ASOIAI Adventure Mechanics

This adventure uses a number of special game mechanics, outlined below. Many of these mechanics are enabled or built upon by side quests the players can undertake, so don’t worry if you feel like you’re missing a bit of context when first reading this section. Reading the adventure in its entirety is recommended before running it so you can understand how all the different parts fit together.

Exploration and Time Management

This adventure is separated into days which are then separated into four discrete time slots—morning, afternoon, evening, and night. The resort area is also split into distinct nodes on a map with paths connecting them.

Adventuring in an unexplored area (a single node) takes one time slot of a day, but once the party has adventured in an area and discovers paths to other nodes, it is considered mapped and can be passed through quickly without taking up a timeslot if it is safe and easy to navigate—certain nodes are marked as Dangerous, either always or for specific times of day, and require active exploration to pass through even after being mapped. Revisiting a previously explored node can also take up a time slot if the players are looking for something they’ve missed or trying to find a hidden passageway elsewhere.

To sum up, spend a time slot when:

• Traveling into a new location to adventure and explore
• Revisiting an old location to find something missed, like a quest item or hidden passage
• Passing through a previously mapped but Dangerous node

Do not spend time when:

• Returning to the resort from any node
• Traveling through a previously explored node to reach another node with a known path

A good rule of thumb is that if you’re handwaving the travel segment and handling it off screen, it takes no time, but if it requires on-screen exploration, it takes time.

The player-facing copy of the resort map only includes the original hiking paths that are supposed to exist, but these don’t necessarily reflect the actual paths that are available now due to avalanches blocking paths, hidden trails and caves providing unmarked paths between nodes, etc. Your GM copy of the resort map shows all the true paths between nodes, and as your players mark nodes as explored, you should reveal to them all the obvious paths out of that node. The only paths you should conceal are the ones explicitly marked as secret that they can discover as a bonus—and only if they don’t find them, of course!

Resting and Camping

Players will not receive Camp Supplies they can carry around and use freely during this adventure. Instead, the resort will start with 2 Resort Supplies, which represent the fuel needed to keep the resort properly heated. One Resort Supply is automatically spent at the start of a new day. Players can gain the recovery benefits of a Camp Phase taken at the resort building once per day as long as this Resort Supply was spent, and a Camp Phase takes one time slot to perform.

This distinction is important because players cannot hold onto Resort Supplies during a day they don’t want to spend them, and they cannot gain the recovery benefits of Camping multiple times in one in-game day by spending additional supplies.

Additionally, if a Camp Phase is taken any time besides the night time slot, the PCs and their Pokemon only recover half as much HP as normal due to disrupting their sleep cycles. Some quests will require adventuring at night or be easier at complete at night under the cover of darkness.

Normally, Pokemon that are defeated in battle and then caught recover HP starting from 0, meaning they will not be at full HP on the day after without using Potions. However, because of the nature of this self-contained playtest scenario, instead defeated Pokemon are set to full HP after the first time they rest so players can make use of their new Pokemon more easily. Cold Weather While the party is presumed to have cold weather gear suitable for normal winters, some nodes are hit particularly hard by the blizzard and suffering from Extreme Cold that requires additional cold protection to endure. While adventuring in an Extreme Cold node without stronger protections, all characters make Skill Checks with Disadvantage and take +1 Bane to all rolls in combat. Afterwards, whether the party simply passed through or actively adventured in the node, all Trainers and all non-Ice-Type Pokemon who were used during that time lose HP equal to their Recovery Value.

Cold protection can be found in two forms in this adventure:

• A large Fire-Type Pokemon trained to provide cold protection. Each such Pokemon can provide its heating services for one time slot per day before needing to rest, and while active, the party will have to travel at the Pokemon’s pace, and the Pokemon may be a target in battle that must be protected! Note that simply passing through an explored node does not consume this once per day service because it’s presumed you’re traveling through quickly. There are two Pokemon in the adventure that can play this role. The party’s Scorbunny starter is too small and doesn’t generate enough heat, unfortunately!
  • The resort’s Torkoal, which the players will have access to almost immediately in the adventure
  • A Coalossal that belongs to a group of lost travelers—it becomes available once the players successfully rescue the lost travelers and bring them back to the resort.
• Powered heating vests that require Batteries to power. One Battery per character (Trainer or Pokemon) is expended per time slot spent exploring in Extreme Cold. Once activated, these vests will consume a minimum of 1 Battery. This means traveling through a previously explored Extreme Cold node and then exploring a normal node takes 1 Battery still despite not consuming a time slot in the cold node, but it also only costs 1 Battery to pass through a previously explored Extreme Cold node and then explore another. Powered heating vests are recovered from the Mountain Outpost during the Snow Signal side quest.

In battle, treat the Torkoal and the Coalossal as large sized Pokemon with Defense values of 6 for all stats. They will stay at the backline and only take a movement action at the start of each round to move up to 5 spaces towards a safer square. They do not have normal HP, but instead have a track of 10 stamina boxes. Being hit by damaging attacks depletes these boxes—1 for a Resisted attack, 2 for a neutral attack, and 3 for a Super-Effective attack. If all stamina boxes are depleted, they need to be returned to a Poke Ball and will need a full day of rest to recover and be ready to accompany the party while exploring again. Potions can restore 2 stamina boxes to these Pokemon but only if they are not already at 0 stamina boxes.

No one likes an impossible escort mission, so don’t make enemies go way out of their way to target these Pokemon; they’re more likely to focus on the threat posed by the players and their Pokemon.

Supply

Supply is treated differently for this adventure. The party will begin with 3 Potions each and other starting Supply Items assigned to their pregenerated characters. The resort has a collection of old supplies, mostly in the form of battle and survival gear, that needs to be sifted through and repaired before it’s usable. This allows each player to gain 1 SP worth of Supply Items each morning as long as there are Resort Supplies to spend for the day, and these items persist until the end of the adventure.

The items available to buy with SP are as follows. Each line here costs 1 SP:

• 1x Gourmet Ingredients
• 2x Batteries
• 2x Compressed Air Canisters
• 2x Pester Ball
• 2x Cap Ammo
• 2x Bait
• 2x Repels

However, until a side quest is completed to stop the night time raids wild Pokemon are conducting on the resort, one type of Supply Item each night will be rendered unavailable for the duration of the adventure, in the following order:

• Gourmet Ingredients (Night 1)
• Batteries and Pressurized Air Canisters (Night 2)
• Pester Balls and Cap Cannon Ammo (Night 3)
• Repels and Bait (Night 4)

The party can also complete a side quest to give Phillis, the resort doctor, a medicinal herb called the Queen’s Comb needed to improvise medicine at the resort. This grants each player 1 Potion each morning as long as Resort Supply is successfully spent that day.