I have lots of questions regarding the final chapter, the one with the chase.

1. How does the wizard assault the nexus? It seems in act 1 he can damage it by a 2d spellcraft check, but in act 2, he can damage it only if he rolls a critical when casting a particular spell (magic dart etc)?

2. The rowing boat can be repaired by a character that has tradecraft skill. Which starting career has this? Burgher? And I think Perfomer as well (although this is not a starting carrer). Why would a Performer be able to fix a bot, and a Soldier would not?

3. Also, after the 8th space on progress tracker, when the mage casts spells, he basically has an extra of 2 yellow and 1 purple? One yellow and one Purple because of the nexus proximity, and extra yellow because the nexus' ward is damaged?

4. When rowing, the PC can do a 2d athletics check instead of an action. Success means that they row the boat one range increment.

Does that mean Long, because medium? Or do they need to do the check 3 times?

How about swiming? There are no specifics in there.

Maybe next time you shouldn't have the spoiler right there in the thread title.

I am sorry but this being the GM's forum, and the title of the post, clearing saying I am about to talk about a last chapter of the Gathering Storm, I thought it was evident it was going to have spoilers. What else could it be? A post about the artwork?

Could you please edit you thread's title and erase (Celestial Wizard) ? "Gathering Storm : final chapter questions" could be a right title without spoiling IN THE TITLE.

I'll check up quick about your questions.

thanks, good gaming.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Sorry again, I thought you meant 'I should put spoiler in the title', but you actually meant that the title was spoiler by itself.

You are right and I did correct this. [i also had missed the 'edit' button the first time]

Whoa...4 replies about "spoilers" (as if the GM section isnt enough to warn off silly players) and none helping out a fellow GM....

Well Plutonick...this module is great fun, but of course some parts was awfully writted and playtested, so that in many part the adventure is ridden whit ingenuity. In the end every GM need some improvisation or planning ahead...the following is what i'm thinking to come up as soon our group will get at the grand finale.

1) the act 1 seems builded to put great pressure on players, whit easy opportunity for shulmann to advance his token. As soon act 2 start, IMO the scene should favour the players, unless u really want to narrate a really catastrophic ending for this adventure. (anyway i will skip the complete "mob goes angry for nothing" nonsense as written on the book). Hence i will expect the players to put down the magus before he obtain 4 or 5 criticals if u use RAW, as he will also have to lose 2 rounds of combat to cast protective spell before really being of any treath to the PC.

As for me, expecting at least 2 really good shooters to target him from boat/bank i'm going to use an houseruling to give him an action after every PC had his turn (borrowing other's idea on that!). Since i have 3 players, he will be able to use this routine each round:

1- channel power

2-cast protective spell

3-attack the players (or ward if i want to really put pressure on my group)

2) I suspect really few party will have such a skill, hence u should assume your group will have no chance at all to fully repair the boat (especially under a storm, in a hurry and whitout proper tools). Of course players will try to fix it, so whatever action they take...just give them 1 or 2 fortune dice to the rowing check.

3) yeah after the 8th space 1purple + 2yellow, mate!

4) as RAW they need 3 rowing actions to move from extreme to long, 2 more to move from long to medium and so on...as u see, this could lend the PC to fail if they was late in following schulmann. (the starting distance is determined by the tokens)

If u feel that wasting 4 or more rounds to approach schulmann is too harsh, u could use one of the following rules

A: let a second PC man the oars, so the group can procede faster (hopefully!)

B: consider the rowing as a manoveur (since is a skill check after all and not an action card): for each succes the player can advance one range increment, but if he advance more than one, let him suffer one fatigue for each range above the first. (the math here involves the optional rule that let players performing a second manouvre for free if they skip to play an action card)

Hope this could help somewhat!

let us know how the finale goes for your group!!!

Ghiacciolo said:

When I first bought the module, I really liked it. But since then, I read a few of the Enemy Within modules, and come to the conclusion that it just doesn't compare to the older stuff. It has it's moments but the different chapters feel disjointed. More criticism at the end of my post.

1) the act 1 seems builded to put great pressure on players, whit easy opportunity for shulmann to advance his token. As soon act 2 start, IMO the scene should favour the players, unless u really want to narrate a really catastrophic ending for this adventure. (anyway i will skip the complete "mob goes angry for nothing" nonsense as written on the book). Hence i will expect the players to put down the magus before he obtain 4 or 5 criticals if u use RAW, as he will also have to lose 2 rounds of combat to cast protective spell before really being of any treath to the PC.

I, too, hope they end up destroying the town. I am sick of this muddy place. The other ending, the angry mob ending, is rather tough to sell to the players. Especially since the 'religious' player is kinda friends with him.

As for me, expecting at least 2 really good shooters to target him from boat/bank i'm going to use an houseruling to give him an action after every PC had his turn (borrowing other's idea on that!). Since i have 3 players, he will be able to use this routine each round:

1- channel power

2-cast protective spell

3-attack the players (or ward if i want to really put pressure on my group)

I got 4 players, 3 of them equiped with bows, and 2 of them have a yellow dice on balistics. Why don't you use quickcast?

