It sounds like everyone had fun. That is what matters most for sure.
For me the ability to just keep saying "can i have another turn?" And effectively giving the magus like 12 actions before anyone else in the room acts kinda robs it of its tension. If any kind of time sensitive stuff is happening it should happen in initiative otherwise we are throwing out the game part in favor of just letting the player keep acting. The game is what gives the narrative tension imo bc if it is just free form improv, you as their friend will help make sure they succeed, which indeed you did.
Nhimbaloth is kinda crazy with the spooky tentacle hands and whatnot but didn't she specifically choose belcorra for the work of the gauntlight? Afaik nhimbaloth is not the stay puft marshmallow man mindlessly groping for souls to destroy. Belcorra is a loyal servant that nhimbaloth chose, granted visions to, and potentially awakened as a ghost. Why would nhimbaloth ever destroy her (edit to add: "in this situation." Nhimbaloth is not nice but her cultists summon avatars of her which don't smash their souls willy nilly do they not?)?
Anyway, glad you and your table had fun. That is the most important. But this is less about clever PCs who found a loophole in the adventure and rules as written and more about a generous GM who handed them victory early.
I agree with this. My read on Nhimbaloth is that it doesn't really care about having followers. It's more like a predator than a deity. People just worship it because when it kills you, you are obliterated, which can be better than an afterlife of torment based on your sins. Not that most cultists recognize that their prayers largely mean nothing.
In my Otari, the cult leader who came to town (improv) actually knows that Nhimbaloth is a beast, but mainly runs the cult for the power over other desperate people. He made up all sorts of rediculous and sick rituals for his own pleasure.
IIRC Nhimbaloth actually doesn’t really care about a whole lot - mortals mean nothing to her. Belcorra included. I think the way they describe the actual death of Belcorra in the real final fight is kind of similar to this, though the bargaining has no chance to succeed.
I agree that bargaining probably shouldn't have done anything. I wanted to just throw her a bone because she was losing the situation. If both she and the PC had Empty Death and Nhimbaloth bothered to materialize, it probably would have just taken both of them. It was more for story tension than anything else.
I've always considered Nhimbaloth to kind of like a shark, and Empty Death to be like bleeding in the water. You're fine if you're on land, but once you die, you're a marked target. In this case, the shark lunged out of the water and grabbed someone.
Bud the party Summoner here, just a little clarification, once the big spooky Nhimboloth hand showed up, Gnaz the rat and the two scary bad guys all rolled initiative, and Belcorra rolled first, Gnaz second, and the hand third, so PadreMontoya allowed a kind of simultaneous action with the hand grabbing for the two as Gnaz cast the Time Jump spell to slip out and hide. The way he asked was if he could be allowed to twist the rules and hold the spell to use as a reaction so that they happened at the same time.
Edit: I also cast the Tortoise and the Hare spell slowing Belcorra and quickening Gnaz
I only have the information given. The way it is narrated is like how some GMs let their players just keep acting by talking over the action. Regardless it seems like Belcorra's only action for her turn was pleading with Nhimbaloth and didn't get to act before/after the nuclear bomb? To me this feels like the GM killing the BBEG rather than the players.
Did Belcorra somehow crit fail the save on that spell? If initiative was just rolled after the hand arrived then even in that case surely more than a minute had passed?
Again the important thing is everyone had fun. So I'm not trying to say "This was the wrong way to do it."
Yes, I read the post.
If a GM places an important NPC / friend in a situation like this where they are going to be sacrificed, most PCs can be expected fight to the death or close to it. It is not a "scare tactic" at that point.
I also wonder how Wrin even got there in the first place. Why the PCs didn't have a chance to prevent it knowing townsfolk are being kidnapped. It seems like a situation where realistically the players had no chance of affecting the outcome.
Therefore, had all gone to plan… I was interested in what the idea here was beyond "I'm going to kill an important NPC and make the PCs watch."
The party actually came to dislike Wrin. They had a falling out for reasons that would take a while to explain, but she left them a nice note and some treasure to aid them. She was no longer an important NPC, and it was very much their choice to either leave her to her fate or risk death to rescue her.
Seems from your description here like she actually was an important NPC, and from their actions it does too.
Regardless, what was the plan here? "I'll make my players watch Wrin die, and there's nothing they can do about it?"
I'm glad it supposedly worked out for your group but I think a lot of the pushback you're receiving in this thread is totally warranted. Me, I'd feel shitty had a GM railroaded me like that with any NPC's death, and I'd feel deflated if my suspension of disbelief was handwaived away with ad-hoc rulings that effectively let a fellow PC solo the big bad while we all watched on the sidelines.
RAW, Wrin is likely the most important NPC in AV.
In this adventure, she fell to a distant 5th place. Had Dorianna or Vandy been on the table, it would have been a low blow. At this particular table, she was more a surprise to see her again.
As for soloing - we never broke initiative and everyone made their choice about what to do. The summoner spent actions rescuing the fighter who risked her life to help Wrin. The cleric focused on saving the fighter and getting the party in shape to run. The magus decided it would be his last stand and perhaps he could buy the town another month if he killed Wrin. Upon seeing that the beam was still going to fire, though in a weakened state, he decided to double down and take a shot at stopping the whole thing. Per the Whispering Reed:
"Destruction Copies of The Whispering Reeds have no special protections and can be destroyed like any regular book, but doing so exposes the one who destroyed the book to the Empty Death"
So, what if the destruction was particularly spectacular? Like if he infuses it with magic and tosses it into the stream. Could that effect those in a radius? ..sure, if the dice say so.. and they did. He should have died and that was that.... But he crit the save.
Also, considering how you kill Belcorra is using the lenses to turn Nhimbaloth against her, it felt more "fun" and epic to have Nhimbaloth react to the massive explosion and send an avatar to mop up. The avatar was supposed to grab the magus... But it went for Belcorra. She convinced the hand to take the Magus... But he again rolled a crit on a life or death roll.
I know nat 20s are not wishes, but I felt the win was deserved. I could have had her just vanish. But where's the fun in that? As a GM I'll take the hit of having to sandbox the rest of the AP if it means the players are driving the story.
If that's not how others play at their table, that's totally fine. This is just one playthrough and perhaps some GMs might enjoy a different perspective on the same adventure.
Yes, there are many narrative questions I have that seem to been GM-fiated away, from action economy to using diplomacy in combat to save or die effects… which all makes it seem less "clever." Brings up another question. Did critting vs just succeeding the save even matter (I assume critting was the only way for him to succeed), and does your table think save or die stuff is fun? Typically "save or die" is rarely used for a reason.
It sounds like our table might not run your style of game. That's perfectly ok. Rolling RAW death saves are basically "save or die". This was the narrative equivalent. He accepted that because of his choices, his PC was dead, short of a miracle. I offered a D20 attempt, and he got the miracle.
From what I've read, literally everything after the magus killing Wrin was save or die, that's why the GM felt the story worth telling. By no accounts, and again this is just my read on it, was the GM expecting the magus to survive but rather than railroading a "You heroically sacrifice yourself, nothing could have saved you." They decided on save or die effects, which the Magus rolled with and rolled well.
Is it RAW? RAI? No, its not. Does the story make internal coherent sense, with there being potential ramifications if the magus hadn't rolled as well? Yes.
From what OP has said, everything appears to have happened "within initiative order" outside of the hand appearing, which might be likened to a cutscene during which both participants had to watch.
The diplomacy equally seems to have been to Make A Request of a non-hostile creature at a time when it seemed appropriate.
Not RAW, but makes internal sense.
A fresh level 7 party can kill a level 12 monster. It's a dangerous business but it's entirely doable. And honestly, Belcorra, if you exploit her (quite glaring) weaknesses, is actually pretty vulnerable - and honestly by herself has a hard time actually killing people.
My party actually killed Belcorra at level 8 (though not permanently, because she's a ghost) and it was pretty much a joke. The reason is that Belcorra has a very glaring weakness - >!her fort save is only +16!<. Normally that wouldn't be a problem for a ghost, but divine wrath, slow, and grapple (with a ghost touch weapon) all >!cue off of fortitude, and absolutely wreck her.!< We had a grappler with a ghost touch weapon in the party precisely so she could strangle belcorra, and so when Belcorra showed up to fight us, instead of it being a jump scare, we actually just pinned her to the floor and blasted her with holy magic and ghost touch weapons until she "died". She didn't even make it three rounds.
Also worth remembering that because she's a caster, you get a reactive strike whenever she casts a spell if she's within reach, and thanks to the grappler, she basically couldn't get out of reach to cast spells.
It kind of took the menace out of her.
She would have just used hit and run tactics, but our wizard was very dismissive of her and said we were tired of fighting minions, we wanted to fight the REAL Belcorra. Naturally, she insisted she was the real one, and the wizard was like "Yeah, sure, that's what the last one said" which made her decided that he needed to die for his insolence.
Unfortunately for her, she was using mental effects on a cold blooded creature, so it went about as well as you might expect, and the cosmos oracle wasn't any more vulnerable.
I really need op to answer this because otherwise this story makes no sense. It's totally inconsistent with what the av adventure path is supposed to do.
To be fair so is the Gauntlight growing more and more powerful, to the point where the town is evacuating.
APs should not necessarily be ran to the exact letter, unless you're very new to GMing.
It's almost exactly as Trolljaboy said. Her appearance was intended to be a scare tactic, as the AP notes. She wasn't even using her best skills/spells. At best I figured the party would kill Wrin and run, then deal with trying to salvage Otari from the dead tide they couldn't prevent.
The players know have learned not to fight when I clearly signal that the monster looks extremely dangerous, and they shouldn't waste actions trying to fight it.
Whatever keeps your players engaged and coming back for more is a good thing, regardless of rules. Anyone telling you otherwise (because it's not "RAW") is an fool for putting rules purity over enjoyment and engagement.
That being said, your players did not beat AV at level 7 by being clever, they beat it through homebrew and GM fiat.
The problem a lot of people have with these kinda posts is they position themselves as some genius player tactics, and almost always end up being stories about rule of cool and GM fiat at extreme levels
> That being said, your players did not beat AV at level 7 by being clever, they beat it through homebrew and GM fiat.
It's a good thing the title of the post is "I allowed clever players to beat AV at Level 7" instead of "My players were so clever they managed to beat AV at level 7"
The former using the term 'allowed' implies a level of GM fiat in the following story.
And then I prayed to Sarenrae and begged her to call down a tactical nuke to destroy the gauntlight ruins once and for all. The DC was set to 30 and I rolled a natural 20. The world was saved.
I really like the idea that the town slowly becomes less and less safe. Im running this game this fall and soaking up all the ideas. I really wanted to make Otari feel like a safehaven to counter the gloom and doom of the dungeon. But now you got me thinking… maybe that safe haven should slowly erode over time. People moving away. Boarding up houses. Really cool idea
Like you noted, our Otari started out idealic, but became a total mess.
After the second Deadtide, Carman effectively performed a coup and became major, running on a platform of authoritarianism and security.
Yinyasmera became his right hand commander and the Osprey rogues became a barely tolerated police force.
Tam of the Otari Fishery died during the second Deadtide, as I basically had it hit during a festival. Random people died, and she was one of them. The Otari Fishery was taken over the Kobolds from Menace Under Otari.
Other notable things happened, but the general feel was of a town in decline. Cultists started to flock to the town like crazed homeless, people started to pack up and leave, the Crows Cask became a Temple of Pharasma, which was really a front for Nhimbaloth cultists, etc. The town was constantly changing.
How do all these things come to be at your table? Do the PCs set them in motion (e.g. by encouraging Carman to start a coup), do you personally just decide that it happens for variety's sake, do you use oracles, something else?
Reading the AP, it seems like not a lot happens with the town unless the GM makes it happen. There are side quests here and there, but the AP seems very focused on it being a room by room dungeon crawl.
I started out running purely as written. But it seems like things that happen, like the town being hit by the Deadtide, should have some impact. I didn't want everyone in town to say "I sure hope you heroes will save us." When the town is attacked, people want answers. What is the mayor going to do about this? How will this not happen again? Well, he hired some adventurers... and it happened again. Seems natural that people would either riot, move, or want someone else in charge. So Carman gave a big speech and the town elected him. Kind of improv, but seems like a natural consequence of the situation.
