Jason S's page

For that matter, the following sounds fine to me, and is even simpler: If you play any pre-gen at a table, and it lives, you can apply the Chronicle sheet's boons and items found, and 1 XP and 500 gold, to a new or existing 1st-level PC.

Bingo! We have a winner. This is the best idea yet, because it's simple, easy to understand and easy to implement.

I think this would also satisfy some players desire to skip the low levels of play (as opposed to using high level modules to do it).

This way the last encounter won't hose the whole party.

Well, the way Darkness and Deeper Darkness spells work, the PCs need a Daylight spell, because Darkvision and non-magical light won't work.

I'm not sure if you read what I wrote, but I found giving the aureolyte a single square of light (enough for a single PC to insert rods into slots, not good enough for combat) worked beautifully. When I ran it, the ending was cinematic with the PCs solving the puzzle, which is the intended ending imo.

Looks good, looks fair. The only part that might need some clarification is pregen death.

If a level 1 pregen dies, I assume I don't give the player a chronicle (unless the entire party helps pay for the Raise Dead spell)? Is that correct? I don't see the point of giving them a chronicle, except to prevent them from every playing the scenario again, but for low level scenarios, does it really matter? I don't think so.

If a level 4 or 7 pregen dies, I give them a chronicle, but I mark "died" somewhere on the chronicle and they can't use that chronicle until they pay for a Raise Dead spell (and remove other conditions they gained)? I'm guessing the player can't refuse the chronicle unless they don't have a player ID yet. Where should we mark "died" so that it's clear? Under conditions gained?

Also, when I report the event, I'm guessing we don't report unresolved dead pregens as "dead", otherwise it will cause other problems in the system when reporting other events, correct?

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Regarding not being able to play a scenario with a pregen if you have a viable PC to play. I don't think there's really any point to this rule, especially with the changes proposed by Michael. Under the proposed rules, if you're playing a 4th/7th level pregen, playing that pregen carries the same risk as playing your PC. If you die you still have to pay for Raise Dead (or the removal of other conditions). There's no way to cheat the system (except maybe at low levels where it doesn't really matter).

What the heck does that mean? Punish the players? And more importantly does the last part (emphasized) account for? Does it have any effect?

Rather shafting.

I forgot, I changed that too since it's almost a slam dunk that Skeldon is going to die (between bleeding out, Zoathrias stabbing him, and Zoathrias blowing up, he has almost no chance).

Imo, Basia wanted Skeldon dead and she said she would cover their backs if "anything were to happen", so her reward to the PCs is to cover the expenses that the Decemvirate want the PCs to pay. She let's the PCs know that the Decemvirate are big jerks and that they want the PCs to pay the price. I'm sure the new Shadow Lodge faction would have a field day with this!

Even though Basia paid for my PCs, my PCs (the players?) still wanted to quit the Pathfinder Society because the guys they were working for were such big jerks. The PCs would have quit the PF society and the players would have also quit PFS if they did pay. So I don't recommend doing that.

These were my minor and major adjustments.

First of all, I agree with Hogarth. For subtier 1-2, I think APL 3 is desirable (six level 2 PCs). My group was APL 3 and I dropped five PCs into negative hp (two level 1s). It was that close.

I hope this helps. I found the end fairly cinematic, but I had more fun with just the journey getting there. It was an extremely long but enjoyable scenario (6 hours).

I just played the PFS version of Mists last night at subtier 1-2 with 4 very underpowered level 1 PCs. I found the following:

So basically because of the PFS changes to the last encounter, I'm not a fan of Mists of Mwangi anymore and I'm revising my review. The initial version was much better. Last night's scenario just felt too fast, too simple and too easy.

Also, this scenario could easily be finished in 30 minutes. They might miss 1/3 of the gold doing so, but it can be done. Super short scenario.

The day a rod of wonder shows up on a Chronicle sheet will be a dark day indeed.

Wow, rods of wonder have unlimited uses (compared to wands of wonder)! I could see that being annoying (and fun), lol.

I could be wrong, but I thought the idea behind the treasure on the chronicle sheet is that it's supposed to provide access to gear that you couldn't normally acquire (at the given level) with Fame/PA. Otherwise, why even bother putting them on the sheet? And why allocate so much of the space on the chronicle for them?

In practice, my characters have always had the PA to buy something far before anything useful turned up on the chronicle sheet. For example, I saw a Belts of Giant Strength appearing on a chronicle at subtier 6-7, but I've already purchased it at level 4. So that's not very useful or special.

In practice, I've never seen anyone purchase anything off their chronicle sheet. Well, that's not 100% accurate, the only things I've seen people purchase are wands with a limited number of charges, they're great. But besides that, no.

I read Mark's reply and personally, I wouldn't mind if there was one "big item" per scenario that consumes most of the treasure for a certain encounter. Having a single item that goes beyond the "50% loot ratio" (beyond Mark's 8000g in his example) for the encounter is a good thing imo. I think it would make players more excited about the loot, to get Boots of Speed (or some other good item), compared to giving the PCs lots of small mundane magical items.

