AoA chapter 3 Final Part

[HumbleGamer]

Hi there,

I play this campaign as a player, so no spoilers past book 3 please.

We just finished our last fight against the Gnoll and his fiend, and we stopped a little discussing about the mechanics towards the hazard.

Our party is composed by 5 character, so 1 more than the standard group.
Turned out that in 6/7 rounds all the slave pits would have become filled with water.

Now, given a specific situation:

1) We didn't rescue the slaves in order to capture/kill the gnoll before letting her escape. Splitting up the party would have put us in difficulty, so we decided to go for the boss, and then rescue the salves.

2) We didn't have any spell to "block" the water ( walla of stone, shape stone, etc... ), so no real possibility to deal with the drain.

3) We got lucky we had one character with "expert" thievery, able to deal with the hazard. Unfortunately, the check required:

- 2 actions to perform disable device
- 2 success ( or a critical one ) to deal with each metal plate ( 6 of them, so 12 success, 6 critical success or a mix of them ).

Now, just to know because maybe we did something wrong, how in the world is a party supposed to deal with stuff like that ( even without considering the 2 enemies, which could focus oneshot a character per round ) in less than 6 rounds? What about parties with no thievery at all ( most of the time, hazards give at least 2 choices between the disable checks ). Our thief also, after have failed twice ( 2 reroll, one with halfling luck and the other one with the hero point ), got a critical failure, resulting in a broken thieves tool kit.

Just to understand whether we misses something or it's just "if you decide not to free the slaves before and don't have people with a specific skill, at a specific rank and a specific tool, and are able to achieve 6 critical success in 6 rounds, you fail".

At least we didn't get a TPK ( leaving apart the last 2 rounds we scored 15 attack miss in a row ).

[xcmt]

You didn't do anything wrong, you just made decisions leading up to a bad situation that didn't end up in your favor. It happens. Some other parties have the resources or skills to handle that particular hazard, some parties choose to free the slaves before the final fight, some let Laslunn escape to rescue them, and some kill Laslunn quickly enough to rescue the drowning captives. You didn't. It's just a thing that happened, that maybe helps fuel your party's thirst for retribution later.

It's a tough setup, but I don't think it's unfair in a game-balance sense. I think the important thing to take away is that you, the player, aren't being "punished" by the AP or your GM with a no-win scenario. It was winnable, but also it was an evil mastermind boss enemy putting your characters in a no-win scenario.

[HumbleGamer]

xcmt wrote:

You didn't do anything wrong, you just made decisions leading up to a bad situation that didn't end up in your favor. It happens. Some other parties have the resources or skills to handle that particular hazard, some parties choose to free the slaves before the final fight, some let Laslunn escape to rescue them, and some kill Laslunn quickly enough to rescue the drowning captives. You didn't. It's just a thing that happened, that maybe helps fuel your party's thirst for retribution later.

It's a tough setup, but I don't think it's unfair in a game-balance sense. I think the important thing to take away is that you, the player, aren't being "punished" by the AP or your GM with a no-win scenario. It was winnable, but also it was an evil mastermind boss enemy putting your characters in a no-win scenario.

I am not sure I am entirely following you, since it doesn't feel winnable, as well as affordable for a standard party.

Indeed we could have opted to save the hostages before go to Laslunn knowing that since it's an AP enemies remain within their room waiting for the adventurers and things don't change regardless the time the adventurers spend resting and doing stuff, but what I was referring to was the approach to the fight without having freed the slaves.

To make it even simplier, assuming a party of 4, it is reasonable to have a character with at least expert in thievery.

Knowing that, and assuming that specific character dedicate his skills to disable the device for the whole combat, dealing with the hazard would have required 12 rounds ( even considering critical successes and failures, as 1 failure and 1 critical success are equal to a success ).

So, the DM told us that in 12 rounds wouldn't have been possible to save the slaves from drowning, meaning that, given expert thievery was required to deal with the dam, unless plenty of critical succeses, saving the hostages couldn't have been an option at all.

If I forgot something ( as players of an ongoing campaign, we didn't dare to read the book, not to spoiler ourselves stuff ), or if there were an error in my reasoning, feel free to point this out, because still we can't see it ( Don't really care about "not being punished", because there's nothing neither interesting nor fun to face something we can't deal with, even if after having defeated the boss we can move further, regardless the fact the hostages may be dead or alive, because there was no possibility to win this to begin with ).

