So, post-dinner and Person of Interest and giving my son a bath, positives: The concept of running a procedural rather than a dungeon-crawl or a save-the-world storyline is brilliant. (Although 'stop the disgruntled Shoanti from raising an undead army to sack Magnimar' gets a little close to save-the-world.) I like the idea that if we fail, a criminal element just stays on the streets, and if we succeed, well, there's always some other crime out there. Civilization won't fall, neither will we be hailed as heroes, no matter what we do. It's all just another day on the job.
(In the spirit of a procedural, though, I wonder if the team wouldn't benefit from some specialization of labor: the lead investigator, the back-up, the muscle, the good cop, the bad cop, the technical wizard who never leaves his desk, the sassy black coroner, etc., instead of everyone being involved in every stake-out and shoot-out. We did a little of that early on in our splitting up in pairs and investigating, but that was more a function of covering ground than of recognizing areas of expertise. Again, I think a little more time (both in the sense of in-game time and in the sense of team-building time) will help. Obviously, the early character turnover hasn't helped.)
The NPCs have been interesting. I would like to see them continue to crop up in future installments, not just designed PCs like Stafford and Percival, but random people like Lyeban and Rimblesnuffin and Rav Kinman and Teeka the halfling, either as thorns in our side or as people to go to for help and information, depending on our earlier interactions with them. Oh, and that crazy homeless guy with the bugs who was there before I joined the game; it'd be nice to keep running into him as a witness to various things. And Wallis the bald caterer who was obviously trying to steal something from Stafford's place! I wonder if he got away with anything in the ruckus. I bet we'll end up having to track him down.
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With regard to hit points, rolling for hit points is great until you roll a 1. One DM gives a base number of hit points by HD type then has us roll a d4 such that the maximum possible hit points equals the character's hit die. For example, a fighter would get (6+1d4) hit points and a sorcerer would have (2+1d4). That allows the high hit die classes to be assured of a certain amount of beefiness, while also insuring the low hit die classes have a base level of survivability.
As for how tough Veristan was, DMing is, in my opinion, more art than science. He was one tough bad guy. Probably too tough for us. Nazard recognized that and, through Joana's excellent role playing, gave us some much needed help. And he was just that, help, not retcon or deus ex machina that saved the day. That is excellent DMing.
I figure that after this case, our group will have a bit of a mixed reputation. Sure we got the job done, but we took out half the city doing it. The nobles will continue to dislike us, but the folks in underbridge will like us more. If we weren't before, we are now seen as the misfits we are.
Capt. Percival pushed us probably because he didn't choose this case. He was assigned it. It was supposed to be hard. His detractors wanted him to have something for him to fail at and his supporters wanted something difficult enough to be seen as important yet just within his ability to succeed at. And you know what they say about things rolling downhill.
Well, as for recurring NPCs, I won't give anything away, but one of those you listed was actually written for the second adventure and I pulled him/her out when the PCs went somewhere I didn't expect. Now, s/he looks like a piece of brilliant fore-shadowing. With a TV show, they have to hire and pay actors, which can be the biggest impediment to casual recurring characters, and why previously unimportant characters can suddenly and unrealistically become a main focus. With this style, I have total freedom.
Another one from your list was designed to be a recurring NPC from the get-go.
This is all good stuff though, so thanks, and thanks to Dax for the compliments.
It could be interesting to split the group up into those roles (if only to see Calatin playing the role of the sassy black coroner {go Castle!!}), but then we run the risk of some players having nothing to do while a combat drags on somewhere else, and the difficulty for me of not knowing how to plan an encounter because I won't know which characters will be present. Besides, I thought the opening bit where everybody split off into pairs worked really well (that was just before you arrived, though).
Also, the enjoiner wouldn't have let him raise an undead army. It applies undead traits (mainly a ghoul's touch) to critters you summon; they still vanish when the spell's over. It would have allowed him to gain some power and noteriety, however, to return as a major villain much further down the road, if he'd gotten away with the final fragment.