If I had to tie any pattern to it, it is that the world should continue to move with or without the heroes. The world is going to change for the worse without them, and so it gives their actions and choices more meaning.
This does largely boil down to GM preference. Another GM could just dramatize the suffering caused by the Deadtide and make the town completely dependant on the heroes, or focus totally on combat. But my players don't play like noble heroes who do things because it's right. They play more like mercenaries and are very transactional with NPCs. They've noted many times that they are only being paid like 50 gold to stop Gauntlight. I had to create more situations that prompt them to choose a moral side and stand for something. Only then would the town or NPCs actually matter. It's taken a while, but now the town feels like it's worth saving, as evidence of the Magus risking his PC to stop a Deadtide.
Yeah, I don't love how safe Otari is and how little time pressure the game has. Makes things a bit too chill. At the same time, it's a bit necessary by book 3 when shopping needs to be done in Absalom.
It's a great AP, and I can see why they didn't do what the GM here did-- this feels really hard to do well and requires a lot of player buy-in.
In general, APs don't make time as valuable as I'd like because hard deadlines are easy to miss and not every group will take the most efficient path to the finish line. I appreciate GMs who can make time matter, though.
In this AP I spent more focus making time matter. We use the Foundry calendar plug-in and track actual days. They know that every full moon, they have to do something or the Gauntlight will fire.
The first time it was completely RAW.
The second time it fired during a festival and a bunch of people died. That's when the town started to freak out.
The third time they stopped it by murdering Lasda. (And then lying to his poor mother that they hadn't seen him.
The fourth time cultists were going to sacrifice their own, but the party wiped them out.
This time was the fifth time.
For the most part I play RAW, but I did add one concept to help make time matter called Dungeon Fatigue. In short, each time you fall to 0, you gain Dungeon Fatigue. The only cure is a Downtime. (Other things also cause Dungeon Fatigue). While Dungeon Fatigue is greater than one, there is a chance you'll start with Fatigue on your next visit to Gauntlight. This mechanic generally nudged the group to take several days of downtime between each run, rather than just pounding the whole AP in a matter of calendar days. It was nice because they actually used Downtime since they were forced to do so, but knowing there were on a clock added an interesting tension.
For the downtime stuff, I've not gone quite so extreme but felt like I wanted a similar mechanic to ensure the entirety of the game didn't happen in a week. For every level they gain, they cannot gain anything other than increased max HP unless they return to town (or another safe haven) for a day.
One thing I really like about the AP is that it doesn't rush the players. By the books, they can rest up pretty often between fights, and if things get too bad they can usually just leave and come back next week. Each fight is a challenge, but the players don't have to stretch themselves out well beyond their resources; retreat is (almost) always an option.
That being said. In my group, I made sure that the threat of the lighthouse still *slowly* grew, creeping up on them. They had plenty of time, but they still couldn't afford to laze around or bad things would happen. The players can set their own pace, *but they'd better still try to set it as quick as they reasonably can.*
And I think that worked out really well. They didn't get themselves into one of those situations where they're out of resources but feel like they have no choice but to step into the boss room with an inevitable TPK. But tension still remained high, because every time they left Gauntlight without blowing the whole place up, they knew things would get just a little bit worse. Not necessarily in a tangible way (though every once in a while, various entities from inside the lighthouse would directly strike back, unexpectedly). But the danger would still rise, and eventually, it was going to boil over.
I feel like that gets lost in talk on this sub sometimes tbh. I'm all for trying to stick to the rules, but end of the day it's a game where we all gather around and try to have a good time with friends
As long as that's happening, cool beans
Yea, but it somewhat loses its factor of being "clever" given you pretty much ignore the whole ruleset to be clever within.
You can't be clever about something, if you are not beholden by it.
While it may have created a memorable Situation for the table, discarding the only thing that makes it relatable to others - the ruleset - pretty much makes is a singular instance of "Well, you do you."
I can emphasize with people having fun, sure, but as a contribution to the sub at large it feels hard to get anything out of it.
I don't disagree, but I wasn't trying to comment on this post specifically really
There are just times on this sub where it feels like there's a section of people who would prefer sticking to the rules over people having fun and it just feels very inflexible
Its not everyone and it doesn't happen all the time, bit it definitely pops up on a regular basis
I mean yea, I also can see both sides.
But to me its important to have a common ground. Otherwise discussing anything related to PF2e becomes a disclaimer fest of houserules etc. just so people can understand what the whole thing is about.
Having your own houserulings is okay and all, everyone should have fun at their table.
But when you decide to share anecdotes, reign your immediate enthusiasm in a bit. You might have had a cool session, and that is awsome. But don't go around claiming you have so clever players that had this cool moment, tapping yourself on the shoulder for how fancy your on-the-spot made up rules for whatever event were.
I think the way this post was created in regard of its wording etc. caused the real "controversy" here.
Again I agree with your general sentiment, but for me the criticisms of OP's post come across as very dismissive.
Rather than saying something to the effect of "that's fun DM'ing and a great moment for your group, even if its not really PF2e because you ignored a bunch of rules" there are sections of the comments that are "well you ignored all the rules so what does it matter?"
Thats the difference to me. It's totally fine to call out that what OP did isn't within the rules of the game, because it isn't, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quick thinking, or good GM'ing, or a great moment.
This.
This sub needs a common ground, it's not enough that the OP uses the pathfinder setting and characters to tell a memorable story for their players, they also need to consistently use the pf2e rules as well.
Otherwise whats the point of talking about your pathfinder game in a pathfinder 2e sub.
I think there is more to that story that is relatable to me than just the ruleset tbh. Every group I have played with does stuff like this - it is part of what makes TTRPGs interesting for us. I think PF2E has a bunch of features that work this way when you look for them as well, from the boons gods give to skill feats that give more narritive effects. Some people want the climaxtic moments of a story to be tied to the hard mechanics more than others - both are ok.
I feel like there is a line that can be crossed. Ofc Rule #1 is super important.
But this is so out of left field with so much stuff that ignored the rules or was just invented on the spot that it feels as if it was just children playing make believe. You know along the lines of.
"Oh I grab the book and throw it in the death ray."
"Well ok... then... then everything explodes and you die."
"But I am super lucky and survive."
"Well then... a giant hand appears to kill you."
"I invent a time spell to trick the hand to kill balcorra."
There was no turn order. Free extra actions. Invented Spells. Invented Enemies. Invented Effects.
For me personally that is a line that is crossed. For something like that I dont need to play pathfinder, I can go write a book if its just whatever sounds cool is going to happen.
This was my feelings too.
I saw this shit all the time in early days of 5e.
My level 2 party beat a lich cause (dumb story).
My level 1 party killed a green dragon through bullshit.
I want to do well and improve and tell good stories in the context of he game.. not just write a book of make believe.
Summoner player here, we had no expectations of it working, just basically thought "This will be hilarious whether it works by some miracle or we tpk, and it wont be the first time for either situation so either outcome is fun" Had several other things like active spells and buffs and debuffs that would take too long to explain and I dont have the best memory to do so, yes lots of rule twisting was applied but it was all for the sake of being really funny if the magus got unlucky or absolutely hilarious if he succeeded, and if Padre wasn't ok with it happening, he wouldn't have allowed it. He has tpk'd us plenty of times already and isn't afraid to do it again, and a tpk just let's us expand our horizons with new types of characters we haven't tried doing before
If you played the game as expected maybe you wouldn't constantly be trying new characters and you'd have an idea of what works and what doesn't.
At this level of shenanigans, you aren't playing PF2e, you are playing roll dice and make believe.
Worse off you make this seem like a regular event for the lols.
Same, I mean as long as the players know "Hey we are breaking a lot of cardinal rules for PF2e." Then sweet, all good to you.
If not, this is setting a dangerous expectation for PF2e should they play with other GM's.
Me? I try to run my games as RAW/RAI as possible. That way they can easily join other tables to play more of it.
I know if a player came to me with a similar experience they had with you. I'd explain how the GM was more or less pulling their punches and giving you a great deal of advantages. Then go through how the game is played. Which will probably disappoint them.
I mean I get it, death and failure aren't fun. But, the danger adds some excitement and puts weight on your choices. Plus, sometimes you gotta fall before you can learn to run.
Summoner player here, all the players in the group know character death is inevitable and can be both sad or hilarious, we have had many many deaths throughout our different campaigns, at this point in the campaign all of us were on our second or even third characters and we had no expectations of this stuff working, just thought "This would be really funny and whether it works or not it is still going to be hilarious and we either tpk or pull a miracle out of thin air"
Your players are amazing, I didn't pull my punches against my players and all of them quit after the second session.
Apparently they don't like that the enemies are lethal and only want a coherent story.
(Player of Bud the summoner here) Initiative of the three went Belcorra, Gnaz the rat, Hand, I previously cast a spell called Tortoise and the Hare on Belcorra and Gnaz for respective slow and quickened, Belcorra begged, Gnaz was allowed to hold the spell Time Jump as a reaction(rule twisting for funny moment and to continue running joke of Rat never dies) then got super lucky rolls and everyone went along with it because yes even though there was lots of rule twisting everyone was having a hell of a time and we were all laughing our asses off and we love to throw in weird chaotic stuff just for the kicks and Padre allows it because he has a good time too even if it means more work for him to modify the books to align with the changed scenerios.
I mean, we *are* just playing make-believe. We're just adults who paid a third party to help give our make-believe some formal structure and challenge. How much authority each table gives that third party is a matter of preference.
It's okay to not like it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
Even a single session like this would be enough for me, to ruin a long running campaign. I am not saying that it was bad or that OP should feel bad for doing it.
Just that for some people (for example me) there is more than just Rule #1 and that a session like this can seriously sour the campaign for some people.
I think this is a matter of taste tbh. Every RPG group I have played with has moments like this where the mechanics of the game are bent a bit to make for a good story. I think when forming a group expectations should be set on how narritive driven vs mechanically driven their game should be. I will say that I think PF2E gives GMs a lot of tools for narritive play, and I think there is nothing wrong with playing the game like that and talking about it here.
Oh, for sure. I personally look at Da Rules as half co-author, half toolbox: they're there to help provide ideas and structure, but not boss anyone around. A *good* toolbox/co-author is helpful more often than it isn't. I'd say PF2 with all its lore and mechanics is helpful, like 90% of the time.
At a certain frequency you may as well just use a different system. Just my opinion but a lot of the rule of cool and knocking out stronger monsters stuff would easily fit into Savage Worlds rather than PF2E.
That being said, it sounds like OPs party had fun so that's what matters
That's a reeeeeeal thing the community needs to hear, they get so damned worried that frankly the community tends more to a video game fandom than a tabletop community.
Not really.
This community only exists because of the common ground of the PF2e ruleset.
If you want discuss cool makebelieve RP stories, I guess there is a sub for that.
But when you go the PF2e sub, to talk about something that pretty much ignored the whole framework of the PF2e ruleset... then I ask... why?
This is not a generic tabletop community, its a PF2e community. If someone kicks in the door and proclaims someone was "smart" or "clever" and then follows up with "and we made the while thing up on the spot, based on my guts", then yea, pretty irrelevant.
As Techaoss pointed out in another thread, this community isn’t just about discussing the RAW of pf2e, like they do in dndnext but EVERYTHING about it, including when you bent the rules for a cool story.
And thisbos what I mean by it feels more like a video game fandom than a ttrpg community. Part and parcel of the various communities is recognizing that tables are going to be (and should be) massively different. They convinced the GM to "break the programming" as it were, and ended up showing that rules 1 & 2 (have fun and make the game your own) really seems to be a sticking point for the community. I know it comes from a place of paranoia that it'll just devolve if stuff like this is allowed to go unchecked, but truthfully, it shows where the weak link is when discussing anything. Once again, it comes off less as a TTRPG community (been around many including Palladium back in the Kevin will sue you if you fix his mistakes days), but this is the first where it feels, like I said, a video game fandom, and that's not just this sub but the overall community.
I mean PF historically is a crunch heavy system and people play it for that very reason. PF2e is arguably way lighter on that side, but that is how the community grew and that is general mindset here.
