Deussu's page

I didn't realize they updated it. Can I get a link?

Go to "My Downloads". It should be there.

Seems like a lot of people want to see the name "Oracle" changed.

So far I've seen Aspect, Scion, and a friend of mine mentioned Paragon. I like Paragon the best. Somehow "Paragon of War" packs more punch than the rest.

As some pointed out, new class features for all the people to enjoy!

Starting off with Barbarian, I'd definitely see more rage powers. One I particularly have in mind: a rage power that gives the barbarian Pounce (Ex) for one round, usable once per rage.

Bard, in my opinion, doesn't really need all kinds of odd goodies. For equality's sake, some should be done though. I'd actually be bold enough to say the bard should be able to replace some of the performances with new ones. I very fondly remember a PrC from Frostburn, Stormsinger or something, which sang songs of thunder, making a lightning strike at an enemy. Something like this would also have awesome (and I mean AWESOME) results! As the bard playing a kickass riff with his guitar, it starts to thunder and lightnings! Whoo!

As for what comes to the theological Clerics, I'd settle for new domains, and give each god one extra domain into their repertoire. My suggestino would be:

Power domain

Deities (examples): Abadar, Asmodeus, Gorum, Iomedae
Granted powers: You possess the strength and will to achieve greatness. Your sheer power overcomes those who are weak-minded.
Undaunted (Su): As a move action you fill your soul with the might of your deities. You gain a number of temporary hit points equal to twice your cleric level. These temporary hit points last for rounds equal to your cleric level. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Aura of Power (Su): As a standard action you being to emanate an aura inspiring strong will in those around you. You are immune to mind-affecting effects (magical or otherwise). In addition each ally within 10 feet of you gains a +4 morale bonus on Will saves against mind-affecting effects. You can use this ability a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
Domain Spells: 1st - divine favor, 2nd - enthrall, 3rd - heroism, 4th - divine power, 5th - righteous might, 6th - heroes' feast, 7th - statue, 8th - iron body, 9th - wish

Variant Fighters would probably want some specialization with special attacks. More than that I cannot say.

Monks leave me blank too. Bonus feat options perhaps?

Druids, Paladins, and Rangers could possibly benefit from new choices for their Bonds. Not sure what though.

New bloodlines for Sorcerers, this goes without saying! Some like Golem, Giant, and Plant.

Despite the Disguise Self idea, you'd still need to use 80 gp on jewelry. This 80 gp is not a random number, though, as it's the same price as with a Courtier's Outfit with jewelry. Thus the additional benefit is that you don't suffer a -2 penalty with uppity folk just because you look like you've been having fun time with mud.

It's actually a small price to pay for a trait that gives +1 to three different skills.

"Simply put, any spell cast during a scenario ends at the end of that scenario."

So what about spells cast by foes that leave you a condition, either with a very long duration (Geas) or is permanent (Bestow Curse)? I'm guessing the pathfinders are deemed to buy cures for these things themselves, either by money or using Prestige Award points.

Definitely! It's really a pain to search for all those spells. For now I'm forced to memorizing where each spell is (I think Silent Image was on page 353, but I'm not sure. This, of course, without looking.)

I would like to ask another question:

For what I undestand the factions are similar to the meta-organization of Living Greyhawk. In the meta-orgs you could paticipate by starting carrers like soldier, priest of a certain believe or agent. As your char advanced in lvl he was also able to rise in his carrer if he acted on behalf of his organization (e.g. from soldier to knight etc...). Are you planing such a thing for PS? Many players would love it and it adds more flavour to the campaign, because the PC can identify themselves stronger with their faction.

Actually the factions aren't like meta-organisations. Yes, you do accumulate prestige award points, but frankly you're always going to be their Go-To guy, the messenger, the janitor, the guy who does the odd jobs.

Though I agree it'd be an intriguing idea, but I wouldn't put any mechanical aspect to it... it'd just be time-consuming.

If Produce Flame would have a Range of Touch, you couldn't really hurl any balls of flame, could you?

Also the spell explicitly says you can hurl the flames up to 120 feet as a thrown weapon. This would clearly indicate it follows the rules of a weapon at least when "hurled" (thrown). The conclusion would be that you can use iterative attacks with Produce Flame when you hurl balls of flame. To disallow the same possibility from melee touch attacks would be very inconsistant.

