mutated Sewer Ooze have a little bit more HP rather than 45? Considering it's level 1 variant has 40 HP this one has 45 at level 6? Was the intent for it to have 450 HP?
45 is def too low (it's low for a lvl 4), but 450 is def way too high (about right for a lvl 19-22 creature!)
after a bit of research i discovered there's only 3 oozes without other defenses, we're limited to slime mold, slithering pit, and ofc the base creature, sewer
slime: 1.57x high avg
slithering: 1.52x high avg
sewer: 1.6x high avg
that seems the approx formula - 190 (1.6x lvl 6 high avg) seems about right then
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I'm running with a group of 6 and all of them show up pretty frequently. For the chase sequence in Chapter 2, I'm thinking I should increase the chase points for each obstacle, but I'm not sure. They have atrocious rolling luck and not all the characters are particularly physically skilled. Anyone have any thoughts?
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I'm not reading this thread because I'm a player, but... Be careful with the foreshadowing during the flood repairs perquisite. My group thought Asanda's place smelled fishy and wound up breaking in to investigate. We did so while the place was asleep and managed to rescue the sister. Our GM tried really hard to discourage us from going back in with Teacher Ot warning us about how dangerous it was and threatening to expel us. But because the adventure seems to lack authorities who can handle such things we insisted on going back and nearly got TPK'ed by the electric trap. When I heard a 23 didn't pass the reflex save I realized how underleveled we were-- I think we must have gone from the first chapter to the final one.
If you want to share any spoiler free thoughts, you can DM me. I won't be checking this thread for replies. :)
I'm not reading this thread because I'm a player, but... Be careful with the foreshadowing during the flood repairs perquisite. My group thought Asanda's place smelled fishy and wound up breaking in to investigate. We did so while the place was asleep and managed to rescue the sister. Our GM tried really hard to discourage us from going back in with Teacher Ot warning us about how dangerous it was and threatening to expel us. But because the adventure seems to lack authorities who can handle such things we insisted on going back and nearly got TPK'ed by the electric trap. When I heard a 23 didn't pass the reflex save I realized how underleveled we were-- I think we must have gone from the first chapter to the final one.
If you want to share any spoiler free thoughts, you can DM me. I won't be checking this thread for replies. :)
My players also questions this, I had told them that because Asanda is part of the government, there is more red tape involved. The school can't investigate a political figure on a whim, and that an investigation would be needed. With evidence, we can make a move. So they continued the chapter as planned, all the while being suspicious and looking for evidence, but never trying to sneak in.
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I had a similar issue, but with Froglegs. The way I'm running the missions, her name keeps coming up and the players were starting to make serious noise about going after her... at level 5. I stepped out of character for a minute and said "folks, you will get your shot at Froglegs, but in everyone's interest, it's best if you don't do it right now." They quickly went "Well, we've told the Chime Ringers, she's their problem for now." This was shortly after they'd busted the robbery gang. They dealt with the poltergeist situation in our most recent session and are about to deal with the gardens. That should put them at level 6, so I'm going to move up Froglegs from where I had planned to run that mission so they can go ahead and get that payoff.
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I'm running with a group of 6 and all of them show up pretty frequently. For the chase sequence in Chapter 2, I'm thinking I should increase the chase points for each obstacle, but I'm not sure. They have atrocious rolling luck and not all the characters are particularly physically skilled. Anyone have any thoughts?
For the curious, I ended up using 5 chase points instead of 6, despite the group size. I was also pretty free with what skills I let them use as long as they weren't leaning on the same things over and over again. They managed to catch up with their quarry by the canals, which seemed like a reasonable place story-wise.
I fleshed out the Anadi students a tad. I was surprised there wasn't much info for them in this book. The message of diversity and inclusion seems more meaningful if the they are each given a little individual personality.
"Goss" is the most outgoing of the andis who recently arrived on campus.
• Male anadi
• Leader of the new anadi students
• Seer
Hobbies: looking for the strands of fate in everything, arcane tinkering, weaving silk.
Most Well Known For: The most outgoing of the new andi students. Which might not be saying much.
Strangest Quirk: often speaks in short, sudden exclamations.
Common Associates: Tzeniwe and Esi (who are trying to make the anadis more comfortable)
• Male anadi
• Scout
• Tracker
"Mazta" is shy, preferring to keep to the shadows or dangle from a tree branch in spider form, keeping lookout.
