My players finished off the House of Dust and Ashes on Saturday. I had expecting it to be rough on them, but sometimes they find their groove and they're really, really good. Most of them are fairly well equiped and in their fifth career. It's a big group. Before the unveiling of the Gilded Widow they had managed to

1) Suspect that Erasmus Haarlock was alive and that this might have been a trap for any surviving Haarlocks.

2) Were fairly sure than Nonesuch was a Slaugh (they had faced an infiltrator before).

3) ID'd the Haarlock scion.

4) Identified the Abbot as a heretic.

5) Studied Haarlock's tomb and the sunburst symbol

6) Crucially, the two psykers got themselves into trouble before the Auction and the Legatine Investigator decided to use his Inquisition Authority on Provost Bland to bail them out.

7) Having no desire to spend any time unarmed around Nonesuch, already outed themselves to Bland, and suspecting a trap they strong armed the Provots into letting most of them attend the auction with concealed weapons. The rest, armed to the gills and carrying so of the character's bigger weapons, waited nearby as reinforcements.

When things went to hell they started killing. The biomancer and one of the assassins jumped Greel in HTH and the assassin stabbed him to death with a Fraal Glass Knife while another assassin committed double Hecutor autopistol two gun slaughter on all the Mourners who the pyromancer wasn't setting on fire. A lot of carnage and two hours later and they walked out of the House of Dust and Ash with the Haarlock Scion and it only took so long because they were very thorough.

Anyone else's group have an easy time of it?

Weird! my players finished this scenario about 2 weeks ago, and is eerily similar to your game in almost every aspect with exception to the Abbott. They did, however, figure out Octavia nile. Only because the party did'nt cover thier tracks in Edge of Darkness. The Chirgeon got away, Immediately dispached Logician agents to silence them (unsuccessfully) while she made her way offworld. But the Logicians now know thier faces and have recorded images of them sent to all agents including Octavia. Who, as she told her adept their true identity at a distance, was overheard, in turn, by the psyker skulking in the shadows. Even the Abbott made his roll in recognizing the P.C.'s.! I gave them many opportunities and hints at changing the way they look and concealing their I.D's. But it turns out they did'nt need to as they systematically eliminated all adversaries in very intelligent and efficient ways.

They are VERY experienced players who are extremely creative, and usually end up disposing of tough opponents through good teamwork and ruthless effeciency. Thats not to say they are perfect tho. The Guardsman is a crashing bore without much in the way of personality. The techpriest is more of a warrior than...well...most warriors!But getting back to the original post. I did think that they had an easy time of it despite their experience. They exited the house of ash in about 3 hours. I would of loved to have raging lava chasing them all the way to the skyship in exiting finale fashion. But due to the ease of finishing the adventure it felt anti-climactic. I have decide to throw a big suprise at them before they make it back to Gloriana tho. Muahaha.

1) Suspect that Erasmus Haarlock was alive and that this might have been a trap for any surviving Haarlocks.

They certainly can suspect that, though I'm not quite sure where the notion that he might want to kill his relatives comes from.

2) Were fairly sure than Nonesuch was a Slaugh (they had faced an infiltrator before).

Why? As long as he's not eating brains, he's just a relatively cold businessman

3) ID'd the Haarlock scion.

How?

4) Identified the Abbot as a heretic.

Again, how?

5) Studied Haarlock's tomb and the sunburst symbol

There's not much hindering them, is there?

6) Crucially, the two psykers got themselves into trouble before the Auction and the Legatine Investigator decided to use his Inquisition Authority on Provost Bland to bail them out.

And thus risked that he might be a heretic in league with some of the others at the auction. It was a risk and it happened to pay off.

7) Having no desire to spend any time unarmed around Nonesuch, already outed themselves to Bland, and suspecting a trap they strong armed the Provots into letting most of them attend the auction with concealed weapons. The rest, armed to the gills and carrying so of the character's bigger weapons, waited nearby as reinforcements.

I'd be surprised if any party went into the final auction completely unarmed.

All in all, with the adventure being relatively open in structure, I guess one can make it as easy or as hard as one wants to, though having a clever cell obviously helps matters along.

