The story so far: the group, seeing a solution to the shadow beasts haunting the Westcrown nights, is exploring Delvehaven, the abandoned lodge of the Pathfinder Society, in hope of finding the cause of why the shadow beasts have appeared.
Players & Characters
Lee was missing this session, so we had:
Dave - Halfling Monk 4/Rogue 1
Greg - Ranger 4/Wizard 1
Tim - Sorcerer 5
Michael - Rogue 5
Without Lee, there was no cleric. For an adventure that would have vampires in it, this was horrible.
Avoiding the TPK
One of the major problems of 3e D&D was that it gave you the impression that "if you follow these formulae, you'll get a monster of the right CR". This is carried into Pathfinder, where that line of thinking gave us the Shadow-Infused Triceratops Skeleton. Allegedly CR 7, but with the basic stats of AC 15, hp 91, DR 5/bludgeoning and good, Gore +18/+18 (2d10+15+1d6); Reach 15'
A 5th level fighter with a 14 Con (quite high for a cleric) has average hit points of 47 assuming Favoured Class was taken for HP. This thing does an average of just under 30 damage with one attack. Oh, and you'll provoke AoOs moving within its Reach. (CMD of 36, so good luck tumbling past it!)
I was warned about the TPK potential of this encounter, and substituted in just a Triceratops Skeleton. It still managed to KO two of the party members before Tim took it down with magic missile, but at least no-one died (though Dave and Michael were close). A few potions were downed after that!
At least it had some loot: the group then cracking the aquarium to get at it (and, with the exception of Greg's high Dex ranger, all making Acrobatics checks to keep their feet as the water burst out).
Hounds of Shadow
As the group continued to investigate the major hall, they discovered a display room that had two Shadow Mastiffs waiting for them. The baying of the hounds caused both Tim and Dave to fail their Will saving throws, and they were panicked and fled for 3 and 8 rounds, respectively. That left Michael and Greg as the sole defenders against the hounds.
Astonishingly, they were able to prevail. I think Greg was just really happy to have targets he could shoot that didn't have damage reduction. They also found stairs down, but they kept exploring the rest of the upper level. (In fact, they actually went home to rest before continuing... which meant that the creatures below lost the benefit of being alerted by the hounds!)
Small, Invisible Dolls
One of the nicer touches in this adventure are the soul-bound dolls: little children toys that have been animated by the deranged spirit of one of the dead Pathfinders, and who hunt down the party as they explore the mansion. The group ran into them on the training ring - which makes everyone on it completely invisible. So, Dave went up onto the ring, turned invisible, and was ambushed by the dolls.
As it turns out, the dolls really don't like being attacked by burning hands, which is what Tim used on them: being invisible doesn't help much against that! They didn't run immediately after his first attack, which meant that three went down to the second (with Michael and Dave using evasion to avoid the flames). The fourth was hit by Michael, and the final doll got shot as it tried to run away into the long grass.
It would have been nice to have the dolls escape and continue to harass the party, but it was a charming encounter which saw the party pick up a few of the dolls (hopefully to animate for themselves later!)
You need Magic Missile...
The Delvehaven Council Chambers were inhabited by a Will-o-Wisp, which immediately attacked Tim and almost killed him. Tim, playing his Sorcerer in an extremely competent manner, cast Resist Electricity and then followed up by hitting it with Magic Missile spell after Magic Missile spell - in addition to his regular spells, he has a wand of level 5 magic missiles. The other party members, who were basically unable to hit it, just provided him with cover. It turned invisible and tried to flee, but Tim just destroyed it.
The Haunts Below
Finally descending into the lower levels, the group encountered a haunt: a room of collected insects that animated and the spirits infected the group with cannibalistic tendencies. Well, something like that. Two of the party noticed things getting odd before they occurred, and ran out of the room. The other two got hit by the full effect, which required a saving throw to avoid. What was the type and DC of the saving throw? Not given. I had to handwave it (and due to it being 6d6 damage plus 1d6 charisma damage, just said that Tim's Will save of 13 was enough. The Caster Level of 6th indicates that a DC 19 would be appropriate, but I'd much rather it be spelt out rather than having to rely on an old 3E rule).
The idea was great; it's a pity that the mechanics weren't all there.