If you gave the PCs cool and expensive items (that they would never buy, like "Cloak of the Bat" or "Rod of Wonder", etc.), I think it would be fun for players to try these items out during an adventure, even if they never keep them! I think things like that make the scenario more fun for the players.

Having said that, I'd rather have Paizo thinking about the overall quality of the scenario rather than thinking too much about the loot. I'm ok with ignoring the loot.

Lou Diamond, you have a good point, but I'm surprised you care, because it's been like this the entire time. You're level 10, you should have enough Fame to buy just about anything you want anyway.

I never liked traits as a reason to supply a character with his background. Background and personality should come from the player's imagination, not from some mechanic with limited options.

I like traits in the sense that they're half feats. I wish there were several feats that were traits instead, because that's the only way a lot of them would be worth picking.

So yes, I'd throw away the free traits on character startup, there's no point imo. Almost everyone will just powergame them anyway. How many reactionary characters can you get before the whole thing becomes a joke?

Wow, this is really early... I'm still buzzed about this years Gen Con.

Btw, how much per night? This year I had $165 per night for a King bed (they said they had doubles, but predictably after we booked, they had Kings only. Very sneaky.)

I might be coming, either that or PaizoCon or Origins. Gotta choose.

I also agree with Dragnmoon on this.

Giving a new player a chronicle is an incentive to play more PFS. Telling a player he wasted his time and can never play that scenario again (whether or not that has any real impact on life) is depressing and tends to demotivate.

As long as the chronicle you give out uses a "new player" ID (that you hand out), I don't see the problem with it. It's not like they can then turn around and use it on their current character. And I'm going to assume someone isn't psychotic enough to lie about it and then play the scenario with their "real" character, but I guess that's why we have the official rule (and why I don't have a problem with it).

I'd personally allowed 2 players to play pregens more than once for credit. Players have busy lives and sometimes it's hard for a new player to create a new PC, and you don't always have the time to help them either. As expected, they both made real PCs once they got to level 2. The player still has an ID # and I'd mark him dead if he died. No foul no harm as far as I'm concerned.

Having said that, I have no problems with the official rules because it keeps rules abusers away. Having said, I'll continue to make exceptions, especially for new players, because it's the right thing to do.

Those models are nice, especially the Ghenett Manor.

When I ran Frostfur, I found that a lot of the action was at the base of the tower, not the top of the tower. So I'm wondering if the tower isn't the best prop for actually running the game. It looks nice though.

How come Tanis, Flint, and the rest of the group from the Dragonlance novels never roasted Tasslehoff alive? Tas was stealing everything from everybody all the time.

Tasslehoff was cute and benevolent. Most PCs skimming are malicious and doing it for self gain, at the expense of the party.

Tasslehoff never took anything major and more often than not, he'd give stuff back or help the party with them. It's not like Tasslehoff owned a +5 weapon from his skimmings while everyone else was stuck with +1 weapons.

Also, it was a known trait of the DL halflings. His companions knew about his tendencies and he never tried to hide it. That's the same as saying out-of-character "Guys, my guy steals the occasional non-important thing here and there. Is it ok?".

I definitely feel your pain, my group is separated by 2 levels and it's starting to cause problems as well.

One more idea came to mind, is the slow progression (6 scenarios per level instead of 3) for the high level PCs. I'm not sure how this works in practice however. (The feeling of running out of playable scenarios is always in my mind now. It feels like you can advance maybe 3 PCs, and slow progression eats up 2 PCs worth of scenarios). Anyway, it's an idea anyway. Even if they did that for one level, it might help.

More Skill Points: Because of Int, a Wizard gains many additional skill points. This probably matters more for PFS than campaigns.

And of course Wizards have a wider variety of spells, to deal with any situation, if he knows what's coming.

I'm sure this is a great scenario, however it always bothers me when low level PCs are brough in to "save the world" or even to save a city as significant as Absalom. I'd prefer if low level characters save villages or small cities, cities like Absalom deserve the attention of high level PCs, the best.

First of all, it makes no sense because heroes would be available to save Absalom, whether they're part of the PFS or not.

Second, what if they fail? The city is overrun by demons? Absalom is the backdrop to many PFS scenarios, so unless you have other heroes save the city (which should have happenned in the first place) that outcome is impossible.

In "Silent Tide", we saved the city as well. However, as GM I overlooked it because the undead were so weak, they'd probably only beat up some senior citizens. So you're not saving the city as much as saving a few people imo.

Anyway, please don't take my feedback the wrong way, I'm sure this is a great scenario, I just wish the city we were saving was something smaller and more remote than Absalom.

This is what I've seen.

Game shops usually have 2 tables, one table runs high level, one table runs low level. Hopefully the high levels stick together enough to make cohesive sessions.

Since you have only 1 table, for now you can play tier 1-5 scenarios and people can play up. Once PCs get to level 6 though, it's all over. Either:
1) High levels play a low level PC
2) Everyone is level 3-4 or higher and they play up to subtier 6-7 in a tier 1-7 scenario.

