Elvis Aron Manypockets's page

Ricgeon wrote:

David Bowles wrote:

I completely agree its low-hanging, but if it's only say 5% of the "problem" is it even worth going after?

The tactics/build variation is so high, that any kind of control from money will be completely swamped out I think. Whenever I hear conflicting reports of how hard a scenario is, I always as about class/build differences, NEVER wealth.

Exactly. So if it is ultimately a combination of all three (tactics, build, wealth) that creates the "problem" how does nerfing the wealth for all solve the problem of over-powered characters? You'll still have very efficiently built characters who will still be able to over-shadow others and claim scenarios are too "easy", which as I understand, was the original "complaint".

Actually...it gets a bit worse then that. People who have good tactics can play well with pretty much ANYTHING...even the pre-gens. People who build well will continue to build well. So yeah these people get their power cut under then by a small amount. They honestly won't even notice. Now the new player who doesn't know much yet or the people who like to make not optimal characters or those who just can't play very well yet...yeah they will get hurt a LOT by this. So really you make the issue worse, not better by reducing wealth. Run an AP with 75% WBL and 10 PB and then do it with 200% WBL and 25 PB. The power growth for the advanced optimizers will be pretty small...the power growth for the casual will be freaking gigantic.

Except that the new / non-optimizers typically DON'T go looking to play up at every opportunity, while the uber-players do. This adds a wealth disparity on top of the difference due to build and tactics. So WBL isn't an issue with most everyone except the ones who already have a distinct advantage.

They're simply trying to eliminate the ability to obtain additional wealth (= power) by building characters that can play up consistently without much fear of consequences. As it is now, the rich get richer, the poor get sacrificed in the name of playing up, or hide in the background.

You can make an envelope with a wax seal to hand with it if you like. I have thought about doing this myself.

I have an old pre-stamped envelope issued by the USPS with a sailing ship printed next to the rate that I hand to the player along with the note. I tuck the flap inside the envelope hoping they'll open it to see if anything is inside, which someone invariably does. Peeking inside they find a piece of paper with odd looking symbols. Of course they take it out to see it better. Turn it over. You know what comes next, right?

Gets 'em every time.

Congratulations Dom! Your work at conventions is truly legendary as you practice the art of con-fu.

FYI anyone annoyed at Elvis can blame Dom for introducing me to PFS at MegaCon 2012, where he got his start as a pregen wizard named Ezren.

That text is applicable to both tiers. Looks like your GM didn't read the text after the fight (which is easy to do, trust me) being the BBEG and all. Since his escape pretty much instant, there's little way to get around it.

Exactly why I thought something was wonky at the time - just because he had a random amount of damage on his turn he disappeared & we lost 20% of the gold from the entire scenario? Didn't seem right. Off to ask for a refund...

Jiggy, I'm still fairly new to GMing & haven't played any alignment dependent classes so only knew about the paladin - didn't leave them out on purpose. It actually underscores my main point, evil acts stand out as not allowed for anyone so ALL evil acts will get our attention. Other alignment infractions are dependent on how well we know the classes and who's playing what (even more complicated with multi-class & players who introduce their characters with fluff but no mention of actual class). And for me watching for lawful / non-lawful is much less ingrained and harder to define. Thanks for the enlightenment though.

There are scenarios (I can think of at least one off the top of my head) that has an enemy who escapes when the battle isn't going their way, but the story includes some extra fluff around the lab to keep money the same (Quoted text in spoiler).

However, in those cases, the conditions are with an "or" so completing either gets you full amount of gold.

Hang on, I played that one & lost over 1k gold because of the escape, without any opportunity to discover anything else. Basically guy escaped game over you lose gold. Also crossed off several items from chronicle I'm assuming the BBEG was wearing when he left. Was this for both tiers? I remember this distinctly because I was urged to play up so we did high tier and then lost a lot of the gold anyway. Higher risk but no reward.