Feel free to provide a 6/8 combat round routine to successfully deal with it, if this may help.

The best I can see is that maybe with 2 character with at least expert thievery ( assuming no TPK because of the boss fight ), and some critical success, we could have succeed. But it feels weird they didn't consider that a standard party doesn't necessarily have more than 1 trapfinder character.

Or maybe the only way out was really to free the slaves before facing Laslunn, assuming the gnoll wouldn't have activated the dam during our attempt, requiring a similar approach ( athletics check to lift the bars rather than thievery to deal with the metal plates ). As said before, not having read the book this is just something I think It might have happened, knowing the hazard.

[Fumarole]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Indeed we could have opted to save the hostages before go to Laslunn knowing that since it's an AP enemies remain within their room waiting for the adventurers and things don't change regardless the time the adventurers spend resting and doing stuff, but what I was referring to was the approach to the fight without having freed the slaves.

Speak for your own table. My players almost got TPKed aboard the Genie's Smile in Cypress Point as they engaged everyone on the boat and the quay at practically the same time. After the fight they decided to sail the Genie's Smile out to sea to recuperate. Having not encountered any other members of the Scarlet Triad in town prior to infiltrating the boat, when they sailed back in the morning the entire town had been put to the torch and the townsfolks marched out of town by the slavers.

If your GM doesn't adapt the story to what the party does/doesn't do that's on them, not the AP.

[Fumarole]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Feel free to provide a 6/8 combat round routine to successfully deal with it, if this may help.

The water enters the pits two rounds after Laslunn activates the sluiceway, takes six rounds to completely fill the pits (assuming all of the sluices are open), then the slaves drown five rounds after that. That's thirteen rounds to do something about it, more if any sluices are disabled.

The following is in the description of the sluiceway hazard: "Other options beyond disabling or destroying the sluices could prevent the flooding of the quarry pit at your discretion." I suspect when my players reach this point the druid will cast wall of stone to block the sluiceway and immediately stop the flooding.

[xcmt]

HumbleGamer wrote:

I am not sure I am entirely following you, since it doesn't feel winnable, as well as affordable for a standard party.

As someone who ran the encounter, I assure you it's extremely winnable. My own group won.

Quote:

Indeed we could have opted to save the hostages before go to Laslunn knowing that since it's an AP enemies remain within their room waiting for the adventurers and things don't change regardless the time the adventurers spend resting and doing stuff, but what I was referring to was the approach to the fight without having freed the slaves.

As Fumarole notes, static enemies waiting in rooms for their individual slaughter seems like a poor way to run or experience an otherwise well-written adventure path with dynamic, intelligent enemies that have motivations and senses and resources. To reduce this tense, dangerous end-chapter assault on an enemy stronghold to a series of unlinked combats with infinite sleepytime doesn't sound like fun or immersive roleplay.

Quote:

If I forgot something ( as players of an ongoing campaign, we didn't dare to read the book, not to spoiler ourselves stuff ), or if there were an error in my reasoning, feel free to point this out, because still we can't see it

I get that you are hyperfocused on this thievery thing (were you the rogue?) and taking an L is keeping you up at night, but yes you're missing an entire universe of alternative solutions. I will highlight a few straight off the top:

• -Blocking the sluice gates or drain pipes with Wall type spells
  
• -Clogging the sluice gates or drain pipes with expandable items
  
• -Clogging the sluice gates or drain pipes with conjured items
  
• -Clogging the sluice gates or drain pipes with conjured creatures
  
• -Clogging the sluice gates or drain pipes with defeated enemies or environmental furniture
  
• -Summoning a creature with a decent thievery score to help disable sluice gates, or some other ability to prevent the flood
  
• -Closing the drainways with spells that can shape matter (Stone Shape, for instance) or halt the flow of water (Control Water)
  
• -Closing half the sluice gates to buy enough time to finish off Laslunn and the Interlocutor and then take the water slide down into the quarry and race to free the slaves around the Giant before the rest of the water initiates drowning conditions
  
• -Scouting out the sluice gate hazard beforehand (invisibility, stealth, divination magics) and doubling back to handle the captives first
  