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Hit points
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I have one last detail to hammer out before starting (we can get a bit of a start before characters are completely finished, as there is some meet the people stuff we can do before your first case actually begins), and that is the matter of pay. It has to be high enough to make it worth while for adventurers to take it, but not too high as to interest anybody past first level. Obviously, it will scale with level (raises), but the starting amount needs to be appropriate. Reasonable living expenses in the city will be covered for you (an abandoned garrison building is being given over to you, which include places to sleep and eat), but you would still get some spending cash. I'm looking at it as soldiers get 1sp per day, which would be 7 per week. 1gp per week is too little, but 10 seems like a lot, so I was thinking of going with 5 gp per level per week. You would also be allowed the spoils of adventuring as per normal, except when the rightful ownership of something you find is obvious (if you're tasked to recover an artifact from the Temple of Iomedae, you can't turn around and hock it instead of returning it to the Temple).
emphasis mine
=========================================================================For character role, I like how things worked out this case. Breaking off into teams felt right. I built Awgin to be a combatant and investigator. He looked for someone go with that would complement his weak areas, ie Laya.
Well, three more days or so and Garidan will have five gold! Unless they start counting from the day he actually joined the group, in which case he has to wait another six days. And I guess he's not technically on the payroll yet, as he's just consulting. ;)
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As for how tough Veristan was, DMing is, in my opinion, more art than science. He was one tough bad guy. Probably too tough for us. Nazard recognized that and, through Joana's excellent role playing, gave us some much needed help. And he was just that, help, not retcon or deus ex machina that saved the day. That is excellent DMing.
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This is an excellent observation. Summon Taverson worked out well and may have made Auriel the most important contributor to our success despite her frustration with the actual combat. It was a nice on-the-fly adjustment by Nazard.
Actually, the hideous laughter spell, which prevented Veristan from casting summon eidolon was the key move. By the time the laughter had worn off, he was too injured and threatened to risk it. He tried a grease spell on the longspear, but Taverson readied an attack which hit, telling Veristan he had two worries now, which just left panicked escape as his last option. The fire guys for distraction didn't work because the group stuck it out and used teamwork, and Heward braved the table a couple crucial rounds (once somebody finally realized what the table was really there for!!).
Looks like Laya's still in the group. :)
Laya pretty much expected Percival to reject her resignation, but was willing to go through with it had he not done so.
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Looks like I'll go for a second level of Witch then - thanks for the info Nazard!
For the adventure, I also liked the investigation part (both what I read and the little bit I was along for) while it was happening... but by the end it looked as if that investigative effort hadn't gained us anything much at all - we still ended up fighting Veristan on his terms, in a location where we had little control of the situation, and had no more clue how to beat him than when the group first fought him. What preparations we had made he surgically bypassed by turning up in a mundane disguise and not sneaking in invisible, and then by not even trying to sneak into the room where we were forced to hole up with the enjoiner. I did find myself wondering if simply taking the magic crossbow from one NPC to another NPC would have been better for everyone all round, since that's basically what won the day. I hope this doesn't all sound too harsh, but I'm actually highly critical of 'detective' shows and stories in general, and those stories where you realise in a moment of fridge logic that the protagonists would have been better off, or gotten the same result, by not actually doing anything at all always bug me... and in the end this seemed to turn out that way (if we'd never done anything at all, Stafford's own security would have won the day). If we'd been allowed to track Veristan down to his lair (take the fight to him on our terms), or uncover some weakness or other, or even just discover his motivations, then the whole thing would have been much better, IMHO. As it was, once the three-part nature of the enjoiner was discovered we seemed to be on the tracks for a fight outside of our weight class...