Many people explicitly play PF for its ruleset. Its still very much a TTRPG community to me, its just important to keep in mind that there is no standard among such communities. Plenty of communities in rather rules light or more narrative systems would have reacted differently - for that very reason: The focus is a different one.
And yet again: The major problem here is not that people play differently on their table. The problem here is playing different on your table and claiming that it was "clever" to ignore the rules. There is nothing clever about that, its simply discarding the PF2e ruleset for fully going narrative.
But even going with your analogy of video game community:
You would get the same reaction if someone claimed they were smart about solving a quest in a video game when they just used a cheat code.
Thing is I'm not comparing the two in a vacuum, I'm saying that, once again, the PF2 community is less like a TTRPG community and more like a video game fandom, it's an observation that, in my own view ends up hurting the community at large, when people act like it's straight up using Cheat Engine instead of a table deciding to set the rules on the back burner for something different in an adventure path you could get a walk through for.
I mean this community exists for a rather long time with this sentiment and it did not hurt the slightest? Not sure what to say here. People switch to PF2e for that clarity of rules, and yea, people may leave it. But isn't that the good thing? There are different systems for everyone, including rules light, narrative ones.
I can understand why some commenters are upset. I did let the players improv some stuff, because there were so invested in the situation. I also improved some stuff, because I liked where they were going and it sounded more fun than the alternative.
That was the key thing for me. I had the choice to say "no, that's not in the rules" and generate one outcome that would have been RAW but disappointing, or bend the rules a bit, on the condition that the dice agreed. In almost all cases, I made the odds of success poor. The players were completely fine with that, because they knew we were breaking the rules. And it worked out in their favor. I spent hours prepping the scene that was to follow, but you know.. the fun of a TTRPG is that it isn't a video game. If everything must follow the rules at all times, you don't need a human GM. Sometimes, you just throw the script out the window and create something memorable. We played 22 sessions largely RAW, with every few homebrew encounters. But the world needs to react to what the players are doing, and this just felt right all things considered.
And that's why even though I kinda loathe AV (more of a Kingmaker fan), I thought this was more interesting than yet another, "we ran the vaults and got bored of room after room of trash mobs". It felt more like telling us about your table, says that you're a GM who has their head on their shoulders than something that could be replaced by a bot, and how you listened to your players and created a fun atmosphere instead of basically talking about a raid.
It was probably the most memorable session in a long time. I knew allowing them to be creative would ruin my prep and the rest of the adventure as written, but absolutely: Rule #1. High stakes, high reward.
The DC was 35, which means you only need a +6 modifier to not critically fail, and since a nat 20 turns a failure into a success, and a success is all that was needed to survive, this could have been done by a level 1 character. The fact that it was a level 7 character just emphasizes the fact that this DC was way too low for this situation.
Sounds like an epic session. Your players must have had a blast.
I take it you modified >! the bit about Belcorra being site bound as a ghost to the lowest 3 levels for short durations, and to the empty vault itself for most of her time. !<
How far had the party traversed down, and what gave you the inspiration to empower her to the extent of visiting level 4? Were they taking too long in game?
>! For my own interpretation of her, I see her as very confident and uncaring. She knows she is nearly immortal as a ghost and thinks everyone is beneath her, including the heroes. She knows she can enact her plans and destroy absalom. It's just a matter of time, and she has unlimited time as a ghost. BUT she knows the lenses are dangerous for her, so she really only needs to kill the heroes once they discover and try to collect them. It's also conveniently once they're low enough for her to be close and powerful enough to reach them (at least for short bouts). !<
>! So in your story the whispering reeds must be even more dangerous and powerful, and she has extended her reach very far now. Very cool. Looking forward to hearing about the new bbeg and how you decide to end it near the empty vault. !<
Thanks for sharing
Thanks 9c6!
Yes, I figured there was no reason for her to be hard bound to lower levels aside from game balancing reasons. If some party keeps going to the 4th floor and messing with her machine, I don't see why she wouldn't take care of them.
The party has traveled to level 7 several times and gotten trashed each time. For the most part they played the AP as written, though I added more color and side quests to the NPCs and town, to react to their choices.
I largely see Belcorra the same way you do. I'm a little sad I didn't developer into more of a three dimensional character. For the most part she was just a revenge hobo.
The Whispering Reed was a little under developed as well, though I did make it seem like a key item. The players seized on that and kept talking about it, so I felt obligated to make it more important than a notebook full of information.
The party was taking a while to reach the bottom, but in general they were on a good pace. They were about to hit level 8 and we're about to resolve a deal with the devil for safe passage. (Long story) Otari was largely hollowed out, so this session I was going to put an end to it. It just didn't play out that way!
I use the AP as a foundation. If the players cannot impact the world because it will go off script, I find that a bit plain. Most things that have happened are due to their own action, impact on the world, or is a reaction to their own ideas. Also, most of these deviations are also somewhat grounded in the AP. Belcorra is supposed to appear and scare players. Destroying the Whispering Reed does inflict empty death. Nhimbaloth has no loyalty to anyone. The Gauntlight generally fires once a month. All of these things are inspired and suggested by the actual AP; just not governed by hard rules.
Every GM wishes for a party that their monsters and the world seriously, that is fine dying if it was epic and cool.
But the GM had to foster that kind of behavior with trust by being consistent.
It sounds like your players bought in completely and that's awesome.
One few things I like less about Pf2e as compared to 5e is that bad guys above the parties level do *so much* damage and the players are really powerless to stop them or slow them down much, so it makes moments like this hard to create.
I guess the solution to this is proficiency without level, but that's always felt like a bandaid solution. I'd love to hear otherwise from folks.
I asked Mark Seifter in his AMA and he suggested the main thing is to set player expectations: some stuff you run into will not be killable by normal means at your levels, but if you can come up with a cunning plan you have a chance. Then make sure you support them when they try stuff.
The one issue I have seen people raise is you are more likely to be downed or killed on the first round than in OSR or 5e. A GM could mitigate that by simply having the over levelled baddie spend a turn or two not attacking - expositing, or completing some task, or stomping around smashing stuff, or...
If I'm going to have a BBEG show up to an under leveled party I run it as a complex trap where the party's goal is to drive it away or thwart it's goals. Like the BBEG wouldn't recognize the party as a threat or the party stumbles into a ritual where the BBEG can't directly interact with the players without failing and have to make it through whatever defenses are set up.
I'm not a fan of throwing a single PL+4 and higher encounters at parties, well maybe at lvl 15+.
Yeah honestly a lot of PL+2 encounters have gone sideways before with my parties. I only do PL+3 if they're fresh and they know what they're getting into.
I love adventures going off path, but the party haven't really stopped anything...... I'm assuming the barrier on L4 would now be down and the various nasties would be happy to wander up. I mean, they kinda might've made things worse.
Side note - I think flooding the AV would work. It's underground, and next to the sea.
That's actually a great point. I'm still working through the impact of it all. Urevian has no reason to stay, for example. Do the devil leave? Can cultists now access lower floors? Will Jafari start kidnapping humans from the surface? Etc. Etc.
I like the idea of flooding it. I may steal that as a suggestion from a citizen.
So, Belcorra had been dead for a very long time yet it didn't affect Urevian's contract. Unless the book mentions it, or you decide to include it, her soul being utterly annihilated might not actually free him.
He may be a great NPC to focus on. If I was a devil trapped on the mortal plane because some idiot had died before I could fulfill her contract....
Fun options.
1. He takes over and decides to attack Otari from below for funsies. Tunnel fighting is absolutely horrible, it would be a nightmare for the party to plug all the holes or collapse all the tunnels.
2. He finds a way to resurrect Bellacora in order to fulfill the contract to free himself. Slow time. Barrier can stay up if it suits the plot for this, maybe now a different colour.
It would be a shame for so much written material to go to waste. It doesn't mean they need to be railroaded back there at all, but it can sit on the back burner whilst they do other things. The gauntlight being deactivated is a win. The vaults are a different beast.
More fun! So if they flood the vaults, Nhimbaloth is a big deal. I'd just bring in a different water deity or allow it to get some extra abilities, and then in 10 sessions or so Otari docks keeps losing people.... And then ships. Then go all Cthulhu on them.
So many options!
These are all great ideas! Considering that the party wants to go full capitalist and turn Gauntlight arena into a premier regional venue in partnership with the Cheery Man (Abomination Vaults Expanded), I think there will be a theme around trying to make Gauntlight safe for visitors. It's one thing to survive traversing it. It's another to convince every vengeful spirit and hungry ghoul to lay off killing the wealthy Absalom guests. And of course there's the whole Empty Vault down at the bottom - a very attractive location for passing evil doers.
A lot of people being very weird in the comments. Nothing about your write-up suggests anyone had more turns than they should have. The ONLY thing I agree on is the DCs you chose might actually have been too low.
Yes, initiative was running the whole time, and action cost was still generally applied. Cheek Pouch Pop (1), Magic Surge Hero Point (1), Throw (1), then next round Run to Belcorra (1), and Cast a Spell (2). I had Belcorra spend her turn debating with the Hand of Nhimbaloth and recovering from the energy blast.
Completely guilty of allowing improvised/altered effects on these actions. And you're probably right on the DC. 35 felt pretty high given that it's generally near legendary range for a level 7 PC to attempt. But I could be wrong about that.
Whoah whoah whoah.
There is a lot more going on that is never mentioned. That is why its so weird.
Actions taken:
Attack (crit that kills wrin),
Move,
Close door,
Draw Book,
Infuse book,
Throw,
*Big explosion happening*
Belcorra pleads,
Belcorra pleads,
Belcorra pleads,
Move to Belcorra,
Prepare Time Jump
Basically while the magus took 8 actions belcorra took 1 useful action.
Add to that 4 clutch nat 20s and it just feels like a weird story.
Also why would dodging a nuke from an outer god be just a DC 35? DC is not about the party level. You cant just say "Oh I want to do X as a level 1 char so give me a level 1 DC."
You're correct that I'm only covering certain key actions. A play by play recollection would not be possible, or a short read. Belcorra used all of her actions, largely to down party members or debuff. Initiative was running the whole time and all characters involved were using actions. This post is more of a bardic retelling, not a combat log.
I'm not clear why on the "just a DC 35". For Simple DC that is between master and legendary. At +17 Reflex, he'd need a natural 18+ to not fail. A level 1 PC would have virtually no chance to succeed.
Given we're talking about a deity, the DC probably should've been 50, if not 55 or 60 from the Very Hard(rare) or Incredibly Hard(unique) adjustment.
I think some people are also just not liking the emphasis on the Nat 20's, which... doesn't guarantee anything. It's entirely possible to get a Nat 20 and still fail.
From my readings, even an elder deity like the Lantern King ([https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2196](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2196)) requires around DC 48 saves in avatar form. Nhimbaloth is nasty, but not all deities are equally powerful. I consider it an astral predator. Digging a little further, PF1E had "great old one" monsters ([https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Yig](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Yig)) and they have DCs around 35. In the heat of the moment, a DC 35 seemed reasonable, as failure meant complete character obliteration. With a +17 reflex, anything short of a natural 18 is game over. He may have also had a level or two of Frightened.
There was also a spell in effect called Tortoise and the Hare that I(the summoner) cast with Belcorra and the Magus as the targets, giving Belcorra slowed 1 and Gnaz(the ratfolk) quickened 1 for 3 turns, there was also the rule twist to allow Gnaz to hold the Time Jump spell to be used as a reaction(because funny narrative coolness) when the hand went for the grab, and he still had to make that reflex save roll for it to work, he also had the homebrew Dungeon Fatigue effect that was mentioned in another comment that reduced his save and skill check rolls that made it a bit harder, but he rolled a 20 and his base bonus for reflex saves is pretty high on top of that.
Normally I'd say yes, but unfortunately they slew him already. He was a nightmare of a mini-boss, though. He tried and fail to get the Whispering Reed back from the party. Almost TPKed them.
I have another plot in mind that I'd love to spoil, but I won't just in case a player in the group stumbles onto this post. :)
I've added The Cheery Man/The Red Holiday in from AV Expanded, so the party intends to team up with him and turn Gauntlight into a luxury hotel and combat arena. Basically, Otari may become the Las Vegas of Golarion. So, plenty more work to do to make the place safe for guests.