Eventually, without a second table, you'll have to alternate weeks between playing high level scenarios and low level scenarios.

I think the greatest threat to either company is the unknown, that next big thing that's going to be a game changer like what WoTC with Magic once was. Somewhere out there is someone working on something that will challenge both companies for our valuable wallets.

I think that was World of Warcraft. It consumed almost every single gamer I knew at the time. People are finally coming back to pen and paper though now.

To fix monks, first of all you'd have to make their bonus feats list larger, especially to accommodate certain builds. Second, at 6th level, give monks the Greater combat maneuver feats, so they don't have to have the prerequisites, whether it's Str, Dex, or Int.

Maybe give the ability to swap bonus feats when you get to a certain level, like fighters can.

Also, fix combat feats like Dirty Trick and Steal, so that Rogues and the Dex classes are good at them... not fighters and Barbarians. Thematically, it's all wrong.

Next, fix the prices of items, so monk items aren't so damn expensive. The pricing of magic items is biased against monks, further nerfing them. For example, Amulet of Fists should be the same price and a magic sword. And Bracers of Armor should be the same price as Magical Armor.

Next, make monk abilities like Oracle abilities, in the sense of letting them choose different abilities at different levels, instead of having a standard progression. The archettypes help with that of course, but the basic monk should be more flexible.

Have more monk abilities to choose from, especially abilities that are cinematic to how they look/feel in movies.

Make feats like Spider Step and Cloud Step suck less and allow them to be taken earlier. Half the Slow Fall distance? How about the entire Slow Fall distance? It's not like Monk's have a lot of feats anyway. And you gotta wonder why you'd take these feats when they can just jump everything.

Also, Monk's desperately need a role, something they're pretty good at. They don't really have anything currently. Fastest runner doesn't count and it doesn't mean much when high level casters start doing their thing.

That's just a start. Once you make those changes, check the power level and adjust further from there if needed.

Forget Wizards. They just waste our money by rewriting the core rules every 3-5 years. I don't need that. Every 10 years, ok, not every 5 years.

Paizo actually produces products that gamers can use, in every variation. They're gamers making products for gamers. It works. I like almost everything they do.

Making 5E like 3.X would be the worst thing Wizards could do ATM. They'll alienate and piss off the 4E crowd, who were very loyal to them, and they'd only gain a small portion of PFRPG players. So basically, they'd cut their fan base yet again. They might as well sell the rights to the D&D brand for $1 if they're going to do this.

Btw, I don't like any of the suggested ideas. I say Paizo should just stay the course, they're doing a great job.

Stuff

Yup, I wasn't disagreeing with you on that. I just thought using the word "disaster" for the current situation was a bit of an exaggeration.

I also don't want to see any optional encounters feeling optional, so that I wouldn't want to play them if I had more time. Right now most of the encounters are relevant. My preference is to have GMs use their good judgement and cut time (or encounters) and handwave things they don't find useful. This keeps the essence of the story without making most of the scenario filler.

One thing I'll add to his above statement. Quests do not fill the need for "short slot" play because of another major factor: no reward. Without getting XP or gold, no one will be interested in playing these on a regular basis.

I agree, they'll never fill the need for short slot play until they provide a reward for playing.

Maybe quests should be modified so that they provide 1/2 XP, 1/2 gold compared to a full scenario. Then quests could go head-to-head with the D&D encounters program, in those limited time slots.

One more comment.

I'm not sure anyone sees a trend, but many of the best scenarios are long scenarios. I think what makes them so good is that they are using larger amounts of time for storytelling. They're more in-depth. It's not the "McDonalds" experience of "getting it done as fast as possible" in 3-4 hours.

For some reason, people think they can compact these awesome scenarios into 3-4 hours, and still get the same feeling, the same experience. How does that make sense? Something MUST be missing from the experience, and it will never be as good. Many season 0 scenarios had that feedback, they fit into 3-4 hours but they lacked depth. Do you really want to go back to that? If we do, I just think the storytelling will decrease, and I really don't want to see that.

I also don't want to see optional encounters that are just filler. I don't want the optional encounter to be irrelevant, a "filler combat", something that I'd want to remove even from a 5 hour game. The people playing in the 4 hour slots are just going to have to realize, you're going to miss something good, whether it's Paizo cutting down to 4 hours or whether it's the GM cutting down to 4 hours.

Hopefully Paizo can think of something to satisfy everyone. In the meantime I'll be cutting non-important things to fit to 4 hours, while hopefully still maintaining the spirit of the scenario.

There is nothing wrong with eater model. However if one model was forced on a group that uses the other model. Like if Denver had to go to the fewer but bigger model it would be disastrous for that group. As that group would loose allot of there members, and that is in no ones interest. SO that should not be the course that PFS takes.

I think it's an exaggeration to say that using longer/shorter scenario in a shorter/longer time slot is a disaster. Currently, people are GMing the 5 hour scenarios in 4 hour slots.