When I GM (or play for that matter) I usually have no idea what characters' alignments are, excepting that paladins must be good and no one can be evil. So only evil acts will ping on the "outside of alignment" radar since that's the only thing I'm sure is an issue. It's not that we're watching it more closely, it's just that evil is the only one that's going to stand out as definitely outside of someone's alignment.

Yes, so long as credits from the same module (as player or GM) are applied to different characters.

I've always read the +1 to weapon damage meaning damage done USING a weapon. Though the spell effects are described as "missile" "projectile" etc, that's just fluff & doesn't actually create a weapon.

Kristie Schweyer wrote:

You guys are so awesome. Thanks. :)

And I was so surprised I might have been flat-footed for the entire combat...

Need some levels in Rouge or Barbarian to fix that. :D

The Rouge ended up getting smeared anyway...

Congratulations Kristie! It was an honor to witness this first hand.

A well-deserved reward for all the blood, sweat & tears. Which you expertly extract from your minions.

And thank you personally for all your help & support in getting PFS started here in Sarasota.

Elvis must now memorialize your accomplishment as only a bard of his particular talents could, with a joke.

That may be so, but at least the elephant didn't have a wardrobe malfunction...

As already mentioned, download & read the FREE Guide to Organized Play. Then download all 3 of the FREE First Steps scenarios & take a look at them. That will give you a good idea of how scenarios work. Then pick one and run it.

In Season 0 there's a 0-04 Frozen Fingers of Midnight doc listed in the 0-03 Murder on the Silken Caravan folder. Should I use it when I run Silken Caravan at MegaCon anyway?

It's also his first PFS character. And he would presumably have already had all the gear after the 2nd scenario as I doubt he bought anything after the 3rd since he wants to retool.

You don't even get to stamp your dms screen for killing first levels...

But it's all I have right now. And they were a matched set (intending to take teamwork feats).

There can also be an issue if it's scheduled somewhere with limited space or tables for PFS. So even if you had enough GMs to cover another table there's nowhere for them to physically sit. And if it's last minute walk-ins that cause the overflow it's almost impossible to find them another location quickly.

If it happens too often as an organizer I'd look at other locations (or a contingency for a nearby overflow location such as a restaurant or gamer who lives close). Or buy a large van or better yet a box truck and convert it into a mobile PFS room.

We're lucky to have a large area at our local FLGS that's dedicated to game play - board, rpg, card, 40k, etc. But we also have conflicts to work around - it's too full Friday evenings & most of Saturday with other events, so we schedule our game Sunday when we know there's plenty of space available.

No free grapple, but he's now holding your bow, which would be a combat maneuver to disarm him on your turn. The swift action is to recover it, not to disarm him. I would not call trying to take back the bow from someone who is holding it a recovery as it is now opposed rather than lying on the ground.

Considering everyone who keeps their same character through level 1 has more than likely spent gold on consumables, I don't see it as unreasonable to assume that whatever your character had been you'd still be out some gold - remember you still get to keep the experience and consumables are an inevitable cost of adventuring. Nobody else finishes first level with full gold.

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No, you're not a bad person now. You were a bad person then. Now you are a former bad person.

You are correct in ridding yourself of that abomination of a spell and replacing it with something more in keeping with your new former bad person status.

AdAstraGames wrote:

Hayato Ken wrote:

Weapon cord is a very cheap way to devalue some disarm feats. Normaly you don´t have it in your hand if you disarm or grapple. Disarm makes things fall to the floor in the same square, with some feats maybe in other squares. And you can´t grapple weapons, only the persons. Even steal maneuver is not possible anymore.

When you disarm something secured with a weapon cord, it can be retrieved as a free action.

If I am disarming a bow, I'm doing so with an empty hand. You aren't doing an AoO with it - you don't threaten. You might, if you have a cestus, threaten, but, gee, I'm not terribly afraid of a D3 + 1/2 STR damage on a cestus wielded by someone who uses a bow as their primary weapon.

If the person doing the disarm has an empty hand, they end up with the weapon. It does not end up on the ground.

So, I end up with your bow, in my hand, tied to your arm. Do have fun.