I have to say that I would have punished the use of an Inquisitorial override in this case although to be fair how it was confirmed that they were really the Inquisition when communications between the island and anywhere else were out of commision I dont know. At that point I would have had Greel find out behind the scenes and take measures of some sort to hinder the Acolytes like relieving the PDF at the Auction enterence and replacing them with mourners and some servitors so that they wouldn't be able to take their weapons in or simply have them barred from the Auction as members of the Inquisition were not invited to attend. He is the Govenor of the Island and without additional resources to back them up then there is nothing they can do about it even if they are Inquisition. With the storm cutting off communications and Greel not really caring about after the auction he could have easily done it.

I avoided making descriptions of Haarlock to be like scion which I assume is how they found out mainly because if I did I knew the players would pick up on it too easily, while the pictures might have resembled the scion to have said a similar descripion out loud would have been a dead give away.

Working out Nonesuch was a Slaugth sounds too much like metagaming to me as although they may have fought one it doesn't mean they would have immediately accociated it with what they felt from Nonesuch. Only one of my players passed the perception test to realise there was something wrong with Nonesuch and he kept it to himself as it was more of a gut feeling than anything else and no one else noticed. He roleplayed accordingly though and the players could have seen that there was something worrying him had they noticed.

I have to ask how many players do you have as it seemed to be a really big group. My group is 4 guys and even though they guessed alot of things might happen I tried to make sure that things didn't go according to plan all the time. I feel in this adventure you have to try and make it feel like everyone is working against the players for one reason or another and for things to just go wrong occationally. For example the players in mine worked out about the key really early on but none of them were armed at the final auction due to the PDF with auspexs' scanning people as they went in so none of them took on Greel early on. After they went to suit up Greel had disappeared down into the crypts. Due to the fact that the crypts were huge and the players didn't know their way around them I had them lost down there for a while. I also had Nonesuch work it out and he was down there as well eating mourners to try and find out where Greel was. The players bumped into him just as he finished feeding and rather than risk fight a big group he fled and the group got split up in the chase. Later on 2 of the players had found Greel in a different part of the complex and the Guardsman shot him with a Grenade launcher which broke the amulate/key (he rolled really high for damage and RF and I rolled really low for the Rosarius) as well as the handle of his power scythe (I just thought of the effect of firing a frag grenade at garden tools).

By introducing these setbacks I was able to make the final part of the scenario take a while and (hopefully) make it much more interesting for the players. It also sounds like your players were forgetting that they were meant to be on a fact finding mission about the attendees so that they could be monitored in future to try and uncover greater conspiracies they were not meant to kill them at the auction even if they were forced to later on. To me it sounds like the group was playing it as players rather than as characters but thats just me.

Kaihlik

To start: my group is huge. 8 people. Half of them are experienced Vampire: The Masquerade players and very little gets by them and they're always on the look out for secrets.

The Abbot was the first to be ID'd. His junior priests don't look very priestly and his religious act isn't very convincing. They also managed to arrange a distraction get into his quarters on the airship and found his demonic book.

Erasmus Haarlock isn't confirmed dead and they discovered his ascension to becoming the Haarlock was by killing every relative of his way between him and the Haarlock warrant. The adventure drops those clues and my players expect the worst , so it's a fair inference.

Nonesuch was relatively easy for them to ferret out. They've had experience with the Slaugh before, so the killings and disappearances, one of them involving a brainless corpse, was a big clue. The second was the fact that Nonesuch was an Untouchable and the only other encounter they've had with Untouchable style powers was a Slaugh.. The third was one of the players making the perception roll and finding something deeply unsettling about him. They weren't positive, but in true 40K fashion they decided to err on the side of pumping the suspected xeno full of bullets and bolt rounds when the apportunity arose. They actually ended up killing him with Greel's power scythe, because he was so **** hard to kill..

The figured out the Haarlock scion by matching descriptions of the NPCs against images and statues of the Haarlocks in the House of Dust and Ash and they figured out the Mirror of My Blood for additional confirmation. They weren't 100% positive, but the indicators were strong enough that they made capturing him alive a mission priority and succeeded.

They didn't figure out Nile, but they didn't trust her either and she and her followers ended up being toasted.