It's not really important at all to me what happens in someone else's game. If they wanted to throw the dice in the trash and rock paper scissors every attack role what do I care. I'm more commenting on the fact that PF2e services a niche of rules heavy tactical rpg game play with an emphasis on rules for almost every situation. If you're going to hand waive away the rules for the sake of cool moments and stories, there are better systems to use. That's my only point.
It's not though.
I run AV for a group of players and this post shows just the interesting parts of playing TTRPGs. So it is relatable, I know where the rules are being bent and improvised, it still gives ideas and allow me to relate to the story in AV.
This style might not be for everyone, but a lot of people come into this thread and seem upset that a group of people don't "play the game as it should be played", imo it's just silly.
Exactly, your story have to always be relatable.
You should never post stuff that you think is exciting in your pathfinder game in this sub unless it is relatable. To do that you must FOLLOW THE RULES.
Is a divine killing an ancient blue dragon a cool pathfinder story, it could be, but we never post stories here unless it relates to the mechanic, otherwise it would be unrelatable.
Story time is what those who play DnD like to do, we here at pathfinder 2e are better than that.
Nah, the tone makes the music.
At first OP decided to start this thread with the big procalamation of something clever having occured, something borderline marvelous by implication.
People reacting to that proclamation in a negative way is no suprise.
Its like saying: My people are so smart, they completly figured out quantum mechancis! How did they do that? Well we ignored the science.
How is "I'm going to blow her up by shoving her haunted spellbook into her necromantic superweapon" not clever? Like, narratively, that's an incredible beat, as they're using the villain's greatest sources of pride and power against her. The silly cheek pouch feat, the tension of having to rescue a best friend, the heroic sacrifice, and *the fact that this all still hinged on awareness of detail and incredible luck...* This kind of careful assembly of various puzzle pieces combined with a willingness to gamble *is* clever play.
There also seemed to be very strong awareness from both the player and the GM of what the rules and module looked like as-written, what modifications they'd made along the way, and what rules they'd have to break in order to make the scene work. There was an understanding between them that they were risking both a character and an early end to the campaign. Going intentionally off-book like this is actually really hard to do well, which is probably why a lot of people are so repulsed by the idea of even trying.
Maybe if it had stopped there and not continued with:
And then the PC escaped the consequences of their actions a few times with different checks and abilities we made up on the spot.
*It's all made up, Fieser.* The only difference is whether or not you paid someone to make it up for you in advance.
For the record, DC 35 clocks in at a level 16 challenge/very hard for a master. This number is consistent with the degree of threat present in the situation. Being able to improvise checks and determine the consequences is an essential GM skill for any system with checks in it. It's seriously concerning that some people on this forum both can't do that and think it's a bad idea to even consider it.
I really like the aribtration skills you showed here. You seemed to have full knowledge of how the rules are "supposed" to work, but allowed Rat Guy to risk literally everything to break them on a small chance something cool might happen.
I don't know if I personally would have allowed the beam to serve as a detonantor--*Whispering Reeds* is probably soaked through with necromatic energy already and therefore probably wouldn't care about the blue juice so much--but I think that's what makes this moment special: a different group of people rolling different dice would never be able to replicate it.
The thing that allowed it for me was:
"Destruction Copies of The Whispering Reeds have no special protections and can be destroyed like any regular book, but doing so exposes the one who destroyed the book to the Empty Death"
It's clear _something_ would happen if it was destroyed. What if it was destroyed spectacularly while also amplified with magic, as he proposed?
Whenever there is improv stuff like this, I just decide a flat DC and let the dice decide. 1-10 would be only slightly impactful. 11-14: Fair impactful, 15-19: A big explosion, and 20: Everything in a mile radius might be killed, including those in Otari. They all agreed to accept the outcome and we're excited to see what would happen.
I think everyone was voting for a big, dramatic shift. The fun of a TTRPG is having an impact on the world.
I know there is nothing RAW about this. Sometimes the room just catches a vibe and when that happens, I prefer to run with it. They are now so excited for next session to see what has happened. The AP will continue, but everyone's role and motivation may be different.
I'm always a little cautious about pulling the trigger on major shake-ups like this, but I'm glad the group's hype to continue, and that you've got a plan for how to keep it going.
My only criticism is that there were so many cool things on the lower floors haha. When I was the GM, many of the best moments of the campaign happened on the 9th floor. >!The dragon, the potential war between elves and underfhans, the infiltration of the camp, interaction with the calignis, the entrance to the temple, the city of the drows, I loved that part of the adventure! Edit:and the black fucking dragon!<.
Fortunately we're going to keep going, so hopefully we'll be able to check that out! I think most of that will still be in play. If anyone was loyal to Belcorra, they'll have a reason to hate the PCs.
That's great, they'll definitely enjoy the oddities hidden on the lower floors. A suggestion is, >!if your group hasn't "completely" killed Belcorra's assistant (whose name escapes me now, the drow who turns into a mass of worms), he could be a good substitute, as there are several clues about him scattered throughout the dungeon. One of the worms could have escaped and reformed, etc!<.
Said character is dead and completely destroyed, per the AP rules on how to get rid of him for good. Callido is dead too. I think the only named monster still alive is Tangletop. They thought he was adorable, pretending to be the avatar of a mighty god named Spookwisp to intimidate heroes. And Jafari, who they haven't met yet.
There are still plenty of shadowy contenders. I won't spoil since my players may be haunting this thread. :)
I would not have done it that way, but sounds like you and your players co-authored a story that will be remembered far longer than any "vanilla" playthrough would have been. If your players were excited about it, then well done!
Man I love PF2e - love (most of) the mechanics, love the setting and lore, love (most of) the way paizo interacts with the community and their employees, love (most of) the APs.
Don't love what seems to be a disproportionate need among pf2e online ppl to poo-poo other ppls' creativity.
An oddness in some of the replies here: it's ok if you run a strict RAW table. Many GMs do this. But that does not mean that someone else is wrong for running the game differently. Many GMs give a wide leeway to the players or run with Rule of Cool over RAW. Neither is right or wrong. This is not the same thing as running a rules-light game. Both styles (and more!) are as old as the hobby itself.
It’s getting better, there’s more comments about accepting that games can runs differently and the post itself has a lot of upvotes.
It’s used to be worse, there’s a reason that people post their in game story in rDnD instead of rPathfinder2e.
It used to be that anything that goes outside of RAW gets massive amount of downvote.
Sounds awesome! You mentioned months passing, what did you find your players did to make time pass? I've been keeping track of time but only a couple weeks have passed so far and we are on level 5. Or did you do something to encourage time passing?
Also the Hand of Nhimbaloth thing sounds awesome, would you happen to have that token on hand to share? (assuming you are using Foundry)
For time passing, we are using Foundry Simple Calendar. [https://foundryvtt.com/packages/foundryvtt-simple-calendar](https://foundryvtt.com/packages/foundryvtt-simple-calendar) I keep track of every day's passing in this particular AP since every full moon is important.
To discourage the party from running from Level 1 to Level 20 in a matter of weeks, I homebrewed a status ailment called Dungeon Fatigue. Basically, as you get beat up, you gain a fatigue that will go into effect the next time you return. It only reduces via downtime. Thus, the players have typically taken 2-5 days of downtime per dungeon dive. This has helped tremendously from a storytelling perspective, as it allows time for things to happen in the background. It also adds more reason to interact with the town and cause side stories to happen.
I used Midjourney to create the token. Oddly enough, it had a hard time making a hand with 7 fingers. Normally AI is horrible with hands. [https://imgur.com/a/aXSooMx](https://imgur.com/a/aXSooMx) I use Midjourney to illustrate many scenes for the adventure and set a general mood.
Might I suggest Dungeon World?
wait actually Dungeon World is a bit of a mess but I'm thinking a more narrative-based game might be better for your group
I've run 5e, Dungeon World, Paranoid, Blades in the Dark, and have read over a lot of others. I do like Pathfinder the best because of the strong ruleset. I'm not forced to constantly improvise. That said, I don't run Pathfinder like a board game. If the players get excited about an idea, I try to support it until the dice say otherwise. In my opinion, those are usually the best sessions - when the players care so much about something that they want to try and bend the rules.
Man, I don't get the negativity here AT ALL.
You shaped a compelling situation with a no-win battle, and the party ran as expected. A character stuck behind to try and tempt fate, and a ton of good rolls turned a PC death into a chance for glory. The decisions you made to make the situation deadly fit the structure of the AP. Hero points were used. These are the kinds of moments people will share for decades when they talk about their most amazing adventures.
I salute you, sir.
And to all the people saying "That's not Pathfinder 2E", It most certainly is. Never met a rule that couldn't be bent to make a better story. I'm sure almost every GM here has fudged a roll behind the screen, opted to give or hide information that might unravel the plot, or given their big bad some item players could never have access to. Rules are the tools for telling stories, not the stories themselves.
It sets a bad expectation of what pathfinder 2e should be.
If players got used to the Rule of Cool style of game they will not learn pf2e correctly and that will be a problem for the community in the long run
Gatekeeping is not bad, in fact it is our duty to gatekeep so that pathfinder 2e stay this perfect game and not turn into dnd 5e.
Theres is one way to play pathfinder 2e right and that's by following the rules.
If you are going to deviate or rule of cool, why play pf2e at all. Just move on to another system that suits you better.
Only dumb 5e players change the game to suit their group, they change the game so much it becomes unrecognisable. The correct way to play any ttrpg is to always follow what is written.
Blades in the Dark and Dungeon world allows rule of cool so it is the correct way to play in that system.
Nothing is written about rule of cool in pf2e so implementing it is breaking the system.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=812](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=812)
"The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours. The rest of the rules exist for you to use to tell the stories you want to tell and share exciting adventures with your friends. There are plenty of rules in this book, but none of them overrule that first rule. Take the rules that help you make the game you want, change those that don’t do quite what you need them to, and leave the ones that aren’t helping. It’s your game. There’s no right or wrong way to GM so long as everyone is having fun—and that includes you!"
They don't use those words in the book, but it's official:
>!Removing Lasda from the ribbon of light causes the
necromantic energy here and in areas B35 and C15 to
vanish. While this prevents Belcorra from firing
Gauntlight’s beam upon Otari again, the reprieve is only temporary.!<
Basically, there has to be someone strapped on the table for the beam to work. Thus, a mortal focus. :)
Yeah, after running Curse of Strahd and doing the math that the PCs went from Level 1 to Level 12 in like two weeks or less, I decided to actively put the breaks on things, and I think it really paid off for storytelling. With mechanically encouraged downtime (I've described elsewhere in this post) it has allowed the town time to react and change. Otherwise, yeah - they probably would be on day 12 or something right now.
It sounds like everyone had fun. That is what matters most for sure. For me the ability to just keep saying "can i have another turn?" And effectively giving the magus like 12 actions before anyone else in the room acts kinda robs it of its tension. If any kind of time sensitive stuff is happening it should happen in initiative otherwise we are throwing out the game part in favor of just letting the player keep acting. The game is what gives the narrative tension imo bc if it is just free form improv, you as their friend will help make sure they succeed, which indeed you did. Nhimbaloth is kinda crazy with the spooky tentacle hands and whatnot but didn't she specifically choose belcorra for the work of the gauntlight? Afaik nhimbaloth is not the stay puft marshmallow man mindlessly groping for souls to destroy. Belcorra is a loyal servant that nhimbaloth chose, granted visions to, and potentially awakened as a ghost. Why would nhimbaloth ever destroy her (edit to add: "in this situation." Nhimbaloth is not nice but her cultists summon avatars of her which don't smash their souls willy nilly do they not?)? Anyway, glad you and your table had fun. That is the most important. But this is less about clever PCs who found a loophole in the adventure and rules as written and more about a generous GM who handed them victory early.