I'll be GMing 5 hour scenarios in a 4 hour time slot and it's not a disaster, I just have to choose what I'm including and what I'm excluding, and what I want to emphasize. My first attempt didn't go that well, but with experience it should be easy.

And I'm doing the opposite on Sunday, I'm taking 2 short scenarios (3 hours each) and play both back-to-back with my home group. Sure... they're not as satisyfing or in-depth as a 5 hour scenario (we'll have to see what my players think), but they still work.

A good GM can adapt to either situation. I'm guessing what we're seeing right now is PFS is expanding rapidly, so a lot of new GMs (to PFS) are struggling to adapt scenarios to different time slots.

Tell them:

1) It "helps you". It makes it easier to report (auto-filling fields) and it gets you GM stars that can earn the group access to special scenarios and perhaps other goodies in the future.

2) It helps if they (heaven forbid) lose their chronicles.

3) When you successfully complete scenarios, it helps your faction in the faction war. (It's ok to embellish the truth here).

4) It helps brings more Paizo resources to your community and more support to your type of gameplay. (See convention vs homeplay thread for details).

5) It only takes 5 minutes and you can turn off any spam mail.

If all that fails (you're too nice), give them a temporary number (make sure you make a backup photocopy of those numbers), write it down that it was used on LazyX, and use it whenever they show up. Maybe eventually they'll register.

I think it's actually pretty cool seeing all of the events you've played and GMed.

And they'll be getting an extra 1500 gp per adventure. So, when they're 5th or 6th level, they'll be even more over-equipped, and still large, and even better-coordinated.

That's a good point, unfortunately the reason they're playing up is not only for additional challenge, but it's also because I wanted to tell those stories and they just happenned to be in the tier 1-5 range.

Also, notice that if I reverse the level 3 and level 4 scenarios, the group is playing in the correct subtier. Either way, the group makes the same amount of gold, although it makes some people happier if they play the correct tier.

In that case, level 3 would provide a good challenge (and I might even kill a PC. Especially ninjas, lol. That's not a good thing btw) and level 4 would be very unsatisfying.

3rd
• Before the Dawn 1, #2-1 (1-7)
• Before the Dawn 2, #2-2 (deadly)(1-7)
• Sewer Dragons of Absalom, #3-02 (3-7)
4th
• Mists of Mwangi, #0-5 (up)(1-5)
• Delirium’s Tangle, #1-45 (easy, up)(1-5)
• Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible, #1-33 (easy, up)(1-5)

(Actually, you have them encountering the Heresy of Man at 9th level. With the large table, they'll be APL 10.) They'll walk all over it. Send them into Heresy of Man at, say 6th level (playing up), to bring the dangers home.

Well, as much as I want to challenge the group, I don't want to pointlessly spill their guts everywhere.

Heresy has a bad reputation for chewing PCs up and spitting them out. I was even thinking they should play down that series. I have no problem with the group playing down, if the story is good. It's all about the story really, that and providing some kind of challenge. I have no personal experience with it, and unfortunately upper level scenarios don't have enough reviews, it's really difficult to get an accurate depiction of a scenario with 3 or less reviews.

So you think Heresy plays better at subtier 5-6 than 8-9?

Thanks.

A creature is only as challenging as you play it. CR numbers alone dont make challenging encounters.

That's true, but it seems like whatever adjustment you make, it's not going to help the dragon enough. As soon as the Paladin can attack, he's dead.

If you make major adjustments or tactics (for example the Paladin is never able to attack), specifically to counter the PC (which is more like a boss creature himself than as a member of a team), the player (rightfully) calls foul.

Sure, the Paladin has fun (I think?) by killing the dragon in the first round. Do the other 3-5 players? If I was them, I wouldn't like it either.

I agree with you, Mark, but ...

1) If Jason's PFS campaign remains a home campaign, then any distortion to PFS as a whole is contained. If it makes them happy, why not? (In particular, the reporting system doesn't track which sub-tier a group plays at, so it's invisible to anybody else, as long as they don't go to a convention with their super-equipped PCs.)

That's pretty much the case, most of them have no desire to play at conventions, even local conventions.

Having said that, I feel like my play experiences are completely different from yours. You say it's a distortion of PFS, yet at Gen Con almost every table I saw played up (or at least had 2-3 PCs playing up). As a matter of fact, whenever it was legal, everyone played up, I've never seen one group play down. And it happened a lot more than in my home game. So is Gen Con bad now?

I see it the same in my home game. If my players want to take the risk of dying or TPK (and it's a serious risk), that's their choice. I'm not a GM that pulls punches. If they want the easy path, they can just collect their XP and gold and call it a day. It's about risk / reward. Maybe sieylianna is right, maybe they will TPK, but at least it was their choice.

2) Scenarios that are intended to be survivable with four poorly-matched PCs are going to be less of a challenge for six PCs designed to be a continuing party. Jason's going to have to increase the challenge somehow. If an increase in sub-tier wasn't intended as a planning tool, he'll need something else.

