Hey guys and gals,

I have just a couple of questions, pretty much related to the Eye for an Eye Scenario from the ToA.

Firstly, at the end of the dinner, how do you get PC's to make their resilience check if they eat the Venison? Do you say, "If you ate the Venison, please make a resilience check? Or when players 'place their order' as it were, do you simply make a note of it and then just go "X and Y, please make a Resilience check" and not tell them why they are making them?

And secondly, how do you deal with the Beastmen and the Sacrifice if players attempt to deal with both encounters? The ToA says something about abstracting the Beastmen encounter with a Progress Tracker.... I am unsure how to do this.

Finally, in Chapter 3, how should I run it? In Encounter mode is my gut feeling... But I am unsure how I would do it. Do I simply not need to worry about initiative and simply say that, if for example: If they finish searching and then leave one room, to go to another, should that count as "One Round" for terms of the progress tracker?

If anyone can give me a hand, that would be great!

Cheers,

Krusader

I am not sure about number 3 but 1 and 2 I think I may be able to help with.

1) Two ways you could approach that in my opinion. First is the second comment you made, just note who ate the venison and at the end (or whenver it says) make them make the res. check. Secondly, note who ate the meat, then make everyone roll (you know keep an air of mystery) but only be paying attention to those that ate the meat. I would say your original idea is the best way to handle it though, because that second idea could make your players go, 'Wait a minute I rolled better than he did why am I sick'. Though for funnsies you could make a mental note if they got a chaos start some the posion had spilled into some of the other food by accident.

2) So the events are supposed to be happening at the same time or roughly at the same time if my memory serves correctly. If they chose to deal with both it means the party will split up. In that case then you just run 2 encounters, probably not going to go that well with each party at half strength. What I think they intend is that the party deals with one or the other (probably the sacarfice) and that the other becomes an abstract combat. The way I take this to mean is, while dealing with the sacarfice, you have a tracker going. When the party does something good or clever you move their side up, when things are going bad you move the other side up. If they are the first to get to the top they have a chance to get out and change the events of the beastmen, if the beastmen get to the top first they over run the walls and then your players truely have 2 threats. It could go the oppisite way as well if they chose to deal with the beastmen then if they get to the top first they get a small chance to interupt the sacarfice but if the other side gets to the top the sacarfice is performed.

Hope that helps a little.

-Fabierien

I just finished Eye for an Eye today with my group of players. So here's my take on it:

For the Venisson, I took note of who ate it, then rolled behind the screen for each of them. Then told them about how they felt. My players like keeping some mystery behind rolls like this. However, when one of the players drank a potion of Schlaff that the good Dr. gave him to make him feel better, I did tell him to make the Resilience check himself. This was to provide an out-of-character clue to the players that there was something not right about the potion to help focus their efforts. He also failed the roll, so that was a dead-give away too.

Regarding the Sacrifice and Beastmen, I basically put up a 10 space tracker, after the first round I would move the tracker one step forward. If the tracker reached the end event, the Beastmen would burst into the location with the painting. My players quickly dispatched the cultists though, since they had taken the book away from Piersson. Iron Breaker, Troll Slayer, Bright Wizard and Ratcatcher vs the cultists, it was a massacre. The Troll Slayer made a beeline for Piersson and split his skull open in one round, thanks to a great initiative roll and good WP to counteract the various Fear tests (from the Chaos Temple, Cultists and Cult Leader). After that most of the cultists got cut up or surrendered. The Fear tests did play havoc on some of the other characters though. Quite a few were close to gaining insanities due to being Strained, but then the Rally Step kicked in when they dispatched the Cultists.

Seeing as the cultists were so easily dispatched, they crawled up to the Lodge through one of the secret passage ways and came up against the beastmen. I opted for them facing up against the 6 Gors and Wargor, leaving the 12 Ungors for Olver and the Guards. They almost all died, the Troll Slayer was 2 wounds away from KO with 2 crits, the ratcather was 1 wound away and the Bright Wizard one wound away. The Iron Breaker held the line but couldn't keep everyone safe from attack.

It was a suitable finish given that the Daemon wasn't summoned.

For Chapter 3 basically just follow the guidelines in the ToA in p. 78 under Managing the Investigation. It's also important to guide them after the first clue is found to the next one, this can be done quite simply by having some NPC casually mention if they've gone to a certain spot or if they could go fetch someone for them at a certain location. Mention certain rooms as they walk around the house like the Sitting Room, so there's a chance they might step into them. Encounter mode would be too cumbersome in my opinion. Both me and my players found this chapter a relief from the rigidness of combat. And the last encounter is filled with battle, so I think it's better to do it freestyle.

Interesting question. I guess it does not really matter that the NPC's figure out HOW they got poisoned once they ARE poisoned. But it's fun to make it a little more difficult for them to figure it out. Of course. you'll have to ask them what they're eating anyway, goose or venison, and that is quaranteed to make them suspicious.

Like Lexicanum wrote, you could do some bogus behind-the-sceen dice rolling just to throw them off?

First, make a note of what the're eating.

Then, have all of them roll resistance (and observation).

Then, a few secret, bogus dice rolls.

That should keep them guessing when you tell tem who's been affacted by the schlaf poison.

I don't have any suggestions for the other questions.

Olemak said:

Well it really depends on how you go about it.

In my game, at the start of the dinner Piersson announced the menu, like a waiter would in restaurant with a fixed menu, saying something like "For the main course we have the option of a delectable venisson in a fine tilean wine sauce, Lord Aschaffenberg's favorite and a braised goose with red onion and cider sauce." Followed by an interruption by the Lord exclaiming the virtues of the venisson and Olver's hunt for it today. Olver vouches for it being a great beast that should be quite tasty. The Piersson proceeded to ask everyone for their preference, once again much like a waiter taking an order. All the dishes are then brought individually to each guest by the servants.

That way the players don't find it unusual that they're being asked what they want to eat.

Just to chime in on #2 (running the beastmen and sacrifice), I used the system by Bertolac at:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=165&efcid=3&efidt=269009

and it worked superbly.