Any PnP RP veterans around here?Follow

I think Allegory is, and I know he pops by, so I'm gonna post it any way, but I'd love some feedback either way.

I'm wrapping up my first campaign in Pathfinder(using the Beginner Box rule book). The characters in question are fairly basic(Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) and a misconception early on has caused them to be a little more powerful than they might have otherwise been(my roommate swore he read that you got an ability point every level, instead of every 4th(?)). We haven't been worrying about encumbrance either(somehow, without the feat, our cleric is in heavy armor and we really haven't been caring too much because Dwarf). We've been Monty Hauling the rewards a little bit, so everyone as of this point is fairly well decked out in loot(mostly because we intend to have an event cause the party to die or retire at level 5 after we each wrap up our campaigns*). So basically, what I'm saying is that our 3 man party is more or less a 4 man party for calculating APL.

Anyway, as I said, I'm finishing up my campaign arc** and would love some feedback from someone more experienced on what I'm planning to do for the final encounter.

For a background, read below. Here's how the final encounter plays out:
She's summoning a Demon Lord into the shrine(Abraxus, iirc), normally protected from demonic intrusion, Gorum cannot step in to handle it himself now that the ritual is nigh complete, lest the veil be torn, allowing the demon in and destroying the shrine in the ensuing battle, so the adventurers have to handle it. So the demon lord turns his agent into a powerful demon and the final battle begins.

Now, first of all, the demon she becomes is one of these. Then Abraxus reaches forth with enough power to paralyze the party(15 will save to only be staggered) and the party plays out a hopeless battle showcasing the demon's abilities(and using up one or two of the higher spells it has). The fight draws to a point where the cleric is being crushed in the demon's fist. Even if they all will save, the APL is going to be 5 against a CR of 10. Something tells me there's no hope.

At this point, just as the cleric is losing consciousness, he hears a voice within his mind and recognizes it immediately. Gorum has not abandoned him. The god explains that while the help he can give is limited to avoid tearing the veil, he will do what he can. The cleric is imbued with a burst of strength, allowing him to break free from the hold of the demon. Gorum then commands him to channel energy, reviving fallen comrades and fully healing all wounds while also knocking back the demon.

Then dozens of ghostly forms appear, fallen heroes that died in the name of Gorum. Incorporeal as they are, they are unable to aid the heroes physically, but they do provide their aid. They begin to sing the Battle Hymn of Gorum, a song comprised of four interwoven battle songs that function as 4 overlapping bard songs. This is the part I'm curious about. How much will the following affect the challenge rating of the encounter? The first three are static(and based on specific bard songs), the fourth is one I'm cobbling together from a number of feats and thus has a lot of leeway to change around:








I'm kinda thinking of making the first three available at the start of the fight proper and the fourth come into play if the party seems to be having trouble.

So, veteran GMs, what say you? Overcompensation for the CR disparity? Too little? Also, does the event sound more corny than epic? And would playing a certain song from Skyrim during the fight be a little much?




*We take turns GMing the characters because they're short term "learn the system a bit" kind of characters.
**Adventure 1: Explore haunted house for wealthy heiress, inadvertently release demon, heiress turns out to be former owner's apprentice and releasing the demon was the goal.
Adventure 2: Try to secure artifact before either a cult tied to heiress or an army of hobgoblins opposed to the cult manages to find it. End up delivering artifact right into the hands of the heiress.
Adventure 3: Heiress is using artifact in plot to despoil a shrine to Gorum, god of battle(and also the Cleric's patron deity). Adventurers have to uncover the plot after some taunting by her and arrive during the final stages of the ritual.

Edited, Dec 30th 2011 1:54am by Poldaran

Also, I may be on Ambien again, but this is still solid advice, and I endorse it wholeheartedly.

Man, I wish our GM was as nice as Aliekber.

Yeah, I was just being silly. I GMed a game once, and it was a disaster, so I'm probably more useful in a peanut gallery role than actually giving advice.

But I have had a GM who would do exactly the sort of thing I described.

Honestly, I just stopped playing and started playing FFXI for real instead (I had a subscription, but never got really into it before that). I still like PnP RPGs, but I don't have the time anymore to play them, so it's been a while.

As for my GM failure, mostly it had to do with me being fairly new to PnP RPGs at the time and GMing a game for a couple of munchkin powergamers (who were infinitely more familiar with the rules set (GURPS) than I was) who absolutely refused to explore any sort of story I tried to lay out for them to unravel and instead spent their time sniping important NPCs, taking over gambling establishments, and generally wreaking pointless havoc on the game world, and then complaining to me that the campaign wasn't going anywhere.

Meh, actually Vataro I feel my specialty is combat, but since we were starting off I had a lot of exposition to get through.

My experience with Pathfinder is limited (to playing D&D 3.5, which pathfinder pretty much is). However, I can offer you some broad tips.

What I think most people are looking for from a final boss fight, is a feeling of heroism or having accomplished something difficult. The key to this, is making them feel like they failed, and then allowing them to succeed.

I think your basic outline is very good for this. The demon starts off too much for them to handle, they get their asses kicked, and then when hope is lost they receive a power up letting them save the day.

What I would change about would be to try to give the players a stronger sense of control over their fate. If the Demon starts out overwhelming then as a player I'd feel like you were delivering me to defeat. I'm not losing because of me, I'm losing because of you. And like wise when Gorum saves the day it's again not because I did something, but because the GM did.