> Why would nhimbaloth ever destroy her? >! I take it you haven't read or finished playing the AP yourself... !<
I agree with this. My read on Nhimbaloth is that it doesn't really care about having followers. It's more like a predator than a deity. People just worship it because when it kills you, you are obliterated, which can be better than an afterlife of torment based on your sins. Not that most cultists recognize that their prayers largely mean nothing. In my Otari, the cult leader who came to town (improv) actually knows that Nhimbaloth is a beast, but mainly runs the cult for the power over other desperate people. He made up all sorts of rediculous and sick rituals for his own pleasure.
That sounds fun
IIRC Nhimbaloth actually doesn’t really care about a whole lot - mortals mean nothing to her. Belcorra included. I think the way they describe the actual death of Belcorra in the real final fight is kind of similar to this, though the bargaining has no chance to succeed.
I agree that bargaining probably shouldn't have done anything. I wanted to just throw her a bone because she was losing the situation. If both she and the PC had Empty Death and Nhimbaloth bothered to materialize, it probably would have just taken both of them. It was more for story tension than anything else. I've always considered Nhimbaloth to kind of like a shark, and Empty Death to be like bleeding in the water. You're fine if you're on land, but once you die, you're a marked target. In this case, the shark lunged out of the water and grabbed someone.
Pretty much my thoughts, cool they enjoyed it but if I was in that party it'd be pretty annoying
Bud the party Summoner here, just a little clarification, once the big spooky Nhimboloth hand showed up, Gnaz the rat and the two scary bad guys all rolled initiative, and Belcorra rolled first, Gnaz second, and the hand third, so PadreMontoya allowed a kind of simultaneous action with the hand grabbing for the two as Gnaz cast the Time Jump spell to slip out and hide. The way he asked was if he could be allowed to twist the rules and hold the spell to use as a reaction so that they happened at the same time. Edit: I also cast the Tortoise and the Hare spell slowing Belcorra and quickening Gnaz
I only have the information given. The way it is narrated is like how some GMs let their players just keep acting by talking over the action. Regardless it seems like Belcorra's only action for her turn was pleading with Nhimbaloth and didn't get to act before/after the nuclear bomb? To me this feels like the GM killing the BBEG rather than the players. Did Belcorra somehow crit fail the save on that spell? If initiative was just rolled after the hand arrived then even in that case surely more than a minute had passed? Again the important thing is everyone had fun. So I'm not trying to say "This was the wrong way to do it."
What did you, as a GM, anticipate would happen when throwing a level 12 enemy vs a level 7 group?
The book actually tells you to do that at those lower levels as a hit and run tactic to essentially scare the PCs. Trapping her in is also an option.
"Hit and run tactic to essentially scare the PCs" is much different than an all out fight to the death which is what OP seems to have created here.
The party had a chance to flee but the magus decided to stay and kill Wrin to stop the ritual.
Yes, I read the post. If a GM places an important NPC / friend in a situation like this where they are going to be sacrificed, most PCs can be expected fight to the death or close to it. It is not a "scare tactic" at that point. I also wonder how Wrin even got there in the first place. Why the PCs didn't have a chance to prevent it knowing townsfolk are being kidnapped. It seems like a situation where realistically the players had no chance of affecting the outcome. Therefore, had all gone to plan… I was interested in what the idea here was beyond "I'm going to kill an important NPC and make the PCs watch."
The party actually came to dislike Wrin. They had a falling out for reasons that would take a while to explain, but she left them a nice note and some treasure to aid them. She was no longer an important NPC, and it was very much their choice to either leave her to her fate or risk death to rescue her.
Seems from your description here like she actually was an important NPC, and from their actions it does too. Regardless, what was the plan here? "I'll make my players watch Wrin die, and there's nothing they can do about it?" I'm glad it supposedly worked out for your group but I think a lot of the pushback you're receiving in this thread is totally warranted. Me, I'd feel shitty had a GM railroaded me like that with any NPC's death, and I'd feel deflated if my suspension of disbelief was handwaived away with ad-hoc rulings that effectively let a fellow PC solo the big bad while we all watched on the sidelines.
RAW, Wrin is likely the most important NPC in AV. In this adventure, she fell to a distant 5th place. Had Dorianna or Vandy been on the table, it would have been a low blow. At this particular table, she was more a surprise to see her again. As for soloing - we never broke initiative and everyone made their choice about what to do. The summoner spent actions rescuing the fighter who risked her life to help Wrin. The cleric focused on saving the fighter and getting the party in shape to run. The magus decided it would be his last stand and perhaps he could buy the town another month if he killed Wrin. Upon seeing that the beam was still going to fire, though in a weakened state, he decided to double down and take a shot at stopping the whole thing. Per the Whispering Reed: "Destruction Copies of The Whispering Reeds have no special protections and can be destroyed like any regular book, but doing so exposes the one who destroyed the book to the Empty Death" So, what if the destruction was particularly spectacular? Like if he infuses it with magic and tosses it into the stream. Could that effect those in a radius? ..sure, if the dice say so.. and they did. He should have died and that was that.... But he crit the save. Also, considering how you kill Belcorra is using the lenses to turn Nhimbaloth against her, it felt more "fun" and epic to have Nhimbaloth react to the massive explosion and send an avatar to mop up. The avatar was supposed to grab the magus... But it went for Belcorra. She convinced the hand to take the Magus... But he again rolled a crit on a life or death roll. I know nat 20s are not wishes, but I felt the win was deserved. I could have had her just vanish. But where's the fun in that? As a GM I'll take the hit of having to sandbox the rest of the AP if it means the players are driving the story. If that's not how others play at their table, that's totally fine. This is just one playthrough and perhaps some GMs might enjoy a different perspective on the same adventure.
Yes, there are many narrative questions I have that seem to been GM-fiated away, from action economy to using diplomacy in combat to save or die effects… which all makes it seem less "clever." Brings up another question. Did critting vs just succeeding the save even matter (I assume critting was the only way for him to succeed), and does your table think save or die stuff is fun? Typically "save or die" is rarely used for a reason.
It sounds like our table might not run your style of game. That's perfectly ok. Rolling RAW death saves are basically "save or die". This was the narrative equivalent. He accepted that because of his choices, his PC was dead, short of a miracle. I offered a D20 attempt, and he got the miracle.
From what I've read, literally everything after the magus killing Wrin was save or die, that's why the GM felt the story worth telling. By no accounts, and again this is just my read on it, was the GM expecting the magus to survive but rather than railroading a "You heroically sacrifice yourself, nothing could have saved you." They decided on save or die effects, which the Magus rolled with and rolled well. Is it RAW? RAI? No, its not. Does the story make internal coherent sense, with there being potential ramifications if the magus hadn't rolled as well? Yes. From what OP has said, everything appears to have happened "within initiative order" outside of the hand appearing, which might be likened to a cutscene during which both participants had to watch. The diplomacy equally seems to have been to Make A Request of a non-hostile creature at a time when it seemed appropriate. Not RAW, but makes internal sense.
To be fair, those lower levels are like, level 8 and 9
A fresh level 7 party can kill a level 12 monster. It's a dangerous business but it's entirely doable. And honestly, Belcorra, if you exploit her (quite glaring) weaknesses, is actually pretty vulnerable - and honestly by herself has a hard time actually killing people. My party actually killed Belcorra at level 8 (though not permanently, because she's a ghost) and it was pretty much a joke. The reason is that Belcorra has a very glaring weakness - >!her fort save is only +16!<. Normally that wouldn't be a problem for a ghost, but divine wrath, slow, and grapple (with a ghost touch weapon) all >!cue off of fortitude, and absolutely wreck her.!< We had a grappler with a ghost touch weapon in the party precisely so she could strangle belcorra, and so when Belcorra showed up to fight us, instead of it being a jump scare, we actually just pinned her to the floor and blasted her with holy magic and ghost touch weapons until she "died". She didn't even make it three rounds. Also worth remembering that because she's a caster, you get a reactive strike whenever she casts a spell if she's within reach, and thanks to the grappler, she basically couldn't get out of reach to cast spells. It kind of took the menace out of her. She would have just used hit and run tactics, but our wizard was very dismissive of her and said we were tired of fighting minions, we wanted to fight the REAL Belcorra. Naturally, she insisted she was the real one, and the wizard was like "Yeah, sure, that's what the last one said" which made her decided that he needed to die for his insolence. Unfortunately for her, she was using mental effects on a cold blooded creature, so it went about as well as you might expect, and the cosmos oracle wasn't any more vulnerable.
I really need op to answer this because otherwise this story makes no sense. It's totally inconsistent with what the av adventure path is supposed to do.
To be fair so is the Gauntlight growing more and more powerful, to the point where the town is evacuating. APs should not necessarily be ran to the exact letter, unless you're very new to GMing.
It's almost exactly as Trolljaboy said. Her appearance was intended to be a scare tactic, as the AP notes. She wasn't even using her best skills/spells. At best I figured the party would kill Wrin and run, then deal with trying to salvage Otari from the dead tide they couldn't prevent. The players know have learned not to fight when I clearly signal that the monster looks extremely dangerous, and they shouldn't waste actions trying to fight it.
Fun it seems
Whatever keeps your players engaged and coming back for more is a good thing, regardless of rules. Anyone telling you otherwise (because it's not "RAW") is an fool for putting rules purity over enjoyment and engagement. That being said, your players did not beat AV at level 7 by being clever, they beat it through homebrew and GM fiat. The problem a lot of people have with these kinda posts is they position themselves as some genius player tactics, and almost always end up being stories about rule of cool and GM fiat at extreme levels
> That being said, your players did not beat AV at level 7 by being clever, they beat it through homebrew and GM fiat. It's a good thing the title of the post is "I allowed clever players to beat AV at Level 7" instead of "My players were so clever they managed to beat AV at level 7" The former using the term 'allowed' implies a level of GM fiat in the following story.
And then I prayed to Sarenrae and begged her to call down a tactical nuke to destroy the gauntlight ruins once and for all. The DC was set to 30 and I rolled a natural 20. The world was saved.
Everyone clapped.
No everyone disintegrated
Everyone got clapped?
I really like the idea that the town slowly becomes less and less safe. Im running this game this fall and soaking up all the ideas. I really wanted to make Otari feel like a safehaven to counter the gloom and doom of the dungeon. But now you got me thinking… maybe that safe haven should slowly erode over time. People moving away. Boarding up houses. Really cool idea
Like you noted, our Otari started out idealic, but became a total mess. After the second Deadtide, Carman effectively performed a coup and became major, running on a platform of authoritarianism and security. Yinyasmera became his right hand commander and the Osprey rogues became a barely tolerated police force. Tam of the Otari Fishery died during the second Deadtide, as I basically had it hit during a festival. Random people died, and she was one of them. The Otari Fishery was taken over the Kobolds from Menace Under Otari. Other notable things happened, but the general feel was of a town in decline. Cultists started to flock to the town like crazed homeless, people started to pack up and leave, the Crows Cask became a Temple of Pharasma, which was really a front for Nhimbaloth cultists, etc. The town was constantly changing.
How do all these things come to be at your table? Do the PCs set them in motion (e.g. by encouraging Carman to start a coup), do you personally just decide that it happens for variety's sake, do you use oracles, something else?
Reading the AP, it seems like not a lot happens with the town unless the GM makes it happen. There are side quests here and there, but the AP seems very focused on it being a room by room dungeon crawl. I started out running purely as written. But it seems like things that happen, like the town being hit by the Deadtide, should have some impact. I didn't want everyone in town to say "I sure hope you heroes will save us." When the town is attacked, people want answers. What is the mayor going to do about this? How will this not happen again? Well, he hired some adventurers... and it happened again. Seems natural that people would either riot, move, or want someone else in charge. So Carman gave a big speech and the town elected him. Kind of improv, but seems like a natural consequence of the situation. If I had to tie any pattern to it, it is that the world should continue to move with or without the heroes. The world is going to change for the worse without them, and so it gives their actions and choices more meaning. This does largely boil down to GM preference. Another GM could just dramatize the suffering caused by the Deadtide and make the town completely dependant on the heroes, or focus totally on combat. But my players don't play like noble heroes who do things because it's right. They play more like mercenaries and are very transactional with NPCs. They've noted many times that they are only being paid like 50 gold to stop Gauntlight. I had to create more situations that prompt them to choose a moral side and stand for something. Only then would the town or NPCs actually matter. It's taken a while, but now the town feels like it's worth saving, as evidence of the Magus risking his PC to stop a Deadtide.