I looked up for external information and noticed that the spell references the touch attacks as melee attacks. Looking at the Attack section in the PFRPG (pg. 182), I'm reading: "A monk, a character with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, a spellcaster delivering a touch attack spell, and a creature with natural physical weapons all count as being armed (see natural attacks)." Whilst a character is armed, it is as if he or she would wield a weapon, is it not?

Reading the Arcane Bond entry for Wizards on page 78 of the PRPG and then re-reading your question leaves me confused. Can you be more specific?

From my reading, the item can be upgraded only if the wizard has the appropriate item creation feats. PFS doesn't have item creation, so there's no way to upgrade the item.

Also, a wizard can select a current magic item as his arcane bond, effectively replacing his old item. But there's nothing there about upgrading.

Let me know if I'm missing something in your question.

A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required item creation feats and if he meets the level prerequisites of the feat. For example, a wizard with a bonded dagger must be at least 5th level to add magic abilities to the dagger (see the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat in Chapter 5). If the bonded object is a wand, it loses its wand abilities when its last charge is consumed, but it is not destroyed and it retains all of its bonded object properties and can be used to craft a new wand. The magic properties of a bonded object, including any magic abilities added to the object, only function for the wizard who owns it. If a bonded object’s owner dies, or the item is replaced, the object reverts to being an ordinary masterwork item of the appropriate type.

The bolded section would indicate the wizard does not need to spend a feat in order to upgrade (add additional magic abilities) his or her bonded item.

Of course this would mean the wizard would be the only class to benefit from crafting magic items, thus getting one of his or her magic items (like an amulet) upgraded at half price.

In case this extra benefit would become forbidden, I hope the bonded object can be changed into another existing magic item at no additional cost.

Sure, why not? The alignment restriction is stupid anyways.

Hopefully they are smart enough to cast a Magic Circle Against Evil. That will help a lot.

Also garlic.

In fact, faction missions are almost entirely role-playing.

...when they happen to be something else than "fetch me this MacGuffin".

I'd rank the scenarios being more rollplay than roleplay. Four hour games with 5 combat encounters squeezed into it make it heavy, the middle points just being gateways to just another combat.

Also, to a varying degree, diplomacy and other charisma-based skills seem rather useless, as many combats are forced by the plot. Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch is notorious for making plot device combats more than you can count.

But after all it depends on the crowd you play with. In a convention environment the time limits are more of a real thing, but in a home game environment you could easily loosen up and not hurry to the finish line.

Why should clerics of Calistria get special treatment? Everyone provokes AoO with a whip, and cannot damage armored creatures, it's the weapon's description. Whip has other great utilities though.

And if you want to deal damage, pick Scorpion Whip from the Legacy of Fire Player's Guide. It works with the whip proficiency.

skinnyfat wrote:

Does anyone know of a virtual tabletop that can be run on a Mac?

d20pro!!!

I got a copy at Gen Con and its awesome!!!!!!

Oh and while it costs money, it gets a lot of support.
It comes with 2 player slots free, and you can buy additional slots.
Once I master it, I'll probably purchase enough slots so I can run an entire game with full players.

It runs on Windows Mac and Linux

It certainly looks a lot better than that god awful OpenRPG. Ugh!

Ah, an answer from the author. The best kind there is!

1a) For the frightful moan ability, (10 + ½ HD + Charisma modifier + Ability Focus) is correct, just like any other ghost. So that's DC 15 for Tier 7-8 or DC 16 for Tier 10-11.

This is what I got: 10 + ½ HD (In tier 7-8 they have 2, in tier 10-11 5) + Charisma (16, means a modifier of +3) + Ability Focus (which gives a +2), equals to 16 in tier 7-8, and to 17 in tier 10-11.

2) I'm sure someone in Kibwe could open the box for the PCs, if necessary, but the "mash it to bits" method could also certainly work. If you're looking for HP/hardness values, I would use hardness 10, hp 15 for the small, iron lockbox.

Good to know!

3) Rather than standing right below the hole and waiting for the PCs to shoot at them, the bugs could hide in the corners of the room. Well, two of them can. Due to their size, I guess one of the bugs will be a clear target right beneath the hole. If you want to lure Andoran PCs down to the beetles, you could play up how the bugs are ripping apart the corpses they are supposed to bury.