Yes. I refuse to add mooks or change the stats of the enemies. I have no problem with changing tactics and spell selections. When that's not enough I have to do something. I don't see playing up to subtier 4-5 from level 3 as a bad thing.

3) The additional gold just goes into making the PCs better and better equipped, so they'll get less and less challenge as the campaign goes on. (Jason, perhaps the best choice would be to give the players the play-up option for encounters, but not for rewards.)

As I understand, the challenge level increases substantially at higher levels. I doubt they'll be playing up once they get to level 5 (if so it will be small shift), unless it's a season 0 scenario (which I might eliminate, depends on how good the story is or whether it's been updated to PFS).

At low levels, I don't know why I'd put them at increased risk (of dying and TPK) without also increasing their reward. It really is a risk you know, it sucks to die (and start over) at level 3. The extra gold at low levels won't affect the outcomes of any high level scenario, where the amount of gold they gain will be substantially more.

I'm sorry you find my opinion and use of the word distasteful so troublesome. Perhaps next time you should omit 'Input is welcome.'

I think I was looking for input along the lines of what Drogon made. I was looking for input that would increase the enjoyment or experience the players would get. Not "you shouldn't be playing up to subtier 4-5 at level 3", which is total rubbish.

Maybe I should have been more specific and said 'Constructive input welcome'. My bad.

I don't find your opinion troublesome, although I don't like how you express it, I just find it completely inappropriate and contrary to my circumstance and personal experience with PFS. Your points would be a lot more valid if I didn't have veterans of the RPGA (with previous 20th level characters) in my home group. Does that make sense?

There is at least one other potential disaster in his schedule, but I'd rather see his group push the limits and TPK than help them exploit the system. (It's the Cheliax way).

Well that's not very nice. :)

I doubt it will happen. I'm an excellent judge regarding the relative strength of scenarios. I haven't read all the scenarios obviously, that's why I'm asking for input. Once I read a scenario, it's obvious if it's inappropriate. This is just a tentative schedule.

If they do TPK, at least they had fun doing it, instead of being bored to tears.

I don't have the time to read this entire thread, but I think it's pretty bad that a single character has the ability to kill what should be a challenging opponent in a single round. Not by luck, but by law of averages. That's not the kind of game I'd want to run.

I find it distasteful that you are planning on gaming the system to 'play up' in many cases. You could/should be making more tier appropriate choices rather than planning to help your players earn 2-3x more gold than they should be while complaining about things being too easy.

Well, it's legal, it happenned all the time at Gen Con, so deal with it. I'm still astonished that you thought it couldn't be done tbh.

PFS scenarios in most cases are far too easy. Please interpret this as meaning "Not fun for players seeking challenge".

Is it bad to play subtier 4-5 at level 3? Give me a break. I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that's one of the silliest things I've heard, and very unexpected from a VC.

I think the most important factor is that my players have been asking me to increase the challenge. I don't GM to make you happy, I GM to make them happy. Despite increasing the difficulty by giving enemies better tactics (and sometimes better spell selection), it's still way too easy.

I think you grossly underestimate good/smart players (let along min-max players which are another category altogether).

So you don't think PCs should play up (unless it's "unplanned", that makes it okay for some reason)? That's your opinion, noted. We just (completely, 100%) disagree.

These are some thoughts on playing Frostfur Captives.

I like most of the scenario selection you’ve given, but I have the following comments on the order. After reading your comments on the other thread, perhaps we just philosophically disagree (and have a different player base that wants radically different things).

Level 2: #00-04: Frozen Fingers of Midnight and #01-33: Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible
Imo, these scenarios should be played at level 3 at subtier 4-5 (assuming 6 players), because they're too easy at level 2 at subtier 1-2. Also, Assault is better thematically at subtier 4-5 apparently.

Level 3: #01-35: Voice in the Void: I understand it's more interesting at subtier 6-7.

Level 3: #01-29: Shipyard Rats, Cassomir's Locker, Crypt of Fools, Rules of the Swift: It’s personal taste, but I don’t like this series at all. My personal feeling is that I'd rather GM 4 high quality independent scenarios than GM 4 average scenarios, just because it's a series.

Level 4: #00-01: Silent Tide and #00-06: Black Waters
Season 0 scenarios are ridiculously easy and should always be played up whenever possible.

We did Silent Tide at Gencon with level 2 PCs (two level 1s also) at subtier 4-5, and it was extremely easy, no challenge. If it's no challenge to a level 1-2 character, I can’t imagine there would be any point at running it with at level 4.

Level 5: #03-01: The Frostfur Captives: As much as I LOVE Frostfur Captives, there’s almost no point (besides storytelling) running it at level 5 at subtier 4-5. I ran it twice at subtier 4-5 with level 2s and the combats were never challenging (even with improved tactics), it was just right.

Level 5: #01-45: Delirum's Tangle: Delirium is another scenario that has a great story but non-challenging combats. I’d play it at subtier 4-5 at level 3.

Besides, if you play Hall of Drunken Heroes "up," even with a group of six 8th level characters (actually making this an option), you'll kill them all. Run properly, it is easily one of the deadliest modules out there.