Bland's presiding over a situation which is clearly over his head, his men are dying (he only has a platoon of PDF and some of them are already dead) and disappearing, and he's presented with a rosette. I could have had him resist them, but it didn't seem in character and the Legatine Investigator was quite persuasive.

I could have made the mission harder by deliberately undercutting their victories and achievements, but that's essentially punishing them for catching clues and using their resources intelligently. They will, occassionally, make disasterously boneheaded moves. The trouble the psykers got themselves into almost lead to a full out battle and the aftermath of that lead to interparty violence which will have longterm repercussions. The Legatine Investigator almost didn't go for the rosette, but when he did he did so forcefull and persuasively. The interparty friction did help keep the tension levels high and Nonesuch almost managed to escape them. In which case he would have soon eaten the brain of a dead Mourner and realized that Greel's amulet was the key out the House and ambushed the PCs at some horribly unopportune moment.

Sounds like your next adventure needs to include an untouchable that could be helpful to the party... Might make for interesting RP...

lol great title

my group is somewhat... dying

last session Magyar sniped down the scion (which is one of the characters) and greel made a stand. not a very good one but they blew him up and with him the rosarius. now they are going to fill in the blood and (I could be wrong about that) going to attack the crimson woman emerging from the widow.

Nonesuch will be waiting on the ship for the ride home muhahahaha

my group wiped lol

vogue69 said:

Could you provide details?

The group that I co-GMed the House of Dust and Ash with had 16 people in it. They took on 3 waves of Wreckers and essentially were fully capable of brute forcing their way through everything. Enough said.

Whilst you could (and probabbly should) throw in everything under the unhallowed sun at such a monster goup, you could put in situations where brute force simply won't cut it. Most obviously, split them into two (or three) groups with obviously important and mutally exclusive goals (rescue the heir/destroy the heir etc.).

Cynical Cat said:

well... they didn't investiate anything, they didn't make nice with anyone, they were like "we are so good, nothing can happen to us", didn't take any precoscions (sp?).

basically the whole crew got killed by magyar alone who was hidden in the upper parts of the garden and sniped them down, while they were frolicking through the park in the search of loot (after the whole incident with the auction and the scions blood etc) Oh and one of them was the scion, they didn't care for that.

now they are half-dead infront of the ship, where they were greeted by Master Nonesuch.

After the scion in a fit of rage pulled 3 pins of his fraggrenades and run up to Master Nonesuch and rolled this for damage: 9, 9, 9 we took a break for the night.

they are:

arbitrator rank 6

adept rank6

gunslinger rank 5

Psycher Pyromancer rank 5

and now they are pretty much done for..

MDMann said:

Believe me, I tried. Between their mind-raiding psykers revealing people's true natures (they went for the subservient guys as opposed to the main ones), the Black Priest making it impossible for anything daemonic to hit them, the heavily armed/armored Arbitrator, Guardsman, Assassin, and Guardswoman, and the Legate Investigator power playing those who were "loyal to the Imperium"...

My pc's went through hell and back playing this module.

The beginning was fairly easy until the Tech-Priest mentioned to Lanus Cisten he was interested in Star Charts so during the pirate attack the Ashen Tear Assassin tried to snipe him with his Needle Pistol.
The Tech Priest almost died if it wasn't for our Adept the super healing machine.
The Assassin in my party went after the AT Assassin but lost him.
The Adept also attended Vymer who was also critically wouned and they thus befriended Vymer an Quill.

Once at the House of D&A they quickly started snooping around and figured there was something with the Tomb and that they had to find the key ASAP.
The other half of the party encountered the panicking Locuter Mayweather (the contact) near the Altar of Fire and decided, after listening to him, he was to afraid to be of help and was actually endangering the mission by being so afraid.
The Assassin backstabbed him and threw him in the lava pit after stealing his money.

They found the Haarlock Warrent note quickly and were very afraid this was one big trap.

I had already decided that the groups Psyker was the Scion of Haarlock and luck had it he examined the Painting extensively.
They managed to find out that the Greyskin Psalter had something to do with star coordinates and that the Doll in a Jar had some kind of ghost in it.
The Tech Priest was to interested in the Book Unbound and gained yet again a corruption point.

At the day of the auction they did some bidding and bought a nice hunting rifle (self made), the Doll in a Jar and the Pauldron. When the painting was projected on the holo screen the psyker saw his face on the painting and panicked.

