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<blockquote data-quote="!DWolf" data-source="post: 8617687" data-attributes="member: 7026314"><p>Played the third session of Abomination Vaults this weekend. My thoughts: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I forgot to mention last time but I used the start at the entrance to the ruins opening. However, I used Decuma during session 0 so most of the characters already had connections with each other and the town. It worked really well.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I am also using the XP system instead of milestones. It is much easier than the last time I used XP (in kingmaker for pf2e).<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs needed to get into the gauntlight. They have explored everything but two rooms and are steadfastly refusing to go anywhere near the place at night. They broke two picks, went back to town to try and hire a master thief to open the lock, came back with a crowbar and two of the PCs almost fell to their deaths trying to pry the trapdoor open (the crowbar was apparently cursed because it rolled really bad, including a bunch of nat 1s) this whole ordeal took most of an in-game day. Finally, they gave up and searched the two remaining rooms where they easily found the key to open the trapdoor.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They spent a bunch of time in town (looking for a way into the trapdoor mostly) and via the clues in the gauntlight and my rumor table, they managed to also get a side-quest (find the thieves). They also heard rumors of two other side-quests (the werewolf, the fish-camp) but decided not to pursue them. This worked out quite well as it gave them more mysteries to chew on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> After getting into the gauntlight, they decided to poke around downstairs. I am running the lower levels as an old-school, theater-of-the-mind dungeon crawl, though I sketched out some of the more complicated rooms on flip maps for reference. It worked great: the characters crept around, sat in random chairs and found a secret door, listened at doors and avoided any that had sounds behind them, blundered into deadly traps, followed strange lights, nearly got killed by a giant skeleton, and otherwise were the classic dungeon-crawling fools. I though they were going to skip the morlocks entirely but, after healing up from the giant skeleton back on the surface, they decided to venture down and see what was making all that noise. They barged in on a couple of morlock engineers and just massacred them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I am planning the morlock’s response to this. This level seems to have a minor theme of traps and trap builders and so I am going to play into that, with the morlocks doing a bunch of defensive plays. I am also going to emphases the morlocks fascination with clockwork and the fact they were working on autocrossbows.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> After killing the morlocks and running back to the secret door before the morlocks buddies can respond, the party headed back to town where I triggered the deadtide. The undead were an absolute joke as (after the disastrous fight with the giant skeleton) they were aware of most of the skeletons resistances. They used the warhammers from the morlocks and just wrecked the encounter. Then the scalathrax showed up and almost TPKed the party. I had a wall around the graveyard and it was moving all over the place, gaining cover between attacks, and picking off PCs with ranged attacks or moving in to grapple and bite PCs that isolated themselves trying to get clear shots. All the characters went down once and the fight was probably one turn away from a TPK. What saved the party was the wizard getting a good result on a recall knowledge and knowing it was weak to fire. The bard did die though, our first death of the campaign.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I’m really looking forward to next session, I’m having a blast running this. One thing I want to try though is having more downtime in town. I’m planning on trying two things to facilitate this: an expanded Downtime quick reference chart (with entries like Make a Friend and Do Research in the Dawnflower Library on it); and maybe instituting a version of the old school time passes between sessions at equal rates in the real world and game world (though it would be X days in game world per week in the real world, with X probably being 1-3).