Hobbies: Hobbies weaving campflague and silently observing the customs of new peoples.
Most Well Known For: Startling Ignaci while hanging from a tree, and saying nothing while the spy student berated him.
Strangest Quirk: prefers hanging upside down from things, even in the classroom.
Common Associates: Tzeniwe and Esi (who are trying to make the andis more comfortable)
• Female anadi
• Mage
• Supertaster
"Savana" is a little less quiet than Mazta, but less outgoing than Goss. She loves to try out new cuisines, and enhance their flavors with magic.
Hobbies: Tasting new foods, the weirder the better.
Most Well Known For: Spitting up mangoes on chizire after being offered some. She thinks they're gross!
Strangest Quirk: Will try any food once, and journals her tasting notes in her spellbook.
Common Associates: Tzeniwe and Esi (who are trying to make the andis more comfortable)
In my game we do "slice of life" scenes with skill checks, much like the "Extracurricular Activities" section of book 1. If the PC actively includes an Anadi in the check they get a circumstance bonus like an aid, +2 if it's particularly appropriate. This represents them following through on befriending the new students and helping them be more accepted on campus.
My players just hit "Flooded Workshop" in Chapter 2. They did well enough on the gather information check to get both rituals. I had thankfully seen the note in this thread about adjusting the level of the Community Repair ritual from 4 to 2.
My party ran into an issue when looking at Community repair though, none of my 5 PCs have Expert proficiency in Perform. I didn't do a very good job of presenting them with an NPC who could take the lead in the ritual so they chose to attempt the cheaper material cost but higher level Unseen Underpinnings ritual.
It's been a while (since book 1) for a ritual to come up in the game and I flubbed the rules on it. I missed the "Very Hard" modifier on the primary caster check and also used the Spell level DC instead of the level based DC for twice the ritual level. In my case the secondary casters were rolling against a DC 20 when they should have been DC 22 and the primary caster was rolling against a DC 20 when it should have been 27.
Even with the lowered DCs they still failed the first day and just hit DC 20 on the second day. If I had used the correct DC they would have had to attempt a third day burning at least 45 gold (15 gold an attempt)
My group is about to fight Reth and his gang. I just wanted to make sure I was reading his entry correct.
His damage with xbow is 1d6+2 plus 3d8 precision damage.
The Deadly Bolts stance says he deals an additional 3d8 damage.
So am I reading this right in that while in the stance Reth does 6d8 precision damage with his xbow?
Thanks in advance
I think it is 1d6+3d8 total. That's how I read it
I have been struggling with this as well. It seems that chapter 2 should take a couple of years. But, Asanda's Mansion is to be flooded for two full years? I have already done the first two tasks in chapter 2, so they know about the flooding and the mansion. Just feels rough to keep adding these hints and not have them want to go run into investigate. Struggling to figure out exactly how to handle this.
I had book 2 take place over 2 years. I moved all the flooding to the last months of the second year. You don't have to run them in the order they're presented in.
I you already ran the flooding and if you already had Asanda act out of character by not helping the citizens, compress the timeline and tag on some school roleplay at the end of the book. (I also did this, they had a "quiet year" to see where relationships with fellow students went, get Fire-Pot into the school, etc).
For what it's worth the flooding taking longer to repair than reasonable is a plot element that Janatimo even comments on. Characters thinking there's something odd happening at the manor might be the intention, though actually investigating should be delayed until the party is ready for the threats within.
I think I'm missing something.
In the chase from Suspicious Alchemy the PCs start at Obstacle 1 and Abeo at #2
Abeo goes first and automatically succeeds so goes to #3
Then the PCs go and if they succeed go to #2
How can they ever catch up?
I think I'm missing something.
In the chase from Suspicious Alchemy the PCs start at Obstacle 1 and Abeo at #2Abeo goes first and automatically succeeds so goes to #3
Then the PCs go and if they succeed go to #2How can they ever catch up?
This is probably too late to help you, but answering it in case someone comes looking with he same question in the future:
With chase rules, if the PCs get to enough chase points to clear an obstacle, anyone who hasn't acted yet can start on the next obstacles in the same round. So, because a critical success can yield 2 chase points, which means that a 4 point obstacle could be cleared with two crits or a crit and two successes, a party can make more than one obstacle worth of progress per round. Abeo advances by one obstacle each round but cannot do better than that.