1 - Punks in a Powder keg (GM Reference)


Outlaws of Alkenstar

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

Is there any artwork for Ambrost Mugland ?
Also I was trying to find out his ancestry, and from the players guide, he may be a halfling, but in the actual AP I found no info on this.


Grumpus wrote:

Is there any artwork for Ambrost Mugland ?

Also I was trying to find out his ancestry, and from the players guide, he may be a halfling, but in the actual AP I found no info on this.

He’s on the cover of book 2, if you check the store page, and he is indeed a halfling.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Asking on a friend’s behalf: in Chapter 2, the “Escorting Gattlebee” section has a pretty significant geography snarl that’s throwing us both for a loop.

The whole section hinges on Bottleneck Bridge, a crossing over the Ustradi River that an enemy faction uses as a choke point. Escorting Gattlebee is supposed to take the inventor from his home in Steamhaven to a saloon in the Ferrous Quarter… which are both on the same side of the river. There’s actually no route I can make on the provided map that has any reason to cross the Ustradi, as all the pictured bridges lead away from their destination.

Any thoughts or help on this one?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:

Asking on a friend’s behalf: in Chapter 2, the “Escorting Gattlebee” section has a pretty significant geography snarl that’s throwing us both for a loop.

The whole section hinges on Bottleneck Bridge, a crossing over the Ustradi River that an enemy faction uses as a choke point. Escorting Gattlebee is supposed to take the inventor from his home in Steamhaven to a saloon in the Ferrous Quarter… which are both on the same side of the river. There’s actually no route I can make on the provided map that has any reason to cross the Ustradi, as all the pictured bridges lead away from their destination.

Any thoughts or help on this one?

Just to chime in (I'm said friend): We had the thought that the bridge spanning the big lake in Smokeside is actually the bridge the section is talking about, but if that is the case I'm curious as to why the players would choose to go that way instead of going around the lake when their scouting (and common sense) should yield that it's very clearly a great spot for an ambush.

That is to say nothing of the fact that it's a very straight shot from Gattlebee's house to the east wall of Ironside Quarter, where the brewery is specified to be, and that taking the bridge first for whatever reason would be an enormous detour.

EDIT: Also, the bridge on the map is like 50 feet across? Is that really how narrow the Ustradi is, if that's what the bridge is intended to be crossing? Using the scale reference on the map, every bridge looks to be... just eyeballing it, but at least 200 feet across? Sorry to harp on, but this bridge is just full of mysteries to me.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

My current thinking is to toss Event 2 entirely, and just have play consist of scouting the route and then do the chase in Event 3, with Event 4 available if a fight is called for. Any crossing of the Ustradi would require a second crossing back to get to the saloon.


Apologies if this is outside this thread's purview, but for the NPCs listed for the Barrel & Bullet Saloon, what am I to make of their descriptions of "Tinkerer 4" or "Bounty Hunter 2"? Does this refer to a statblock I can reference somewhere else? Or am I just suppose to use that as basic guidance to build them myself?


SilentClarity wrote:
Apologies if this is outside this thread's purview, but for the NPCs listed for the Barrel & Bullet Saloon, what am I to make of their descriptions of "Tinkerer 4" or "Bounty Hunter 2"? Does this refer to a statblock I can reference somewhere else? Or am I just suppose to use that as basic guidance to build them myself?

Noncombatant NPCs often just have a descriptive title and a level listed, meant as a rough guideline in case any rolls do need to come up for them. There is a generic Bounty Hunter in the Gamemastery Guide, however.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Me, the GM readying for players to creatively take down a handful of clockwork robots and beat up a crooked bank manager.
My players, decide to go in at night, circumvent the two robots outside by going in through a window and proceed to lock the two inside in one of the offices and tie up and convince the manager to help them. They left much of the minor loot but got the ledger and chest, just met the gobo at the junkyard.

Sovereign Court

2 people marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:
My current thinking is to toss Event 2 entirely, and just have play consist of scouting the route and then do the chase in Event 3, with Event 4 available if a fight is called for. Any crossing of the Ustradi would require a second crossing back to get to the saloon.

