I ran a one-shot for Halloween that I’m pretty pleased with. It was a conversion of the Call of Cthulhu scenario Cold Warning. It went very well and was a lot of fun. Conversion was easy because the (1920s) Call of Cthulhu is usually very similar in how you set up a pathfinder 2e horror adventure: I used a variant of the vacation opening suggested by Seth Skorkowsky in his review of the scenario though instead of being on vacation, the characters were traveling north from Andoran over the Five Kings Mountains when an early snow closed the pass, trapping everyone until spring. The only inn in the town where everyone was stuck was overfull, so the characters sought out rooms in a nearby hunting lodge. I localized all the names, replaced modern conveniences with older ones (crossbows instead of guns, etc.), and did a really nice full scale map of the lodge in dungeondraft. I also made pregens. For them I used the WFRP 2e career compendium to randomly generate careers, then turned those careers into level 3 characters (fighters, rogues, and rangers to try and keep things simple since I had players new to the system) with free-archetype and automatic bonus progression. Gear was based on what was listed in the career and I tried to select mostly passive or easily understood abilities. I also tweaked the villains motivations a bit, changed the location of a few clues, etc. to try and make it fit better in the timeslot (a single 4+ hour session).
That being said, I find it helpful to document my mistakes and thing I need to work on, and since I love to talk about my games have a big long post of the things I thought I did wrong:
That being said, I find it helpful to document my mistakes and thing I need to work on, and since I love to talk about my games have a big long post of the things I thought I did wrong:
- I didn’t have time to make suspect cards. And some of my players really need suspect cards to keep track what was going on, especially with the Taldor/Andoran names.
- Item cards. Like suspect cards but not as vital. Most characters had elixir’s of life, some had traps, and some could do herbalism. Having cards for these things would have made it a lot easier to run the characters, especially for the players brand new to the system.
- I didn’t add any guests to the lodge because I was trying to keep the session within a 4 hour window. This made it feel small and rushed. I think dedicating two or three sessions to it would be better, but a one-session one shot is a lot easier to organize.
- Snowshoes and Armor. I needed a system to keep track of who was wearing their snowshoes and armor. I’m thinking cards for them as well, characters can set the cards in front of them to remind them/ me they are wearing snowshoes/armor.
- Frostbite. So frostbite has three stages, I looked at it and thought “three stage affliction”. It worked okay. But after playing and reflecting on it I thought up a way of doing it (attached) that might be more fun.
- The blizzard: I just copied the blizzard mechanics straight from the scenario, but in retrospect they were both too easy (only a single success needed) and too hard (high DC). I think a victory point subsystem with more successes but at a lower DC would have served me much better (also attached).
- Random Hazards: in the scenario’s random encounter tables there are a couple of hazards that I altered a bit and built as PF2e hazards. One was a gully with a crust of snow over the lip of it (which is a hazard that almost got me once in real life) and the other was a widowmaker branch. They ran fine, but their interaction with the frostbite system was a little clunky and very mechanical in it’s approach. I think. I think the better frostbite system will fix this as well... or it might make it worse.
- I didn’t use secret rolls (because I generally think it is more fun for the players to roll things), but in a hardcore mystery like this I think they would have enhanced the mood. Next time I am going to use secret rolls.
- Speaking of enhancing the mood. A howling wind ambient soundtrack would have really helped with the blizzard.
- The heart attack and medical treatment of frostbite were both too easy. Basically, it was solved in a single roll. I think a victory point system for the heart attack, and a location/severity based system for the frostbite (attached) would work much better.
- I statted up the main villain as a 5th level NPC ranger with a couple of ritualist dedication feats and an Esoteric Knowledge ability that let him become trained in any skill during daily prep. And that worked fairly well except he seemed too much like a normal guy once the PCs attempted to murder him (as in almost completely unable to defend himself against 6 PCs, three of which were fighters); I kept him moving (despite all the AOOs) and he escaped, but he had like two hit points after two rounds. I think I might increase his level to 6 in future games and/or I might add an additional movement or getaway type ability. I think its awesome though that he is a ranger and not a spellcaster, really threw the characters for a loop.
- The player’s figured out that they needed to use a spell to banish the BBEG (which I had placed in a book in the office along with three other spells as plot points/red herrings), but I stated up the spells using ritual rules and those are more of a downtime thing. I improvised a victory point system during play and I think that is the way to go. So when I run this again I am going to build an elaborate victory point subsystem for performing each ritual.
- For the wendigo, I substituted a custom monster (based off my vague memories from the first part of Pact by Wildbow) and just used owlbear stats with immunity to cold, a large vulnerability to hot iron and critical hits, and the ghost’s rejuvenation ability unless killed by hot iron. I was very happy with the offense of the monsters and not so happy with the defense. They seemed much too durable until their weakness was exploited and fighting them took too long for the time I had available. I need to fiddle around with the stats but I’m thinking dropping them a level, moving their offensive ability to the high side and their defenses to the low side would work better. I also think that I might set them up with a system like the skeleton’s: low ac/hp but with resist all except hot iron.
Perhaps I took too easy on them, but eh they did get lucky), in the newbie 5e campaign I'm feeling like even closer to end of this thing(16 so that is like four more levels only) and I've gotten to play automaton inventor in edgewatch and are up to level 3 so still alive. Oh and Abomination Vaults is up to level 6 and I think they have reached the point where they are less likely to die, though still powerful traps and foes are included. New AV players have been fun and I started doing bit more downtime in the city between dungeon delves. Semi depressed at moment I think I did worse in rpg superstar than last year, but maybe I can still find extra energy to work on rpg projects besides campaigns I'm in.