The bugs are unable to avoid fireballs though. Would enlargening the basement chamber be a solution? Make the PCs climb down and after that the bugs would emerge from the dark shadows of a large crate-filled basement? Yeah, I have a habit of altering the maps a bit, so sue me.

4) Yes, this is hard. The first Andoran mission is easy, so the bonus mission is intended to be difficult. Also, look under the mission notes for Act 5. If the PCs fail their Diplomacy check, they could always knock the guards out, then drag them away to safety. Not the ideal way of saving them, but it works.

And I figured the other fellow pathfinders might help the Andoran by doing the work for him, actually! The Andoran mission is definitely not on par with the Qadiran mission, which is a LOT easier. ;)

6) I just used the bestow curse trap as listed in the DMG, but I guess I should have been more specific. Use the "-4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks" effect.

Good to know!

7) This adventure was written for 3.5, not PFRPG. If you are translating it to the new rules, you might change the howler to be a different monster. I'm not sure why howlers aren't on the summon list anymore. As for Tyruwat's tactics, you make a good point. He should focus on dominate person instead.

I realised this was made for 3.5, I was merely asking if I should still follow the scenario or replace the monster. I can't think of any good replacement though, as the Howl ability fits the 'mood' of the scenario better.

And yes, I'll be using those dominate persons are lot. Since Tyruwat is all alone there with only one summon, he needs to make the odds better for himself.

If you're still in the mood for giving explanations, would you mind letting us know why the Focused Mind trait isn't allowed? Is it just that it provides the same mechanical benefit as Desperate Focus (just without the need to be Chelish)?

I bet that's the reason. It's useless to have two traits in the same category which do the exact same thing. After all, you can pick only one trait from one particular category.

You can play a scenario only once. Not twice, only once. ONCE!

If you ran the scenario before getting the chance to play it, you may not play it. EVER!

These things are asked over and over again, and people KEEP PESTERING ABOUT THEM! It's not that hard to accept it!

Meh, to me it seems all the factions just lost color and became bland meshes of different grays. A journal of Absalom's happening would be nice, but I'm not holding hopes for such a thing.

Alas the format Josh gave in May 9th has stayed exactly the same despite numerous posts made after that stating the character would lag behind a lot. There was some conversation about GM rewards, and in regards of gold I browsed it through and noticed that only 2 persons for half gold where as 6 voted for full gold.

So, Bob Hopp, you were actually right in your initial post about not having real player/GM input. _metz_'s explanations and analyzes seem all for naught. So, to get a kitten you must start by asking for a pony. How about double gold?

I'm disappointed. Honestly, I really am.

This "once per rage" would have worked better with x/day rages. Now it's just funny.

But I wouldn't find it unfair to start a rage in the beginning of the turn and end it at the end. After all the barbarian would be, at least before the 17th level, fatigued for one round after that.

Heck, we didn't have a clue what it was gonna be until it gets out. And seems like after it gets out, there's not a thing in this world that would ever get it fixed or altered.

At least instead of yelling "This sucks" I attempt to give constructive criticism and possible solutions to aid in this dilemma... I think.

I have a related problem too, I am 4th level with 11 chronicles, so one chronicle from 5th, but I get only 6000 GPs. I don't now, since I'm at 2/3 of the 5th level, I would have expect to get 9000, 6000 + 2/3 of the difference between 4th and 5th (10500).

I don't like to complain, but this will put me behind, on the equipment side at least, compare to someone else that was lucky enough to be exactly at his new level.

Indeed. If the table would have done properly based on xp and not level, we wouldn't have this problem.

Disciple of Sakura spoke words of wisdom.

QFT. (Quoted for truth)

Now here's a problem.

Say you're a new DM and you've agreed to run a scenario with the lowest tier of 7-8. You've been told you get a GM reward out of it. But then you realise you cannot give the GM reward xp to any of your characters since you don't have any characters except for a 1st level dude.

I'd find it very unfair to not give this GM the reward until he'd have some 7th level character, so how should one act in this situation?

I already formulated a solution for this, although this would require all kinds of rewriting and such. Those might be reason why this wouldn't ever come to reality, which is a shame.

Anyway, the idea I had was to give the GM's character all the normal goodies (1 xp, 1 PA etc.), but instead of 1/2 of the gold given in the scenario on the appropriate tier (which might not exist for the character), give the character 250 gp per level. You're not convinced? I even made awesome excel table calculations to check it's as par as it could be.

