Mansion of Madness "Rewards" and Scaling (spoilers)

[klecser]

In the adventure "Mansion of Madness" from the Mansions of Madness adventure collection, there is a strange aspect of the consequences and rewards section.  We are two parts through and I'm worried about the Crater Mansion encounter.

 

The first paragraph reads:

"If the investigators rescue Andrew Keetling, award 2D6 Sanity points: if they also kill Josephine or otherwise prevent her from enacting the Assumption of Night rituals, it costs each investigator 2D4 Sanity points."

 

I simply do not understand this last part.  I suppose it makes sense that killing Garsetti when they could help try to redeem her would cost Sanity.  But why would STOPPING HER from conducting a ritual COST them Sanity?  It seems backwards to me.  You stop an arcane Cthuloid ritual, you get rewarded, not penalized.  Is the argument that because she wasn't able to complete the ritual The Thing Beyond The Void just transfers to Crater, so that is a "loss"?  It just seems like an awfully harsh penalty when most players are going to default to "stop the ritual."

 

I can only assume that this is an error because earlier in the adventure it says (referring to completion of the ritual): "Living through the night of terror costs each investigator 1D6 SAN, charged to them the morning after most of the horror is over. If the player characters are out of town by this time, the bloodbath makes headlines everywhere.  They read about it in the papers and lose 1D3 SAN when they realize they are at least partially at fault."

 

The other strange part of this investigation is that Crater and his children have armor of 8/10 and super strong attacks.  I can see how this wouldn't be a problem with experienced investigators with access to magic, but my players are neither.  This isn't a group that is going to appreciate a Gygaxian TPK and they are very investigation focused.  The investigation kind of "expects" the investigators to confront Crater, but that confrontation is basically completely unwinnable (Two 2D6 damage attacks per round for a Crater's Child?)  with an inexperienced/un-magicked party.  Clearly I should have read the stats more closely before starting them.  In what ways can I clue them in to the level of preparation needed?  I've prepped a bit for this with the attached newspaper article, which they will receive the morning after the Garsetti House encounter (they decided to stay an extra day to further explore the house after they rescued Keetling).  If they aren't taking the hint I can play up that Big Al and Chuckie the Rat were huge dudes and they seemed to be no match for whatever attacked them.  I've also thought about maybe Devlin showing up with one of his officers with shotguns.  As the text suggests, perhaps Crater's children focus on capturing, rather than attacking and they only attack on Crater's orders?  Lastly, I could just nerf the damage of Crater's Children to 1D6 damage.   What would you do if you had an inexperienced/unmagicked Party?

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by klecser

[klecser]

bump

[Singemonkey]

Necroposting because I can't find much on this scenario.

I've decided to run this scenario as a one-off for two... just two... investigators. Then I read through the details. A confrontation with Crater or his children is unsurvivable the way it's written. They have multiple attacks. The investigators have no reason in this period to wear any armour. Each blow they sustain is likely to be incapacitating if not lethal - and they get 2 per round. That's if the investigators aren't temporarily insane at the very sight of them and incapable of even engaging. If they can shoot first, the Crater-things' armour is proof against all handguns and likely rifles too unless there's an impale.

What I'm thinking at the moment:

The armour is reduced from 10 to 4 or 5 (slightly less than steel plate). The infants' armour is reduced to 2.

Since my players will play pregens, I think, I'm going to have them be a group of elites, rather than beginner investigators. I don't really have players use spells since they're mythos naiive. But I think they'll have high level skills - secret agent level. Former members of special units in the war with a range of skills. Access to good weapons and the ability to use them well.

This will also stand them in good stead if they experience the purge night - which could be some bloody, purgey 'fun,' if they have the means to defend themselves against many assailants.

[werecorpse]

I haven’t played the scenario but my suggestion for overpowered combat Cthulhu monsters is to try and have them have a weakness. In the case of the crater creatures maybe an easy one to access like bright light, or loud noise? Maybe both? Perhaps in bright light they get a penalty die to all actions and their armour is halved? A loud noise like a gun shot might require them to make a con roll or lose their next action? Maybe Zeke is less affected? Have the investigators able to find clues as to these weaknesses which keeps investigation more important than combat skills which imo is more thematically appropriate for CoC. Have the creatures scuttle away from torches and flee when a shot is fired but the investigators know they are out there somewhere.

[klecser]

It is fun to re-read a post I made three and a half years ago when I was early in Keeping CoC. 😜 

[rsanford]

On 12/20/2021 at 6:29 AM, klecser said:

It is fun to re-read a post I made three and a half years ago when I was early in Keeping CoC. 😜 

That’s because your post are always well thought out and written. I cringe when I read some of my old post!

[klecser]

2 hours ago, rsanford said:

That’s because your post are always well thought out and written. I cringe when I read some of my old post!

I still cringe at this one. The "answer" seems so obvious now. But hey, that's what Keeping experience brings. ;P

[Singemonkey]

On 12/20/2021 at 4:09 AM, werecorpse said:

I haven’t played the scenario but my suggestion for overpowered combat Cthulhu monsters is to try and have them have a weakness. In the case of the crater creatures maybe an easy one to access like bright light, or loud noise? Maybe both? Perhaps in bright light they get a penalty die to all actions and their armour is halved? A loud noise like a gun shot might require them to make a con roll or lose their next action? Maybe Zeke is less affected? Have the investigators able to find clues as to these weaknesses which keeps investigation more important than combat skills which imo is more thematically appropriate for CoC. Have the creatures scuttle away from torches and flee when a shot is fired but the investigators know they are out there somewhere.

Thanks werecorpse. This is really good advice and not something I'd have thought of. I'm beginning the scenario tonight - which is investigation heavy so I don't need to make a final decision yet. I shall try to write up my reflections on this scenario as a fairly novice keeper, since there's not that much written about it. Seth Skorkowski has a good vid about it but he naturally doesn't really address handling it with a two player group.

I've got a bit of a scheme for Sarah Keetling requiring regular updates on the investigation so that replacement investigators don't have to start from scratch in the case of a TPK.

[werecorpse]

On 12/22/2021 at 4:27 AM, klecser said:

I still cringe at this one. The "answer" seems so obvious now. But hey, that's what Keeping experience brings. 😜

What is the “answer” ?

(no snark involved just interested in an opinion)

[klecser]

28 minutes ago, werecorpse said:

What is the “answer” ?

(no snark involved just interested in an opinion)

After writing a couple of scenarios for publication, and reading hundreds of others, it's now pretty clear to me that it can be difficult to come up with "logical rewards" for interacting with existential cosmic dread. Also, sometimes what you write makes perfect sense in your own head and is completely unintelligible to an audience. I think the example in the original post slipped through editing and I took it as deliberate canon. Writers make mistakes.

As a Keeper, I've become quite fond of offering my players choice of reward for whatever I think makes sense. I'm less caught up on what the "right" rewards are. I also offer my players a choice of SAN or Luck or sometimes skill increases, and they can pick where they want to chance a roll or take the low mid. For example, if the reward is 1D6, they can take Luck or SAN. Then, they can roll the 1D6, or take an auto 3. My players are fond of the risk/reward sometimes and the "guarantee" other times.

Since everyone's characters are very different, and since their role within a group can vary as well, a lot of my players "specialize" in being first in the room and take more SAN hits, or are skill-focused, etc...