For Veristen himself I don't think his level was actually that much of a problem: it was his tactics - they were far too good! He did a lot of things which sensible PCs do, but which are well known 'game changers'. He not only used invisibility against a group who had no reliable way to counter it, he conjurered from invisible, which is one of the most powerful tactics in the game. He also, in the last battle, got beyond melee range and made himself immune to ranged attacks - again, a completely sensible tactic from his point of view, but something the PCs weren't in any position to counter, and that just locked the majority of the characters (and therefore their players) out of the action, which should never be the goal (again, IMHO). He was also conjuring the most powerful monsters possible for his level - sensible again, but even a lone small elemental is meant to be a level appropriate challenge for a 1st level group - a horde of them with support casting and an eidolon can end in nothing but a massacre. If there had been some story-appropriate reason for Veristan to, for example, have already expended some of his daily spell allowance when he faced off against the PCs, or to use less optimal tactics, he would have come across as a much better bad guy. An overwhelmingly powerful bad guy you're meant to fight (and not counter in some non-combat fashion or simply run away from) just comes across as a bully - it's not exciting to fight such a guy, 'cos characters dropping left and right is inevitable: it's only a couple of steps away from the DM dropping rocks.
The setting is great, the descriptions and the way the NPCs come across are excellent. With the enjoiner being played up as a doomsday device, and the PCs not being allowed to even move the thing, it did feel a lot like being railroaded into the final battle - a battle (essentially) won by an NPC (although I was really happy to see Heward get the final blow it!) - which, for me, dulled an otherwise great adventure. If future investigations could have more tangible results, and the PCs were given more freedom to make a difference against level-appropriate challenges (I imagined more taking down street gangs and such at low level play, than trying to save the world...) then I think my personal enjoyment of the game will increase greatly.
Again - I hope that feedback doesn't come across as too negative: it is an enjoyable game, and the effort you put in, Nazard, is appreciated! Thanks for running the campaign!
I have to agree that there was a sense that we were going to have the big knock-down drag-out showdown in the house of the captain's nemesis on the night of his big party, no matter what we did. On the one hand, it doesn't make sense that Stafford would refuse to hand over his objet into protective custody rather than risk having his house trashed and daughter's coming out ruined; if instead of being a debut, it had been a party for all his friends to see the fancy new antique he just acquired, his stubbornness would have seemed more reasonable. If, on the other hand, as the evidence seems to suggest, Stafford's own personal security is several levels of magnitude above what the Watch can provide, it makes more sense -- but then why wouldn't he just put Taverson and his men on the job in the first place instead of entrusting it to the bumbling stooges of his political enemy?
Things were supposed to go down in such a way that the PCs felt a bit overwhelmed, so at least that worked. As for the personal security being much beefier than the PCs, only Taverson was higher level, and alone he would have been toast as well.
The railroading bugged me as well, especially since I promised myself that I wouldn't do any railroading in this game. I think I got caught up too much in the need to introduce several key NPCs, and if the party simply made off with the enjoiner and holed up in their HQ, it woudn't have been possible. The next two mysteries should be better in that regard.
A certain amount of railroading is probably going to happen regardless, though, given the nature of the adventures. The villain has his plan, there are certain times and locations where he makes his moves. I did consider having Lord Stafford go to show you the enjoiner, only to find that it had already been stolen, leaving you to track Veristan down to his lair and fight him there with a completed enjoiner, but after the fight at Rimblesnuffin's that was clearly going to be a TPK.
Keep all the feedback coming, folks. Gotta thicken up the skin for Superstar 2012 anyway!
I don't have a whole lot to add that others haven't already said. I agree that the villain was a little too powerful; however, I think that was made worse by the fact that we never had a battle where we could actually handle ourselves without a ton of difficulty.
I applaud the idea of a low-combat campaign and the idea that the only combats will be important, relevant ones. There were only two battles total, which sounds great on the surface. However, both battles were against the same opponent and both times, we only made it through by the skin of our teeth. It can make good drama to have an encounter where the villain gets away. It helps make the characters more determined to get the villain in the end. But we also needed a situation where we came out on top, to help build a bit of confidence, especially since our characters have not really been designed for heavy combat situations. I really think that if we had had another combat in which we took on a lower-powered underling of Veristan, then the final battle with Veristan could have been just as tough without seeming as over-the-top tough.