• -Abandoning the Laslunn fight to rescue the captives first while Laslunn makes an escape, or maybe takes shots from the sniper perches while the party deals with the Giant
  

Quote:

Don't really care about "not being punished", because there's nothing neither interesting nor fun to face something we can't deal with, even if after having defeated the boss we can move further

On the flip side, I think never experiencing struggle or loss is also deeply uninteresting. There are so many rich ways to incorporate this whole quarry setup into future roleplay, lending extra motivation beyond "because this is what the AP is" to the party and creating opportunities to roleplay self-doubt or learning IC how to overcome odd/difficult circumstances or how to better prepare, strategically and emotionally, for showdowns with a vicious enemy faction willing to leverage innocent lives for their own survival.

You keep harping on about it being "unwinnable" but that's dead wrong. It was winnable. You just didn't "win". You lacked the resources or creativity or foresight or DM latitude to overcome a complicated and dangerous challenge, but that's simply the way it played out, not blanket unfairness. If you were in my group I'd say that I hope you can use this storytelling opportunity to help propel your character and campaign forward.

[HumbleGamer]

The fact I said it feels it's not winnable it also feels confirmed by the list you made.

Conjuring spells are not somethinga party is always supposed to have, resulting in something situational ( wall spells, conjuring, fornitures, shape objects, expandabls items, etc.. ).

Neither not having the tools you listed, nor part or them, for granted, is the whole point of what I was asking to begin with.

We had just our rogue, who failed a 3 out of 4, and got 2 critical failures in a row ( hero point). That was indeed unlucky ( and we realized we wouldn't have been able do that only at half road).

Apart from the rogue, we couldn't deal with the hazard in any way. No corpses, no furnitures large enough to deal with all the pipes.

Withdrawing could have led in a chase, resulting in probably a tpk ( every 1 or 2 rounds both gnoll and devil got a player down, and the former did that with a bow), leaving apart the required time to reach the slaves.

@Fumarole: the enemies move on our tables too, but if we were to go and save the slaves from the gates, be sure the whole map wouldn't have moved. More would have come in addition to the giant ( as well as snipers ), but I was just referring, as previously written, to the last room (the boss room) as last room in the whole map.

Not knowing the cave conformation, and because so whether to expect or not a possible escape through a secret door or magic, we decided to expend 1 minute to confront him rather than 1 hour to go to the slaves, free them, take care of them because of drugs, find a safe spot for them, and so on.

Anyway, it's the first time we confronted a so punitive hazard in either aoa and ec, that's why I asked for confirmations ( not to spoiler me by reading the book) in terms of required actions to stop the device and number of actions required to drown the slaves, and seems the hazard was played as written, so I am good.

[Fumarole]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Apart from the rogue, we couldn't deal with the hazard in any way.

The sluiceway can be broken/destroyed to disable it (like just about all mechanical hazards). It has hardness of 17 and 38 HP (BT 34). Surely your party can deal damage, even if it lacks the skills or resources to do anything else.

[Silbeg]

Plus, if you encountered the prisoners first, you could have freed them from the pits prior to encountering Laslunn.

I read it that she's just hanging out in her room, assuming that her underlings will take care of things. There are triggers for other encounters, but she would just assume that her guards are taking care of things... until they don't.

[Fumarole]

My party just finished up book three last weekend. While it was touch and go for a while, they just barely managed to pull it off and rescue all of the captives and kill all of the Triad members. The champion managed to break all six sluices with just four inches remaining in the pits to be filled, so he did it on the last round before the captives would start drowning. However, the ranger was in the quarry (not ever even seeing Laslunn as he ran to the pits as soon as he saw water pour into the quarry from his vantage point at the northwestern cave entrance) and managed to get two of the pits unlocked before the water stopped. Three of the PCs gained the dying condition and the wizard gained it two separate times. However, as he was brought back from the brink of death by the witch's breath of life spell he managed to hit Laslunn with a disintegrate spell, which she critically failed, ending the combat. And all of this with Barushak in the fight, as he had escaped from Kintargo and prepared Laslunn for the party's arrival.

So yes, it is possible to come out victorious without any captives dying, though it is certainly quite difficult, and my players definitely had Desna smiling on them that day.