How are you going to attack the ward? Using magic dart? Also, that houseruling sounds a bit harsh on the players, doesn't it? How are you going to justify it thematically?

2) I suspect really few party will have such a skill, hence u should assume your group will have no chance at all to fully repair the boat (especially under a storm, in a hurry and whitout proper tools). Of course players will try to fix it, so whatever action they take...just give them 1 or 2 fortune dice to the rowing check.

3) yeah after the 8th space 1purple + 2yellow, mate!

4) as RAW they need 3 rowing actions to move from extreme to long, 2 more to move from long to medium and so on...as u see, this could lend the PC to fail if they was late in following schulmann. (the starting distance is determined by the tokens)

If u feel that wasting 4 or more rounds to approach schulmann is too harsh, u could use one of the following rules

A: let a second PC man the oars, so the group can procede faster (hopefully!)

B: consider the rowing as a manoveur (since is a skill check after all and not an action card): for each succes the player can advance one range increment, but if he advance more than one, let him suffer one fatigue for each range above the first. (the math here involves the optional rule that let players performing a second manouvre for free if they skip to play an action card)

Since I have 4 players, I think it's ok to use an action for a range increment.

edit: I am never going to get the hang of using /quote in these forums...

Yeah old school "enemy within" is one of the best RPG stuff ever printed!

Thematically, Schulmann is the real nemesis behind all the troubles of stromdorf, and now that he's transfigured by the raw power of Azyr, he should be really a match for the players! so he should be far more powerful than the mediocre acolyte he was before...

unfortunately, the mechanics here are against the narration, since by my calculation (valid only for the characters i have in my group) whit "storm shroud" in play, it will need at least 4 arrows to take him down...so i'll need to justify this thematically as well.

Anyway, i think that having the Pc on the scene is enough to spoil the mage's plans, and since i expect my players to solve this situation in a bold and unconventional manner (above the mundane shoot-him-down-whit-arrows) i will let my players to succed in whatever they come up whit some random hard(3d) test....maybe they can talk to distract him (forcing him to skip his following action), or use the reunited stones to adsorb his magics,or pay attention to when the protective spell isn't active to land the decisive arrow, or maybe simply jumping on him to overthrow schulmann in the river...IMO everyone of this is enough to procede whit the comet ending, despites schulmann wounds...

As for the houserules:

I like to try this houseruling 'cos it give the opportunity to narrate schulmann's actions after each PC, giving the sense he's able to respond to PC actions blow after blow. To not owerwhelm them i'm going to limit him to a single offensive spell per turn, using only long recharging actions like shooting star and lightining, and maybe removing recharge token only once at the end of round. The same apply if he choose to attack the ward. Of course, whitout that houserule i would use quickcasting each time!

Just finished the campaign.

The group killed the mage only after firing two shots with a crossbow from long range. He had used the 'storm defence and soak' ability, but still, he was an easy target.

plutonick said:

LooooL! is always funny how players can spoil hours of GM's work in just a minute!!

So did u used the RAW rules? how your players took this? they had fun or was a bit anti-climatic?

Ok let me elaborate.

I used RAW. The players wanted to shoot, eventhough we were in the 'chase scene'. On the final parts of the chase scene, the players could see him at extreme range, and they had Longbows. So, one of the pushed the boat on the river, and 2 of them started shooting with 2 purple dice, 1 black for the rain, (they had infravision), 1 black because the mage was partly concealed by his boat, and the boat was also moving, and 4 black because of the stormshroud (?) spell, and another black because of his defence. But no matter, he got shot twice.

It was almost impossible to damage the nexus, and I had no time to hit the players (or the boat) with spells.

The whole encounter was entertaining though, partly because the players were ecstatic that they managed to render my hours of studying the rules for his spell useless. They like that sort of thing. They even did it while fighting Mourn. 2 arrow shots and he was down. And then it was even more entertaining when the comet showed up. They were all swiming like there was no tomorrow. I made them make rolls, no matter their distance to the spot that the comet hit. THose that failed, suffered damage nonetheless (I was angry, what can I say).

An interesting question that came up was, 'why a lone, wimpy mage can row his boat faster than 4 of us taking turns on the oars?'

I am sure, I must have missed something. The encounter can't be THAT easy.

wow...that was pretty impressive by your archers! well...u had lucky players it seems!

In fact the one about schulmann rowing is a good question, so i think i will burrow something from your encounter and i will make schulmann simply floating in the azyr current from a point on.

Reading your experience i'm even more willing to houserule this encounter, i will post the outcome as soon as we finish...but my players got so bashed by beastmen that the lightining stone is still in the marshland...so quite a few session in the future!

Here we go...after much work we finally got a chance to end TGS "gran finale"!!

My party (an agent, good archer - a roadwarder, balanced char. and a thief, good melee fighter), after some harsh beating by beastmen in order to recover the last stone piece (all critically wounded, the agent also very close to pass out), get fooled by schulmann and started the chase in the heart of a storming night!!

