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HammerCon II, Southern Ontario's largest game convention for gamers by gamers, is November 6, 2010 at the Plaza Hamilton in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. If you came to the convention last year, thank you for making it a fantastic day of roleplaying, board games, miniature gaming, LARPing, collectible card games and more. Crown Plaza Hotel
Registration opens at 8am
Pathfinder Society Events at HammerCon:
When: Friday, Nov 12 through Sunday, Nov 14
Contact Doug Miles
Scenarios Offered:
Michigan’s Premier 2-Day Gaming Convention
Friday Evening
Saturday Morning
Saturday Afternoon
Saturday Evening
Event details
Oakland University Campus
I've got this one under my belt now at both the low and the high tiers. I have some observations I would like to make. The players seem to be incredulous when they are told the Commerce League doesn't know where the Shadow Lodge operates out of (and the non-native PCs are supposed to be able to find this out). What annoys me is the goblin shaman in Part 1 is carrying a potion with the symbol of the Temple in Part 2 etched on it. If the GM mentions this to the players, there's a chance the players will gather info/knowledge (local) for this symbol. Seeing that the symbol is right on the front of the friggin' building in Part 2, I couldn't deny a good skill check this information. I haven't shared the spoiler info with the players because of this. I just let them dink around town until they trigger the ambush in the Downmarket. The double (quadruple) agent Krazel is another problem. Some of the factions are instructed to be discrete in their search for Krazel, and others are not. What has happened both times I've run this is all the factions realize Krazel is an agent and is involved with other factions. His effectiveness as a spy/informant is nullified at that point in my opinion. Most of the missions' success doesn't lay with preserving Krazel's cover, so the players don't really care but it is an inconsistancy that bothers me. As far as finding Krazel, and who he even is, it is left up to the GM to fill in. There's no satisfaction for a player when a GM just says "Make a die roll" and then "You succeed on your mission". I try to jazz it up some more. You can find a lot of inspiration in the City of Strangers sourcebook. I suggest that the PCs locate Krazel's home, where they are informed he is not there. He can be located here: The White Lady: This brothel specializes in those
That should make an impression on the players. Have Krazel come down to the parlor to meet with the PCs, covered in scratch and bite marks but looking infinitely pleased with himself.
Hey Josh, when you work on the next version of the Guide can you include access to the new spell in the Hirelings Guide? My Calistrian bard would like to stop causing her 'manager' to push her down the stairs...
New Spell: Barren Fields
If anyone is arriving at Origins early, we are going to be available for some gaming on Wednesday afternoon and evening. If you are interested please post here. We can plan on at least two slots available. I am traveling to Columbus Wednesday morning. I can run any scenario available. How about a 2PM slot for early arrivals and an 7PM slot for later folks? Twilight Knight made the suggestion so I will leave it to him to pick the scenarios.
I am curious if anyone coming to Origins has intentions to play the Tier 12 scenarios being offered there. PFS#46 and #54, parts 1 and 2 of the Eyes of the Ten series, are both on the convention schedule. I am leaving those slots unassigned to a GM because I anticipate that there's little chance that players, after reaching 12th level, would all travel to Origins to play the Tier 12 specials which take 8-10 hours to complete. I have already read through #46 and will be ready to run it if my assumption is incorrect. Provided that it is not delayed, I will do my best to run #54 for any interested parties. However, I think my Origins GMs will be better utilized running series such as City of Strangers or Echoes of the Everwar than holding them in reserve for the Tier 12 Specials that may never have any players sign up. Am I wrong in my assumption? Is anyone coming to Origins with the intention to play the Tier 12s we're offering? Are your friends coming as well? I want to be prepared for you, but my time will be at a premium since I'm hitting PaizoCon right before Origins and I need to be prepared to run everything running at Origins as soon as it is released.
I ran a slot zero of this scenario last weekend at tier 3-4 for some of the GMs who volunteer at our local gameday. These are experienced players, but were not into running min-maxed PCs. Party composition was:
They were on the light side of tier 3-4, but there wasn’t any question about what tier they’d be playing. I want to start off by saying that I am not complaining about the difficulty or suggesting any changes be made. The scenario ended with a TPK and their bodies were unrecoverable. As a GM I am notorious for telling players that “You guys can handle this scenario” and “None of these fights get close to challenging” and believing it. This is followed by a bloodbath. I am going to try and stop making predictions about scenario outcomes. For the benefit of GMs running this scenario, and for the therapeutic value of writing about it, I would like to explain how it all went down. If you haven’t played this scenario yet, please do not click on the spoiler tab. In fact, unless you have been through the entire “The Devil We Know” series, do not read any further. Major spoilers ahead: Spoiler:
I thought there would be no way that the players would buy any of Nefti’s story. In fact, I was bent out of shape about this scenario when I first read through it because of the absence of Nefti & Kafar’s stat blocks. I was sure that the players would see through Nefti, beat the snot out of him, make him take them to Kafar, thrash Kafar, then put them both through some public humiliation before the execution. Instead Nefti was never questioned and ran away when the players became annoyed with his lame boxed text.