But by RAW all that happens is that I get the bow back from the weapon cord, no free grapples, no chance to damage the bow, none of the crap you seem to think the enemy can take for free based on just a disarm.

This sort of thing is the result of not taking the rules for the abstraction they are. It is just like trying to cast lightning bolt at the water to electrocute everyone standing in it or things like that. Very cinematic and sometimes appropriate in a home game, but not ok in PFS.

Actually by RAW all a weapon cord does is keep it from moving more than 2 feet away from you (cord is 2' long) and let you pick it up as a swift action ON YOUR TURN. A weapon cord does NOT allow you to pick it up as soon as it drops (that would be an immediate action), you have to wait until your turn.

So a disarm maneuver by an unarmed enemy can certainly allow him to pick up your weapon after a successful disarm as he can do it automatically as part of the action:

Disarm
...
If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands). If your attack fails by 10 or more, you drop the weapon that you were using to attempt the disarm. If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.

I started my first group as GM last year and highly recommend point buy (I used 20). Of course, I'm always the one guy that rolls horribly low stats just within what the GM views as acceptable. If you do roll for stats, have them do it in front of you and have contingencies for abnormally low (and high) total stats.

There's a set of pawns made for Rise of the Runelords you might want to consider since you're running it - includes some specific pawns for that AP.

The Condition Cards have proven invaluable as a GM, the Buff Deck is useful as well.

Rise of the Runelords was originally issued in modular form under the D&D 3.5 rules set - the hardbound anniversary edition has been updated to Pathfinder so it doesn't require conversion where the modules would.

Elvis Aron Manypockets wrote:

Sleep = full round action so what do the bad guys do between when it's cast & when it goes off one round later?

Fail to act in the surprise round

How do the bad guys fail to act in the surprise round? They initiate the surprise round, only the PC's who failed the preception AND sense motive checks earlier are surprised & can't act then.

Sleep = full round action so what do the bad guys do between when it's cast & when it goes off one round later?

Rewards stack, so each level includes the stuff from the one before it. Notice the pledge levels all say "or more" after the amount - e.g. Pledge $5 or more means everyone pledging at least $5 gets the PFS boon. The add-ons would be extra. $15 gets you the PDF plus the boon.

Consider letting her have or find an animal to help in combat, such as a wolf or panther, while you run a tag-along NPC. I did that when I ran Black Fang for a friend's 12 year old daughter & it worked great. Her rogue rescued the panther on her way back from the Hero's Handbook adventure & she met my bard in town. It let her focus on one character but she loved the RP with the animal as well & it helped immensely in combat, with my bard providing healing and buffs.

Also there's a bunch of free downloads on the Beginner Box page (link at top left) as well as some suggestions in other threads here.

For cutlery I'd suggest getting a set of ginsu knives from HSN (Hao-Jin Shopping Network).

Plus, not only do you not lose the +3 for the old class skills, you get a +3 for any new class skills you already had a rank in when it wasn't a class skill, in addition to any old or new class skills you put a first rank in going forward.

Don't forget the extra d20 for confirming a critical hit plus the extra damage dice if it's confirmed - a weapon doing d8 damage with a x3 crit multiplier has you rolling 2 extra d8's for a total of 3d8 rolled dice damage. Hopefully you'll do a lot of this at EVERY level ;-)

Eyes of the Ten! Eyes of the Ten! Is this going to be on warhorn or is there some other way to make sure I get in on this?

Estragon al' Godot is at the ready to serve the Decemvirate!

Link is at the top of the 1st post - click on Megacon Warhorn. It's kinda hard to see as it's at the very top of the post. Plus you rolled low on your perception check. And you didn't put any ranks in it. And your dump stat is Wisdom. And it's snowing. etc...

I'll be returning to the scene of my infection - Megacon 2012 was where I played my first ever Pathfinder Society game after Dom encouraged me to try it out. Pregen Ezren in First Steps Part 1. Now I'm a one-star GM & organize our local monthly PFS event.

This'll be Elvis' first appearance though... (Sorry Kristie, he insists on coming along).

