Pathfinder 1E Prepping for Pathfinder: Council of Thieves (spoilers!)

[S'mon]

Thanks for this Merric - it prompted me to look at my own copy of The Bastards of Erebus: wow, it really is very weak, isn't it? Great production values as always from Paizo, but in terms of gameplay, very little indeed.

On the bright side, I see that the actual meat of the adenture, the 'Bastards' dungeon-crawl, is just a short bandit-hunt, very weakly hooked into the 'rebels' storyline, that can easily be disasociated from its context. So I reckon I will run it alone as a short ca 3-hour urban adventure for my Beginner Box campaign.

 

[Crispy Critter]

The Sixfold Trial is one of the best modules I've ever run. It has it all: The play, followed by the banquet, followed by a unique dungeon crawl. I highly recommend having the PCs play out the play. My players still say it was one of the most fun nights of gaming they've ever had.

 

[MerricB]

The Sixfold Trial is one of the best modules I've ever run. It has it all: The play, followed by the banquet, followed by a unique dungeon crawl. I highly recommend having the PCs play out the play. My players still say it was one of the most fun nights of gaming they've ever had.

That's encouraging! I really enjoyed "The Prince of Redhand" which was a RP-heavy adventure from Paizo in the Age of Worms AP, so I'm hoping that the Sixfold Trial also works well.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

After five sessions of running the Pathfinder Adventure Path: Council of Thieves, I've been reminded of a lot of reasons why I changed to 4E as my primary FRP system. (And I'm also reminded that 4E still has a lot of problems).

Paizo get a lot of credit for their adventures. I'm not sure it's always deserved. Certainly they have plot, interaction and puzzles, but mechanics-wise, Paizo is a company that I don't trust to get them right. Editing? Urgh.

The second adventure of the Council of Thieves AP is The Sixfold Trial. It has a brilliant first half, where the party become actors and perform a murder play. It's the sort of role-playing brilliance that Paizo occasionally display in their adventures that make them so memorable. The Prince of Redhand (Dungeon #131)) also provided such an experience. (Written by the same designer as The Sixfold Trial, Richard Pett - I love his RP scenarios).

And then the group got to the dungeon - which is nicely constructed - and met the monsters. Pretty much every single one of them had Damage Resistance 5. Some of this could be overcome (silver or good), some of it couldn't (elementals). And at that point, I was looking at a group that couldn't sufficiently damage the monsters. Consider the party:

A halfling monk/rogue who flurries with Sneak attack to gain... 1d4+1d6 damage
A ranger/wizard who Rapid Shots to get 1d8+2 damage
A sorcerer who has to overcome Spell Resistance (50%) on many of the monsters to get his 2d4+2 magic missiles to take effect
A elf cleric with low Str, high Dex who does 1d8 damage
A rogue that can hit for 3d6+2 damage, but exposes himself with fairly poor hp and AC to all the attacks as he's the only threat.

Did these characters have silver weapons? No. Oh dear.

Sigh. It's one of the big things that 4E changed: you have to really work at it to make incompetent characters. Exactly why a halfling monk should be a bad idea isn't clear, but it's very much so in Pathfinder.

Added to that is the dreadful editing of this adventure. Here's a very important line in the adventure: "She tells them that while the PCs have been otherwise engaged over the previous week, the Children of Westcrown have been gathering more information about the mayor and his home. What they have found out so far is detailed below."

If someone has the adventure, could you tell me exactly what they found out? Because, as far as I can tell, there is no such text. If there was ever any such text, it's been edited out. Good job, team!

Because, what it *needs* to say is "there are undead and devils within the Knot. You'll likely need silver and magic weapons to deal with them." I can say that now in retrospect. Just "devils" wouldn't be enough - my players wouldn't have recognised that as "need silver", because they're unfamiliar with the Pathfinder rules.

Likewise when it comes to dreadful editing, you have the appearance of a tiefling assassin. Her introductory text notes, "This adventure assumes that Sian waits for the PCs to reach area B21 before she makes her move, and thus her statistics are presented there."

No, they aren't. They're just after that text, and B21 makes no note of her at all. I happily ignored her altogether as a result. (The sooner the party left this frustrating place the better, but if B21 had noted that Sian will probably attack here, I would have remembered).

The final monster was also pretty good for causing a TPK. Here are the key details:
AC 18, hp 63, DR 5/good or silver, SR 16
Attacks: +8/+3 (1d8+6/17-20) plus +7 (1d8+2/19-20) plus +5 (1d8+2) plus +5/+5 (1d6+2), reach 10', 15' with last two attacks.

The thief, of course, needs to get into melee with it, and he has an AC of about 17. So, the average damage he takes each round is about 20 hit points. And the first three are infernal wounds, which gives bleed 2 and means that the cleric needs to make a caster level check (DC 16) to even heal him!