The PCs never broke a sweat in Act One, soundly defeating the druids while taking scratches in return. Act Two was a different matter. At tier 1-2 the PCs would have faced two small earth elementals. The large earth elemental was a lot for them to chew on. The GM’s dice were hot and the players’ dice were fickle. After a drawn out fight where everyone felt like a yo-yo, the elemental was put down. One yo-yo didn’t come back up however. Sadly it would not be the cavalier’s first death in the scenario. The PCs also used up most of their daily spells and all of the cleric’s healing channels in this Act. I said I would not complain about the difficulty of the scenario. I do have some complaints about the arrangement of this series. I am annoyed that there wasn’t a notation about the Crazed Painter’s attitude towards the PCs on the Chronicle from the Crypt of Fools (Part 3) since he appears in this scenario again and how the PCs dealt with him in Part 3 has an impact on Part 4. The GM is supposed to ask the players if they had been friendly toward the Painter in Part 3. Many players won’t even remember. Also, I am disappointed that there isn’t any kind of reward at the end for PCs who have played through the entire series with the same PC. In fact, the whole thing with Kafar and Nefti stealing the Bell of Obedience after the Society deliberately instructed the PCs not to remove it rankles the most. The PCs scraped up their meager loot and ran back to the local temple of Iomadae (which was getting overwhelmed by injured and dying guardsmen). They barely had enough money to get the cavalier raised without selling off gear. A player did ask about resting but I believed that would end the scenario since everything was happening on a tight timeline. They had plenty of healing between them from wands of cure light wounds, but those are only good for healing between fights. They continued to explore the prison and met with the painter, missing the only clue (the mural) they had that the bell was going to be stolen by Kafar & Nefti. I thought the trap door into the prison from the sewers was silly but I could ignore it. I still wonder how the derro were ever able to control a rust monster, a ghast and an earth elemental. These sorts of details might have made it into the scenario if there was a higher page count limit. Again, after the complaint about inserting the player handouts into the text portions of the PDF in Part 3, we again have to print off 3 additional pages to cut apart in Part 4. Grrr. The last Act was the PCs’ undoing. Part of it was their hapless dice, part of it was the GM’s dice were hot, and part of it was the GM was using his monsters intelligently. If I had it to do again, I would have rolled separate initiatives for the three wounded derro at tier 3-4. I am in the habit of splitting up the opponents by stat block, but not individually. The PCs came into the grotto without attempting any stealth, so there was no surprise round. The derro won init with their +6 modifier and stacked 3 sound bursts on the clustered PCs. No one made all three saves. The sorcerer and the summoner’s eilodon went down after 14hp of damage. Although they were eventually stabilized they never got back into the fight. The derro took advantage of the stunned PCs by seeking cover and hiding. It went from bad to worse for the PCs. When they entered the grotto chamber the derro dropped darkness spells on them and began a sneak-attack party. Although each of the derro took a few hits, none of them were dropped. In the darkness the cavalier’s respectable AC was nerfed and the GM’s hot dice would not relent. All it would have taken was a decent roll or two and the outcome would have been different, but the derro held all the advantages and the PCs were cut down. I ruled the characters were not recoverable because the derro stole their gear, sacrificed their souls to Groetus and left the bodies to become ghouls.
Hey gang, I am going to be coordinating events at Origins this year on behalf of Mr. Frost. There’s going to be a huge spread of scenarios available at the convention this year. If you can’t find a scenario that you want to play amongst the spread we’re offering, then each slot there are two PFS “Classic” tables where players can pick up any available scenario not already on the schedule. If you still can’t find anything you can play, then you probably should be GMing for us ;-) Speaking of that, I am going to need a whole bunch of GM volunteers! On average we’ve got 6 tables per slot scheduled. There will be two PFS Classic tables available per slot. I will be tending to the HQ desk so I am asking for seven volunteer GMs per slot. Any level of commitment will be appreciated. If you are interested in GMing please e-mail me off-list. You can reach me at dmiles [at] starems [dot] com. Let me know how many slots you are interested in volunteering for and if you have any preferences—keeping in mind the more flexible you are the easier my job is :) Origins generously offers the following benefits for GM volunteers:
The deadline to receive GM benefits is May 1st, but I will need to know if you intend to volunteer ahead of that since I will need to get you confirmed with the Origins staff. Traditionally Origins uses the Con Support website for pre-registration, GM sign-up, ticket sales, etc. However, I haven’t seen anything up on that website yet so just consider this an early call for GMs, with details to follow as they become available. -Doug Miles Thursday, 8AM:
Thursday, 1PM
Thursday, 7PM
Friday, 8AM
Friday, 1PM
Friday, 7PM
Saturday, 8AM
Saturday, 1PM
Saturday, 7PM
Sunday, 8AM
In Act Four the scenario text states that "Several lacedons swim to the surface from the wreck below and start climbing the ship’s hull on the first round. It takes two successful DC 10 Climb checks for the lacedons to reach the deck." However, no lacedons are mentioned in the combat section of the encounter, only the ghosts. How many lacedons are supposed to be in each tier?