Thank you for asking about this, I came looking for this thread for just this reason. At this point I think I'll keep Event 2 but instead of being on a bridge I'll have it happen in a sidestreet.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

The bridge really is a mystery. It's almost as if the author of the adventure was working with a different map of the city than the one that's been published.

Interestingly, the map in this adventure differs slightly from the one published in the first edition module Wardens of the Reborn Forge. The location of Steamhaven is pictured on that map as in the southwest of the Smokeside, while this adventures has it more in the northwest. And speaking of bridges, a second bridge seems to have been built right next to the Old Bridge.

Silver Crusade

Zaister wrote:

The bridge really is a mystery. It's almost as if the author of the adventure was working with a different map of the city than the one that's been published.

Interestingly, the map in this adventure differs slightly from the one published in the first edition module Wardens of the Reborn Forge. The location of Steamhaven is pictured on that map as in the southwest of the Smokeside, while this adventures has it more in the northwest. And speaking of bridges, a second bridge seems to have been built right next to the Old Bridge.

Not having the AP yet, does the sequence of events flow better using the old map? That might have been what the writer was going off of via memory?


keftiu wrote:
My current thinking is to toss Event 2 entirely, and just have play consist of scouting the route and then do the chase in Event 3, with Event 4 available if a fight is called for. Any crossing of the Ustradi would require a second crossing back to get to the saloon.

I'm thinking I'll shift it to the South of the Smokeside Lake near the lake bridge, and remove references to the Ostradi river. I'm guessing at an earlier point either Gattlebee's house or the Brewery were located Skyside (or it was a location Skyside that was changed to the brewery later). Doesn't quite square away the length of Bottleneck Bridge (or the bridge over the lake); the city map key would suggest the 4 visible bridges over water are each close to 500 feet across. I think I'll suggest Bottleneck bridge widens out into market grounds periodically, so this is simply one section of the larger bridge. Haven't finished reading through the chase scene so don't know if that's gonna conflict as of yet. Would appreciate thoughts/feedback.


Can you summary something new other than adventure itself?


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Rysky wrote:
Zaister wrote:

The bridge really is a mystery. It's almost as if the author of the adventure was working with a different map of the city than the one that's been published.

Interestingly, the map in this adventure differs slightly from the one published in the first edition module Wardens of the Reborn Forge. The location of Steamhaven is pictured on that map as in the southwest of the Smokeside, while this adventures has it more in the northwest. And speaking of bridges, a second bridge seems to have been built right next to the Old Bridge.

Not having the AP yet, does the sequence of events flow better using the old map? That might have been what the writer was going off of via memory?

No, that doesn't really change anything regarding this issue.

Radiant Oath

3 people marked this as a favorite.

At level 2, on page 43, the players encounter a Creature 4 Wasp swarm. This is likely to be a TPK, just as it was in extinction curse.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42woo&page=6?1-The-Show-Must-Go-On#253
VampbyDay suggests swapping it with 4 giant worked bees. It's the same amount of XP, but not as likely to cause a TPK.

Verdant Wheel

2 people marked this as a favorite.

So excited to run this along with the Foundry module!

Question: On pg 11 in Planning the Heist, the text reads, "If a character gets fewer than 8 hours of rest, they're fatigued the next day. If they get fewer than 4 hours of rest, they're exhausted." I see the condition fatigued, but not exhausted. What does exhausted entail? Thanks!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Anyone else have any thoughts about how to run the Sludgespine gnolls in chapter 1? I don't really understand the decision to have mutated gnolls from the Mana Wastes show up and be nothing but depraved serial killers, despite the potential for interesting elaboration on their condition. I'm disappointed by Paizo's decision to write these characters as purely evil sickos with no motivation after the level of nuance they were given in the Mwangi book.

My own thoughts are to maybe say they're trying to eke out a living in the scrapyard because most people in Alkenstar see them as gross monsters, the Nailgobblers want them gone because they're intruding and they're bad for business, but Bristlebane is uncompromising and ruthless and wants to drive out/kill the goblins, who are just another group of gatekeepers to her. I can see a lot of potential for an interesting and unconventional diplomatic encounter here so I'm curious if anybody else is thinking about this too!

(I admit I'm much less sure about what to do about the fungus leshies, for that one I'm probably just going to follow the book's advice to skip it assuming the group hasn't just breezed past everything else...)