Admittedly, combat can move slowly in pbp and every added combat runs the risk of making a low-combat game seem like a heavy-combat game. However, I don't think just one more would have hurt much.
I also agree that the finale of the adventure felt rather railroaded. It doesn't feel that we solved a mystery, more that we just followed the villain from one job to the next, then got lucky in the last one and caught him. I know that's not literally true, as there was quite a bit of investigation early on in which we worked out the existence of the enjoiner. However, by the end of the adventure, it was easy to forget the early parts since we more or less had our actions dictated to us.
All that said, I should add that nevertheless, I have greatly enjoyed the game. I'm having a lot of fun with Laya and I'm glad that she hasn't managed (yet) to get herself thrown out. I would be sad to have to create a new character. :)
Everybody's having so much fun taking me up on my request to tell me everything they'd like different (not actually bitter in the least, though, it's all really useful stuff), I thought I'd take this opportunity to make a request of my own.
Can all players with casters who prepare spells put together a list of spells they usually prepare for any given "normal" day (i.e. one where they aren't expecting combat/action)? On days where you expect investigations or combat, you can specify a custom list, but I'd like to know who has what prepped for the unexpected. Please also include cantrips/orisons in that list.
Also, we're about done with the aftermath at the manor, so everybody can feel free to start leveling up their characters.
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Adventure Design
1) Was the mystery plausible?
- I think it was.
2) Were there enough clues to come to reasonable conclusions?
- Yes
3) Did the mystery seem like it would require characters with PC classes to handle/solve?
- Interesting question.
4) Was the mystery the proper length?
- I have no real opinion here.
5) Did the adventure have the right number of encounters?
- Yes. The precise number.
6) Did the adventure have the right mix of different types of encounters?
- There was investigation, social encounters, and combat. In the combats we were over matched, but there is never a guarantee of a 'fair' encounter.
7) Did the adventure feel appropriate for the party level?
- It was fun, though we were over matched.
8) Did the adventure work as a crime mystery?
- Yes
Character Design
1) Did the NPCs feel interesting enough?
- Yes. Each had personality.
2) Did the villain feel evil?
- With only one encounter, I can't really say, but he was smart and potent.
3) How badly did your character want to kill the BBEG in the end?
- I actually wanted to kill Lord Stafford more. Veristan was a physical threat. I could actually compete with him, though at a severe disadvantage. Lord Stafford is all but untouchable by me and he knew it. that makes him a more aggravating 'enemy'.
4) How badly did you, the player, want to see the BBEG “get his own” in the end?
- I actually wanted the snake more than the summoner. Awgin is not the most arcanically savvy.
Play Experience
1)Did your character have enough to do during this adventure?
- Yes.
2) Did you as a player feel you got a fair amount of “screen time”?
- Yes.
3) How was the pacing of play?
- It was good. I felt you forwarded at good points.
4) How was the pacing of in-game action?
- It was smooth and swift.
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I think that railroading is a danger faced by all PbP DMs, since the format lacks face-to-face play's capacity for quick back and forth between players and DM - and it's that quick back and forth banter which allows the tabletop group to rapidly determine which directions are dead ends, to nudge each other forward, and to get immediate clarifications on in-game situations. With a PbP, where any individual player and the DM may exchange one comment each a day (if they're lucky and there's no real world stuff in the way on either side of the equation), all that can quickly bog down a game until it grinds to a halt. Therefore a PbP DM tends to need to direct the action a little more, to keep the pace of the game up... and it's a fine line (and a blurred line, as different people hold different expectations) between that and railroading.
In the case of the adventure, I think that quite a lot of the 'railroady' feel came from Lord Stafford being an ass... which is obviously an integral part of his character, so had to happen, but it just happened to not mesh well with the rest of the situation faced by the player characters. Up until you actually said 'adventure's done', Nazard, I was honestly still convinced that Stafford was in on the whole thing - that he'd hired Veristan to steal the parts of the enjoiner for him, and staged the very public robbery from his own house (under circumstances calculated for Veristan to succeed) simply to throw everyone off the scent that he was the mastermind. That was the best explaination I could come up with... apart from Stafford being a total idiot (which now seems to be the case... as articulated expertly by Laya :) ).