OK, that's good feedback thanks. What level should they be in your opinion? 9, 10, or 11?

Also, why should I run Koor at level 10? I need a reason.

I don't think you can play Frostfur 'up' at level 2. Same with Hall at 8th. I also personally find it distasteful to purposely schedule things to 'play up' at level 3. Play 1-7s instead at sub-tier 3-4. Play something else at 7th and move Koor to 10th.

Sure you can play Frostfur up at level 2. I have 6 players, that's APL 3, which means they can choose to play down to subtier 1-2 or up to subtier 4-5. There's an example in the Organized Play Guide, it's legal.

All the scenarios at level 3 are tier 1-5, and they're easy ones at that. At level 3, the party will be APL 4. You find that "distasteful" and would rather they play down? lol. Honestly, I have this feeling Assault and Delirium will be far too easy (at level 3), and I might even have to swap out scenarios for something more challenging. Maybe the difference is in our players, I'm not forcing them to play up, they're asking for it (whenever it's legal).

This was my planned scenario progression, for my home group. Input is welcome.

Scenario selection becomes very difficult at higher levels, because there aren't enough reviews to get a good general consensus for a scenario. Some scenarios don't even have a single review.

Scenario Progression
1st
• Decline of Glory #0-25 (1-7)
• Murder Throaty #1-13 (easy, heavy roleplay) (1-5)
• The Citadel of Flame #1-39 (cheliax) (1-5)
2nd
• Darkest Vengeance, #1-47 (deadly) (1-5)
• The Frostfur Captives #3-01 (up)(1-5)
• We Be Goblins #X (1-2)
3rd
• Mists of Mwangi, #0-5 (up, too hard?)(1-5)
• Delirium’s Tangle, #1-45 (easy, up)(1-5)
• Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible, #1-33 (easy, up)(1-5)
4th
• Before the Dawn 1, #2-1 (1-7)
• Before the Dawn 2, #2-2 (deadly)(1-7)
• Sewer Dragons of Absalom, #3-02 (3-7)
5th
• Shades of Ice 1, #2-15 (1-5) (something else?)
• Shades of Ice 2, #2-17 (1-5) (something else?)
• Shadow’s Last Stand 1, #2-23 (1-7) (maybe city of strangers)
6th
• Shadow’s Last Stand 2, #2-24 (1-7)
• To Scale the Dragon, #0-16 (up to 8-9)(5-9)
• Rebel’s Ransom, #2-3 (hard) (5-9)
7th
• The Jester’s Fraud #1-56 (up to 8-9)(5-9)
• The Dalsine Affair, #2-21 (hard) (1-7)
• The Forgotten Furnace of Koor, #2-18 (7-11)
8th
• Hall of Drunken Heroes, #1-40 (up)(7-11)
• The Ghenett Manor Gauntlet, #3-03 (5-9)
• You Only Die Twice, #2-25 (5-9)
9th
• The Heresy of Man Part 1, #2-06 (hard)(5-9)
• The Heresy of Man Part 2, #2-07 (hard)(5-9)
• The Heresy of Man Part 3, #2-09 (hard)(5-9)
10th
• ?
• ?
• ?
11th
• Sarkorian Prophesy #2-08 (7-11)
• Wrath of the Accursed, #2-20 (7-11)
• The Mantis’ Prey, #2-26 (7-11)
12th
• Eyes of the Ten: Part 1
• Eyes of the Ten: Part 2
• Eyes of the Ten: Part 3
• Eyes of the Ten: Part 4

I am getting ready to run this tomorrow. Nobody has mentioned the wolves. The mod talks about the goblins trying to ride away on the wolf. It takes two checks, DC 20 Ride followed by a DC20 Handle Animal. Problem is that the goblins don't have Handle animal and it is a 'trained only' skill. How exactly could one of the goblins get away on a wolf?

Well, at subtier 1-2 they can't (technically) escape, although I would have allowed it (instead of adolescent wolves I would have said starving). At subtier 4-5, the goblin Ride skill is good, so I gave them a racial bonus to Handle Animal which meant they needed a 16 or higher on a D20 to succeed. I did this because I wanted a *slim* chance of it happenning, I think it would have been funny.

It doesn't matter though, the goblins won't escape because of AoO from the wolves, and the wolves damage is high enough that they'll go unconscious on one hit. That's what happenned in my 2nd game (to two goblins). Which was fine, it was a short encounter anyway and the PCs were surprised they tried to escape. It did what it was intended to do and it was fun describing the goblins trying to (briefly) ride the wolves.

I think this is going to be one of your most popular card sets! I know I could have definitely used it two weeks ago.

I made up my own set (for Arctic/snow conditions), but this set will definitely round out what I need. Great!

My favorite VC is Skeldon Miregrold, after he was raised from the dead. You'll know what I mean if you read the scenario.

Stuff

That happenned? lol! Wow, that sounds extreme. I guess they lost sight of what makes games fun in that campaign.

Regarding the initial question.