</li> </ul><p></p><p>And now some statistics (does not include session 0):</p><p></p><p>Number of Play Sessions: 3 </p><p>Total Play Time: 693 minutes </p><p>Total Keyed Areas Explored: 34/358 (9.5%)</p><p>Side Quests Completed: 0 </p><p>Time in Combat: 325 minutes </p><p>% of Play Time in Combat: 47% </p><p>Mean Time to Complete a Combat Encounter: 23.21 minutes </p><p>Median Time to Complete a Combat Encounter: 22.5 minutes</p><p>Mean Combat Encounter Time based on Book Encounters: 19.11 minutes </p><p>Shortest Combat: 3 minutes </p><p>Longest Combat: 47 minutes </p><p>PC Deaths: 1</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="!DWolf, post: 8617687, member: 7026314"] Played the third session of Abomination Vaults this weekend. My thoughts:[list][*]I forgot to mention last time but I used the start at the entrance to the ruins opening. However, I used Decuma during session 0 so most of the characters already had connections with each other and the town. It worked really well. [*]I am also using the XP system instead of milestones. It is much easier than the last time I used XP (in kingmaker for pf2e). [*]The PCs needed to get into the gauntlight. They have explored everything but two rooms and are steadfastly refusing to go anywhere near the place at night. They broke two picks, went back to town to try and hire a master thief to open the lock, came back with a crowbar and two of the PCs almost fell to their deaths trying to pry the trapdoor open (the crowbar was apparently cursed because it rolled really bad, including a bunch of nat 1s) this whole ordeal took most of an in-game day. Finally, they gave up and searched the two remaining rooms where they easily found the key to open the trapdoor.[*]They spent a bunch of time in town (looking for a way into the trapdoor mostly) and via the clues in the gauntlight and my rumor table, they managed to also get a side-quest (find the thieves). They also heard rumors of two other side-quests (the werewolf, the fish-camp) but decided not to pursue them. This worked out quite well as it gave them more mysteries to chew on. [*] After getting into the gauntlight, they decided to poke around downstairs. I am running the lower levels as an old-school, theater-of-the-mind dungeon crawl, though I sketched out some of the more complicated rooms on flip maps for reference. It worked great: the characters crept around, sat in random chairs and found a secret door, listened at doors and avoided any that had sounds behind them, blundered into deadly traps, followed strange lights, nearly got killed by a giant skeleton, and otherwise were the classic dungeon-crawling fools. I though they were going to skip the morlocks entirely but, after healing up from the giant skeleton back on the surface, they decided to venture down and see what was making all that noise. They barged in on a couple of morlock engineers and just massacred them. [*] I am planning the morlock’s response to this. This level seems to have a minor theme of traps and trap builders and so I am going to play into that, with the morlocks doing a bunch of defensive plays. I am also going to emphases the morlocks fascination with clockwork and the fact they were working on autocrossbows. [*] After killing the morlocks and running back to the secret door before the morlocks buddies can respond, the party headed back to town where I triggered the deadtide. The undead were an absolute joke as (after the disastrous fight with the giant skeleton) they were aware of most of the skeletons resistances. They used the warhammers from the morlocks and just wrecked the encounter. Then the scalathrax showed up and almost TPKed the party. I had a wall around the graveyard and it was moving all over the place, gaining cover between attacks, and picking off PCs with ranged attacks or moving in to grapple and bite PCs that isolated themselves trying to get clear shots. All the characters went down once and the fight was probably one turn away from a TPK. What saved the party was the wizard getting a good result on a recall knowledge and knowing it was weak to fire. The bard did die though, our first death of the campaign. [*] I’m really looking forward to next session, I’m having a blast running this. One thing I want to try though is having more downtime in town. I’m planning on trying two things to facilitate this: an expanded Downtime quick reference chart (with entries like Make a Friend and Do Research in the Dawnflower Library on it); and maybe instituting a version of the old school time passes between sessions at equal rates in the real world and game world (though it would be X days in game world per week in the real world, with X probably being 1-3).[/list] And now some statistics (does not include session 0): Number of Play Sessions: 3 Total Play Time: 693 minutes Total Keyed Areas Explored: 34/358 (9.5%) Side Quests Completed: 0 Time in Combat: 325 minutes % of Play Time in Combat: 47% Mean Time to Complete a Combat Encounter: 23.21 minutes Median Time to Complete a Combat Encounter: 22.5 minutes Mean Combat Encounter Time based on Book Encounters: 19.11 minutes Shortest Combat: 3 minutes Longest Combat: 47 minutes PC Deaths: 1 [/QUOTE]
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