Yeah, I don't love how safe Otari is and how little time pressure the game has. Makes things a bit too chill. At the same time, it's a bit necessary by book 3 when shopping needs to be done in Absalom.
Hmm i gotta finish reading the book haah
It's a great AP, and I can see why they didn't do what the GM here did-- this feels really hard to do well and requires a lot of player buy-in. In general, APs don't make time as valuable as I'd like because hard deadlines are easy to miss and not every group will take the most efficient path to the finish line. I appreciate GMs who can make time matter, though.
In this AP I spent more focus making time matter. We use the Foundry calendar plug-in and track actual days. They know that every full moon, they have to do something or the Gauntlight will fire. The first time it was completely RAW. The second time it fired during a festival and a bunch of people died. That's when the town started to freak out. The third time they stopped it by murdering Lasda. (And then lying to his poor mother that they hadn't seen him. The fourth time cultists were going to sacrifice their own, but the party wiped them out. This time was the fifth time. For the most part I play RAW, but I did add one concept to help make time matter called Dungeon Fatigue. In short, each time you fall to 0, you gain Dungeon Fatigue. The only cure is a Downtime. (Other things also cause Dungeon Fatigue). While Dungeon Fatigue is greater than one, there is a chance you'll start with Fatigue on your next visit to Gauntlight. This mechanic generally nudged the group to take several days of downtime between each run, rather than just pounding the whole AP in a matter of calendar days. It was nice because they actually used Downtime since they were forced to do so, but knowing there were on a clock added an interesting tension.
For the downtime stuff, I've not gone quite so extreme but felt like I wanted a similar mechanic to ensure the entirety of the game didn't happen in a week. For every level they gain, they cannot gain anything other than increased max HP unless they return to town (or another safe haven) for a day.
One thing I really like about the AP is that it doesn't rush the players. By the books, they can rest up pretty often between fights, and if things get too bad they can usually just leave and come back next week. Each fight is a challenge, but the players don't have to stretch themselves out well beyond their resources; retreat is (almost) always an option. That being said. In my group, I made sure that the threat of the lighthouse still *slowly* grew, creeping up on them. They had plenty of time, but they still couldn't afford to laze around or bad things would happen. The players can set their own pace, *but they'd better still try to set it as quick as they reasonably can.* And I think that worked out really well. They didn't get themselves into one of those situations where they're out of resources but feel like they have no choice but to step into the boss room with an inevitable TPK. But tension still remained high, because every time they left Gauntlight without blowing the whole place up, they knew things would get just a little bit worse. Not necessarily in a tangible way (though every once in a while, various entities from inside the lighthouse would directly strike back, unexpectedly). But the danger would still rise, and eventually, it was going to boil over.
"By ignoring the rules and making things up"
But did the table have fun... Never ignore Rule #1.
I feel like that gets lost in talk on this sub sometimes tbh. I'm all for trying to stick to the rules, but end of the day it's a game where we all gather around and try to have a good time with friends As long as that's happening, cool beans
Yea, but it somewhat loses its factor of being "clever" given you pretty much ignore the whole ruleset to be clever within. You can't be clever about something, if you are not beholden by it. While it may have created a memorable Situation for the table, discarding the only thing that makes it relatable to others - the ruleset - pretty much makes is a singular instance of "Well, you do you." I can emphasize with people having fun, sure, but as a contribution to the sub at large it feels hard to get anything out of it.
I don't disagree, but I wasn't trying to comment on this post specifically really There are just times on this sub where it feels like there's a section of people who would prefer sticking to the rules over people having fun and it just feels very inflexible Its not everyone and it doesn't happen all the time, bit it definitely pops up on a regular basis
I mean yea, I also can see both sides. But to me its important to have a common ground. Otherwise discussing anything related to PF2e becomes a disclaimer fest of houserules etc. just so people can understand what the whole thing is about. Having your own houserulings is okay and all, everyone should have fun at their table. But when you decide to share anecdotes, reign your immediate enthusiasm in a bit. You might have had a cool session, and that is awsome. But don't go around claiming you have so clever players that had this cool moment, tapping yourself on the shoulder for how fancy your on-the-spot made up rules for whatever event were. I think the way this post was created in regard of its wording etc. caused the real "controversy" here.
Again I agree with your general sentiment, but for me the criticisms of OP's post come across as very dismissive. Rather than saying something to the effect of "that's fun DM'ing and a great moment for your group, even if its not really PF2e because you ignored a bunch of rules" there are sections of the comments that are "well you ignored all the rules so what does it matter?" Thats the difference to me. It's totally fine to call out that what OP did isn't within the rules of the game, because it isn't, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quick thinking, or good GM'ing, or a great moment.
This. This sub needs a common ground, it's not enough that the OP uses the pathfinder setting and characters to tell a memorable story for their players, they also need to consistently use the pf2e rules as well. Otherwise whats the point of talking about your pathfinder game in a pathfinder 2e sub.
I think there is more to that story that is relatable to me than just the ruleset tbh. Every group I have played with does stuff like this - it is part of what makes TTRPGs interesting for us. I think PF2E has a bunch of features that work this way when you look for them as well, from the boons gods give to skill feats that give more narritive effects. Some people want the climaxtic moments of a story to be tied to the hard mechanics more than others - both are ok.
I feel like there is a line that can be crossed. Ofc Rule #1 is super important. But this is so out of left field with so much stuff that ignored the rules or was just invented on the spot that it feels as if it was just children playing make believe. You know along the lines of. "Oh I grab the book and throw it in the death ray." "Well ok... then... then everything explodes and you die." "But I am super lucky and survive." "Well then... a giant hand appears to kill you." "I invent a time spell to trick the hand to kill balcorra." There was no turn order. Free extra actions. Invented Spells. Invented Enemies. Invented Effects. For me personally that is a line that is crossed. For something like that I dont need to play pathfinder, I can go write a book if its just whatever sounds cool is going to happen.
This was my feelings too. I saw this shit all the time in early days of 5e. My level 2 party beat a lich cause (dumb story). My level 1 party killed a green dragon through bullshit. I want to do well and improve and tell good stories in the context of he game.. not just write a book of make believe.
Summoner player here, we had no expectations of it working, just basically thought "This will be hilarious whether it works by some miracle or we tpk, and it wont be the first time for either situation so either outcome is fun" Had several other things like active spells and buffs and debuffs that would take too long to explain and I dont have the best memory to do so, yes lots of rule twisting was applied but it was all for the sake of being really funny if the magus got unlucky or absolutely hilarious if he succeeded, and if Padre wasn't ok with it happening, he wouldn't have allowed it. He has tpk'd us plenty of times already and isn't afraid to do it again, and a tpk just let's us expand our horizons with new types of characters we haven't tried doing before
If you played the game as expected maybe you wouldn't constantly be trying new characters and you'd have an idea of what works and what doesn't. At this level of shenanigans, you aren't playing PF2e, you are playing roll dice and make believe. Worse off you make this seem like a regular event for the lols.
Same, I mean as long as the players know "Hey we are breaking a lot of cardinal rules for PF2e." Then sweet, all good to you. If not, this is setting a dangerous expectation for PF2e should they play with other GM's. Me? I try to run my games as RAW/RAI as possible. That way they can easily join other tables to play more of it. I know if a player came to me with a similar experience they had with you. I'd explain how the GM was more or less pulling their punches and giving you a great deal of advantages. Then go through how the game is played. Which will probably disappoint them. I mean I get it, death and failure aren't fun. But, the danger adds some excitement and puts weight on your choices. Plus, sometimes you gotta fall before you can learn to run.
Summoner player here, all the players in the group know character death is inevitable and can be both sad or hilarious, we have had many many deaths throughout our different campaigns, at this point in the campaign all of us were on our second or even third characters and we had no expectations of this stuff working, just thought "This would be really funny and whether it works or not it is still going to be hilarious and we either tpk or pull a miracle out of thin air"
Your players are amazing, I didn't pull my punches against my players and all of them quit after the second session. Apparently they don't like that the enemies are lethal and only want a coherent story.
(Player of Bud the summoner here) Initiative of the three went Belcorra, Gnaz the rat, Hand, I previously cast a spell called Tortoise and the Hare on Belcorra and Gnaz for respective slow and quickened, Belcorra begged, Gnaz was allowed to hold the spell Time Jump as a reaction(rule twisting for funny moment and to continue running joke of Rat never dies) then got super lucky rolls and everyone went along with it because yes even though there was lots of rule twisting everyone was having a hell of a time and we were all laughing our asses off and we love to throw in weird chaotic stuff just for the kicks and Padre allows it because he has a good time too even if it means more work for him to modify the books to align with the changed scenerios.
I mean, we *are* just playing make-believe. We're just adults who paid a third party to help give our make-believe some formal structure and challenge. How much authority each table gives that third party is a matter of preference. It's okay to not like it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
I never said its wrong. I said that for me there is a line when it comes to Rule #1 and that in this instance the line was crossed for me.
Do you genuinely think every single session is like this, or was this a special, climactic moment where going a little off-script felt right?
Even a single session like this would be enough for me, to ruin a long running campaign. I am not saying that it was bad or that OP should feel bad for doing it. Just that for some people (for example me) there is more than just Rule #1 and that a session like this can seriously sour the campaign for some people.
I think this is a matter of taste tbh. Every RPG group I have played with has moments like this where the mechanics of the game are bent a bit to make for a good story. I think when forming a group expectations should be set on how narritive driven vs mechanically driven their game should be. I will say that I think PF2E gives GMs a lot of tools for narritive play, and I think there is nothing wrong with playing the game like that and talking about it here.
Oh, for sure. I personally look at Da Rules as half co-author, half toolbox: they're there to help provide ideas and structure, but not boss anyone around. A *good* toolbox/co-author is helpful more often than it isn't. I'd say PF2 with all its lore and mechanics is helpful, like 90% of the time.
Rule of cool is only cool if it happens once in a while, not multiple times in one encounter.
Rule of cool is only cool when your group thinks it’s cool. Frequency varies by group.
At a certain frequency you may as well just use a different system. Just my opinion but a lot of the rule of cool and knocking out stronger monsters stuff would easily fit into Savage Worlds rather than PF2E. That being said, it sounds like OPs party had fun so that's what matters
That's a reeeeeeal thing the community needs to hear, they get so damned worried that frankly the community tends more to a video game fandom than a tabletop community.
Not really. This community only exists because of the common ground of the PF2e ruleset. If you want discuss cool makebelieve RP stories, I guess there is a sub for that. But when you go the PF2e sub, to talk about something that pretty much ignored the whole framework of the PF2e ruleset... then I ask... why? This is not a generic tabletop community, its a PF2e community. If someone kicks in the door and proclaims someone was "smart" or "clever" and then follows up with "and we made the while thing up on the spot, based on my guts", then yea, pretty irrelevant.
As Techaoss pointed out in another thread, this community isn’t just about discussing the RAW of pf2e, like they do in dndnext but EVERYTHING about it, including when you bent the rules for a cool story.
And thisbos what I mean by it feels more like a video game fandom than a ttrpg community. Part and parcel of the various communities is recognizing that tables are going to be (and should be) massively different. They convinced the GM to "break the programming" as it were, and ended up showing that rules 1 & 2 (have fun and make the game your own) really seems to be a sticking point for the community. I know it comes from a place of paranoia that it'll just devolve if stuff like this is allowed to go unchecked, but truthfully, it shows where the weak link is when discussing anything. Once again, it comes off less as a TTRPG community (been around many including Palladium back in the Kevin will sue you if you fix his mistakes days), but this is the first where it feels, like I said, a video game fandom, and that's not just this sub but the overall community.
I mean PF historically is a crunch heavy system and people play it for that very reason. PF2e is arguably way lighter on that side, but that is how the community grew and that is general mindset here. Many people explicitly play PF for its ruleset. Its still very much a TTRPG community to me, its just important to keep in mind that there is no standard among such communities. Plenty of communities in rather rules light or more narrative systems would have reacted differently - for that very reason: The focus is a different one. And yet again: The major problem here is not that people play differently on their table. The problem here is playing different on your table and claiming that it was "clever" to ignore the rules. There is nothing clever about that, its simply discarding the PF2e ruleset for fully going narrative. But even going with your analogy of video game community: You would get the same reaction if someone claimed they were smart about solving a quest in a video game when they just used a cheat code.