A second haunt - a replay of an argument between two Pathfinders, which caused the party to attack each other - was avoided by two PCs and the other two made their saving throws. At least it had all the required information there, although I note that the CL of 6th does *not* lead to a DC of 17...
The Desk, The Arch and the Skull
To get into the lower vault, the group needed to shift a very heavy desk (which they couldn't do manually) by using a secret code on an archway. Michael tried to disarm it, but failed. Thankfully, not by enough to release the Hellcat! Greg, noting how high Michael had rolled, chose to explore the level further before returning to the Arch.
And so, the group finally discovered the spirit of Bisby and his two Shadow companions. Greg was at first convinced that it wasn't Bisby (shouldn't he be lower down?), so I clarified that there wasn't that much of the dungeon: just two levels. So, they used the Grave Candle (another item without a DC) to contact the spirit.
Of course, it didn't work: Bisby's skull rose and tried to use phantasmal killer on Tim (he saved) and two Shadows attacked the rest of the party. Eventually, we ended up with Michael sneak attacking the skull into submission each round whilst Tim killed the shadows with Magic Missiles. It was nice to see the party being effective.
Following that, they were able to discover from Bisby more information about the Morrowfail (the artefact of good below) and the Totemrix (stolen artefact of evil), as well as the pass-code to the level below. Returning to the arch, they descended to meet the final encounter...
Vampire Fail
...which turned out to be four vampire spawn and three CR7 vampires. Possibly.
This encounter has a *lot* of problems. It didn't help that I give XP at the end of a session (in general), so the group weren't the 6th level they really needed to be. Then, it's actually written as four encounters - three vampires sitting in their rooms, and the vampire spawn in the corridor between the PCs and the Morrowfall.
Guidelines on how the boss vampires react when the group enter this area would have been very nice, as well as how the writer saw the encounter proceeding. I mean, it's quite likely that if the vampire bosses *don't* react, the party can kill the spawn, take the Morrowfall, and escape without the bosses being any the wiser. But fighting them all at once? TPK time, especially without a cleric in the group.
I ran this encounter with the boss vampires gradually becoming aware of the party and coming out to fight them. The *idea* was to drive them towards the Morrowfall which they'd then use to defeat the vampires. (It'd be more effective against these vampires in the text).
Unfortunately, a couple of things went wrong.
First, Greg revealed he didn't have any silver arrows, and so couldn't damage the vampires. I got extremely angry at this point: I'd made it very, very clear to the group after the last adventure that they needed silver weapons, and for Greg to not have any was idiotic in the extreme.
Second, they decided that the Morrowfall was scarier than the vampires, so they'd fight here (and all die) rather than run towards it.
This was *despite* Dave realising they needed the Morrowfall, telling the others, and sacrificing himself to hold off the vampires for a round (his halfling being energy-drained to death). Dave had previously showed his monk's incompetence against the vampires by rolling a critical hit with a silver kami that did no damage. 2d4-2 allows the possibility of 0 damage. I note now that alchemical silver says a minimum of 1 damage, but two damage is rather ineffective.
I raged at the party until they rushed to get the Morrowfall. And it blasted the vampires into dust, but not before it blinded half the party.
To be utterly fair, Greg and the rest were quite right to be worried about the Morrowfall: there's nothing in the adventure indicating that picking it up would allow you to control it. And it does blast the party as they come up to it. So, it seems that the proper way to run this part of the adventures is to leave the bosses in their lairs, rather than coming to investigate what they are extremely likely to hear.
This Adventure is Over!
The group were still short of reaching 7th level, so I just gave them enough XP to be there. Is there enough XP in these adventures? (Especially if you've got a somewhat intelligent group that avoids needless encounters?)
Dave is creating a new character - a 7th level fighter. We had a discussion about what to play, with Dave suggesting a Dragon Disciple and other classes, and me very strongly suggesting the base fighter. Dave finally looked at what the 7th level fighter got and agreed with me. Thus, the party will finally have a tank.
Greg is also rebuilding his character as a straight ranger, as he's realised how much the prestige classes he was looking at (particularly arcane archer) sucks. We're using only the core rulebook + bestiary in this game, so a lot of the more advanced/complicated/broken PF powers are unavailable and the core classes are generally a lot better than their combinations.
Next week, it's on to the Infernal Syndrome, which I hope will be better edited. There's a lot of nice points about What Lies In Dust, but the execution of some key parts is sadly lacking.