Day-to-day spell's: Garidan was actually using his usually prepared spell list for this adventure, as it seemed a bit too meta-gamey for me to have prepared something specific before he knew anything about the case. The two detect cantrips and the guidance seem like the sort of generally helpful stuff he'd have prepared, and the enlarge person I reason he keeps handy to help justify his reputation in the Shoanti community as a somewhat scary character (let's hope none of 'em saw him getting b!tch-slapped by three-foot tall elementals!), whilst his second first level spell slot he keeps open ('cos you never know what a general day may bring). Of course, this may change now after the events of the adventure and, naturally, having more slots due to levelling, but I'll add something to his sheet.
Garidan, level 2 (Witch):
Skills: (2 Witch + 3 Int + 1 human)
Craft (alchemy) 2 ranks
Handle Animal 2 ranks
Intimidate +1 rank
Spellcraft +1 rank
Hits Points:
+ 1 favoured class
+ 2 Constitution bonus
BAB +1
Will Save +1
Hex - cauldron
New spells known: Frostbite, Mage Armour
For Garidan
Work, holidays and prepping visits by the in-laws is leaving me rather busy IRL. I will post when I can. Don't mistake slow posting for lack of interest. DMPC Heward as necessary.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.
Edit: And Heward's hit points
You realize the magic item we're planning to destroy is our treasure, right? Put that thing up for auction at Meisner's and we could buy actual equipment if we weren't all so ethical. :)
While I think we should just trash our enjoiner piece, if Heward found out what it was worth, he could be swayed to sell it and split the cash.
Considering there's no actual ability tied to the magic aura as long as the enjoiner is in pieces, I don't guess de-magicking the thing should hurt its resale value too much. We ought to find out what Kinman and Rimblesnuffin were asking for their pieces (and are again, I suppose, now that they've been recovered) and what Stafford and Mikobar paid for theirs at Meisner's. Virtually all of the value of the piece ought to be in its age and craftsmanship.
In my local newspaper today, a reader was bewildered by the fact that a pastry store known as The CupCakery had a sign posted in its front window that it had applied for a liquor license. Cupcakes and beer: not far from mead and muffins. :)
I'm assuming no one told her that it was her about to be crushed by the eidolon the previous night -- or that the only reason she wasn't was because she's a PC and not a DMPC, which is a shame because it would certainly add to her existential angst. :)
Totally off any topic, but I just read this and it has to be one of the funniest things I've read on these boards.
As soon as you set up the aliases, we'll stop talking to them. :)
I seem to recall seeing one one lady avatar with a rather severe pony tail and glasses, but she might do. Will go looking later.
Laurel from Falcon's Hollow? She's in there somewhere. And I think there's at least one really elderly-looking female avatar, but she doesn't look very grandmotherly.
No she doesn't. This will teach me to create my NPCs with backstory and personality in mind rather than Paizo's limited selection of humanoid head shots.
For future reference, any and all gnomes in play must look like Lini. :)
So what do we need here, "It's a Wonderful Life - Auriel Edition"?
Everytime a bell rings...
No, I don't know. She's been confronted by her own mortality and the general meaninglessness of everything she's spent her life doing so far. She needs something to care about. She hasn't really bonded with the rest of the team to say she's doing it out of friendship and loyalty, and Golarion religions don't seem terribly inspiring to the apathetic soul. She grew up on 'be good and responsible and boring and you'll get to go on being good and responsible and boring in some heavenly plane after this life' and isn't very interested in the prospect.
What motivates her? She was desperate to save the oblivious people in Lowcleft, and at Stafford's, she wanted to make sure all the serving staff got out safely. Honestly, she didn't care that much about the prospect of Mikobar getting the enjoiner, as that's too long term and vague to engage her; she was concerned with the tangible people then and there. Puts her at odds with the rest of the team, which was basically just concerned with the mission.