So I played this one on Thursday. I didn’t enjoy myself BUT it wasn’t because of the scenario. I look forward to running this scenario at our gameday next weekend and I wanted to get a discussion going about it before I have to run it. If you have not played this scenario and plan on doing so, please read no further! I’m not going to bother with a spoiler tag since I put the warning in all caps in the title. I’ll break it down encounter by encounter. First, who’s this Brackett guy? I know he’s a venture captain but all we have on him is what type of nose he has. Is he a native Andoran? Do they speak with an accent in Andoran? Does he have an affinity for fey? I’m just curious how he’s intended to be played. It’s over 500 miles from Almas to Falcon’s Hollow. If the plague has already broken out, it will take the players 2-3 weeks to get to Falcon’s Hollow to try and stop it. Each day after the first a victim drops 1d2 Con and the save gets harder to make. I’m just sayin’ the problem may work itself out before the PCs get there. The scenario doesn’t say anything about the disease only affecting humanoids. I think what confused me most during the scenario was the timeline. When the PCs arrive at the cutyard in Act One the overseer is already dead of the plague. Supposedly the lumberjacks had gone out hunting fey, stumbled across the plague fields in Act Two and contracted the disease. They return to the cutyard and infect their co-workers and overseer. The ex-druids send their zombies after the lumberjacks and the players arrive in the midst of the attack. So the overseer went from healthy to dead in one day, unless the druids waited around for at least five days before deciding to send their zombies against the cutyard operating one hour away from their location. The low tier fight was OK, we handled it with ease and really freaked when the thing literally popped when we killed it. We had wanted to play the mid tier but our GM persuaded us it wasn’t safe. The only thing I saw that was worrisome was the damage the large wolves could do in tier 3-4 was very dangerous for a 1st level PC. I liked the cutyard map but when I made my map last night I spread stuff out so it didn’t look so organized. I eliminated the charge lane for the players by curving the trail through the stumps, and I placed a large pile of logs next to the trail. I like to mess with the players who metagame. A logging camp should have some logs around, right? The pile of logs looks just like a trap so the players who metagame a lot will spread out and avoid the area around the logs because they believe it’s going to be sprung if they go near it. Our whole party had no one with any ranks in heal, and no cleric to boot. We knew the lumberjacks were sick, but I felt the best thing we could do was contain the plague to that location by killing all the lumberjacks and burning their bodies. No one liked my plan. Stoopid paladins. The plague fields in Act Two was a very frustrating encounter. Most of us were already exposed at that point so we didn’t think anything about charging right across the flowers and beating the snot out of the ex-druids. I think the whole table was annoyed by the demeanor of the ex-druids who didn’t seem to care about anything. They came off as listless and apathetic about dying. They weren’t fanatical or defiant. They came off like ahedonistic goth kids and their refusal to beg for mercy as we took out our frustrations on them only made things worse. This was not a failure of the scenario, however. It just was aggravating since it shouldn’t even be listed as a combat. The ex-druids provide no challenge and simply dying where they stand doesn’t add to the story at all. They should just stand in the fields smiling cruelly and wait for the PCs to come to them. You want to tie me up and take me to Falcon’s Hollow to turn me over to the authorities? Sure! [make a Fort save] It also seemed like they should have been dying already if they were diseased, right? Act Three I really liked. This would be called a Skill Challenge in 4E. It was a great example of how players can have fun while not trying to kill something. My only concern is what to do when the players lay down a die because all their characters are tweaked for combat and they have no skills that can be applied to finding a cure. I think it is just deserts and I plan on strictly enforcing the rules. If the players can’t assist Laurel to find a cure then they need to buy some fleet horses for the ride back to Almas else find a friendly druid fast. I do admire the high Fort save that was set for the tiers. Disease should not be something that is easily dismissed. Act Four was a cakewalk, with the cultists again just serving as punching bags for frustrated players. I felt like we should have taken them to an armory and bought them some better gear before fighting them. The optional encounter in Act Five was skipped since we were playing on a weeknight and no one was in the mood. Act Five lasted one round. Our wizard ran up and dropped the cleric with a scorching ray, then the others were hit with an entangle and it was all over. I think the GM needs to put figures or counters out on the map to represent the non-combatant cultists. Otherwise it is too easy to run up and put a hurtin’ on the BBEG right off the bat. A crowd of diseased partiers serve as cover and speed bumps. I think the main question I want to raise on this thread is what should happen if the players fail to assist Laurel in crafting a cure? What recourse do the players have once they realize they’re dying and will never make two consecutive saves? Where are the druids who might help, and what is their attitude toward the PCs (Diplomacy DC)? How many days travel is it to a town with a 5th level divine caster? How far to Oregent or Carpendon? I expect if the players are unable to find a cure, at least one of them is going to die from Con damage. Like I said to Mark, it sucks to die of a disease but it should be within the realm of possibility.
I ran a slot zero of this scenario last night at the low tier. The table did not have much knowledge or linguistic skill, but they were all experienced players and compensated well. Begin Spoiler:
The fire elementals went down easy. I always call the first combat the “warm-up fight” and I wonder if Mr. Roberts was making a pun here. Including the holy arrows was a nice touch, useful but not overpowering. The players fell completely for the Secret Spine encounter. I made them pre-roll 4 fortitude saves (for the heat), 4 perceptions (for the peepholes) and 4 sense motives (for the distractions). Done properly the PCs will not likely be in the Citadel long enough to suffer environmental effects but I dropped it on them once when they entered the Sacred Sauna. Back to the Secret Spine. Some of the players at the table were ‘spontaneous’ and liked to trigger multiple encounters. They started opening up doors and triggering attacks from Gali. His tactics were excellent as far as the PCs wasting their resources chasing his phantoms. Pre-rolling the perceptions and sense motives makes it harder for the players to meta-game but puts more work on the GM. Once they figured out the illusions one player found a peep hole and started to attack the wall. That was not foreseen. I made up some hardness and HP figure out of my head, but afterward I looked it up and figured the walls were superior masonry (PRPG pg 411), hardness 8 and 90 HP per 10x10 section. So how many inches thick are the interior walls of the Citadel? I don’t really need a ruling, but I dislike feeling arbitrary. They frightened Gali out of his panic room. He managed to get a color spray off that dropped two PCs but they grappled him and it was all over. They questioned him, beat him unconscious and hog-tied him for later. The next encounter was interesting. It does not say in the scenario where the gaav is before the fight begins. Is it inside of the covered bridge? Outside? Underneath? The PCs used a bench from the entry hall to bridge the hole in the floor. I let the two best fighters cross over then the gaav flew in through the gap and attacked the PCs on the other side. If I would have thought about it, the gaav should have kicked the bench out of the gap as his action… It wasn’t very tough, but it put up more of a fight than the elementals. The noxious breath is hardly worth using since it can only affect one target. I do like the superior grappler ability. What do you other GMs think about having the gaav grapple then try to drop a PC through the hole in the floor? I’d give the PC a reflex save to grab the edge, but they’d drop whatever they had in their hands. Is this a fair tactic? The encounter with the dwarvern weaponsmith Vulcus turned from role-playing to combat when he was approached by a Qadiran PC who asked him why he was making weapons for the cult. I had the dwarf sass the PC, which resulted in a swift beat-down. The problem was the Taldor PC wanted the dwarf alive, and the Qadiran PC might have killed the dwarf if he was strictly role-playing his character. We all understood organized play, but the Taldor PC came very close to acting against the Qadiran to save her Faction point. I don’t have a big problem with this being part of the scenario, I just want the GMs who read this to consider what their intervention will be at their table.