I think the problem with jumping during the charge is that you lose momentum (that you need for a charge) after a jump. Think about horses, think about our Olympic long/high jumpers. :) They don't keep going, they've lost momentum during the jump.

Kargaroos, that's their form of travel and if you think about it, walking or running are mini jumps. But neither kills our momentum. If a kangaroo did a large jump over a fence, it would kill it's momentum.

Jason,

1 - More home vs store play for PFS?: Not a chance. You're projecting dude :)

I'm not so sure, do you have access to Paizo's stats on how many games are run at home versus at a store? Does Paizo know? Until you get solid stats, it's just opinion and you're 'projecting' just as much as I am.

In Toronto, we didn't even have in-store games until 2 months ago. In non-urban areas, I'm sure players still play at home without in-store support. Gaming stores (and book stores) are rare these days.

My point is PFS was meant for both home games and in-store games. Should it do a better job at supporting 4 hour slots? Sure. To the detriment of home play and quality of scenarios? I hope not.

But, yeah, PFS is principally designed for in-store play to market the game and that's their design focus.

Obviously their design focus isn't principally for store games, or they wouldn't have moved from a 4 hour standard to 5 hours. Unless they made a huge error. I don't think it's up to us to tell them they made a huge error though, I have no idea what their intent was.

But too many encounters in total -- or too many free-form role-play encounters is not a strong design, imo, and is...

I guess we disagree since I like free form roleplaying encounters. I don't think they're "bad design".

Aren't scenarios with free form (or sandbox) roleplaying encounters some of the most popular? Like 'City of Strangers 1', 'Murder on the Throaty Mermaid', 'Frostfur Captives' and (to a certain extent) 'Bloodcove Disguise'?

(Sandbox) Freeform roleplaying scenarios are fairly rare, but they are appreciated. As a coordinator at a store, it's pretty easy to steer clear of these types of scenarios if you don't think they work in a 4 hour slot. There are plenty of other scenarios to chose from.

Level 1: Intro series 1 - 3

Level 2: Mists of Mwangi, We Be Goblins, Voice in the Void
Level 3: Azlant Ridge 1-2, Frostfur Captives (play up)
level 4: Shades of Ice 1-3
Level 5: Murder on the Throaty Mermaid, Penumbral Accords, Echoes of the Overwatched
Level 6: Heresy of Man 1-3
Level 7: City of Strangers 1-2, Sewer Dragons of Absalom.

I have a home game and I carefully planned out the scenario path that my group is going to take, so I've read the reviews on all of the scenarios and taken into account many things. So I have the following comments.

Rescue at Azlant Ridge at level 3 is fairly hard (and long). Subtier 3-4 is also the subtier most likely to have PC deaths.

Shades of Ice at level 4 will be challenging but achievable. Shades of Ice 3 I'm skipping for my home game, because it's not very good. I'll wrap things up in Ice #2.

Murder on the Throaty Mermaid doesn't play well at subtier 4-5. Players will have too many abilities and spells to break the scenario, and most GMs can't handle it or foresee problems without railroading. I'd recommend subtier 1-2.

The Heresy of Man series are killer scenarios and I'm not sure (without reading them), if they're good for level 6 at subtier 5-6. Maybe level 7? The trouble with starting them at level 6 is that you'll still have some players lagging at level 5.

I'm not sure how City of Strangers plays at level 7, but the encounters are quite weak, I'd play it at level 3 in subtier 3-4 instead.

Sewer Dragons seems to play much better at subtier 3-4 compared to 6-7. I'm running it at level 4 for my group (with some people lagging at level 3).

Anyway, that's my feedback.

I'll post my own scenario path sometime, I'd also like comments from people who have played them. Sometimes a scenario plays much better at certain subtiers and while that information is sometimes available in reviews, it's not always.

No, I don’t think scenarios are too long. If you get a GM who doesn’t roleplay at all, they can be over in 1.5 hours. Or they can take 6 hours (if I have the time). It’s really up to the GM to fit the scenario into the timeslot. It takes practice and experience.

At Gen Con, which was all season 2 and 3 scenarios, all scenarios took 4 hours maximum. We didn’t even get close to 5 hours. We even did the optional encounters in a few of them. I think it was a combination of focused players with fast GMs.

When I write reviews, I always write how long the scenario is. There are a number of reviewers who do.

Also, I know it may be controversal, but I sometimes think the faction missions add an extra layer of plot that isn't really needed and detracts from the time that can be given to the main plot itself.

OMG yes. Especially in season 1 and 2. A lot of times the scenario would have been better off without most of the factions missions, unless they add something to the story. Faction missions seem to be better in season 3 so far, they're more interesting and there are less of them.

So no, I don’t want to see scenarios become shorter, as I’ve written in the 'are scenarios better' thread. One of the reasons scenarios are getting better is because authors don’t have to cut out crucial details and storyline to fit the page count.

If encounters, storyline, or roleplay have to be cut out to fit a time slot, I'd rather be the one that does the triming, as opposed to Paizo reducing he page count.

