3-02 East Hill Haunting

[thistledown]

Why does Elaine's ghost disappear after you make her a pathfinder? She just got hired, she's got work to do! Ghosts make great pathfinders! So many places that incorporeals have an easier time getting to.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

Give it some time, someone might bring her back as an eidolon ^^

[NicoleH]

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Give it some time, someone might bring her back as an eidolon ^^

I could only hope for the return of my precious Eloise.

If you were wondering her full name, Eloise J. Carveil.
"She insisted on introducing herself as Eloise J, because she took glee out of telling people the J didn’t stand for anything when they asked" is my headcannon :P

[Eric Parker 82]

I am prepping this for Saturday. Can someone please tell me how the Haunted House rotates between pages 10 and 11 of the scenario?

[cavernshark]

I ran this last night for a CP 27 (high tier) table. Party was Summoner 2, Play Test Thaumaturge 3, Ranger 3, Magus 3, Wizard 4, Battle Oracle 4.

Overall, very well written scenario. Clear mystery elements were good and the in media res start with the mob really set the tone well. I felt like the party really clicked 'on' being challenged like that even before the briefing.

During the investigation my players surprised me by using Object Reading on one of the clues they found in the alley. I opted to give them a vision of Eloise getting shot and whispering Lysandria's name as she died along with enough context to know they were lovers. This was the crit success condition of the diplomacy check to canvass the streets so when they finally did that it was much easier to move forward.

On the Street/Debris Storm encounter: I hadn't considered it before play but the guards are getting pummeled as well by the AoE. Even if the PCs use non-lethal damage, the guards can still be at risk of dying if they get knocked out. I used the dying rules on them. Not sure if that's was the intent or not but helped keep focus on the fact that the storm needed to be dealt with. My party didn't immediately focus on disabling it so it was still going in full after the guards were dropped. Some then tended to keeping them alive while others disabled the storms.

For the 2nd Floor (Haunt/Bedroom): This could have probably been written as a single encounter and may have made more sense that way. My players pretty much started interacting with Ravinius during the hallway encounter, with some ducking into his room. The guards stayed put during that part and only came out once the mist dissipated but combat could have easily be joined before that since the party was already suspicious of him.

I have some complaints about the high tier scaling of the spiders on the roof. High tier replaces two hunting spiders with an Ogre Spider. In my tier, it got the elite template. The creatures size, AC, physical stats, and poison absolutely can wreck lower level opponents. Many players needed 16 or higher on the die to hit at all. It could crit with around a 30% chance per hit on any given full MAP strike. Add to the fact that a huge creature on this roof makes maneuvering to flank difficult it was a really bad time.

Accepting that four level 4 players would have been 24 CP, the same difficulty tier, this still would have been an APL+2 encounter and I am pretty sure would have gone equally badly if I went fully aggressive. Full focus on any one target could easily drop them. As it stood I almost wiped the party and the *only* reason they lived at all was because I recognized how dangerous this threat was and had it act a a lot less optimally than it could (e.g. using it's first strike to throw a web instead of just crushing everyone outright, climbing up walls to skitter around a bit).

Out of curiosity, I looked at the encounter budget math for a 'moderate' encounter and this creature technically fits in that profile, but so does 6 of the low-tier threats (hunting spiders) or 4 of those same hunting spiders with the elite template. It just doesn't make sense to me why this creature was chosen and then slapped with an elite template on top. The next bump up would have been a second ogre spider with the weak template which may have been equally damning but at least they'd have been able to hit it... if they could maneuver around the two huge creatures on the roof.

A threat of this magnitude that was part of the story would have made more sense but most of the party was right to ask "How is a huge spider just wandering around Almas?" and "Why was this a final boss... didn't we just fight the final boss and his guards?" It did feel really weird to encounter a animal which presented an existential threat to the party with absolutely no apparent link to the overall plot. I got the impression this wasn't the intent, but that's how it played out.

[thistledown]

When I ran the spiders I threw in things about them being supernaturally motivated by the still-angry ghost. Which came back at me when I played it with my Melixie who tried to talk them down. She also talked to the bugs in the allyway, but didn't get much help from them beyond a timeline.

[pauljathome]

I'd urge you to post a review of this scenario.

My review is pretty similar to your comments above. The end fight was absurd and I'm reasonably sure that we'd have at least cone close to a TPK if the GM hadn't softballed things.

Almost worse than the difficulty is the point you also made that the final encounter made just about no sense to the story that was being told. It felt like the author had just rolled on a random table.

[cavernshark]

I'm not mad at the author, nor would I ever think to pin the Ogre Spider on them. It feels tacked on. I'm not even mad at the idea of some spiders on the roof to distract before dealing with the ghost (especially since you can theoretically go straight to the roof using the spiral staircase skipping the whole 2nd floor).

It's the choice of adding an Ogre Spider with the elite template, or multiple Ogre Spiders in a 3-4 scenario that baffles me. That was, in no small terms, a moderate encounter. Eloise just floated on the sidelines moaning about Pathfinders while the team dragged their beaten and mangled bodies over. It completely took the wind out of their sails.

I wanted to warn other GMs that they may need to use every bit of their discretion and judgement to prevent that encounter from being a TPK under certain circumstances. And I also hope that whomever added the Ogre Spider can recognize that it may have been a scaling mistake. The over-leveled elites well above APL in these scenarios is really frustrating.

[GM rainzax]

What is Revinus' Deception bonus?

[Jason S]

GM rainzax wrote:

What is Revinus' Deception bonus?

Since it's not listed, it's his charisma bonus.

+2 for both subtiers. He's not good at lying.