The fight against Hafshi was anti-climactic. Her minions really don’t make much of an obstacle and it’s not long before she’s backed into a corner and failing her concentration checks to cast defensively. Her build with the combat expertise and the improved trip really does not make her a challenging opponent. She’d be better off with combat casting and heavy armor proficiency. And a playmate. She died in round two. Overall I think this was a fine scenario and I am looking to doing a better job of running it the next time around. The rooms are full of interesting stuff and there’s lots of dots for the players to connect that keep them engaged with the story instead of playing with their dice waiting to roll the next initiative. Steven Robert is a really good contributor and I’m looking forward to seeing more of his work.
I'm hiking down to the Buckeye State to run PFS events at BASHCON again this year. I would welcome any help from local GMs or attendees, even for a slot or two. I'm happy to share my hotel room at no cost with anyone who will commit to run at least three slots. If I don't need you, I'll cut you loose. Convention website: www.bashcon.com The convention is held in the student union at the University of Toledo (2801 West Bancroft Street, Toledo, OH 43606). It is a comfortable venue with great attendance each year. I've scheduled six slots of PFS scenarios: Friday 7PM PFS#29 The Devil We Know, Part 1
For the higher level scenarios I am making 8th level pre-gens for any walk-up players to use for no PFS credit, but at least they'll get to experience the Pathfinder RPG rules.
James MacKenzie, what happened?! I really enjoyed Our Lady of Silver but this one was like eating cold Chinese food. As always, my impression may change after I run this scenario a few times. We played it last night at tier 1-2 with three 1st level playtest classes at the table and wrecked it. I think all totaled we took under 20 hp damage spread over six PCs (plus an eilodon). In retrospect we should have played up to tier 3-4 but the GM thought we were going to have more problems than we did. I will try to be more helpful with what I did and did not like about this scenario: Spoiler:
First, compliments; The maps were great. Our GM took a page from the Doug Doug School of Cartographical Excellence and pre-drew his maps in full color and striking detail. The scenes in the laboratory and in the Gallery of Wonders were imaginative and crunchy. [Side note, I chose my eilodon's aspect to be that of a goat-man. It was pure coincidence that the derro were doing experiments on a mountain goat's cadaver. It was emotionally traumatizing for poor Guidon to behold.] However, a lot of apprehension was lost due to the way we cruised through the fights.
The gripes: The creatures & tactics did not take advantage of the difficult terrain and much of the area appearing on the map was never used. I admit this is a no-win complaint because people will complain if not enough of the complex is mapped out. I am always wonder where they go to the bathroom in the complex... I liked my faction missions (Cheliax) but there was no difficulty check. One was walk-into-the-room, pick-up-the-item(s). The other was the same, only talk to a person. Two gimmes. The Qadiran faction mission needs to be edited, in the mission it specifies that the pixie being sought can be identified by the necklace it wears. There's no sign of the necklace anywhere in the scenario although a pixie body is found. I am not sure what is intended to happen in the Gallery of Wonders. I haven't read the scenario through and my post is hasty. We are running this scenario on Sunday for our gameday players and I want to get some conversation going on how to make their experience better. It seems like there should be some penalty to spellcasting due to the cacophany of music in the room. Although there might have been another way to approach the encounter, our party just told the GM to roll init as soon as he was finished describing the room. If all the creatures would have been a part of the combat it could of gone very badly, but we were confident and the Lady may have lived 'til round three.
I know that Seasons One is already mapped out and Season Two might be a done deal as well, but I wanted to make a request for the future of Pathfinder Society. I am not the first one to bring this up, but I'd like to keep the pot stirred. I would love to see the Paizo PRPG print adventures (not Adventure Paths) adapted for use with Pathfinder Society. Other organized play campaigns have done this as a way to promote print products and expand the number of OP adventures available to the OP players. Obviously these adventures take longer to complete than a 5 hour slot, which means they would be intended for home play. They also would need to be adapted so the plot meshes with Society goals. Faction missions would need to be added and a Chronicle sheet as well. The number of XP and PA earned would be double or triple a typical PFS scenario. I know this request is a longshot, but maybe Josh could work it into Season Two or Three. I think the big carrot here is it may increase sales of the print adventures. In my case it would help me to get some more use out of my existing subscription to these adventures since I'm so busy running PFS tables [shameless self-promotion, I know]. The regular players at our biweekly gamedays are running out of PFS scenarios to play since they are consuming them at a faster rate than they are released. I have begun to run a print adventure as a way to fill out the schedule and keep the regular players sated. It would be cool if some day there were PFS credit for playing these. (Here's hoping Josh will get a dedicated PFS assistant for Christmas)
I would like to say that I REALLY appreciated the "consequences" reward on the Chronicle sheet of a recent scenario and I wonder if it will do any good to loudly and obnoxiously demand more of the same on future Chronicles. Will it help if I throw in some profanity or write in all caps? :) I wonder why my fellow players and GMs have not been louder in praise of outcomes like the one on this scenario's Chronicle Spoiler: . Is it because the favor does not go far enough? It is a rather limited favor, but I think it shows movement toward consequences that before have not been a part of the campaign. Josh, can we PLEASE have more favors on Chronicles?