The chasing chase was pretty good...i love the progress tracker! the fight was a bit dull, even if i've houseruled hardly in favour of the mage. In fact i stated that schulmann got 3 actions per round (one after each PC) but following this routine

1. channel power

2. defensive spell (quickcasted)

3. attack spell (to players or ward) (quickcasted)

Mi players started the encounter at extreme range, but since the had horses, i let them a bonus free movement manouvre.

ROUND 1

The Agent pushed his horse, taking fatigue but arriving at long range. Using his longbow and his specialization "mounted combat" badly injured schulmann, halving his wounds. (ok the shot was preatty standard, only one purple and a couple of black)

Schulmann draws magical energies from the storm, preparing to cast his spells

The other 2 pc arrived at long range too

Schulmann screwed casting "storm shroud", leaving him barely naked! but managed to damage the waystone...the end draws near, since he arrived at 10 space on the track!! (but i think this was a big fault by me...)

ROUND 2

The agent moved to medium and fired another arrow...almost killing him outright! only by chance, he got some malus that hindered his damage output, leavind Schulmann whit a critical and only 1 wound left!!

Schulmann replenished his magical supply, arriving at 12 or something like this...clearly Azyr runs strongly around him

The other two arrives at medium range and recover Schulmanns boat on the river's bank (the mage is currently fluctuating above the river!)

Schulmann casts one of his magical shield, and as last action decide to take out the agent whit his lighting bolt (spending also 2 cunning): the roll was not impressive (i hoped for something like 3 or more criticals!!) but anyway the agent is put out of combat, way past his wound treshold and whit 3 total criticals...for now isn't dead, yet!! unfortunately, schulmann push himself too far, emptying his magical supplies for a chaos star!

ROUND 3 (since only 2 player left, i removed one of schulmann's actions)

The thief grab oars and star to push the boat in the middle of the storm, badly fatiguing himself but arriving at engaded range from the mage

Schulmann desperately channel more magin inside his body

The roadwarden, sensing that they was in desperate needs, decide to "perform a stunt"...managing to jump on schulmann and grab him! the roll was a success and after a brief fight under the water, schulmann disappear under the waves!

END of ACT&Rally - I'm quite disappointed by the mage, which taked damage easly, whit to less in return!

ROUND 4

The players on the boat manage to get back onto the river's bank, to check about the wounded friend.

The comet is still falling, but pass at the second space....

ROUND 5

Meanwhile the thief recover the horses, calming them whit a ride check, the roadwarder charge the wounded agent on his back, buuuuuut...

The comet strucks!!

Being all at mid range from the waystone, they dont take damage from the impact, but have to make a resilence check....despite using all the avaible fortune dices and "favoured by fate" ability, NO ONE pass this test!

The most unfortunate was the roadwarden...whit a chaos star he get a critical and pass out from fatigue, dooming his fate: He saved the agent life, but disappears in the waters and his corpse will never be found again...

In the end was a fun encounter, but proved to me that spellcaster are quite weak in this edition (even if schulmann lighting bolt have the potential to one-shot anyone of my players in this encounter). The roadwarden's player was not happy by the outcome. maybe i was to harsh, but i wanted some 's dead to make the victory bitter! Though it was comical that he have already seen this dead in his dreams caused by the stones, and the sigmars's priest just saluted him like they will never meet again....... so we played out that he was already doomed from the very beginning, and that PC can't shape theirs destiny at all...IT IS ALL ALREADY WRITTED!!

Nice write up ... sounds fun

My players had a really good fight, with Schulman getting his +4 to defense and soak, it was just hard enough for them to hit him. But none where built for maximum range damage.

I used Lightning on the Nexus cap and it pretty easy to get a crit with (to help open the cap).

My players hit him with two crossbow bolts, but with a soak of 5 it didn't kill him, he then lightning bolted the boat and everyone in armor had to swim for their lives while he blasted at the nexus. There was one character on shore but he had a hard time hitting with a defense of 4. One player eventually climb into his boat and killed him just before his action where he would might have broken the seal open (depending on if his lightning bolt had a crit). It was very close.

Ranged combat is definitly overpowered in its current format.

No penalties for long/extreme range

An archer type can start with 5 agi, and get 6 agi pretty quickly.

With rapid fire, I've seen elves do nearly 40 damage in one round (from extreme range!)

If I remember correctly, only certain bows can fire at Extreme range and add an extra Challenge die to do so.

My group applies a Misfortune die for each range increment, which was an idea I pilfered from a post here.

oooh...seems poor Schulmann is dying a lot of time in ours campaigns!

Yeah i think adjusting difficulties for ranges is something i will introduce in my next adventures...i never added more tha 2 black dices for distance/weather but they are not that influential.

Since Schulmann could already add up to 4 misfurtune from his spell, i would suggest to make all the shootings in this encounter at least standard (2d) diffculty, to sum up factors like medium/long range + really stormy weather...

Anyway we had great fun whit TGS....i really hope FFG will publish some more of this shorts campaigns!