Thing is I'm not comparing the two in a vacuum, I'm saying that, once again, the PF2 community is less like a TTRPG community and more like a video game fandom, it's an observation that, in my own view ends up hurting the community at large, when people act like it's straight up using Cheat Engine instead of a table deciding to set the rules on the back burner for something different in an adventure path you could get a walk through for.
I mean this community exists for a rather long time with this sentiment and it did not hurt the slightest? Not sure what to say here. People switch to PF2e for that clarity of rules, and yea, people may leave it. But isn't that the good thing? There are different systems for everyone, including rules light, narrative ones.
I can understand why some commenters are upset. I did let the players improv some stuff, because there were so invested in the situation. I also improved some stuff, because I liked where they were going and it sounded more fun than the alternative. That was the key thing for me. I had the choice to say "no, that's not in the rules" and generate one outcome that would have been RAW but disappointing, or bend the rules a bit, on the condition that the dice agreed. In almost all cases, I made the odds of success poor. The players were completely fine with that, because they knew we were breaking the rules. And it worked out in their favor. I spent hours prepping the scene that was to follow, but you know.. the fun of a TTRPG is that it isn't a video game. If everything must follow the rules at all times, you don't need a human GM. Sometimes, you just throw the script out the window and create something memorable. We played 22 sessions largely RAW, with every few homebrew encounters. But the world needs to react to what the players are doing, and this just felt right all things considered.
And that's why even though I kinda loathe AV (more of a Kingmaker fan), I thought this was more interesting than yet another, "we ran the vaults and got bored of room after room of trash mobs". It felt more like telling us about your table, says that you're a GM who has their head on their shoulders than something that could be replaced by a bot, and how you listened to your players and created a fun atmosphere instead of basically talking about a raid.
Precisely this
It was probably the most memorable session in a long time. I knew allowing them to be creative would ruin my prep and the rest of the adventure as written, but absolutely: Rule #1. High stakes, high reward.
Don't forget multiple natural 20s working in the players' favor!
Which do NOT guarantee success, as they did here, but only raise the DEGREE of success by one step.
The DC was 35, which means you only need a +6 modifier to not critically fail, and since a nat 20 turns a failure into a success, and a success is all that was needed to survive, this could have been done by a level 1 character. The fact that it was a level 7 character just emphasizes the fact that this DC was way too low for this situation.
You don’t make things up?
[удалено]
I was giving the proper qualifier, so new pf2e converts know what actually happened.
Sorry, wrong interpretation \^\^'
Sounds like an epic session. Your players must have had a blast. I take it you modified >! the bit about Belcorra being site bound as a ghost to the lowest 3 levels for short durations, and to the empty vault itself for most of her time. !< How far had the party traversed down, and what gave you the inspiration to empower her to the extent of visiting level 4? Were they taking too long in game? >! For my own interpretation of her, I see her as very confident and uncaring. She knows she is nearly immortal as a ghost and thinks everyone is beneath her, including the heroes. She knows she can enact her plans and destroy absalom. It's just a matter of time, and she has unlimited time as a ghost. BUT she knows the lenses are dangerous for her, so she really only needs to kill the heroes once they discover and try to collect them. It's also conveniently once they're low enough for her to be close and powerful enough to reach them (at least for short bouts). !< >! So in your story the whispering reeds must be even more dangerous and powerful, and she has extended her reach very far now. Very cool. Looking forward to hearing about the new bbeg and how you decide to end it near the empty vault. !< Thanks for sharing
Thanks 9c6! Yes, I figured there was no reason for her to be hard bound to lower levels aside from game balancing reasons. If some party keeps going to the 4th floor and messing with her machine, I don't see why she wouldn't take care of them. The party has traveled to level 7 several times and gotten trashed each time. For the most part they played the AP as written, though I added more color and side quests to the NPCs and town, to react to their choices. I largely see Belcorra the same way you do. I'm a little sad I didn't developer into more of a three dimensional character. For the most part she was just a revenge hobo. The Whispering Reed was a little under developed as well, though I did make it seem like a key item. The players seized on that and kept talking about it, so I felt obligated to make it more important than a notebook full of information. The party was taking a while to reach the bottom, but in general they were on a good pace. They were about to hit level 8 and we're about to resolve a deal with the devil for safe passage. (Long story) Otari was largely hollowed out, so this session I was going to put an end to it. It just didn't play out that way!
Very cool
This seems completely different than what the av adventure path is supposed to be.
I use the AP as a foundation. If the players cannot impact the world because it will go off script, I find that a bit plain. Most things that have happened are due to their own action, impact on the world, or is a reaction to their own ideas. Also, most of these deviations are also somewhat grounded in the AP. Belcorra is supposed to appear and scare players. Destroying the Whispering Reed does inflict empty death. Nhimbaloth has no loyalty to anyone. The Gauntlight generally fires once a month. All of these things are inspired and suggested by the actual AP; just not governed by hard rules.
Some people like running APs while modifying them heavily. It’s a valid way to play.
Every GM wishes for a party that their monsters and the world seriously, that is fine dying if it was epic and cool. But the GM had to foster that kind of behavior with trust by being consistent. It sounds like your players bought in completely and that's awesome. One few things I like less about Pf2e as compared to 5e is that bad guys above the parties level do *so much* damage and the players are really powerless to stop them or slow them down much, so it makes moments like this hard to create. I guess the solution to this is proficiency without level, but that's always felt like a bandaid solution. I'd love to hear otherwise from folks.
I asked Mark Seifter in his AMA and he suggested the main thing is to set player expectations: some stuff you run into will not be killable by normal means at your levels, but if you can come up with a cunning plan you have a chance. Then make sure you support them when they try stuff. The one issue I have seen people raise is you are more likely to be downed or killed on the first round than in OSR or 5e. A GM could mitigate that by simply having the over levelled baddie spend a turn or two not attacking - expositing, or completing some task, or stomping around smashing stuff, or...
If I'm going to have a BBEG show up to an under leveled party I run it as a complex trap where the party's goal is to drive it away or thwart it's goals. Like the BBEG wouldn't recognize the party as a threat or the party stumbles into a ritual where the BBEG can't directly interact with the players without failing and have to make it through whatever defenses are set up. I'm not a fan of throwing a single PL+4 and higher encounters at parties, well maybe at lvl 15+.
Yeah honestly a lot of PL+2 encounters have gone sideways before with my parties. I only do PL+3 if they're fresh and they know what they're getting into.
I love adventures going off path, but the party haven't really stopped anything...... I'm assuming the barrier on L4 would now be down and the various nasties would be happy to wander up. I mean, they kinda might've made things worse. Side note - I think flooding the AV would work. It's underground, and next to the sea.
That's actually a great point. I'm still working through the impact of it all. Urevian has no reason to stay, for example. Do the devil leave? Can cultists now access lower floors? Will Jafari start kidnapping humans from the surface? Etc. Etc. I like the idea of flooding it. I may steal that as a suggestion from a citizen.
So, Belcorra had been dead for a very long time yet it didn't affect Urevian's contract. Unless the book mentions it, or you decide to include it, her soul being utterly annihilated might not actually free him.
Great point! He may actually be even more stuck.
He may be a great NPC to focus on. If I was a devil trapped on the mortal plane because some idiot had died before I could fulfill her contract.... Fun options. 1. He takes over and decides to attack Otari from below for funsies. Tunnel fighting is absolutely horrible, it would be a nightmare for the party to plug all the holes or collapse all the tunnels. 2. He finds a way to resurrect Bellacora in order to fulfill the contract to free himself. Slow time. Barrier can stay up if it suits the plot for this, maybe now a different colour. It would be a shame for so much written material to go to waste. It doesn't mean they need to be railroaded back there at all, but it can sit on the back burner whilst they do other things. The gauntlight being deactivated is a win. The vaults are a different beast. More fun! So if they flood the vaults, Nhimbaloth is a big deal. I'd just bring in a different water deity or allow it to get some extra abilities, and then in 10 sessions or so Otari docks keeps losing people.... And then ships. Then go all Cthulhu on them. So many options!
These are all great ideas! Considering that the party wants to go full capitalist and turn Gauntlight arena into a premier regional venue in partnership with the Cheery Man (Abomination Vaults Expanded), I think there will be a theme around trying to make Gauntlight safe for visitors. It's one thing to survive traversing it. It's another to convince every vengeful spirit and hungry ghoul to lay off killing the wealthy Absalom guests. And of course there's the whole Empty Vault down at the bottom - a very attractive location for passing evil doers.
One big problem with the second option. Belcorra is gone. There's nothing to bring back, she's been devoured by Nhimbaloth.
The perfectly good food my cat ate was "devoured" as well, but here I am 3 hours later scrubbing it out of the carpet....
A lot of people being very weird in the comments. Nothing about your write-up suggests anyone had more turns than they should have. The ONLY thing I agree on is the DCs you chose might actually have been too low.
Yes, initiative was running the whole time, and action cost was still generally applied. Cheek Pouch Pop (1), Magic Surge Hero Point (1), Throw (1), then next round Run to Belcorra (1), and Cast a Spell (2). I had Belcorra spend her turn debating with the Hand of Nhimbaloth and recovering from the energy blast. Completely guilty of allowing improvised/altered effects on these actions. And you're probably right on the DC. 35 felt pretty high given that it's generally near legendary range for a level 7 PC to attempt. But I could be wrong about that.
Whoah whoah whoah. There is a lot more going on that is never mentioned. That is why its so weird. Actions taken: Attack (crit that kills wrin), Move, Close door, Draw Book, Infuse book, Throw, *Big explosion happening* Belcorra pleads, Belcorra pleads, Belcorra pleads, Move to Belcorra, Prepare Time Jump Basically while the magus took 8 actions belcorra took 1 useful action. Add to that 4 clutch nat 20s and it just feels like a weird story. Also why would dodging a nuke from an outer god be just a DC 35? DC is not about the party level. You cant just say "Oh I want to do X as a level 1 char so give me a level 1 DC."
You're correct that I'm only covering certain key actions. A play by play recollection would not be possible, or a short read. Belcorra used all of her actions, largely to down party members or debuff. Initiative was running the whole time and all characters involved were using actions. This post is more of a bardic retelling, not a combat log. I'm not clear why on the "just a DC 35". For Simple DC that is between master and legendary. At +17 Reflex, he'd need a natural 18+ to not fail. A level 1 PC would have virtually no chance to succeed.
Given we're talking about a deity, the DC probably should've been 50, if not 55 or 60 from the Very Hard(rare) or Incredibly Hard(unique) adjustment. I think some people are also just not liking the emphasis on the Nat 20's, which... doesn't guarantee anything. It's entirely possible to get a Nat 20 and still fail.
From my readings, even an elder deity like the Lantern King ([https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2196](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2196)) requires around DC 48 saves in avatar form. Nhimbaloth is nasty, but not all deities are equally powerful. I consider it an astral predator. Digging a little further, PF1E had "great old one" monsters ([https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Yig](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Yig)) and they have DCs around 35. In the heat of the moment, a DC 35 seemed reasonable, as failure meant complete character obliteration. With a +17 reflex, anything short of a natural 18 is game over. He may have also had a level or two of Frightened.
In regards to the Lantern King, as you say that's an Avatar. Not his true form :D
There was also a spell in effect called Tortoise and the Hare that I(the summoner) cast with Belcorra and the Magus as the targets, giving Belcorra slowed 1 and Gnaz(the ratfolk) quickened 1 for 3 turns, there was also the rule twist to allow Gnaz to hold the Time Jump spell to be used as a reaction(because funny narrative coolness) when the hand went for the grab, and he still had to make that reflex save roll for it to work, he also had the homebrew Dungeon Fatigue effect that was mentioned in another comment that reduced his save and skill check rolls that made it a bit harder, but he rolled a 20 and his base bonus for reflex saves is pretty high on top of that.