PFS#33 Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible I remember reading PFS#1 Silent Tide and feeling such disappointment in the missed potential of that adventure. Spoiler: I hate to sound like a broken record, but that's how I see it.
There are no consequences for failing to stop the Black Echelon operatives. The whole Pathfinder mission is to get the code book, but if the Taldan invasion fleet rises from the ocean floor and strikes Absalom causing loss of life and property it has no implications for the characters of the Society. I think that Josh might be wary of unbalancing the campaign by releasing an overpowering favor, but maybe this one went too far in the other direction and resulted in a favor that requires too specific of circumstances to be useful. I have my PaizoCon 2010 ticket and I hope to reap the spoils of attending that many clever players earned this past June. But cool favors shouldn't be so exclusive to find. I would LOVE to see some disfavors too. I can appreciate a good disfavor as much as a good favor. I'm sure there are some better ideas, but off the top of my head:
A favor that only one member of the party receives would be a bonus. Access to a special animal companion or intelligent magic item for instance. How about a curse that can't be lifted?
All I'm saying is there should be consequences for failure or at least for ignominious behavior.
The next game day will be Sunday, November 22nd. The mods that are being offered are as follows:
We handle mustering through our Yahoo! Group Pathfinder Society Southeast Michigan. Please let us know if you are coming. We love having brand new players but it does help us to know about how many people will be there so that we have enough judges to run the tables. RIW Hobbies
There is no charge for this event and pregen characters are available for new players. The next gameday will be Sunday, December 6th.
It has been so long that I forget when I originally ordered this product. I think it was at GenCon 2008. This company had a booth in the vendor hall. Some of you might recall them. They were displaying a new RPG concept they had created. It had visually stunning, fantasy art backed up by a game system that was more about emotion and atmosphere than mechanics. Their core rulebook ("Eoris Essence") was not yet in print, they had demo copies only but they were taking pre-orders at $80 a pop. They were expecting to ship in December 2008. I thought it looked interesting and even though I didn't believe anyone would want to play this game due to its complexity I felt intrigued enough to shell out the $80 to see the final product. I've been getting occasional e-mail apologies from this company for the better part of a year now. It seems like they are having a difficult time getting their product printed. So far they've gone through two printing companies. The first went to production and failed to meet quality standards, so VoE dropped them and went with a new one named D'Vinni. D'Vinni apparently strung VoE along for 6 months then sent VoE a vague letter stating they couldn't finish the project but it wasn't their fault. Now the kicker is these companies are Columbian. The whole VoE team is based in Bogota. I've nothing against Columbia or its nationals, but it's not a country known for industry. If you want something printed economically, you should take a hint and order Chinese. It seems to have worked pretty well for Paizo, although I'm sure they had some bumps in the road when they began. I just wonder why VoE persists with a local printing partner when it is literally killing their company. I have suspected it was all a hoax, but if so they have gone through a lot of trouble selling the drama when my $80 check has long since been cashed. Has anyone else here pre-ordered the VoE book Eoris Essence? Has anyone ever heard of such delays in getting something printed? How can a company hope to survive in this industry with such a performance?
Has anyone thought about making a collective effort to convert the 3.5 Edition Pathfinder Society scenarios to the Pathfinder RPG rules and making the 'conversion guides' available to the membership? Something struck me as I was advising some of my local players. The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary isn't due to come out until October. All the NPC stat blocks will be convertable under the PRPG rules available in two weeks. The monster stat blocks will not be as easy. Yes, they could be made "close enough" with estimations and educated guesses, but without the Bestiary we won't be able to render exact conversions until October. Is there a way, post-GenCon of course, that Paizo could assist with the conversion process earlier than October? I don't know the best way to do this. Maybe the monster generation rules, or maybe just the specific stat blocks for the creatures in #1 - #28. It sounds like a pain in the butt either way.
