(You should be looking in the Adventures subforum, not the Adventure Paths subforum.)
I just finished reading Malevolence this afternoon and I'm really looking forward to running this. As I was reading it, I was already going over in my head how I would present some situations and encounters.
I need to go through all my pawns and miniatures to set aside for this adventure, though I have plenty of time as my group is still in Chapter 1 of The Slithering.
One thing Im considering is if I should present my players with a sort of mini Player's Guide. I always give them the initial set up for any adventure, especially if they're making new characters that are starting at higher levels. We finish Age of Ashes, then did Plaguestone which was easy enough as that starts at 1st, but with The Slithering, I gave them some background on things they might have been doing previously before the adventure started and where they were headed and a vague why they were headed there. I plan on doing the same with Malevolence but I'm also wondering if I should include some suggestions on Skills, especially specific Lores.
It's a given that a group should try and cover their bases on Arcane, Religion, Occult, Nature and Society. I'm debating on suggesting Art Lore, Astronomy Lore, Desna Lore, Library Lore, Pharasma Lore, and Psychopomp Lore.
Thoughts?
The only thing that stood out to me about the adventure itself, the fight with the Undead Brain Collector in D6. That is a very small areas for a Large Creature and 4-6 adventurers. I wasn't exactly sure where it would be sitting there waiting. At the top of the stairs would be a bit cruel for others to try and force their way to get into the room.
Is the town called Crook Cove or Crooked Cove? It's called both in the book.
Is the town called Crook Cove or Crooked Cove? It's called both in the book.It was called "Crooked Cove" when it was founded, but over time it earned the nickname of "Crookcove." Both are thus correct.
Thank you James.
Creative Director
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I am trying to figure out how to run the Undead Brain Collector. He has the Brainlash ability which says that after using it "seven phantom brains glow and shimmer.... it can't use brainlash again until all seven brains are absorbed".
But then, "Absorb" itself is a reaction with the trigger "The undead brain collector possesses at least 1 phantom brain after using Brainlash".That doesn't seem to make any sense. After Brainlash he possesses 7 brains, and the Absorbe reaction only absorbs 1d4 brains. So that trigger never becomes true again. Shouldn't the trigger be something like "The undead brain collector takes damage and posseses at least 1 phantom brain" or something along those lines? Or am I completely messing this up?
The undead brain collector can absorb phantom brains every round as a reaction as long as it has at least 1 brain. This lets it spend a reaction every round to heal damage to itself. It'll take more than 1 round of reactions spent to do so to absorb all 7 brains, but assuming a fight against it lasts long enough, it'll happen eventually.
On average, it'll absorb 2.5 brains per round, which means on average, after 3 rounds of doing this, it'll be out of brains and thus it can use it's brainlash ability again.
Basically, this is just a more flavorful and visual and tactical element to control how often the monster uses its big area effect attack, rather than just say "the undead brain collector must wait 1d4 rounds before using Brainlash again."
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For those of you who have gotten through it, how many sessions did it take?
James, I don’t think you count, although I would be interested.
I hope I count, since I was the first person to run this adventure in the first place! :-P
When I ran it for my group, it was much more organic. The manor was one location of literally dozens that the group could explore as they wished, and they started and stoped exploration of it in favor of other locations several times, sometimes in the same session.
On top of that, they didn't finish exploring the manor before I put that campaign on hiatus for personal reasons (mostly revolving around frustrations with VTT issues, but in part because the pandemic took all my spoons and still hasn't given them back), and at that point had pretty much only explored the ground floor and the upper floor and one room of the basement. The third and fourth floors they haven't touched yet, and the dungeons below in the version I'm running for them have about 3 times as many rooms (had to cut a lot of them for space, even after I managed to wrangle an extra 8 pages for the book, but I think in hindsight the dungeon portion runs much more tightly and more focused).
I'm certainly curious to hear more about folks' experiences running the adventure though!
For those of you who have gotten through it, how many sessions did it take?
I ran it simultaneously for two different groups, the first group took 6 sessions of 4 or so hours each, and the second group took 7 sessions of 3 or so hours. So between 20-25 hours seems like a pretty safe bet :)
Running it this way was an absolute blast, I got to see each group tackle the manor in completely different ways, and the story/research part revealed itself organically and differently to each group.