Sigh. I fudged this adventure massively to allow the PCs to survive. I'm 99% sure that Dave's monk will be retired for the next session as it's Too Weak To Live and Greg's archer isn't far behind it. As it turned out, the party did VERY well at avoiding a lot of superfluous encounters in the dungeon (and are now under-XPed as a result), so being smart and not being drawn into unnecessary encounters also penalises them. I just said "you're fifth level" at the end.

I'll write up a more formal session report soon; I just wanted to vent a bit first.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Added to that is the dreadful editing of this adventure. Here's a very important line in the adventure: "She tells them that while the PCs have been otherwise engaged over the previous week, the Children of Westcrown have been gathering more information about the mayor and his home. What they have found out so far is detailed below."

If someone has the adventure, could you tell me exactly what they found out? Because, as far as I can tell, there is no such text. If there was ever any such text, it's been edited out. Good job, team!

The original answer is HERE:

James Jacobs says:

1.) Under 'The Rebel's Joy' section, it states that the Children of Westcrown have gathered info regarding the Mayor and his home, and those details are detailed below. There is however, no information regarding what they do or don't know about the manor. Any suggestions on what to give out to the party?

The methods by which the Children gathered the information about the manor don't really matter in the end. Basically, they learned what they did by living in Westcrown, listening to rumors and gossip, and doing research. If your PCs want to learn the same information, they can do so with a number of Diplomacy checks and Knowledge checks. In any event, the most important thing to let the PCs know about the manor is that there's information about Delvehaven and how to get into it hidden in the manor, likely in a strange extradimensional vault called the Asmodean Knot. If your players like exploring and finding things out on their own, that's probably enough. Otherwise, you might want to also just hint to them that the entrance to the Knot is rumored to be on the upper floor or perhaps in the attic.

Hope this answer was received in time to help Merric.

 

[MerricB]

The original answer is HERE:



[/I]Hope this answer was received in time to help Merric.

Alas, no. We've finished the adventure and moved on to #3 in the series.

At this stage, I've rated part 1 as 4 out of 10, and part 2 as 6.5 out of 10. I'm hoping part 3 is better.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The skeletal triceratops on page 33 of What Lies in Dust is a TPK waiting to happen. He is a result of two templates being added on to one creature and he is NOT a CR7. He's a CR9/10. Seeing as the party will be MAX level 6 when they meet him, it's epic and highly dependent upon party makeup and their die rolls if they even survive Eddy. Be very careful with him. You should listen to the podcast episode where we go through that adventure in great detail.

Apart from the extra gore attack (do NOT allow that) the other problem with Eddie is his speed, the Resistance to Positive Energy and the Searing Darkness. If the PCs reach the conclusion that he is just WAY too mean (which they will realize if you allow the second gore attack), they may try to run. The problem is, because of his speed and the Searing Darkness (ranged attack) it's not possible for most characters to outrun Eddie to a passage that Eddie cannot enter. He'll catch them on the way or take em down with Searing Darkness.

Vol 4 is much better than 3, imo.

 

[MerricB]

The skeletal triceratops on page 33 of What Lies in Dust is a TPK waiting to happen. He is a result of two templates being added on to one creature and he is NOT a CR7. He's a CR9/10. Seeing as the party will be MAX level 6 when they meet him, it's epic and highly dependent upon party makeup and their die rolls if they even survive Eddy. Be very careful with him. You should listen to the podcast episode where we go through that adventure in great detail.

Hmm. I'll keep that in mind. I've gotten very, very good at fudging combats over the years, so I'll adjust if necessary.

I must say, I'm tempted to give the cleric of the group a wand of align weapon as a gift from Arael. In the break between adventures, the cleric took Craft Wand, and then made a wand of magic missiles (level 5) for the sorcerer and a wand of cure light wounds for himself.

 

[MerricB]

EDIT: Added in missing session report.


Filling in a couple of blank sessions...

What Came Before
The PCs, members of the Rebel Alliance, need to discover the source of the shadow beasts plaguing Westcrown. An artefact known as the Cheliax Crux lies in a demiplane attached to the Mayor's manor, and the group has managed to gain invitations to a grand dinner there by performing a murder play. They're going to wait until everyone is sozzled and then make their move...

The Rebel Alliance
Before the group headed off to the mayor's dinner, they were congratulated by Janiven and Arael, and told everything the Rebel Alliance knew about the mayor's residence: absolutely nothing. Impressively, the adventure actually has the text, "What they have found out so far is detailed below" and then absolutely fails to give any information.

The Dinner
Richard Pett wrote a dinner with NPCs in one of my favourite adventures in the Age of Worms AP: The Prince of Redhand. He's the writer of this adventure, but the dinner conversation here isn't quite up to the level of that adventure. It's still fun, but the structure isn't as good. Mainly, it's a chance to interact with a couple of important NPCs, display the decadence of the upper classes in Westcrown, and make the PCs uneasy before they enter the Crux.