Of course I have to go by the information I can have, mainly Season 0 scenarios and their average wealth income, and the wealth conversion table presented in the guide.

Also regarding scenarios like Lyrics of Extinction:
On tier 6-7 it gives 2927 gp (I doubt this is a spoiler?). Half of that is 1463 gp. If the GM reward would be given to a 6th level character with the alternative method, it'd be 1500 gp. Not too far off, and it'd still follow the "half the money" idea. The main benefit would be: a) Simplicity, and b) compatibility. You could give the GM reward of a Tier 7 minimum scenario to a 1st level character.

"I so wish DarkWhite could have written this instead of me. He's better at articulating!"

Deussu wrote:

Simply put in PFS you can't go around collecting fluffy animals and go back to the venture-captain and ask, "Mommy, can I keep it? Can I?"

The thing is, the zombies aren't collected. They are paid for, and should thus be compared to riding dogs, war horses, and such.

If it would count as a "combat animal", I actually don't see a problem with this... though in urban scenarios I wouldn't keep such an undead with me. And no, not even with disguises. That'd be stupid!

Deussu wrote:

I haven't seen any restrictions regarding either command undead (the feat and the spell). You get to keep the 'commanded' undead till the end of the scenario. Then all spells cease, and you lose your fluffy undead (and other dominated persons you might have).

Not related to this spell/feat as such, but... The guide explicitly states that all spell effects end when the scenario ends at the latest. What happens to undead created by Animate Dead? The spell is instaneous, and the caster needs to pay for the spell components, so would it be safe to assume that the zombies go into the "items purchased" box and follow the caster into the next scenario?

That's what some might expect, but experience from Living Greyhawk tells me even Animate Dead's effect ends despite it's duration being instantaneous. This requires Josh's blessing, however, as I'm only basing my assumption on what Josh will say. ;)

Simply put in PFS you can't go around collecting fluffy animals and go back to the venture-captain and ask, "Mommy, can I keep it? Can I?"

is command undead outlawed? and if it is not, then what are the limitations on it?

I haven't seen any restrictions regarding either command undead (the feat and the spell). You get to keep the 'commanded' undead till the end of the scenario. Then all spells cease, and you lose your fluffy undead (and other dominated persons you might have).

It should be noted the feat allows unintelligent undead a saving throw unlike the spell.

I believe some weren't big fans of Practised Spellcaster feat during the 3.5 era. Essentially Magical Knack gives half of the caster levels, and is in my mind a useful yet fair trait.

Also it's completely useless to single-classed casters.

I'm about to run this scenario on 30th August, and I have some things unclear.

1a) The ghosts' frightful moan DC isn't listed anywhere. I'm guessing it's DC 16 (10 + ½ HD + Charisma modifier + Ability Focus).

1b) Also, who came up with the idea of giving barbarian levels to an incorporeal ghost?

2) The lock box lists an Open Lock DC. Knowing that practically no other than rogues take Disable Device ranks (the skill that now incorporates Open Lock), how is the team supposed to open it? Sure, a sor/wiz could cast a Knock spell (if he/she had one), but I doubt anyone memorized one. Anyway, can the lock box be taken with them back to Kibwe and opened there? Alternatively, can they use the more common method "Mash it to bits"? I can't see why not.

Oh wait, the scenario says "If the PCs claim the lock box, reward each tier thusly..." Yeah they probably claim it, but don't open it. :)

3) Is there a way up the hole in Act 4 (Beetle encounter)? It seems odd to have 3 big critters in a cramped space trapped there, especially since the PCs can just, you know, shoot down the hole and kill those with ease. Any idea how to make this encounter, hmm, more interesting?

4) In Act 5 the Andoran faction needs a DC 25 Diplomacy check in order to shift them from unfriendly to friendly. That's VERY hard indeed!

5) The map in Act 6 could have used markers to all those altars. I have no idea where altars 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 should be. Do they form some sort of a half-circle? Or are the eight southernmost pillars (as in the map) supposed to be the altars?

6) Which effect does the Bestow Curse trap give? I have three options, but I wish to know if it should be stated there beforehand.

