PFS 6-02: Rain Falls on the Mountain of Sea and Sky

[Helvellyn]

Spoiler:

What happens if a PC worships Gorum?

[logsig]

Please see this blog post regarding the impact of his death on Pathfinder Society.

[Helvellyn]

Thank you.

[The.Vortex]

The number of checks during the ascent is listed as two per character per section. But if you do that, a party of 6 will have a total of 48 rolls. The number of successes needed to achieve the "very early arrival" is 21+. With 48 rolls and persception being an option in every single section, it is almost guaranteed that the group will achieve this highest level.

My guess is that it should only be one roll per character per section. That way you have 24 rolls, and with a success rate of about 50% the group will reach the "normal" result.

Another rather unfortunate issue, though not a real error / mistake: If the group gets a lot of successes during the ascent, it is of no use to aid the one character who is doing the main rolls to influence the Poracha since the Aid bonus is a circumstance bonus, which the group already has.

[Quentin Coldwater]

I had the same issue. Party of 5, three at level 3, one level 1, one level 2. 17 challenge points, barely low tier. I ended up at 30 points due to the high modifiers from the level 3s, and still enough fails that each leg took 3 hours, rather than 2. Not that that mattered much, just thought I'd note it.

While my table was especially lopsided, I do agree that 2 checks per person seems generous.

Also somewhat strange that there's no adjustment for 5 players. Seems a bit unfair that they just luck into the 4 player adjustment.

[LeftHandShake]

I came here to raise the same points of confusion, and the implications for the final combat. It's *very* possible for each phase to take 3 hours *and* the party reaches the highest point threshold. Heck, it's not that implausible to get some 4 hour segments and still get the highest threshold.

Getting *any* 2 hour threshold is very unlikely, especially with more than four PCs, is rather unlikely. For simplicity, assume *every* check has a 50% success chance. The probability that each individual PC rolls at least one failure is 75%. With four PCs, the probability that no more than one roll a failure is just over 5%. With five PCs, that falls to about 1.5%, and is less than 0.5% for parties with six PCs.

With these rules, there's almost no point in paying attention to time: it's going to take 12+ hours to get up the mountain. Given the other timing in the scenario, that *should* make it nighttime in the final combat, if not earlier:

- starts early morning, Masuhei arrives in a few minutes
- "a few hours" (3+) for boat ride
- 10-15 minute walk to lodge
- a few minutes for "false briefing"
- about 1 hour while Kukuha meditates
- unspecified time to investigate lodge grounds
- a few minutes to talk to Aojimitsu
- ~12 hours to ascend Soruseiji, plus encounters
- "a few hours" (3+) to descend Soruseiji, arriving "in the evening"

Even if you condense the "few minutes" and unspecified time activities to be about an hour total, there are 20 hours accounted for in one adventuring day.

Is it supposed to be night/dark in the final combat? Are the PCs supposed to be fatigued from *climbing a mountain* for over 8 hours?

[Quentin Coldwater]

Is it supposed to be dark? I'm not sure, the scenario doesn't mention it, but it seems reasonable. I'd say maybe.

Are PCs supposed to be fatigued? Definitely not. While it's not the biggest penalty, giving an all-round debuff without the scenario specifically mentioning it seems a bit much.

The time doesn't add up, but that shouldn't impact the scenario without specifically being instructed to do so. I think the two or three hours per leg was intended to impact the scenario in some way, but it was either forgotten or fell out during editing.

[Monkhound]

Quentin Coldwater wrote:

Is it supposed to be dark? I'm not sure, the scenario doesn't mention it, but it seems reasonable. I'd say maybe.

The complaint is valid, and there should be a clarification. But I'd say if the scenario doesn't mention to apply a condition, it's not reasonable: Gimping a barbarian (but not any other classes in a 1-4 scenario) for the final fight doesn't seem to be the intent of this challenge.

[Talon Stormwarden]

I ran this locally yesterday. I had it be dark but adding fatigued seemed overly punishing.

[Outl]

Alex Speidel did mention this in another post in the general forum, while talking about Run as Written and GM discretion. I don't know if this counts as an actual answer, but:

"I do think a GM would be within their rights to say that the final encounter takes place at night if the adventure took 18 hours to complete. I don't think they should have to, but I don't think it's out of line either."