Venture-Lieutenant, Nebraska—Bellevue
|
Getting ready to run this one. I like the story, but it took a few reads to get every the details down. Has anyone who has run this got some tips for Encounter A? The baseline at high sub-tier is a large and two huge creatures in a room that's 3 x 4. Best I can think of is the huge creatures drop from the ceiling in the larger grand hall - after the PCs trigger by opening the door.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
|
I did low tier with 4 large creatures. I expanded them into the other small rooms on that side of the map, which didn't go well. They got trapped by the map and had trouble getting access to players. On the other hand, the party was also bunched up, which meant my fireball spam was very effective.
There's also a LOT of damage mitigation. Some things immune to entire schools of magic, some things immune to almost all damage types. And a huge amount of hitpoints. I missed some of my DR, and the scenario was STILL 2 hours in by the time we finished this.
|
Venture-Lieutenant, Nebraska—Bellevue
|
I ended up high sub-tier with a large and two huge creatures. Based on the description, everything is trapped in there. I used the black puddings' ability to attach to the ceiling to leave "space" for PCs and the large creature. Then I made the huge puddings deal with having to "squeeze" everywhere.
The scenario did run long - about 5.5 hours. Partly for the reasons you indicate - lots of damage mitigation and immunities. I had to rush the finish more than I'd like.
|
|
How do people feel about the high tier have some Master only checks (perception and thievery)?
For perception: Gunslinger, Investigator, Ranger, Rogue qualifies at level 7. No one else can get it. Its not a choice a player can make. The chance of qualifying is no different between low tier and high tier. So I think either both tiers should have it, or neither. Even if you made the recall knowledge to look for it, and got the lower DC, its impossible if you don't have one of those four classes at the table. So in my opinion, their shouldn't have been a Master gated perception check.
For the Thievery one, level 7 is the first time you could boost a skill to
master, so anyone could, but I think the low-tier would have reasonable chances that its not everyone's first skill-up. Here I think low tier needing expert (or no gate) is fine, and master for high tier is reasonable. So I think as written its reasonable (though I wouldn't mind seeing Master skill gates postponed until 9-12 scenarios, just in case odd party comps where your skills characters are low-tier playing up.
|
Venture-Captain, Washington—Seattle
|
Minor nit: Fighters get master Perception at Level 7 (Battlefield Surveyor) and Thaumaturges get it at Level 9 (Vigilant Senses).
First, none of the master proficiency checks affect mission success or treasure bundles.
Second, while the 2 master Perception checks do gate Uncommon items on the Chronicle, they are things you can still get with Avid Collector boons. So, yeah, while it might be saddening to know you weren't one of the blessed 6 classes in high tier, practically speaking it's not the end of the world if you really want one of those things. So, I agree this is annoying and unnecessary but not so egregious that I'll get the torches and pitchforks out.
Lastly, the master Thievery check doesn't gate anything and the consequence of not getting it seems pretty minor (it just gives a DC reduction for the Reflex save vs. damage), so I say meh to that.