This group isn't the biggest group of role-players in the world (like I'm not the strongest RP-DM), but they had a few conversations with the guests and the Mayor. From one of the guests, they learnt at this point that they learnt there were likely devils in the Knot. Which meant they needed silver weapons... but they had no time to get them. (It was perfect information for the rebels to tell them, but - alas - the rebels knew nothing).

Eventually the guests fell asleep (mostly drunk or drugged) and the group started hunting for the entrance to the knot.

Exploring the Manor
The group crept into the main hall, went up the stairs, went through a door to a bathroom, opened the door from it into the attic, and went into the attic, and made their way pretty directly to the entrance to the Knot.

It was impressive to see - the group bypassed every non-essential room on the way there!

Welcome to the Asmodean Knot
The first encounter in the knot was with a dead elf and his handy haversack, which the party took. In the haversack were a lot of very useful items, and a runecurse: a device that could easily kill one or more of the party. However, the group recognised it for what it was, and made sure they didn't take it.

In fact, the runecurse is an example of a great idea that unfortunately needs the players to know background information in advance, rather than having the DM explain it to them when they find it. Native spellcasters in Cheliax would know exactly what a runecurse was, but having to explain at the time lowers its effectiveness. "Oh, that paper is bad" doesn't quite cover it. This is a time when foreshadowing would have worked much better. (Perhaps in the play).

The Howling Hall
The first monsters the group discovered were three howlers, which were actually fun to fight, mainly because they didn't have damage reduction. The group took some damage from them, but defeated them pretty easily.

Afterwards, the library they found themselves in yielded Drowned Jabe and his Miserable Brothers and Sisters, a book that was actually a key item in this adventure. Not that any of the players realised that... and I'm not sure if they ever could.

The Tower of Perpetuity
One of the better encounters in the adventure, we reached some fun tricks with dimensions: an infinite pit, where you keep falling past the same point. And a Escher-like stairwell. Good fun. The shadows that started coming from the secret room were rather less so for the party: after the first were killed, they found the room and discovered that the mirrors were basically unbreakable by the party. Hardness 10 is *difficult* for a group of flurriers.

So the group ran for it. The shadows did not pursue.

The Howling Fiend
The next stop for the characters (after fun times swinging from a rope trying to get to a corridor in a pit) was an insane bearded devil, wielding a minor artefact. DR 5/silver or good posed something of a problem for the group (especially as Lee the Cleric was ill and not present), but eventually the group prevailed and took his weapon. I think there were magic missiles involved in his destruction (though SR 16 would have made over half of them fail if Tim hadn't been rolling better).

Meeting Drowned Jabe
A group of lacedons that included Drowned Jabe (from the book before) was the next encounter on the way. The group didn't realise it was Jabe, not particularly surprisingly, and just slaughtered the lot. Dave did the defense work, and Tim and Greg peppered them with ranged fire until they were slain.

The Chains
The group then reached a great ball of chains which were attached to something far below. So they destroyed it with a lot of acid splash cantrips. Huh. I'd like to say this has ramifications later, but the events of Book Four happen anyway. I'll just bring it up during those sessions and describe it as the PCs fault. They'll probably enjoy it.

Insane by Decree
Rather than making their way through a lot of infinite staircases, the group made their way through the Rooms of Insanity. Or, rather, they went to the central Observation Room and ignored the invisible imp that spoke to them offering to 'cure' them. They hurried out the other way, avoiding five potential encounters (and the XP).

Lake of Filth
Finally, they came to the garbage dump of the Knot, in which lived a Large Water Elemental. Oh, look - DR 5/-. Just what my party doesn't want: Dave's monk, dealing d4 damage just couldn't hurt it. Sneak attack? Ok, d4+d6-5, still not much. Greg's arrows weren't much use either. Instead, it was up to Michael's rogue (3d6+2) and Tim's sorcerer. Again.

Oh, and a few characters got ill from the water. But it was easy enough to Heal them when they became sick, so it didn't matter that much. Not like it was immediate onset or anything.

The group, tired and lacking spells, decided to rest as we finished this encounter - and the session.

 

[Crothian]

Well, we've finished the Bastards of Erebus - in total it took us 5-1/2 hours of play. I'm am extremely unimpressed by the module - the overall story and some encounters were fine, but the writing and editing were both dreadful.

It took us three game sessions to complete it, about 12 hours of play. I specifically have been adding in things to give the AP more volume. I like the ideas of the AP but not the specifics. I've been doing a lot more with the investigation of the shadow creatures instead of just waiting for the Pathfinder to show up and solve everything. The group has already asked about Delvehaven on their own without prompting which will hell link that all together. I've mentioned Zod from book 4 so that when he shows up it is not out of the blue. I'm also linking CoT with Serpent's Skull by providing rumors of the artifact and when CoT is done the players will have the option of going to Serpents Skull with the same characters.