This one was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the fey-gone-wild theme, it reminded me a lot of Hitchcock & Logue's "Carnival of Tears". Cyflymder the quickling could easily have been a spin-off out of that adventure. I have a couple of comments/questions. One question is what does the Lorestone look like? It's description and dimensions appear to have been have been left to the GM's imagination. I ran this scenario 3 times at Origins. I decided it was the size of a human fist. Another GM (Wicht) decided it was larger. What is the location of the Lorestone in the last act? I decided the quickling was carrying it. Wicht placed it atop the central stone in the druid's circle since the quickling probably couldn't carry it without being encumbered. Is there a correct set-up for this encounter? If a PC wanted to try and use the Lorestone, what would they discover? This is where having a cool favor/disfavor on the Chronicle would have come in handy. I don't care if it is near-impossible. There really should be a whisker of a chance to reap some benefit from experimenting with the stone. Of course, there should be a cost as well. I sincerely hope that when Season One begins we will see some added favors on the Chronicles. Many players have come to expect more than just equipment access and obscure, location-specific benefits. Keep in mind that PCs are going to retire as soon as 18 months after creation. It's not like a PaizoCon-esque favor on the Chronicle sheet for the players who couldn't travel there would be disruptive to the campaign. I did get a kick out of this scenario and I look forward to running it some more locally. I love the classic monster updates out of the Tome of Horrors. I am disappointed that the spriggan do not have DR/Cold Iron though. I remember facing one in a Living Greyhawk intro adventure and he had DR 10/Cold Iron. I know they appear without DR in Tome of Horrors but I would also think a Tier 4-5 party should be equipped for that contingency. Anyway, Steven Robert did a real fine job on this scenario. It's not a complex story, nor does it contain a lot of campaign setting flavor, but it plays well and everyone had a good time.
I'm not going to go into the whole story on this one, suffice to say that it was fun, challenging and made more sense that The Third Riddle. What I do want to get into is the interparty conflict the Andoran faction mission caused. Now at the time I played (last night) I hadn't read the mission, but at least one of the two Andoran players at the table is an experienced gamer and she believed she was going to lose her faction mission. After reading the success requirements it didn't seem as hopeless as I had thought, but the interparty conflict was still notable. The Andoran faction mission was Spoiler:
"Should you encounter any slaves on your journey, encourage them to gain their liberty once more by fighting their oppressors."
In Act Four the party encounters an ogre who is identified as a slave in the service to drow soldiers. Our party included 3 Osirions, 2 Andorans and 1 Chelaxian. The Chelaxian was a rebuking cleric who had animated the chimera from the previous encounter as a skeleton. The Chelaxian player also felt that his faction was inclined to use slaves and slavery. When the ogre was identified as a slave (it doesn't speak Undercommon so the soldiers ordered it to attack they did it in Common) the Chelaxian PC said in character something like "You will serve me after I kill your masters". He did not know what the Andoran mission was. When the Andorans told him the ogre should be free, he felt that it was just your typical role-play between factions. The fight against the drow soldiers was short but brutal. Their rapiers and sneak attack were not much good against a chimera skeleton, but they did carve the Andoran druid up good. The other Andoran tried to talk the ogre into surrendering but with a 7 charisma he really didn't have a chance. The ogre still was threatening the party when the Cheliax faction PC's skeleton dropped the last drow soldier and he moved it over to the ogre. Here's where the trouble started. The Chelaxian's intentions were unclear, but the Andorans wanted no harm to come to the ogre. So the Andoran said don't attack the ogre, we are going to free it. The Chelaxian said he's mine, slavery is part of my portfolio. He wasn't lying, he follows Zursvaater (LE, conquest, slavery, weapons). The Andoran announced he would take an AO on the skeleton when it passed by him to threaten the ogre. The Chelaxian player said an attack on his property is the same as an attack on his PC, and the Andoran would "lose his character" if he followed through. The Andorans said their faction mission was to free the ogre from slavery (they were mistaken but the GM never corrected them), and if the ogre was slain or enslaved they would lose their PA point. The Chelaxian said he would give them a deal, they could buy the ogre from him then free it if they wanted. The Andorans said that was blackmail and refused. They wanted to defend the ogre from the other party member. I was not the GM, but the players look to me as their organizer. I spoke up and said there were two ways to resolve the problem. Either everyone agreed that we were all adults and capable of some PC-vs-PC conflict without anyone getting their feelings hurt OR the GM needs to simply suspend reality and state the Chelaxian player cannot take an action that would cause other players to lose their faction point. The Andorans said they had a problem with the Chelaxian player's objective and I said then it doesn't happen. We agreed and I said we would move on and speak no more of it. Save for the GM... The GM had been quiet at this point, but now he was annoyed with the Chelaxian player quoting rules, telling players they would lose their characters, etc. The GM pulls out the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play and reads aloud Chapter Five. The argument is revived and it comes into question who is bullying who. It wasn't much fun for anyone, but eventually we put it behind us and were able to move on. Maybe it was just two people who were spoiling for an argument, but after they got it out of their system we were able to finish without further drama. I want to point out that a diplomacy check made in combat is done at a -10 penalty. The DC is listed as 30 to convince the ogre to stop fighting. That means the player(s) needs to roll a 40 Diplomacy (I can do math!). I'm just pointing that out... I think the point of my story (which I wasn't aware of when I started writing this) is that there is an inherent flaw when you set up a system where players are part of diametrically opposed factions yet they cannot act to oppose the other save for "a little fun banter". Many players also believe that Pathfinder Society is a heroic campaign setting. I believe it has been stated that it is actually a morally gray campaign, but some players seem to have difficulty getting 'hero' out of their mind. The Chelaxian player was a guest at the table and was being very stubborn about playing his character. I assume he will not be invited back if he wants to play that PC at this table in the future. What is funny is this guy was sitting in for another Chelaxian who actually has ranks in Profession (Slaver). I don't know what the answer is. I like the game the way it is with the flexible rules that allow the GM to use their own judgment. I don't want to give the rules lawyers any ground to restrict the game any further, but there are clearly two types of players in this game. The type that prefer heroism, fun for everyone and dislike interparty conflict and the type that appreciate the gray areas and don't mind losing rewards in the name of good role-playing. The trick is to keep those players separated.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread started on this yet. I looked up and down this list and couldn't find one so I guess I'm going to start it. I haven't read the scenario yet. We played this last night. We had a full table and were fairly balanced. Our party composition was:
We fairly waltzed through the first three combats but when the Spoiler:
advanced assassin vine appeared we were hosed. My cleric took the journal and went to leave the tower while the other PCs were still talking with the diseased guy (he surrendered to us when we agreed not to interrupt his ritual). The GM triggered the mishap while the PCs were all (except myself) still inside the ritual room. I'm sure this was intended to happen this way.