PFS scenarios are created for in-store play. There is no maybe about it. That is their #1 purpose as a marketing tool for Paizo. The fact that they are also available at a game day or at a convention is a BONUS -- but it isn't the purpose of the PFS OP marketing program.

While I agree with a lot of your points, PFS is a marketing tool for Paizo whether it's a home game or not. I don't think it was designed solely for in-store play (but I could be wrong). What are the stats on how many games are run in-store vs home games? I'm willing to bet more games are played at home (and having said that, I bet many home games aren't even reported).

That said, four hours is apparently manageable - barely. But five hours just isn't. There isn't much suggestion that the five hours is available -- simply that encounters are being cut and game play hastened in order to fit the module into the available slot. Something has to give here.

If you ask Paizo to reduce the length of scenarios, all they're going to do is cut out encounters, storyline, and probably roleplaying as well. No offense, but screw that. If anyone is going to be cutting encounters and content, wouldn't you rather be the one that decides which content gets cut out? I know I do. And for home games I'd cut nothing. It takes experience to run games in a smaller time slot (that I don't have yet), but it can be done.

I think a lot of the improvements we're seeing in lately in scenarios are because scenarios are longer than (short) season 0 scenarios. I'd hate to see us going in reverse by reducing the page count.

My 2 cents.

Stuff

Thanks for discussing this.

With (c), this is assuming he can even fail with the minimum penalty (DC 5). Once a skill gets high enough, it's impossible to fail, in this case to jump only 5' (or less depending on how the GM wants to rule it).

The answer is challenging, but I think if you're jumping in difficult terrain, it makes sense to me to penalize them an extra 5' of movement, in addition to the jump itself. This way they can't ignore the difficult terrain by jumping and it penalizes jumpers who can't jump far.

I'd be interested in an official ruling though, if it exists.

Related question: Can you jump when in difficult terrain? I didn't know jumping was a free action, I always thought it was part of a single move action. So what happens in this situation?

I have a non-monk PC with a +10 acrobatics with a speed of 30'. In front of him is 60' of difficult terrain. With a running start, on average he can jump 20'. Without a running start on average he can jump 10'.

Does this mean he can ignore the entire difficult terrain by using jump actions to jump over the entire thing? I suppose he would take a +5 DC penalty, but that just means he takes more small jumps to make it across. As long as you can jump 5', if you have unlimited jumps you should be able to do many small jumps and completely circumvent the difficult terrain.

Is this right?

Stuff

It's true, healers aren't quite as important with wands, but I think that's a good thing. In PFS, we don't want a healer PC to be a required member of the party and we don't want that character turned into a healing battery. Having said that, in-combat healing is still useful.

It's true, I think each encounter should assume that the PCs are at full health. And yes, it would be a completely different campaign if healing wands weren't readily available.

My experience so far is that PA doesn't ruin the economy. You can only buy so many level 1 wands. After that (and maybe a vanity) most PCs save their PA for Raise Dead (and rescuing your body) in case of emergency. You're not buying extra loot with the PA, the PA is just there to ensure you can continue playing your character.

Edit: Joseph is evil. And a ninja. And he basically said the same thing I did.

Stuff

I had the rules for Disarm clarified for me in another thread.

The way Disarm works, is that if you're disarmed the weapon lands at your feet (unless you did the disarm unarmed or used the greater feat).

When the weapon is at your feet, anyone adjacent to that square can reach in and pickup the weapon, provoking an AoO.

So essentially, I could Disarm your character with a standard action and then immediately pickup your weapon with a move action in the same round. Or have someone else do it.

Now that you know how Disarm (apparently) works, it's obvious that the combination of Disarm and Mage Hand isn't overpowered at all.

My personal opinion was that it is quite powerful, but everyone in the thread disagreed. Maybe it's more powerful in PFS since most encounters are against humanoids. I currently don't have a character who uses it a lot, so I don't know. The common argument is "always carry a backup weapon", however most NPCs do not and it would trivialize most encounters imo.

I didn't actually mean we couldn't afford it on a percentage-per-purchase basis; I meant that we can't afford to make much less money on each monthly release than we do now.

For the casual gamer, like me, you would sell more.

The casual gamer only buys maybe 13 out of 28 scenarios in a year. So that's $60 unreaped profit. You lose only approximately $5 from the discount. That sounds like a good idea for you and a bad idea for me.

From your hard core guys who buy every scenario anyway, they probably already have the Pathfinder Advantage, so they wouldn't say anything.

So you'd be making money, if my assumptions are right.

I just read Mark's comment and you're right, maybe it's not worth the money.

Also, they're only $3.99 in the first place... does getting it for $3.60 really seem like that much of a benefit for most people?

You're right, a 10-15% discount doesn't mean that much.

I'd rather you look at my last two suggestions. Maps and minis, stuff to make my life easier. That sells (to me). That's worth the subscription on scenarios I might never use.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

Even if you don't like the idea of free PFS and a new subscription, what about the idea of doing paper minis that are based on a group of scenarios instead of adventure paths?