Cyphermage Dilemma Aftermath?


Advice


So I've heard that this scenario is pretty much set up to fail. Even looking back at one of my oldest Chronicle Sheets shows only 1 Prestige.
Our group of CORE Campaign characters just finished playing the low sub-tier and now I'm at a loss as to how to break it to folks that we completed the mission successfully and gained full Prestige.
Can anyone give any good advice on this?

Grand Lodge

K-kun the Insane wrote:

So I've heard that this scenario is pretty much set up to fail. Even looking back at one of my oldest Chronicle Sheets shows only 1 Prestige.

Our group of CORE Campaign characters just finished playing the low sub-tier and now I'm at a loss as to how to break it to folks that we completed the mission successfully and gained full Prestige.
Can anyone give any good advice on this?

"Hey, folks, congrats! You won!"

Unless your line should have been:
"Our group of CORE Campaign characters just finished playing the low sub-tier and now I'm at a loss as to how to break it to folks that we completed the mission successfully but didn't gain full Prestige."

In that case:
"Folks, while you did the main Pathfinder Society mission successfully, you missed out on fulfilling the secondary success conditions. To do that, you would have needed to do <redacted> while keeping <redacted> alive." or something to that effect.


Oh no, we got the 2 Prestige. Also, I wasn't the GM, I was the one that contracted <redacted> in the final encounter. I took so much <redacted> before paying to <redacted>.

I assume "<redacted>" is used to cover spoilers for those who haven't played?

Lantern Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16

I've run it twice, one high and one low. It is called Dilemma for a reason... but appropriate planning can eke "success" in the story.

SUPER SPOILER:

The high tier group scouted and saw the captive at knife point. An alchemist PC, who spent gold/PP on consumables, including a potion of fly, held back while the party negotiated. It went as well as expected (she drags hostage out, drops him off the boat as she escapes. When he heard that, he chugged the pot of fly, a pot of invis, and his enlarge person extract, fly to her boat before it could get away, and slew her in melee combat.

While I don't expect each group to come up with something like that, they had a back up plan AND actually scouted successfully instead of charging straight in.

That being said, that's only to get an extra boon; the captive being alive is the important part. But still good to know you didn't let the BBEG get away.


Our group...was kinda lucky...:

Half-Orc Fighter 1, Cleric of Desna 1
Human Rogue 2
Human Rogue 2, Cleric of Cayden Cailean 1
Human Monk 1
Half-Elf Fighter 1, Cleric of Pharasma 1 (me)

After being unable to hit the dog on the other side of the grate, we move to the other cave and soon notice a couple of guys trying to hide. Desna and the two Rogues make it in before one guy goes to pull a lever. Monk decides it's a good time to leave the dog and join the rest of us. We're all in the cave before Miss Pirate shows herself and demands to go free while missing with her hand crossbow. Desna uses Touch of Chaos on her while Cayden moves around a pillar and cuts the hostage's bound hands. Pure Rogue tries to get the hostage away but doesn't gain control of the grapple. However, he's no longer helpless and thus can't be coupdegrasd, so Pirate casts a spell (thus letting him go) and attacks Desna with her Corrosive Touch weapon and misses. After getting bitten, by the dog when I moved, I cast Bane. She's now surrounded by a Fighter with an Orc Double Axe and a pair of Rogues while Bane hinders her and the 5th level Bard hostage is Inspiring Courage for us. When an avenue opens up, she attacks and then tries to flee, provoking AO's from the Rogues and Desna...She falls unconscious when all three smack her. The dog and one of the mooks are quickly taken care of and the final mook surrenders. Hostage is rescued alive and Pirate Gal is taken prisoner.

Congrats! 2PP from an impossible situation!

Scarab Sages

Our group won by way of...:
The party's 18-Strength Ninja with Vanishing Trick taking out that final encounter single-handedly. As I recall, what he did was vanish, tumble up to where the captive was to knock him out of the way like a billiard, then standing up and skewering the villain.

Sovereign Court

Eh. It's really not all that impossible, but you do have to be fully awake for it.

Spoiler:

Coup de Grace is a Full-Round action, so she can't ready it. She's far less likely to kill him with a single standard action.

So if you can jump and kill her in a single round, before she gets to act again, that's it.

Or you could use readied actions to pre-empt her killing blow.

Or you could use Grease, Disarm maneuvers and so forth to take away her weapon.

There's many more options. But I was just cranky that day from lack of sleep and went "we don't negotiate with terrorists/whatever you are".

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