Make the failure their own, make the success their own. Perhaps the demon begins as a manageable threat. Maybe there are 4 relics in the shrine that ward of demonic power, and she will try to break these to grow stronger. Now the players face an enemy too strong for them because they failed to stop her (either they can try to block/immobilize her or perhaps they run the relics away form her though if the relics get too far their warding magic vanish to keep players from abusing that). That's just one way to handle it. What I like about this is the feeling that "Oh, I'm going to get owned, and it's because I screwed up." That's despair. That's what you want them to feel.

As for giving them control, they should have to do something to receive gorum's aide. He shouldn't just appear to save the day. Maybe there's another ******** demonic ward keeping out his presence entirely, which they must destroy or deactivate, or whatever. That changes it from "gorum saved your sorry ***," to "you summoned gorum."

I think you have the right idea with the bard buffs, and by that I mean you left yourself an option in case things go south. I think you might want to lose the crit stuff, as crits add a lot of variance and can trigger additional feats your characters may have that lead to more damage than intended.

The mage and the cleric might also like it if the 4th song allowed them to regain a spell or two, because if you drag the fight on too long they might be running short, and also allowing them to choose their bonus will give them a greater sense of control in teh fight.

Honestly, not knowing Pathfinder, I couldn't tell you anything specific about your CR adjustments. Just leave yourself options, have backups of bonuses prepared so that you can use stronger bonuses for heroes if the fight is going badly or weaker ones if it's going too well.

Skyrim music is a good idea. It might be a little cliche, but Sephiroth does have some badass boss music. And if you can perfect the timing, having Black Escaflowne play where 2:05-2:13 transitions to Gorum saving them, would be just perfect.

I'm actually not too worried about that. They have nothing for critical feats. We're using only the feats from the beginner box rulebook, and they're all fairly basic. It'd literally be just a static chance to grant 2-3x damage if they make a good second roll. Though I'll keep that part in mind if I end up doing something similar later.


I was kinda thinking of using this particular song during the demon beatdown followed by the Skyrim thing as a rallying theme.

I like the idea of making them work for Gorum's help, but knowing myself and my players as I do, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to fashion the encounter in such a way that they manage to **** it up for themselves. There have been several instances of them completely hosing encounters I've planned by acting in genre savvy ways and I think I need practice before I'm ready to work around that.

For now, I think I will keep the helplessness brought on simply by the demon lord, but using some of what you've suggested, I'll let the two of them escape his hold spell after the demon smacks around my GMPC rogue for a bit and give them a way to get aid. I can even tie in knowledge of how to summon aid with an RP encounter they'll run across as they begin scaling the shrine(the shrine is on a mountaintop and to reach it they need to ascend via a tunnel up through the mountain that passes through several large chambers).

Maybe I'll make it so that they have to sprinkle holy water on four swords embedded in the ground around the edges of the summit, one for each buff. Hrm. I have a lot to consider.

I'll check that vid out when I get home from work, though I don't know anyone with a 3DS.

You know, as silly as it seems, I'm actually toying with using this idea for a couple silly side adventures, then using the the awesome character to set up either a Worf effect or turn on the players towards the end of the adventure(and thus allow the players the catharsis of killing that jackass). Or possibly both.

Like, for instance:
Vampire hunter Surmon hires the players to help him defeat a vampire he's been chasing, his arch-nemesis, the dread vampire lord Vernacula. They arrive at Vernacula's castle with clouds covering the night sky. Surmon proceeds to slaughter the undead enemies in the castle left and right through his use of his silver tipped whip, +1 Returning Holy Starknife, holy water as well as his nigh limitless supply of throwing daggers and axes. Then, as dread Vernacula falls, the moon peaks out from behind a cloud and Surmon shouts "OH! WHAT A TERRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE!" proceeds to turn into a werewolf and gets face stomped by the players.

Or, the sheriff asks the players to aid the famous bounty hunter Silent SamSpoilerantha Aeryn, a fighter in full plate armor who also has a couple spell like abilities(ray of frost and magic missile). Sam near effortlessly leads them through a cave filled with aberrations until they fight the dread beast Ringley, a gargoyle with fly by attacks and a beam. As part of the introduction of Ringley, he swoops down, picks up Sam and drops the bounty hunter from great height, sending Sam's helmet skidding across the floor and revealing the bounty hunter's true identity. Then the players proceed to face stomp Ringley. Sam later returns asking for further help, but on the second mission, hasn't leveled up nearly as much as the players and is a basic supporting party helper.

Or, perhaps the players run into a couple Celestial sisters, who convince them to help clear a cave filled with devils. They fight their way through, the celestials dominating the enemies until the final boss, one constantly trying to seduce the players, the other eating any sweets they find in the devil lair. Once the final boss is down, the sweets eating one turns to the other and says "Oh, there's something I forgot to tell you, sis. SpoilerI'm actually a demon." Then Spoilershe murders her sister, turns into a demon and the players have to bring her down.

inorite?

I'm disappoint that we (me and my room mates) never did get a game going.

I think we were planning on it, but then we didn't ever actually prepare for it.

Yeah. They didn't think it would be a good first RPG though (plus Mano hadn't really thought up some scenarios).

Oh, I mean: back in the day, we were going to try Maid RPG.

We've done a few D&D 3.0 campaigns since then. But I'm sure Dori would appreciate some material for the Pathfinder campaigns he's trying to set us up for.


We tried last weekend, but we really need more than 2 players
Mike is too ADD to really focus on anything, and I'm really not assertive or much of a leader to go about directing our group.