7) Intriguingly the PFRPG version of Summon Monster doesn't list Howler anywhere. Am I to assume Tyruwat is still able to summon a Howler despite? Also why don't the tactics say he should be casting Dominate Person in order to win the day? The Tier 10-11 tactics are just plain stupid. Wand of Charm Person? Hahaha! The effective DC of that charm is only 6! I'll just replace that with "use dominate person".

I think that's all. For now.

So, I get that the boons, temporary bonuses, from the interactive at Paizocon survive character conversion, but what about more permanent things such as Divine Promise (1st prize from teh Vision Quest encounter) which lets one gain a +1 inherent bonust to Wisdom by converting 10 named minor NPCs to the worship of your god; and Arcanimirium membership which lets you add a bonus spell to your spellbook each time you level up?

My educated assumption would be that those boons will stay with your character ... wherever you got them.

Heh, I can think of some repercussions my character would have had...

Like in #14 Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch...

Okay, so, so far, here are the complaints I've heard about the scenarios at Gen Con:

1) They were waaaaaay too easy. We just smoked through them.
2) They were waaaaaay too hard. We all died. Multiple times.
3) They were juuuuuust right.

Now that's a difficult data set to process. ;-)

I'll apply a more critical eye to future scenarios and shoot for #3 more than #1 and #2.

Haha, you're so right about it!

Generalizing that "all scenarios are easy" is a flawed one, but there are some that are deadlier than others. For example Blood at Dralkard Manor is by far the deadliest, then comes The Trouble With Secrets (though the conversion might have helped the issue).

If a "player" can only do a society scenario once, if he dies at some point he would have fewer available scenarios to play in order to level a new society character. This probably isn't an issue if someone dies in their first scenario or two, but what if death occurs further down the experience line. Will there be enough playable scenarios to level up a new chacter?

Uh, yes? 28 scenarios a year, I believe that would suffice.

Me too. Then I could wear my faction t-shirt and roll my faction dice and totally geek out.

You forgot your faction pin, faction hat, faction tattoo, and most importantly your faction furniture. Authentic Taldan chairs, b$%~#es!

It's not the ruleset, I recon. Some scenarios just are deadlier than others.

Though the other problem is how the high-tier encounters are made ... an increase in the amount of mooks hardly counts as a challenge. We had a 3-4 tier party with some level 1 characters playing the tier 3-4. Despite this the GM used tier 6-7 encounters in place of some and yet even then they were a breeze.

Living Monolith... okay, it doesn't shoot lasers from its eyes, but otherwise it's a carbon copy. You even need to be a osiriontologist to qualify! (kinda)

Actually since they follow NPC hp system, 2d6+4 should be 11. </nitpick>

I haven't got the time or enthusiasm to develope a bloodline of my own, but I did toy around with the thought of having a Golem bloodline and Plant bloodline. Chrolophylls, attack!

What I so much hate about bloodlines is their inevitable "touch of poop" abilities. Why can't there be some passive ability? A golem bloodline sorcerer could, for example, be in no need of sleep, starting at 1st level.

I would agree a party of appropriate level should definitely be recomended and will I'm sure still be a challenge.

** spoiler omitted **

Guh, you are right. I don't know what I was counting there ...

Myself and 5 others ran it the other weekend. We were not all level appropriate though and probably would have suffered a TPK if the GM hadn't taken pity and softballed some of the encounters. Namely the first one.

Just read the encounter myself as well. To me it seems odd these .. unfavourable conditions should be counted towards the EL, although they are not. The situation described should be like +1 to EL, maybe even more if the DM is really careful to go by the rules.

Spoiler only for those who have read or played #22 Fingerprints of the Fiend!

It's a good thing I have chosen not to run this adventure until the PCs are high-enough level, and well prepared.

I'm baffled. You people allow a table consisting of both 1st-level characters and 6th-level characters? In such a case I'd order the 6th-level character's player to create a new 1st-level character. There's really no point in having a superhero spoil the fun with his/her supermajicks.

I'm quite confident the upcoming RPG convention over here will feature only Tier 1-2 games, despite some people having 3+ level characters.

And those so stubborn not to make another character for the sake of all shouldn't arrive at all.

I'm not gonna run any Tier 7 minimum before I have a full table of at least 7th level characters. These encounters are just purely shafting the players and their characters.

Lost at Bitter End especially.