Speaking of Elvis:

Q: "How many chickens does it take to run Pathfinder Society?"

Just picked up one of these on sale locally & love that they can take markers (though I can't imagine "improving" anything on them).

Alas, the final tile was damaged, apparently in production as the packaging was intact and the back cover was fine. Cthulhu's shrine has several visible scratches in the coating, probably from his victims, but still...

Anyone else had this problem? I'd take it back for exchange but this was the last one, and since it was buy 1 get 1 half off I'd lose the savings if I returned it. Any suggestions?

Yeah, I'm seriously bummed about the magic arrow quantity - why 50 for magic when regular ones are lots of 20? Just seems an arbitrary amount that only serves to make them prohibitively costly to purchase, & we're left hoping to find smaller quantities on a chronicle. At least in lots of 20 I may actually purchase them, but as it stands PFS might as well just make them unavailable except on chronicles. Makes absolutely no sense to me why the massive difference in quantities - IRL more expensive items are almost always sold in smaller lots. Does anyone know why it's listed this way?

...other customers have gotten them "at random" or possibly due to an incredibly complex algorithm over the years. :)

Yay! I'm a random Paizo customer! Or the answer to an incredibly complex algorithm.

Received mine this week, first holiday card of the year. Thanks to all the awesome folks at Paizo.

Looks like he used a 1 for 1 point buy rather than the graduated system:
+3+7+3-2+7+5=23 minus the +2 for half elf and +1 for 4th = 20 starting points. Hopefully just a misunderstanding about point buy.

Are we even sure the player had a boon to be able to play the goblin PC? Did he actually get it through playing at GenCon?

I'm not surprised at the new to PFS players - I see this a lot with online gamers not taking npc interactions seriously to the point of picking fights with them, figuring they either kill them & get more XP/power/loot or die & make a new character. Or just for the lulz.

They need to be shown that there are consequences, though at this stage it's better to educate them than to punish them. Maybe have the npc roll their eyes, look at an associate & say something like "ah, freshmen" or "is this the best they could send?" or "how'd these clowns make it through basic training?" in an exasperated tone. Out of character I'd give them a warning that they may be jeopardizing their right to play the rest of the scenario.

I can just see that sung in an imitation Elvis voice...

Thank you, thank you very much.

Thanks. Speaking of party composition... I've yet to be to a con event; how's that handled? I would imagine with random players, it could be possible to get a table of mostly squishy mage-types. Or is there a method of sorting?

One of my more memorable games was playing tier 6-7 of In Wrath's Shadow as a group of 5 "squishies". Party consisted of a sorceress, witch, wizard, pregen cleric, and my bard. Combats were interesting since we didn't have to account for the usual melee characters with high init that immediately limit our use of AoE and my bards LoS as an archer (who also served as trapfinder, door-opener, and damage dealer - as a halfling doing d4+2 per arrow). Very cool to see lock-downs, buffs, debuffs, and AoE spells in all their glory.

Probably because with great risk comes great responsibility. If there's no downside to whether my character lives or dies, I may take more risks, thereby putting the other characters at greater risk of dying. Some might even sign up for already played scenarios just for the lulz, messing with npc's etc. Forces you to play by the rules & play smart.

Ninja'd because I rewrite everything. But I'm a bard so my version counts.

Correct, adding in that both cannot be applied to the same character.

Well, possibly because of this blurb in FS Part 1 page 4:

The three-part First Steps series is intended to introduce
new players and new characters from experienced players
to the Pathfinder Society, the city of Absalom, and the ten
factions to which all members of the Pathfinder Society
Organized Play campaign belong. While each adventure in
the series is a self-contained story, they are intended to be
played in order by brand-new PCs without any experience
or Prestige Points. At the end of the third scenario, A Vision
of Betrayal, after the PCs have met and done a favor for
all 10 faction heads, they will be able to choose their PCs’
allegiance and gain retroactive prestige for the completion
of the previous two scenarios.
This series may only be played at the normal advancement
rate of 3 XP per level, meaning a PC completing the series will
advance to 2nd level, making the character a bit more sturdy
for tiered adventuring in normal Pathfinder Society play.