Dara Boarsbane wrote:

So excited to run this along with the Foundry module!

Question: On pg 11 in Planning the Heist, the text reads, "If a character gets fewer than 8 hours of rest, they're fatigued the next day. If they get fewer than 4 hours of rest, they're exhausted." I see the condition fatigued, but not exhausted. What does exhausted entail? Thanks!

I looked all over for this as well and my conclusion is that I guess it's just a narrative descriptor? Kinda confusing when it's written right alongside an actual condition that exists, though. :S


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Dara Boarsbane wrote:

So excited to run this along with the Foundry module!

Question: On pg 11 in Planning the Heist, the text reads, "If a character gets fewer than 8 hours of rest, they're fatigued the next day. If they get fewer than 4 hours of rest, they're exhausted." I see the condition fatigued, but not exhausted. What does exhausted entail? Thanks!

WOW, this is a PF1-ism, one that didn't faze me at all when I read it during prep. Exhaustion was was the more severe version of fatigue. I would double their fatigue penalties (-2 status to AC and saves). Alternatively, maybe add clumsy and/or enfeebled? But those status penalties don't all stack with fatigue.

Verdant Wheel

Starcatcher wrote:
Dara Boarsbane wrote:

So excited to run this along with the Foundry module!

Question: On pg 11 in Planning the Heist, the text reads, "If a character gets fewer than 8 hours of rest, they're fatigued the next day. If they get fewer than 4 hours of rest, they're exhausted." I see the condition fatigued, but not exhausted. What does exhausted entail? Thanks!

WOW, this is a PF1-ism, one that didn't faze me at all when I read it during prep. Exhaustion was was the more severe version of fatigue. I would double their fatigue penalties (-2 status to AC and saves). Alternatively, maybe add clumsy and/or enfeebled? But those status penalties don't all stack with fatigue.

Thank you! I appreciate the help.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I personally wouldn't mess with added fatigue as the normal rules only apply fatigue if characters miss sleep anyway, so I don't see why this scenario would be any different. It was probably the writer not realizing exhaustion is not a PF2e mechanic.

Also does anyone know what the "business hours" of the bank actually are and what time the characters start their planning. It says that they have 12 hours till the bank reopens in the morning, but it also states that it is assumed that the characters rob it during the daytime...

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Question: How is any of those gang members alive if they keep shooting themselves in gut? x'D

(That is one of worst places you could get shot at since it very likely results in extremely painful and unavoidable death)


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Kaies wrote:
Also does anyone know what the "business hours" of the bank actually are and what time the characters start their planning. It says that they have 12 hours till the bank reopens in the morning, but it also states that it is assumed that the characters rob it during the daytime...

I kinda just went off the assumption that the bank would open at 8AM, meaning the adventure starts at about 8PM (which also makes sense with why there's only 4 hours to do some of the social Gather Information portions; midnight seems like a reasonable cutoff).

And since it's mentioned that the clockworks will be back from maintenance the following afternoon, I just had it in my head that they'll only be in trouble if they somehow delay until 12PM or later. That gives them 4 hours of daytime robbery.

Of course, my players decided to just leave immediately without doing any prep work, which might be partly my fault as I'm new to GMing Pathfinder and I wasn't really sure whether to explicitly tell them they can and should do those specific actions... but hey, it's a learning experience... :P

Ancient Void Dragon

CorvusMask wrote:

Question: How is any of those gang members alive if they keep shooting themselves in gut? x'D

(That is one of worst places you could get shot at since it very likely results in extremely painful and unavoidable death)

That one is truly confusing and it's one of those weird tone problems I have with this so far. I would sincerely love to hear from someone who ends up using that action with a straight face without any of the players going "wait, what??". Kinda same for Dresh's "money distraction" one, but that one's just silly, so it gets a pass.


How are you handling the weather forecast in the campaign? I'll just roll a percentage check for 25% of manastorm the next day? Since we have no spellcasters it is for RP purposes.