What followed was the "Full Metal Jacket" effect. Remember in the second half of the movie when the sniper shot a soldier out in the open and the rest of the platoon were watching him dying from their covered position. One of his buddies runs out to try and save him and becomes a casualty as well. And then another dummy wants to try the same thing. The Tier 3-4 assassin vine can drop a 4th level PC in a single hit. You're looking at 15HP from the slam, no chance to beat it on the grapple, and another 15HP from the constriction. If you aren't dead it will certainly pop your head off the following round. The first round the Fighter/Rogue ran out onto the balcony in a theatrical David vs Goliath moment--until the vine's turn when it slammed, grabbed, constricted and dropped him to -9. The cleric (me) was 40 feet away and wasn't going to become the next casualty by moving through the vine's threatened area to get to the dying hero. He passed at the end of the round. After the first round the PCs peppered the vine with arrows and an ineffective fireball until it pulled itself up to the balcony and threatened the ritual room. At that point the rest of the PCs moved into the back rooms and tried to think of a way out of the mess. Basically after a lot of magic missiles and summoned monsters the vine was dropped but it wasn't much fun. Afterward we chose to rest inside of the tower. The last fight was supposed to happen on the open road but the GM felt that if the PCs didn't come back, the Aspis Consortium agents would come looking for us. It shouldn't have been that tough of a fight, but we didn't finish resting when the bad guys came calling. The wizard got KOed and someone brought him back up to 1HP while he was still threatened. Stubbornly he shot the raging barbarian with some magic missiles in the kneecap on his turn. The GM returned the favor with a crit on the wizard and we were down another 5,450 GP. I'm sure I will have more to say after I read the scenario, but one mistake we found was giving a bad guy a rapier and the Power Attack feat. A rapier is a light weapon and you cannot Power Attack with them. On top of that, what kind of self-respecting barbarian carries a rapier?
I'm sure this will be removed if it violates any laws (or simply good taste) to link this article from the satirical newspaper "The Onion", but given the climate on the messageboards sometimes, I thought maybe others would find this as amusing as I did. The title of the article is "Oh, No! It's Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run!" By Matthew Barnes from the May 28, 2009 | Issue 45•22 .
Will we ever find out what happens when we insert an ioun stone into a Wayfinder? In the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting book it details the Wayfinder's powers and hints that combining an ioun stone with a Wayfinder can unlock new, mysterious powers. We now have access to both Wayfinders and an ioun stone. What happens? Should we e-mail Josh a scanned copy of our Chronicle Sheets where the items were purchased?
Josh, I like the new look of the PFS Scenarios but I'd like it a lot more if the blurb could be squeezed in there on page 2. Often it is helpful to the players to have the blurb read to them prior to the game beginning. Currently the only place we can find the blurb is on the web.
A couple of thoughts on this scenario:
We started off with the briefing, then traveled to Deadbridge via boxed text. It all seemed rather straight-forward. As soon as the boxed text ended I asked if the Black Marquis actually had the book in the room with him. The GM said yes. I said “We roll initiative”. He’s a frickin’ pirate, why would we trust him? And he believes that the book was stolen from the Society so why wouldn’t he be prepared for the Pathfinders to play hardball? Sadly, he was not statted but after reading the scenario I think if Lady Riverbane thought she could take him, then our party would’ve had no problem. After establishing we had been thwarted by the page count, we continued the scenario. This same crap happened with Grandmaster Torch in PFS#14. The author or the editor needs to address these kinds of plot holes by either statting out the NPCs or impressing upon the players that attacking the guy with the information is a Very Bad Idea. How about having some untiered enforcers show up to thrash the PCs afterward if they succeed in circumventing the plot? Or ignore my suggestion and I’ll keep whining about it :) It has been stated already but I will say it again, the fights with a lot of low-powered bad guys are ho-hum. I know there’s usually a “warm-up fight”, but calling nine 2nd level warriors an EL 7 fight just isn’t truth in advertising. The fight in Act 2 was also frustrating because somehow these large spiders were all hiding in a confined area, and their vermin instincts were to wait until all the prey entered the room then seal the door? I know that these tactics don’t make sense but the author is trying to create an interesting combat situation. I think a better idea is to seal the door after *one* PC has come below. It raises the tension more. It was a nice gesture to leave the potions of lesser restoration there. I also liked the Golarion trivia sidebar. I hope to see more in future scenarios. Perhaps a reward could be attached to this trivia gem. The GM asks the question, and the correct answer grants the player a free re-roll during this Act only. Per the Taldor faction mission it has now been established that a DC 12 Heal or Survival check is sufficient to remove a venom sack from a monstrous spider. Sadly there was no access to monstrous spider venom added to the Chronicle but I assume that within the scenario the spider venom may be applied to the PC’s weapons if the proper conditions are met? At the very least this would shut me up about the Taldan Poisoner feat being worthless. I don’t suppose Joshua would like to list the DCs for extracting poison from other monsters such as centipedes, scorpions, vargoullies and imps? (Sigh) I suppose not… I did like the scene in Act 3 with the corpse marionette. That was cool. The players have been hosed by swarms enough in PFS that at this point everyone is packing alchemist’s fire in anticipation of this threat. Some players *really* hate swarms, like they hate undead and other monsters that are immune to a lot of attacks. Act 4 was cool. The ettercaps are too easy to gang up on though. They have to come into melee to actually