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James, I had heard some of that from podcast interviews or seminar recordings. And when the PCs have much more to explore, it is going to take them longer. I was just wandering how long it would take to go through.
But now I think I want to throw the thinking “how many session do I plan for” out the window and instead am thinking about “more buildings”! I think I need at least a barn and a tool shed and one more. Need to get out of the PFS mindset (only thing I have GM’ed) and use the module and make it my own.
Just wondering have people been adding striking weapons to this module? Are they necessary? I noticed that there aren't really many enemies that have resistance to standard weapons, but the later enemies do have pretty large health pools.
I would very strongly recommend using the automatic bonus progression variant rule for Malevolence (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1356) The adventure does not offer enough striking runes and your players will _absolutely_ need them. I also felt that it's better for the story if the characters don't have to make a multi-day trip to whichever settlement is near enough to make such purchases.
My group has probably 2, maybe 3 sessions left. Barely any research has been completed because thier rolls have consistently been terrible.
My group has probably 2, maybe 3 sessions left. Barely any research has been completed because thier rolls have consistently been terrible.
I have noticed that the topics my players are actually interested in researching (namely, Tchekuth and the Ashen Man) are quite high level for them to be rolling against, so they’ve wasted a lot of rolls on that.
E6. is listed as a moderate 5 encounter. However it's listed as 2 elite crawling hands as creature 5. I'm pretty sure this should be Giant Crawling Hands (not elite) that would be a moderate 5 encounter.
When I ran it for my group, it was much more organic. The manor was one location of literally dozens that the group could explore as they wished, and they started and stoped exploration of it in favor of other locations several times, sometimes in the same session.
James (and anyone else who has run this adventure), have you posted or published any of these "dozens of locations" anywhere?
I'm planning on beginning **Malevolence** in a couple weeks, and I've started detailing some interesting locations in the ruins of Crook(ed) Cove and the surrounding hills and forests, as well as some starting handouts for the players. But it would be great if some other DM material were available.
I know my players, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that by the time they finish with the manor itself, they'll want to continue with these characters, especially if the heir to Xarwin manor survives and they have the opportunity to reclaim the lands and title.
Just wondering have people been adding striking weapons to this module? Are they necessary? I noticed that there aren't really many enemies that have resistance to standard weapons, but the later enemies do have pretty large health pools.I would very strongly recommend using the automatic bonus progression variant rule for Malevolence (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1356) The adventure does not offer enough striking runes and your players will _absolutely_ need them. I also felt that it's better for the story if the characters don't have to make a multi-day trip to whichever settlement is near enough to make such purchases.
The module gives you +1 striking ghost touch weapon against the boss as a reward for piecing the backstory together. Plus, Magic Weapon is a thing.
I would contend that it's worse the story if you simply add striking runes; by completing the research players earn a powerful mechanical advantage against the module's nemesis. Malevolence is a research- and story-themed adventure; it's also a "ship in a bottle" with limited resources (and monsters don't always give chase, allowing PCs to regroup). My group did fine when I GM'd it without striking runes; playing through now and we're also doing fine without striking runes. It was challenging for sure, but it's supposed to be. I believe that you're supposed to be scared of every single encounter and that this adds to the cosmic horror theme, along with resting frequently while the sanity clock ticks down!
Instead of adding striking runes, my recommendation would be to collaborate with players while they build their PCs. Alert them in session 0 that this is a low-resource module, and that they should indemnify themselves against common problems such as lack of standard gear upgrades.
Apologies if this is the wrong thread to resurrect, but I’m looking to run this adventure in the near future with my table of players.
I have a session zero planned to work out motivations. But I’m tentatively considering the introduction of some horror elements including questionable moral justification for the PCs to be present in the first place. While the PCs may have inherited or ‘won’ the manor, and have a reason to ‘claim’ the manor, the city, or even the county, there are still indigenous peoples in the region who may call it home.
I’m thinking of having either Aspis Consortium or Andoran Lumber Consortium interests surreptitiously bankrolling the party, with local indigenous peoples represented by Strix from the Ravounel Forest who know better than to come close to the manor. Are there any other resources out there to provide flavor and color for this southwestern corner of Ravounel?