Ville Heikkilä's page

The final speech does allow a great, great opportunity to roleplay should the group have a public-speech oriented player among it. Last time I ran this I had such a player, and it was a blast.

Anyhow, for the Cheliax faction mission: Initially I too thought that requiring Dispel Magic was just too much until realizing that having it cast costs only 150gp or one PP, which any Cheliaxian PC should be able to afford even at tier 1-2 (assuming a character with a scenario or two under his belt). Much less annoying than requiring successful usage of a trained-only skill, IMHO.

Oh, great, thanks! This just made Reverse Gravity much more useful.

So, this just came up at today's session of Serpent's Skull. If you cast Reverse Gravity as a 10-by-10 ft. square and then use the rest of the spell's area to extend it upwards, what happens if a creature that takes a 15-by-15 ft. square sized area on the battlemap steps onto the Reverse Gravity field? Will it fall or stay on the ground or something completely different?

This thread has some ideas on when and how to give the faction missions.

Personally I prefer either the VC or a nondescript servant deliver the missions to the PCs as "urgent mail" right after the initial briefing.

I've started using the VC as the person who gives players their faction missions. After the briefing the VC casually says that "Oh yeah, I had some mail for you. Who's Bob? You've got a letter from Gueril. etc." I then give the players time to read through their missions, ask more questions from the VC, goof around, and introduce each other's characters to each other. If they get witty and make remarks about receiving this info (faction mission) at this point I've had the VC say that he/she talked about this mission just yesterday at a meeting where the faction leaders were present. To me this way seems the least intrusive and natural way to receive the missions but I can see someone arguing against it because it doesn't really fit into the "let's keep things secret" -aspect of the Shadow War.

Then again a GM whose games I've played the most uses a faction-specific quirky way (an imp pops up for Cheliax, a man jumps up from a rainwater barrel for Qadira etc.) to deliver the missions at some point after the briefing and that has worked just as well.

Either way, I think it's best to hand in the faction missions after the initial briefing and then give the players time to read through it. This way they'll focus on the briefing as a group and can then afterwards ponder about their individual missions. And I really like where season 4 seems to be going with the faction missions with the more open-ended nature of them rather than saying "if you SHOULD HAPPEN TO SEE THIS KIND OF A MONSTER BE SURE TO PICK A PART OF IT FOR ME OKAY" without the scenario hinting anything about what the players should expect.

Ran this at a convention last night. A fun scenario, although there was not that much challenge for a party of six PC's even though

It's nice to see a scenario where it makes sense to not kill everyone on sight. Two PCs had also played The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment before this one which offers a chance for a sort of a continuum. I had Aram Zey remember them and tell them to instruct their friends on how to get back through the tapestry, as it saves Zey a few minutes of his valuable time. Personally I like the Hao Jin tapestry, and I hope there will be scenarios in season 4 situated within it.

One more question:

Ran this at a convention last weekend on tier 1-2. This was my second time GM'ing Dalsine, and as I missed every attack roll for Chalfon the first time I played him I was eager to see how it would go with a lower tier.

The party gave Chalfon plenty of time to prepare himself as they tried to negotiate with his illusion. After several rounds of trying to talk to him (I kept doing the evil guy laugh) the party's cheliaxian inquisitor took a swing at the illusion with his mace, and in comes Chalfon.

First round, I roll up 3 and 4 for his attack, missing the party's halfling rogue. Then their wizard casts Daze, Chalfon fails his will save. His AC 23 is too much though, and no one hits him. Next round he's dazed, and takes a few hits, still leaving him almost 20 hit points.

Another round of misses, and then two consecutive hits on the level 2 halfling rogue, who took 30+ points of damage from two hits and a shocking grasp and dropped instantly dead with his CON 10. Immediately after the party's elven ranger, played by the dead halfling's player's wife, scores a crit on Chalfon, dropping him and ending the combat there.

1/4 killed by Chalfon, which was also my first kill as a gm. Everyone had fun, though, and the halfing's player took it really well.

Wouldn't recommend running this for first or second time ever PFS players at a convention, though, as they will miss most of what's going on at the Dalsine manor and will end up quite confused by what they just witnessed.