ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist Book 2 Questions

[Root7OneOne]

Hey folks. I'm running book 2 of Zeitgeist at the moment, and my players are about to climb Cauldron Hill. I have a few questions regarding the encounter there and the book in general.

First, the three main monsters, aside from the mites, seem a little too tough to take on at once. I don't see anything about it in the book, but should I stagger their appearance? 2-3 rounds between each one showing up? Are the players expected to defeat these monsters or distract them and escape?

On a related note, since they are incorporeal, are their natural attacks touch attacks?

My last question is regarding level progression. The book says the party should level up after completing three specific encounters, which by my estimation shouldn't be until the party is nearing the end of the book. And then they level up again at the end of the book? Seems like strange level progression to me. How did you guys handle it? As written, or did you change it up somehow?

I appreciate any feedback on this. Thanks in advance.

 

[efreund]

My response is written assuming you are playing in Pathfinder. I recently ran this encounter in Pathfinder, and my party was level 3 at the time.

1) Am I supposed to have the monsters all attack at once?
Yes. The monsters all notice the blood-ring and run around it for an extended period of time. Then when Creed/Porter throws the light, they all break through the blood ring and rush the PCs simultaneously.

2) Aren't they too powerful?
My party didn't have much trouble. A few reasons for this: throwing around the sunrods distracted the monsters quite a bit; the party knew it would be hard, so they blew a lot of the req stipend on buffs; and the monsters don't have that much AC/HP, and go down fast to focus-fire.

3) Did you know there's a typo?
There's a translation error for the crackling crawler. He's not supposed to "daze" players, but instead "stagger" them. (This encounter was written for 4E, and the word "daze" does something akin to PF's "staggered" there, but the translator missed that.)

4) Are these touch attacks?
Only the vestige of death. The rest of the critters target normal AC.

5) Level progression seems uneven
I think there's a typo. Leveling up after Dawn Square doesn't make any sense. All the other adventures only have you level up a maximum of twice per. I had the party 2nd level through the first two threads, then dinged them to three after rescuing the Doctor, then held them at 3rd through the climax, and didn't ding them to 4th until after the MacBannin trial.
Full disclosure: I've never seen anything official that this is a typo, it's just what "feels right" to me, and it's what the rewards section of adv3 seems to imply.

Hope that helps! Cauldron Hill is fun!

 

[Root7OneOne]

Sorry, I forgot there was a Pathfinder and 4e version, but yes I'm playing Pathfinder.

Thanks for the answers. I agree that leveling up after completing two of the first three threads makes sense, especially since it's likely the party will work on all three somewhat simultaneously.

Since the Nevard thread is the first one the group is following through on, they haven't leveled up to 3 yet, hence my trepidation about the CR level of the encounter. But, since I have an NPC involved in the fight, I'll be sure to have him suggest throwing the lights away if the party doesn't think of it.

Edit: The other concern is I'm sure my party will insist on moving on to the arson attack immediately, and it might be a touch rough if they expend most of their daily resources on top of the hill.

I did read about that typo while searching these forums for information on the book, but had actually forgotten about it, so thanks for the reminder haha.

I appreciate the answers, cheers!

 

[efreund]

Well, from a design perspective, you're "supposed" to move on to the arson fight immediately. (My party did, FWIW.)

Remember, "winning" the arson battle is completely optional to advancing the plot and investigation. Furthermore, the "win" condition isn't that the PCs kill both of the Hermanos Draconis, but scare them off and save Sechim's Factory. If I had to hazard a guess, the attrition-nature of the event-structure is there so that the PCs *don't* all-out-win (i.e. kill both Hermanos) and get practice making strategic decisions regarding setting their own goals.

That being said, Eberardo (the Barbarian) hits like a *truck* if he uses all of his abilities (Rage, Power Attack) and can easily one-shot a full-health non-optimized level 3 PC. Be very wary of pitting him against your level 2s. Consider demonstrating his power in some way beforehand, so that the PCs know that he's a death-machine, and can therefore make an informed choice as to engage him or not.

(Also, the book says that the PCs don't get the XP and LVL up from the Gale thread until meeting Gale. I disagree with this. Since the climax and struggle is Cauldron Hill & the arson, and there's a weird time-delay between that and meeting Gale, combined with the fact that the PCs tend to run off and do other plots in the meantime quickly, I considered finishing the arson plot to be tantamount to finishing the thread from an XP and LVL point of view.)

 

[Root7OneOne]

I agree.

My plan is to not actually have him rage for this encounter, since the book describes the brothers as being more interested in fleeing than fighting, so raging wouldn't make much sense unless cornered.

That said, I've been looking at the lizardfolks' statblocks, and I'm a little confused about their to-hit bonuses.

Eberardo has a +9 to hit with Mstwk Greatsword according to the statblock. But he's a level 2 Barbarian with 17 str. The block gives him a BAB of 3 for some reason? And even given that, with the Str and Mstwk bonus, he should only be at a +6 to hit, or +8 while raging (though by my estimation it should be +5/+7, since the BAB should be 2...). The bonus to damage likewise only makes sense if raging. Am I missing something? Even if they included Rage in the stat blocks, which would be weird, the to-hit bonus still seems wrong.

 

[efreund]

Yea, it's wrong. I noticed that too.

Lots of stat blocks in ZG get fuzzy if you look at them too closely. Best not to. I always have to be very careful when I hand out allys' character sheets (like police offers, other RHC members, etc) to my PCs, because they catch stuff like that and hyper-focus and get completely distracted. But if it's staying on my side of the GM screen ... just roll with it.

 

[RangerWickett]

First, the adventure was designed in 4e, where the monsters could totally be hurt by normal weapons. In fact, only a couple of them were even insubstantial. Most were just weird things that popped in from another dimension for the evening. The intention was for the monsters to be creepy, not invincible. It's a quirk of the PF rules that incorporeal critters are not fair before the PCs get magic.

That said, I just heard the Prismatic Tsunami Actual Play of their night on Cauldron Hill, and the horrific invincibility of the monsters led to some clever tricks to survive.

Second, the arson bros were intended to be villains who could cause a ruckus and run, so the party would get a chance to fight them later. In the first fight they don't want to stand and fight.

Stat-wise, aren't the arson bros. lizardfolk? Don't they have a racial hit die that gives them a +1 BAB?

Anyway, I recommend flexibility to give the PCs a cinematic experience. I hope you're enjoying the campaign.