"Pathfinder "Shattered Star" session 4" Topic

Last session: TMP link

Since the Tower Shield fighter was way OP (the player agreed and opted to get rid of him) he was replaced with a fighter in decent armor with a greatsword.

The witch is gone, and we had two others also join the party "in place" as if they had already been there all along so we could progress into the adventure right away (an elf Destined Bloodline Sorcerer/Cleric of Serenrae & a Shoanti Barbarian with a loincloth & Earthbreaker.)

More exploration of the piling, an encounter with eight Tower Girls in a defended position that had difficulty taking its toll due to good roleplay (a lot of PC offers to accept surrenders after some truly intimidating tactics and horrific deaths of the Girls.) So they capture two. Who in exchange for their lives draw them a map of the wererat head of the gang, her two infected bodyguards & dire rat pets.

Half the party escorts the captured Girls out to the rowboats and makes sure they leave w/o any sabotage or ambushes, then rejoin the party as they buff up and opt to break the locked door down with the Earthbreaker. It opens easily as it was a simple lock, in the room are two dire rats now alerted and aggressive, and two sets of double doors on the opposing wall. Initiative.

The Barbarian rolled best, rushed in and obliterated the 6HP dire rat with 22HP of damage. On the other dire rat's turn it turns tail and goes to one of the sets of double doors, scratching to be let back in and away from this certain-death thing.

The other set of double doors has some sort of iridescent metallic tiles with runes on them, and some tiles spread across the floor. Mr Greatsword slashes and kills the other dire rat voicing his hope that the blood seeps under the door so the enemy on the other side is aware of what happened to her guard-pets.

The party does last minute tactical decisions, then tries the door, locked. They try the earthbreaker on the doors, some chips (they are basalt stone, as is the piling and the bridge itself.) The barbarian does 40HP of damage before one of the doors breaks in half, and the barbarian takes an arrow in the chest for his success.

He reaches in and removes the bar across both door. He and Mr greatsword rush in, the room is fully furnished, but the furnishings are piled defensively and the wererat in hybrid form lets loose another bowshot doing max normal (non-crit) damage, then tosses the bow and whips out her bladed scarf.

All the otehr PC's are hanging way back out of melee range. The ninja is tossing shurikens, the gunslinger cannot hit with his firearm, the sorcerer/cleric is hiding because the player (not "his character", the *PLAYER*) has an almost phobia of diseases. I think he may be a neat freak and is letting that attitude bleed over into his fantasy RP, because he had his PC hiding away from any possible action… keep that in mind for the future…

Melee – the wererat has some staying power due to the DR10, but some of the PC's were ready for that and had silvered weapons. She struck a few times with that bladed scarf but failed to poison anyone with it. Also failed to hit every time she tried a bite attack.

Her infected bodyguards has taken invisibility potions when the dire rat blood seeped under the door, and after a while they did sneak attacks and joined the fray – but the door had been blocked so they could not get out to attack the ranged PC's (which was my plan), so they were stuck in the room with the wererat, barbarian and Mr greatsword.

They were done in quickly by ranged attacks and melee, and the wererat finally succumbed. The PC's gathered up the spoils; weapons, coin, Thessalonian artifacts, rubbings of wall etchings, and all but two headed out to the Pathfinder Lodge to make their report and turn in certain spoils for their reward. Natalya Vancaskerkin, the NPC former member of the Tower Girls that turned on them at the end of Act 1 thanks them all for freeing her of their influence forever and leaves the party.

The two PC's left behind still have the puzzle of the door and iridescent tiles to figure out, and there *IS* a secret door the PC party has not discovered yet that leads farther DOWN and towards their goal – the second shard.

Thus ends Act 2

I have since decided I've been too easy on them, the fighting encounters have not actually "endangered" any of them since the fight with the big bad in Act 1. They feel too safe.

It is time to ratchet it up a notch… Next encounter *will* take a heavy toll.

We have found in Pathfinder, if you have players who know what they are doing, you should about double the strength of the enemy to have a real threat. Or hold the party back one level compared to what they "should" be, and add minor improvements to the enemy. At the very least, all the enemies should probably get +2 to hit and +2 AC across the boards except maybe the bosses.

OTOH, you have a sorceror/cleric, a barbarian apparently in no armor, someone using shuriken for no sane reason, and a 2H weapon fighter… so maybe the encounters are fine.
-Kle.

The player who is leading is an RPG veteran and is guiding the right choices.

The barbarian will be getting armor, he is a new player and thought that was thematic, but has changed his mind after a couple fights, the sorcerer/cleric is there for buff/heal & undead (so far), and the ninja actually held back. Until we got the barbarian and Mr. Greatsword, he was the party pointman (so to speak.)

He was using poisoned shurikens to add to the mix, since the melee guys already filled the room.

It was proper tactics – those capable of ranged doing range, melee jumping in after being buffed, it was the healer hiding that could have been a factor had the encounter gone sideways.

But yea, I will be adding more enemies and buffing them to keep it more interesting because of the leadership and tactical acumen of that veteran player.

keep that in mind for the future…

Someone needs to be slimed…

Or rot-grubbed.
Or ear-seekered.

Funny, Saber6, as I added a Green Slime to the next encounter. PC's are 3HD at this point.

An ancient abandoned bath that is fed by a small slit leading into the ocean. The whole place stinks and is covered in guano; bats overhead, and the bath itself is scum-covered. There is a passage leading to dressing rooms and another opposing out further into the complex.

There is a Giant Amoeba in the tub. Basically, any noise disrupts the bats who swarm, guano to cause a REF save or fall (maybe into scummy tub), and the Giant Amoeba can make a slam attack when/if they walk by. I added a Green Slime to the dressing room ceiling to drop on PC's entering there.

Nice acid damage to weapons and armor as well as the PC.

There are further encounters I buffed by doubling the Giant Water Spiders, adding a Spider Swarm in a constricted passageway they cannot easily escape from, and some Giant Ants I am converting from Worker to Soldier for the added grapple and poison stings.

Something I also added:
Then the next time they leave the bridge piling in the rowboats for healing and rest and getting more magic, getting weapons repaired/replaced; if at night they will be attacked by Ghouls at the makeshift dock in the Underbridge, if during the day, a Sea Hag will attack their boat en route trying to drag one PC under.