After the recess the final item was up for bids....the Gilded Widow.
Everything happened as it supposed to happen and all hell broke loose...the Tech Priest spotted the Black Sun amulet and figured is was the key to the tomb and charged at Greel.
The Tech Priest managed to parry the 1st strike by the power scyth with his Utility Mechadendrite (it broke) and the 2nd with his gaundlet (we agreed it also would destroy is low left arm).
Meanwhile master Nonesuch was killing Mourners left and right as the pc's fled to re-arm.

Magyar Marshrek tried to snipe them but bad rolling on my side ensured he was spotted and the now heavily armed pc's fought him off along side Vymer and Quill.

The tried to configure a plan to get the amulet away from Greel but the Assassin grew impatient and went after him herself.
She managed to kill Greel on her own but the remaining Mourners and a previous wound by Greel left her unconscious.
Luckely the Guardsman along with the Tech Priest, the Psyker and the Adapt came after her and arrived just intime to get shot up by the re-awakening Servitors.
They managed to get out of the Hall of Lost Saint heavily wounded with 3 of them critically wounded (Assassin, Tech Priest, Guardsman), the Adept did some first aid and the Psyker triek Psychic Healing which somehow failed.

Enter the Slaught...
You might think I'm cruel having critically injured character fight a creature that can kill Sergeant Brother Agamor with ease...well sorry...I am...

Master Nonesuch started playing with them, attacking bare handed from the shadows, injuring one of them and retreating back into the shadows for several round until the assassin actually managed to hurt him (a bit).

The Assassin shouted: "Run, I'll keep him busy..."

The rest of the party ran towards the tomb while the Assassin got smacked with a 34 E, Pen 4 hit....Burn Fate Point...

Meanwhile the pc's unlocked the tomb and a 01 roll for the Tech Priest on his Archeotech test lowered the shield quickly and they ran for the door.

Just before the ship left Vymer and Quill ran out of the building carrying the Assassin to repay their debt to the Adept.
They left....

Debriefing is next session but this is the final result so far:

Callidia (assassin): critically wounded, fate yet to be decided, gained 2 insanity points, lost fate point
Silon (tech-priest): critically wounded, lost left lower arm, utility mechadendrite, 5 gained insanity points, 1 corruption point
Regis (Psyker): Heavily wounded, gained 3 insanity points, 1 corruption point
Vanaras (Adept/Prime): Critically wounded, gained 4 insanity points
Gaius (Guardsman): Critically wounded, gained 3 insanity points

They left with:
Haarlocks Hunting Rifle
The Shattered Pauldron
Doll in a Glass Jar
Silver Key

We had an amazing 14 hour sitting and great fun....thank the god emperor for pc's who can take a set back

Octavia Nile had already left before the Gilded Widow incident with the Greyskin Psalter
Master Nonesuch escaped when the Void Shield dropped
Magyar Marshrek died at the hands of the acolytes
Abbot of Shale died trying to swim away from Master Nonesuch
Captain Rubio was killed by Magyar Marshrek
Locuter Mayweather was killed by the Acolytes
Greel was killed by Callidia the Assassin

Santiago said:

Just the right moment to start Tattered Fates (instead of 'the debriefing') with the PCs being more or less unconscious. Let Vymer and Quill be in fact hired by Marcus Vulpa to fetch up the PCs for him... That would be really cruel...

That would be cruel but I'm going to do something worse.

I need to do a small part of my own storyline first.
My group has some serious beef with the Logicians, a contact of them (logician infiltrator) is going to feed them some info to go to some space station, this part is going to be easy, way to easy.
On the flight back to Vaxanide they are going to be attacked and boarded, the pc's will escape their ship on a Aquila Lander while their Interrogator flies the Ship into range of the planetary defence guns (the poor sod).
Just before the ship blows it enters the warp and the pc's are left stranded on Vaxanide.

The session after that is going to be Tattered Fates.
After Tattered fates, the moment they leave Quaddis they will be Arrested by their Inquisitor which they have never met, rather forcefully.

The Baron said:

I'm more interested to know how you can control a group of SIXTEEN players , than how this group finished the House of Dust and Ash.

Kinai.