And this on page 20:

Faction Missions
There are no faction-specific missions in this scenario,
as PCs playing through the First Steps series have not
yet chosen factions, so any PC who meets the scenario’s
success conditions earns a second Prestige Point for
completing the scenario. When a PC earns her third
Chronicle (after completing A Vision of Betrayal), all
previously earned prestige will be reported to her
chosen faction.

And no doubt similar ones in parts 2 & 3.

Pierce Bowman, my fighter/archer

Quintus Genericus, my 5th PFS "character" - never played or even statted out, just accumulating GM credits.

Same thing happened to me when I first registered the number given to me at a con - my event showed up along with 2 from a prior con which I never attended. Apparently someone had given the same numbers out at 2 different events. Jonathan's advice should work, if not Mike Brock can fix it (he corrected mine after months of no results from other avenues).

Congratulations to both of you, from another recent first star recipient.

Mine was a surprise as I've only run 8 games, but since We Be Goblins & Masters of the Fallen Fortress are considered modules & therefore award 2 GM credits each, I took the fast track to stardom.

The stat block also conflicts with the Special Abilities section below it, which agrees with your +5:

--------------------------
Hand of the Apprentice Ezren can, as a standard action, make a single
attack with his cane at a range of 30 feet, as the weapon flies from
his hand to strike a foe before instantly returning to him. This attack
is treated as a ranged attack with a thrown weapon, with a +5 bonus
to hit. This ability cannot be used to perform a combat maneuver.
--------------------------

Elvis Aron Manypockets wrote:

I think many times its a matter of the player preferring combat to role playing & using the low Int as an excuse to make sure every encounter becomes a hack & slash so they can do what their character is built for. And it only takes one player to escalate an attempt to RP a solution into a combat by simply attacking, while foregoing or ending a combat by RPing takes the cooperation of most if not all of the party for the same reason.

I just had a discussion with a player who has a ranged fighter in our Sunday game & a melee 2-handed greatsword wielder in my Tuesday game, both of which he plays as "it's an NPC, shoot / power attack". His reasoning was that since he has few skill points & therefore no ranks in knowledges & diplomacy attacking is the only way he can contribute - an angle I hadn't really considered. I told him he could still contribute in social encounters by role playing to make up for a lack of ranks & get bonus to his rolls that way.

Int 5 Paladin, putting Favored Class Bonus into a skill rank. This means 2 ranks per level. Vati *still* roleplays and does so quite well. She can use diplomacy, she can make decent perception checks, and she'll often try to assist on anything she can (except knowledge rolls). I don't really buy that argument ;)

Less an argument than a mind-set. Online gaming background so kill it to level up is default mode. Just trying to bring the role-play back to role playing games - like you're doing with Vati.

I use Hero Lab myself & though it helps me immensely with character creation and leveling it can be costly. The base program comes with one rules set, for Pathfinder you get the Core Rulebook & a few other freebies. Anything from other books you need to buy the add-on for that book. I imagine your GM has more than just the Core rules in his Hero Lab & was pulling things from other books, which is why you can't duplicate what he did with your base subscription.

I think many times its a matter of the player preferring combat to role playing & using the low Int as an excuse to make sure every encounter becomes a hack & slash so they can do what their character is built for. And it only takes one player to escalate an attempt to RP a solution into a combat by simply attacking, while foregoing or ending a combat by RPing takes the cooperation of most if not all of the party for the same reason.

I just had a discussion with a player who has a ranged fighter in our Sunday game & a melee 2-handed greatsword wielder in my Tuesday game, both of which he plays as "it's an NPC, shoot / power attack". His reasoning was that since he has few skill points & therefore no ranks in knowledges & diplomacy attacking is the only way he can contribute - an angle I hadn't really considered. I told him he could still contribute in social encounters by role playing to make up for a lack of ranks & get bonus to his rolls that way.