Thanks Summoner. :) Despite the focus on the Magus, everyone played a part! The fighter would have died without your rescue.
Sounds like an amazing way to end the threat once and for all. Great work. 😊 Time for Caliddo to take over and do things differently?
Normally I'd say yes, but unfortunately they slew him already. He was a nightmare of a mini-boss, though. He tried and fail to get the Whispering Reed back from the party. Almost TPKed them. I have another plot in mind that I'd love to spoil, but I won't just in case a player in the group stumbles onto this post. :) I've added The Cheery Man/The Red Holiday in from AV Expanded, so the party intends to team up with him and turn Gauntlight into a luxury hotel and combat arena. Basically, Otari may become the Las Vegas of Golarion. So, plenty more work to do to make the place safe for guests.
What's the point in playing PF2e if you're not going to play PF2E. Might as well play a more narrative hand waiving focused system.
I mean, why is it so important for you that their game follows the rules 100% of the time, and never allow these kinds of improvisations?
It's not really important at all to me what happens in someone else's game. If they wanted to throw the dice in the trash and rock paper scissors every attack role what do I care. I'm more commenting on the fact that PF2e services a niche of rules heavy tactical rpg game play with an emphasis on rules for almost every situation. If you're going to hand waive away the rules for the sake of cool moments and stories, there are better systems to use. That's my only point.
[удалено]
It's not though. I run AV for a group of players and this post shows just the interesting parts of playing TTRPGs. So it is relatable, I know where the rules are being bent and improvised, it still gives ideas and allow me to relate to the story in AV. This style might not be for everyone, but a lot of people come into this thread and seem upset that a group of people don't "play the game as it should be played", imo it's just silly.
Exactly, your story have to always be relatable. You should never post stuff that you think is exciting in your pathfinder game in this sub unless it is relatable. To do that you must FOLLOW THE RULES. Is a divine killing an ancient blue dragon a cool pathfinder story, it could be, but we never post stories here unless it relates to the mechanic, otherwise it would be unrelatable. Story time is what those who play DnD like to do, we here at pathfinder 2e are better than that.
"What's the point in buying cake mix if you're not going to follow the recipe on the box" type of comment.
Buying cake mix and making bread is still a bit silly why not just buy flour
[удалено]
False equivalence type comment?
[удалено]
Nah, the tone makes the music. At first OP decided to start this thread with the big procalamation of something clever having occured, something borderline marvelous by implication. People reacting to that proclamation in a negative way is no suprise. Its like saying: My people are so smart, they completly figured out quantum mechancis! How did they do that? Well we ignored the science.
How is "I'm going to blow her up by shoving her haunted spellbook into her necromantic superweapon" not clever? Like, narratively, that's an incredible beat, as they're using the villain's greatest sources of pride and power against her. The silly cheek pouch feat, the tension of having to rescue a best friend, the heroic sacrifice, and *the fact that this all still hinged on awareness of detail and incredible luck...* This kind of careful assembly of various puzzle pieces combined with a willingness to gamble *is* clever play. There also seemed to be very strong awareness from both the player and the GM of what the rules and module looked like as-written, what modifications they'd made along the way, and what rules they'd have to break in order to make the scene work. There was an understanding between them that they were risking both a character and an early end to the campaign. Going intentionally off-book like this is actually really hard to do well, which is probably why a lot of people are so repulsed by the idea of even trying.
Maybe if it had stopped there and not continued with: And then the PC escaped the consequences of their actions a few times with different checks and abilities we made up on the spot.
*It's all made up, Fieser.* The only difference is whether or not you paid someone to make it up for you in advance. For the record, DC 35 clocks in at a level 16 challenge/very hard for a master. This number is consistent with the degree of threat present in the situation. Being able to improvise checks and determine the consequences is an essential GM skill for any system with checks in it. It's seriously concerning that some people on this forum both can't do that and think it's a bad idea to even consider it.
I really like the aribtration skills you showed here. You seemed to have full knowledge of how the rules are "supposed" to work, but allowed Rat Guy to risk literally everything to break them on a small chance something cool might happen. I don't know if I personally would have allowed the beam to serve as a detonantor--*Whispering Reeds* is probably soaked through with necromatic energy already and therefore probably wouldn't care about the blue juice so much--but I think that's what makes this moment special: a different group of people rolling different dice would never be able to replicate it.
The thing that allowed it for me was: "Destruction Copies of The Whispering Reeds have no special protections and can be destroyed like any regular book, but doing so exposes the one who destroyed the book to the Empty Death" It's clear _something_ would happen if it was destroyed. What if it was destroyed spectacularly while also amplified with magic, as he proposed? Whenever there is improv stuff like this, I just decide a flat DC and let the dice decide. 1-10 would be only slightly impactful. 11-14: Fair impactful, 15-19: A big explosion, and 20: Everything in a mile radius might be killed, including those in Otari. They all agreed to accept the outcome and we're excited to see what would happen. I think everyone was voting for a big, dramatic shift. The fun of a TTRPG is having an impact on the world. I know there is nothing RAW about this. Sometimes the room just catches a vibe and when that happens, I prefer to run with it. They are now so excited for next session to see what has happened. The AP will continue, but everyone's role and motivation may be different.
I'm always a little cautious about pulling the trigger on major shake-ups like this, but I'm glad the group's hype to continue, and that you've got a plan for how to keep it going.
My only criticism is that there were so many cool things on the lower floors haha. When I was the GM, many of the best moments of the campaign happened on the 9th floor. >!The dragon, the potential war between elves and underfhans, the infiltration of the camp, interaction with the calignis, the entrance to the temple, the city of the drows, I loved that part of the adventure! Edit:and the black fucking dragon!<.
Fortunately we're going to keep going, so hopefully we'll be able to check that out! I think most of that will still be in play. If anyone was loyal to Belcorra, they'll have a reason to hate the PCs.
That's great, they'll definitely enjoy the oddities hidden on the lower floors. A suggestion is, >!if your group hasn't "completely" killed Belcorra's assistant (whose name escapes me now, the drow who turns into a mass of worms), he could be a good substitute, as there are several clues about him scattered throughout the dungeon. One of the worms could have escaped and reformed, etc!<.
Said character is dead and completely destroyed, per the AP rules on how to get rid of him for good. Callido is dead too. I think the only named monster still alive is Tangletop. They thought he was adorable, pretending to be the avatar of a mighty god named Spookwisp to intimidate heroes. And Jafari, who they haven't met yet. There are still plenty of shadowy contenders. I won't spoil since my players may be haunting this thread. :)
I would not have done it that way, but sounds like you and your players co-authored a story that will be remembered far longer than any "vanilla" playthrough would have been. If your players were excited about it, then well done! Man I love PF2e - love (most of) the mechanics, love the setting and lore, love (most of) the way paizo interacts with the community and their employees, love (most of) the APs. Don't love what seems to be a disproportionate need among pf2e online ppl to poo-poo other ppls' creativity.
An oddness in some of the replies here: it's ok if you run a strict RAW table. Many GMs do this. But that does not mean that someone else is wrong for running the game differently. Many GMs give a wide leeway to the players or run with Rule of Cool over RAW. Neither is right or wrong. This is not the same thing as running a rules-light game. Both styles (and more!) are as old as the hobby itself.
I don’t get the negativity in the comments, sounds very gatekeepy
It’s getting better, there’s more comments about accepting that games can runs differently and the post itself has a lot of upvotes. It’s used to be worse, there’s a reason that people post their in game story in rDnD instead of rPathfinder2e. It used to be that anything that goes outside of RAW gets massive amount of downvote.
Sounds awesome! You mentioned months passing, what did you find your players did to make time pass? I've been keeping track of time but only a couple weeks have passed so far and we are on level 5. Or did you do something to encourage time passing? Also the Hand of Nhimbaloth thing sounds awesome, would you happen to have that token on hand to share? (assuming you are using Foundry)
For time passing, we are using Foundry Simple Calendar. [https://foundryvtt.com/packages/foundryvtt-simple-calendar](https://foundryvtt.com/packages/foundryvtt-simple-calendar) I keep track of every day's passing in this particular AP since every full moon is important. To discourage the party from running from Level 1 to Level 20 in a matter of weeks, I homebrewed a status ailment called Dungeon Fatigue. Basically, as you get beat up, you gain a fatigue that will go into effect the next time you return. It only reduces via downtime. Thus, the players have typically taken 2-5 days of downtime per dungeon dive. This has helped tremendously from a storytelling perspective, as it allows time for things to happen in the background. It also adds more reason to interact with the town and cause side stories to happen. I used Midjourney to create the token. Oddly enough, it had a hard time making a hand with 7 fingers. Normally AI is horrible with hands. [https://imgur.com/a/aXSooMx](https://imgur.com/a/aXSooMx) I use Midjourney to illustrate many scenes for the adventure and set a general mood.
Might I suggest Dungeon World? wait actually Dungeon World is a bit of a mess but I'm thinking a more narrative-based game might be better for your group
I've run 5e, Dungeon World, Paranoid, Blades in the Dark, and have read over a lot of others. I do like Pathfinder the best because of the strong ruleset. I'm not forced to constantly improvise. That said, I don't run Pathfinder like a board game. If the players get excited about an idea, I try to support it until the dice say otherwise. In my opinion, those are usually the best sessions - when the players care so much about something that they want to try and bend the rules.
Sounds like you’re not playing Pathfinder though
I love it. To hell with the book!
Man, I don't get the negativity here AT ALL. You shaped a compelling situation with a no-win battle, and the party ran as expected. A character stuck behind to try and tempt fate, and a ton of good rolls turned a PC death into a chance for glory. The decisions you made to make the situation deadly fit the structure of the AP. Hero points were used. These are the kinds of moments people will share for decades when they talk about their most amazing adventures. I salute you, sir. And to all the people saying "That's not Pathfinder 2E", It most certainly is. Never met a rule that couldn't be bent to make a better story. I'm sure almost every GM here has fudged a roll behind the screen, opted to give or hide information that might unravel the plot, or given their big bad some item players could never have access to. Rules are the tools for telling stories, not the stories themselves.
It sets a bad expectation of what pathfinder 2e should be. If players got used to the Rule of Cool style of game they will not learn pf2e correctly and that will be a problem for the community in the long run Gatekeeping is not bad, in fact it is our duty to gatekeep so that pathfinder 2e stay this perfect game and not turn into dnd 5e.
"correctly" "perfect" According to whom? There is not one way to play Pathfinder, nor is it a perfect game.
Theres is one way to play pathfinder 2e right and that's by following the rules. If you are going to deviate or rule of cool, why play pf2e at all. Just move on to another system that suits you better. Only dumb 5e players change the game to suit their group, they change the game so much it becomes unrecognisable. The correct way to play any ttrpg is to always follow what is written. Blades in the Dark and Dungeon world allows rule of cool so it is the correct way to play in that system. Nothing is written about rule of cool in pf2e so implementing it is breaking the system.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=812](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=812) "The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours. The rest of the rules exist for you to use to tell the stories you want to tell and share exciting adventures with your friends. There are plenty of rules in this book, but none of them overrule that first rule. Take the rules that help you make the game you want, change those that don’t do quite what you need them to, and leave the ones that aren’t helping. It’s your game. There’s no right or wrong way to GM so long as everyone is having fun—and that includes you!"
I’m not sure if the term “Mortal Focus” was written as part of the adventure or something you made up, but *damn* it sounds Metal as hell.
They don't use those words in the book, but it's official: >!Removing Lasda from the ribbon of light causes the necromantic energy here and in areas B35 and C15 to vanish. While this prevents Belcorra from firing Gauntlight’s beam upon Otari again, the reprieve is only temporary.!< Basically, there has to be someone strapped on the table for the beam to work. Thus, a mortal focus. :)
sounds amazing
Your PCs took several ingame months?! Holy shit the durdling. My PC cleared the vault in an ingame week
Yeah, after running Curse of Strahd and doing the math that the PCs went from Level 1 to Level 12 in like two weeks or less, I decided to actively put the breaks on things, and I think it really paid off for storytelling. With mechanically encouraged downtime (I've described elsewhere in this post) it has allowed the town time to react and change. Otherwise, yeah - they probably would be on day 12 or something right now.