We've made some pregen characters already, use 'em if you like 'em.

http://mekanismi.sange.fi/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PathfinderSociety/Valmishahmot

(Yes, they are in English. Don't panic just because you see some moonspeak on the side.)

The premise is intriguing enough, yet I can imagine using a previously used location as a problem. What if you start off be first playing this and then #5 Mists of Mwangi?

Encounter #1 seems reasonable. I'd have to point out the characters should be able to prevent the combat with, say, Protection From Evil or Dispel Magic or whatever. Once the foreman is free of the bonds, some information would be nice. An alternative way to solve an encounter without any rewards feels too much like "shafting".

The troglodytes seem very random. They don't really make anything to the plot, they just are there.

Without exact stat blocks of the welcoming party, I can't say if it's too tough or too easy. Despite that, the welcoming party seems very random in the given context. How could the barghest get a hold of these humanoids? Are they dominated as well, or just incredibly stupid mercenaries?

Phantom Fungus is a funny monster. I encourage using it creatively.

4 Chokers won't be a challenge on the highest tier, that I know for a fact. Instead try advancing them.

I give credit for the use of Barghest in this. Truly a nice twist.

To be honest I'm very concerned the encounters would be way too easy on higher tiers. A handful of commoners and adepts are a laughable encounter, albeit the fact they should be put down with nonlethal force.

The players can be quick about it, but still it multiplies the amount of dice rolled, which increases the time spent during turns. These players do know how to play a summoner, so there isn't any extra hassle on that part.

Deussu wrote:

Clay golem with a fire turret or two deal so much damage in a round it's, ugh, unbearable. I've instructed the locals to get their characters to level 7, wait for PFRPG and maybe THEN try to run this.

Clay golem damage output wasn't the problem when I ran it. The problem was that it *doesn't* heal. It was literally harder than the high tier of the mod since the stone giant's con damage can be healed with restoration spells.

That's actually something I thought about as well. A stone golem is much nicer (in certain ways) to the characters than a clay golem.

I personally dislike all save-or-suck money sink monsters with a passion. The cockatrices are easy themselves, but come with a possible money loss of 660gp. And the Society isn't there to help. Great.

I have to say my Halfling bard/ranger was very delighted to kill Sefu, especially after he proved to be one of Aspis. The joke is we had been talking about Aspis from the start and my halfling is paranoid about Aspis in every corner. "I'm sure Aspis is behind this!"

We managed to clear the assassin vine with ease, thanks to our group of extreme summoners. Even an assassin vine will bow down to 2 dire bats and 3 apes.

I've been more than hesitant to run this, since the encounters just seem soooo deadly. Clay golem with a fire turret or two deal so much damage in a round it's, ugh, unbearable. I've instructed the locals to get their characters to level 7, wait for PFRPG and maybe THEN try to run this. I dislike having to modify the adventures, why not just throw the whole adventure to the waste bin and run something else?

Something I would really welcome seeing is once a year there being a faction exclusive scenario. You can only play this scenario if you are from Faction X. Perhaps make it a convention-only scenario. Each faction gets one to play, and they're all different. And very tough.

I would be interested to see other factions open up also, but this seems like it would be impossible to achieve. I can't see this happening until a few years down the road when PFS has really taken off. Perhaps there could be a spin-off organized play campaign on the other side of the world, or an alternate reality like "The Real World: San Francisco".

Faction exclusive missions would really be nice, although I would be left out as I'm locally the only player with a Taldan character (well, there are a few, but they are on level 1). ;)

I too would see other factions nice, but practically way too hard to do. It'd be a horrible job to include even more little items throughout the scenario and still make them sensible and non-conflicting. A resolution to this would be, of course, to leave some factions out of some scenarios. In all fairness this should be informed in the introductory text under the scenario.

My favorite picks for new factions would be Katapesh (To allow free trade (Pesh & Slaves) without interference) and Absalom (remain intependant, repel the interlopers!)

I have to admit I think I chose the right faction. Taldor definitely has the most intriguing missions, not these Qadiran/Osirion "fetch me this" crap.

Also I find the factions contribute a lot on a role-playing level, but scenarios themselves don't note them at all. The faction missions are stapled to the scenario and it shows.

And it seems Andoran missions are the hardest to complete. Most of them require skills not all that many of our characters have (Diplomacy, Move Silently/Hide). Osirion has had it easy, I can't recall seeing a single "roll a die" faction quest.