inflict damage, and that’s this encounter’s weakness. There should be more traps or some other way that the ettercaps could hurt the PCs without exposing themselves. I can tell looking at the Tier 6-7 fight it’s not even going to reach the end of the second round. Our high level group has a 6th level archer who does a d8+8 damage a hit with three arrows a round. The ettercaps have a 14 AC. I didn’t see where Lady Riverbane’s arcane spell failure chance is noted in Act 5. I’ve got the same complaint about the number of thugs in this encounter as in the first one. It is fun to beat up on NPC mooks though. Lady Riversbane’s stats had a huge change between Tier 3-4 and Tier 6-7. But even at 6-7 she’s only going to last as long as her mirror images do. The biggest disappointment was finding out the book was a forgery and the Black Marquis couldn’t make a DC 12 appraise check to figure this out. All in all I’m going to give the scenario 3 out of 5 stars. The plot was contrived, everyone saw through it from the start but had to go along with things to complete the scenario. The faction missions again were ‘find this item’ or ‘make this skill check’ and required little thought or role-play. The combats were ho-hum, and nothing lasted longer than two rounds before we were simply mopping up. Redeeming qualities were the ship-based combats, which everyone always enjoys. The spiders and ettercaps made for a creepy atmosphere even if they weren’t tactically challenging. The traps allowed the rogues to shine. Despite my critique I do look forward to running this scenario more than some. After playing it I understand as a player what parts were hard to swallow. I’ll make some adjustments and see if I have more fun as the GM than as a player.
I didn't want to threadjack the GM's Reward discussion, so: I'm curious, how many scenarios has everyone actually eaten? Is there anyone posting here who has had to eat every scenario? If so, when will you ever get to play if no one in your group ever shoulders the GM's mantle? My local group has 15 Player/GMs who each agree to eat one scenario for the group, thus easing the overall responsibility. In order to get things rolling and prep in time for conventions I have eaten three scenarios. That's not really so bad, so I'm not going to throw a fit if I don't get full gold, XP, PA & access each time I make the sacrifice. How many have you guys eaten and how far up-to-date are you with the release schedule?
MichiCon Saturday, May 2nd
Pandemonium Mayhem, May 23rd & 24th
Josh, I am experiencing a problem on my local scene. We (Southeastern Michigan) have three annual RPG conventions at a local game store. I’m trying to promote Pathfinder Society at conventions as well as running a gameday or two a month (and organizing a weekly PFS home table for veteran players). Conventions are where PFS is going to be the most visible and pick up more players. My gamedays now have regular players and a trickle of new recruits. My problem is that when given a choice between playing at a convention and paying $5 a slot or playing for free at a gameday/home event, most players choose the latter. There isn’t a deluge of PFS getting cranked out, so players can keep up-to-date with scenarios by attending the gamedays. When the conventions roll around attendance is light and PFS doesn’t receive a lot of attention from outsiders. This question has been raised previously but I wanted to bring it up again. Come Season One or onward, will we see any convention-only special scenarios outside of GenCon and PaizoCon? Will the special scenarios already announced ever be available for re-play elsewhere? Are there any suggestions for strategies to make conventions more attractive to players who have the gameday option? Thanks!
Joshua, I understand that you are only playing the cards you have been dealt and that a lot of hard-to-please people are going to be giving you Hell (apologies--myself first and foremost) over the blog entry regarding GenCon. I want you to know that you are appreciated and don't want you to get discouraged by all the complaining some of us do. The easy answer to that sentiment is "Don't complain". Easier said than done. But if you ever have or start to get aggravated with the vocal segment of this community, I hope you understand that we only complain because we enjoy this PFS thing so much and carry very high expectations. Perhaps if Paizo could figure out a way to charge our accounts for receiving and processing complaints you could turn this to your advantage. Just tell me where to send the PayPal credit. We'll trim your mortgage down in no time at all. OK, with the nicitites out of the way--I'm sure everyone is grumbling about the PRPG rulebook getting released simultaneously as the convention begins. No one likes to wait in line. Which begs the question, will there be a limit on the number of PRPG books an individual can buy? I get a discount based on the number of Paizo subscriptions I receive. Can I buy 20 copies for my friends so they don't have to all wait in line? That's going to shave $150 off your bottom line. Am I going to cause any static? Cause concern over someone re-selling the discounted books to people in the back of the line? Just thinking ahead so you can plan accordingly. It has been stated that the Season Zero scenarios will NOT be revised & converted to the PRPG rules--such a thing would be too great a time sink for your person. Any conversion of Season Zero scenarios would have to be rendered by the individual GM. However, there will likely be many players who have held off joining the Society until the new rules are instituted, and GenCon will be their first Pathfinder Society experience. These players will be eligible to play only half the scenarios premiering at GenCon. Do you think that you or your contributors could convert just three or four low-tier Season Zero scenarios so new players might have some more play opportunities at GenCon? That is, if there will be any space for pick-up games in the PFS area...
Has this appeared in any publication yet? In case it has not, are there any plans for it? If not, say I wanted to make a character toward describing him as a Hellknight in training. What do you guys think would be the appropriate feats, traits, class progression? How about a Hellknight code of conduct? Would it even be feasible that the Hellknights be represented within the Pathfinder Society? |
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