Liberty's Edge

I don't think Manastorms are supposed to be quite that frequent. I'd probably roll d100 and start at 5%, increasing the chance for a storm by 5% each day, then resetting. Or probably just have them occur when dramatically appropriate rather than randomly.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:

Asking on a friend’s behalf: in Chapter 2, the “Escorting Gattlebee” section has a pretty significant geography snarl that’s throwing us both for a loop.

The whole section hinges on Bottleneck Bridge, a crossing over the Ustradi River that an enemy faction uses as a choke point. Escorting Gattlebee is supposed to take the inventor from his home in Steamhaven to a saloon in the Ferrous Quarter… which are both on the same side of the river. There’s actually no route I can make on the provided map that has any reason to cross the Ustradi, as all the pictured bridges lead away from their destination.

Any thoughts or help on this one?

I came here to make note of this as well. Any official response?

I'm either moving his place to Skyside near Blythir College (which makes the most sense) or moving the ambush to somewhere else.


For chapter 2, event 2: "Explosion at Bottleneck Bridge" I am going to have the Powderkeg Punks ambush the PCs outside of his home. Logically, it's the only place I can think of aside from the brewery where they would know to set an ambush.

Alternatively, it could be interesting to have a 3 way battle at the brewery between the Punks and the Clearwater Cleaners.

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

Mackaroni wrote:
keftiu wrote:

Asking on a friend’s behalf: in Chapter 2, the “Escorting Gattlebee” section has a pretty significant geography snarl that’s throwing us both for a loop.

The whole section hinges on Bottleneck Bridge, a crossing over the Ustradi River that an enemy faction uses as a choke point. Escorting Gattlebee is supposed to take the inventor from his home in Steamhaven to a saloon in the Ferrous Quarter… which are both on the same side of the river. There’s actually no route I can make on the provided map that has any reason to cross the Ustradi, as all the pictured bridges lead away from their destination.

Any thoughts or help on this one?

I came here to make note of this as well. Any official response?

I'm either moving his place to Skyside near Blythir College (which makes the most sense) or moving the ambush to somewhere else.

On the product page the author replied:link

it's post #134 on page-3 but can't get the link to go to the exact post


Starfinder Superscriber

My group threw on disguises and rolled so high/the goons rolled so low on perception I never even stopped to think that the bridge ambush didn't make any sense, lmao

Quote:

How are you handling the weather forecast in the campaign? I'll just roll a percentage check for 25% of manastorm the next day? Since we have no spellcasters it is for RP purposes.

I roll a d20 for each section of the day - morning, mid-day, evening, and night. It's Manastorm time on a roll of 6 or lower.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Is there a stat block for Gattlebee anywhere? Particularly since there are things in the adventure that want to kill him.


The goblins' camp is suggested as a place for an overnight rest. But the text also describes the Shieldmarshals as being on the party's tail. How have other GMs handled this?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Rot Grub "The Rules Lawyer" wrote:
The goblins' camp is suggested as a place for an overnight rest. But the text also describes the Shieldmarshals as being on the party's tail. How have other GMs handled this?

The PCs' escape into the junkyard and knocking down the tower effectively cuts them off. Climbing the walls of junk is really dangerous (taking significant damage even a non-crit failure).

I figure the marshals set up some kind of watch around the exits to the scrapyard and search other sections of it, (there's probably much more to it than we see on the map) but they don't know about the sewer shortcut the PCs will be using.

I *also* hand-waved the rule that they can only get a full rest once per day, and let them basically spend the morning and afternoon there to get their rest.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I just got the Foundry VTT "Outlaws of Alkenstar - Punks in a Powderkeg" module. It is GORGEOUS. Only skimmed so far, but holy hell.

Anyway, I like how all the tokens are set up with a steampunky orange or silver rim. Is there a way to get the empty token template to make your own tokens, for example for the PCs? a base .psd would be great to get from Paizo.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

My question was answered elsewhere and I wanted to share. You can buy the token rims for 1$ here: http://arcanetimes.com/vtt/steampunk-token-frames


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
The Rot Grub "The Rules Lawyer" wrote:
The goblins' camp is suggested as a place for an overnight rest. But the text also describes the Shieldmarshals as being on the party's tail. How have other GMs handled this?