So: short term thinking, identifies with the at least semi-oppressed, disregard for authority. Where can we go with that to keep her on task?
Shortly before nine, Captain Percival arrives to take Laya to the Pediment Building to appear before a judge. It is a closed proceeding, but the rest of you are welcome to come along for moral support. Percival assures everybody that things will turn out well, or at least, well enough, and sure enough, a while later the two emerge from the courtroom, able to return to the MSI building.
Skimming over that, are you? Afraid that Laya might say something that just makes things worse? ;)
No worries, although I will point out that, just as she said, Laya does not plead guilty to charges of threatening Stafford, no matter what Percival orders her to do. She will plead guilty to insulting him, however.
Shortly before nine, Captain Percival arrives to take Laya to the Pediment Building to appear before a judge. It is a closed proceeding, but the rest of you are welcome to come along for moral support. Percival assures everybody that things will turn out well, or at least, well enough, and sure enough, a while later the two emerge from the courtroom, able to return to the MSI building.Skimming over that, are you? Afraid that Laya might say something that just makes things worse? ;)
No worries, although I will point out that, just as she said, Laya does not plead guilty to charges of threatening Stafford, no matter what Percival orders her to do. She will plead guilty to insulting him, however.
Go check your e-mail! :P
Go check your e-mail! :P
Ah! Received!
Merry Christmas!
You assigned homework. And I still have to level up Auriel and don't know what to do with her.
Mrs. Brigglepsan does indeed have particulars on Markiv (and indeed in all of you, so if there's any specific information, either true or false, that your character would have wanted to give her, let me know)
Auriel would have listed her parents as next of kin along with the address of their shoe shop in the Marches. Religion would be blank on her form as well....
Well, I didn't mean the players had to write up reports (although I had toyed with the idea of creating a template where players could indicate which details they included to see if it came back to aunt them later, but that's a little immersive for a pbp).
As for how to level Auriel, I would suggest keep going the way you have been, just adding a combat-appropriate spell into the mix.
Yes, I know -- making the rest of us look bad. :P
Anyway, I think it would do me good to actually write her report like Dax did, if I can figure out how she'd do it. If I can find her voice, maybe I'd have an easier time knowing what to do with her. I don't know if it's because I don't like bards in general or what, but I just can't get hold of her.
Maybe she needs some grouding outside the MSI buiding. Some NPCs she can know in Lowcleft. She's certainly not likely to hang out with Heward or Garidan for fun and friendship. Maybe she'll go looking for Teeka and meet up with some people there. Is there a temple of Calistria in Magnimar? City this size, you'd think there'd be at least a shrine.
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Well, if you're not liking Auriel, it's not too late to swap her out. I don't think it would break realism to say she's just not digging the MSI life. Personally, I'm enjoying the character (though I enjoy all your characters) even if she is proving a headache to GM for!
And yes, there is a temple to Calistria somewhere in the city, probably multiple: one in the nicer areas and one down in the red light district, probably Lowcleft.
I think that should henceforth be my motto: enjoyable characters that are a headache to GM. I do tend to run misfits of various kinds. ;)
I'll stick with Auriel for at least another case. I like her too, if I could just figure out what she wants out of life. She's been drifting aimlessly since she left the shoe shop, but her brush with mortality ought to make her look for something to focus on.
My husband and kids are home all day until the New Year which makes it hard for me to gather my thoughts to post (I'm easily distracted), but I'll try to get a transition post up tomorrow. I think she'll go back to Lowcleft and look around for Teeka and maybe bump into some Calistrians while she's down there, get some spiritual guidance. Maybe that'll give me the creativity boost I'm needing for her.
All right, I think I've got a handle on her now. Definitely going Calistrian, and it'll work in that whip everyone's so fond of, too. Nazard, do you have the Calistria article in Pathfinder 17? Do you want to work up a vague idea of what the temple in Lowcleft is like, or would you like me to? I'm assuming it's going to be largely focused on improving the lives of the working girls and boys in the district, while the grander temple would be more into the elaborate revenge schemes the upper classes have the time and money to concoct.