Question about Intro First Steps Part I in Service To Lore - Spoiler Alert

I had question about that last fight in this scenario. From the descriptive text within the scenario it seemed liked the main goal of the enemies was to rob the pathfinder on their return trip. Emphasize on rob not kill.

If the opponents had overcome the players would it be permissible in PFS if I had ruled that they just robed them and left the party alive but unconscious ?

If so what would have been the ramifications to the players - no gold from the adventure or something worse?

I had question about that last fight in this scenario. From the descriptive text within the scenario it seemed liked the main goal of the enemies was to rob the pathfinder on their return trip. Emphasize on rob not kill.

If the opponents had overcome the players would it be permissible in PFS if I had ruled that they just robed them and left the party alive but unconscious ?

If so what would have been the ramifications to the players - no gold from the adventure or something worse?

They would just rob the Pathfinders. As mentioned in the rewards section of Part 5 each group member gets 129 gp. If they do not overcome the ambush (either by being knocked unconscious or fleeing) deduct that amount from the gold at the end of the scenario.

In response to your post in the other thread, the barbarian can do a lot of damage. He averages around 12.5 a hit and can do 17 without critting. He can drop a caster fairly easily. And then move to his next target. Learning about the pure melee damage potential of barbarians is a pretty well-known feature of this adventure.

I'm not sure what you meant about the "Pathfinder concealment rules." I don't believe any of the enemies try to find concealment. Maybe cover instead? Or was it your players that couldn't get the concealment they wanted?

I believe the sorcerer opens with an obscuring mists. (20% concealment penalty to hit her.)

CommanderG wrote:

As mentioned in the rewards section of Part 5 each group member gets 129 gp. If they do not overcome the ambush (either by being knocked unconscious or fleeing) deduct that amount from the gold at the end of the scenario.

Assume this also means that they do not loss anything they had - like the enemies don't steal their weapons or personal gold for instance?

So they would have gained 417-129 = 288gp total for the scenario.

On the chronicle I would have crossed out Elixir of Healing and Wand of Disguise Self

I believe the sorcerer opens with an obscuring mists. (20% concealment penalty to hit her.)

Yes they disliked the obscuring mist and the tight fighting conditions

Hmm... they are in for a rough time. PFS (especially some of the early seasons.) has a lot of close quarters fights. (And a lot of big terrain fights, and a few ship to ship fights, they do try to mix it up.) But one of the ways PFS deals with creating tactical chalenges for the PCs is giving them tight quarters where they can only bring a fraction of their force to bear.

Also, it seems like almost everywhere PCs go has dim lighting conditions, so unless they are lighting themselves up like targets, or have dark vision, they are going to be dealing with concealment a lot. I sugguest they start saving up for goz masks.

the mist extends for 20 feet around the spot where the Sorcerer casts it. So it really hoses the gang of thieves badly. Much more so than the PCs.

Older thread on this topic.

check the other thread, it's been hashed out pretty well there I think...

FLite wrote:

I believe the sorcerer opens with an obscuring mists. (20% concealment penalty to hit her.)

Yes they disliked the obscuring mist and the tight fighting conditions

Why in the world did they go into the mist? just wait outside it, and see what comes out.

Bad guys cast Ob. Mist, PCs look at the fog cloud 10 foot (or more) away and say... "We'll wait here and see what comes out - anything that does will be coming at us one at a time in that 5' section of ally, and we can face them in our 10 foot wide section. Two of us, to one of them, and we can shoot from back ranks, they can't."

I think everyone was hungry at that point and wanted to go eat :)

That and the main "tank/front line fighter" had blindfight - which actually worked out pretty good for that person. Which was super useful - that person failed their first miss chance roll but made the second one every time.

This is also group of people that for the most part are completely new to 3rd edition/pathfinder type rules.

Lastly I would say overconfidence?

The Act 1 fight lasted 2 rounds, the fight with the imp lasted 1 round, none of us could figure out why the chest room was considered a puzzle.

So the party did not expect that the enemies would not just fall down if you looked at them wrong.

I think everyone was hungry at that point and wanted to go eat :)

That and the main "tank/front line fighter" had blindfight - which actually worked out pretty good for that person. Which was super useful - that person failed there first miss chance roll but made the second one every time.

This is also group of people that for the most part are completely new to 3rd edition/pathfinder type rules.

Last time I ran this (two weeks ago) it was for a group of new players, that included a young girl (running a rogue) and her mom (running a cleric).

If I recall correctly, Ledford moved up into combat and swapped blows with the party Tank (an Pre-Gen Amiri I think) and they kind of fought to a standstill. The PCs won it by healing Amiri, (first with the last Cure spell on the party cleric, then the Cleric moved back to the ally mouth and just channeled (no Selective Channel feat). They did swap out the front line tank once (cool tactic from the 13 year old girl at the table) to put a fresh body in front of Ledford, and finally the cleric just had everyone move back out to the ally and leave the bad guys alone in the mist. (Ledford was down by then, and Deandre was channeling neg. damage from in the mist. So they just left het there - killing off her companions that she couldn't see...).

I might be missing something here, but I know First Steps used to reward XP and Prestige when all three were completed. Do you get XP/PP rewards for In Service To Lore alone now as the others are retired? How many PP?

Thanks

I might be missing something here, but I know First Steps used to reward XP and Prestige when all three were completed. Do you get XP/PP rewards for In Service To Lore alone now as the others are retired? How many PP?

Thanks

actually, even before the retirement of the other two, they were each giving 1 XP and 2 PP... I'll see if I can find a link for that.

Edit:
Link.
here's a link to an old thread that talks about it more in depth...

How could I not find that thread? I searched high and low for anything like that.

Thanks for clearing that up.

How could I not find that thread? I searched high and low for anything like that.

Thanks for clearing that up.

wow... thanks for the complement! normally my "search fu" leaves a lot to be desired!