I had a goblin inspire the PCs to knock over a large pile of scrap that the goblins had set there to keep any pursuers away from their camp (if they were ever pursued.) I played up the goblins not liking the shield marshals because the marshals don't like them.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Mackaroni wrote:

For chapter 2, event 2: "Explosion at Bottleneck Bridge" I am going to have the Powderkeg Punks ambush the PCs outside of his home. Logically, it's the only place I can think of aside from the brewery where they would know to set an ambush.

Alternatively, it could be interesting to have a 3 way battle at the brewery between the Punks and the Clearwater Cleaners.

My Group plays online and I made a map for this type of ambush and I just wanted to share it. I used the gold tank reserve map from the PDF and edited in GIMP.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aN1Ky-bLwpGHWjOg2sEH2ptOIhBTjkiR/view?usp= sharing


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber

Is there a Bestiary 6 I don't know about? That's where it says Shumfallow's stats are.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
The Seldon Plan wrote:
Is there a Bestiary 6 I don't know about? That's where it says Shumfallow's stats are.

Bestiary 1, page 6 for the Weak adjustment, page 219 for the Fungus Leshy

Liberty's Edge

Blackbeard2025 wrote:
Mackaroni wrote:

For chapter 2, event 2: "Explosion at Bottleneck Bridge" I am going to have the Powderkeg Punks ambush the PCs outside of his home. Logically, it's the only place I can think of aside from the brewery where they would know to set an ambush.

Alternatively, it could be interesting to have a 3 way battle at the brewery between the Punks and the Clearwater Cleaners.

My Group plays online and I made a map for this type of ambush and I just wanted to share it. I used the gold tank reserve map from the PDF and edited in GIMP.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aN1Ky-bLwpGHWjOg2sEH2ptOIhBTjkiR/view?usp= sharing

My group used this map: https://www.deviantart.com/gamaweb/art/Entrance-bridge-to-the-City-Day-Batt lemap-25x50-863194742

I love the idea of buildings built onto the bridge, which I think is mentioned somewhere in the flavour text, though certainly not visible in the Alkenstar art. I also moved Gattlebee's house to the other side of the river because duh.


BEWARE OF RUSTEZE OOZES

Session 1 of OoA last night, party consists of a Ratfolk Alchemist, Dwarf Fighter, Catfolk Gunslinger (Spellshot) and Automaton Gunslinger (Sniper).

The party managed to break into the bank no major issues, destroyed the clockwork handlers, broke into the vault and escaped with shieldmarshals on their heels.
Made it to the junkyard, entreated with the goblins, agreed to help them with their gnoll problems.
Scattered the swarm, used the crane to drain the water, and move the crate.

As they moved east, they were surprised by the Rust Ooze, fight goes on, and the Catfolk Gunslinger gets hit by a Critical hit from the ooze that does 18 bludgeoning, his max HP is 18 and was 2 hp down. Goes down to dying 2, unconscious. Also his gun is corroded for 8 acid damage.
Bludgeoning Damage: 1d6 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10
(Avg 17 damage on a crit.)

The rest of the party manage to stay away from the ooze thanks to its slower land speed and pepper it with shots (I didn't count the metal resistance to their gunshots, cause they had almost no way of damaging it anyway, only sling bullets and fists would've gone through).
The rest of the party didn't want to get too close to their fallen companion and hence the ooze, back luck rolls on Recovery checks led to that PC ultimately dying.

By CR it's not a hard encounter, but resistance 5 to metal is tough to overcome, it'll soak a ton of damage and hit relatively hard.
Stay safe out there in the means streets of Alkenstar.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I've been eyeing running this for a ways now, but was wondering about some of the map weirdness that crops up. Bottleneck Bridge has been touched on, but was wondering where the Gold Tank Reserve and Wailing Scrapyard is meant to be. Gold Tank could prolly fit where ever, but the Scrapyard is fairly big just from what's shown on the map. It's not a big issue, but been scratching my head over it.

Related to that I was wondering about the Lonely Machine Spirit haunt and if it's caused any big issues. I've heard mixed things about haunts so I don't know if I'm overestimating it or not thinking about them right, but it seems a lot heftier then anything else and feels like it could easily wipe a party on it's first turn.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Outlaws of Alkenstar / 1 - Punks in a Powder keg (GM Reference) All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Outlaws of Alkenstar