Using Magnimar's settlement statistics during the adventure


Shattered Star


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So I am busy digging through the Adventure Path right now, making notes and adjusting details here and there. Now I also have City of Monuments to increase the level of detail in Magnimar, and since the volume has settlement statistics printed for the city I went and applied them, as an experiment, to all Diplomacy checks found in Shards of Sin. It's important to note that Magnimar has settlement modifiers for the entire city and for each district as well - I am just using the city-wide modifiers here since I don't think Magnimar is big enough as a setting to justify this extra work. But maybe I'm just lazy.

So Magnimar's modifiers look like this:

Corruption +2 (Bluff vs. citiy officials, Stealth aboveground/outside)
Crime +2 (Sense Motive vs. bluffs, Sleight of Hand to pick pockets)
Economy +5 (Craft, Perform, Profession to generate income)
Law +2 (Intimidate to anforce friendliness, Diplomay vs. officials)
Lore +6 (Diplomacy to gather information and Knowledge using libraries)
Society +1 (Disguise and Diplomacy to alter attitiude of non-government officials)

Now let's have a look at all Diplomacy checks the PCs might have to make during Shards of Sin:

1. Sheila Heidmarch - DC 16 to increase the advance money.
2. Zograthy - DC 21 to lower the price to 15gp.
3. Nidalese Slavers - DC 12 to gather information about them.
4. Officer Kasadei - DC 20 to avoid waiting 1d4 hours, DC 17 to reveal important details.
5. Underbridge - DC 30 to track down Natalya (but aid another is allowed).
6. Terisha Skiloni - DC 19 to make her indifferent, DC 24 to reveal important informations.
7. Lockerbie Brast - DC 20 to convince him of PC's intentions.
8. Liza Jane Brast - DC 20 to track down her residence.

Average DC for diplomacy is DC 20 (19.9). Quite challenging.
Now, if we apply the above modifiers to all these checks, things look like this:

1. Sheila Heidmarch - unchanged.
2. Zograthy +2 bonus if the PCs use Intimidate instead of Diplomacy (DC 19 then).
3. Nidalese Slavers +6 bonus, which means the PCs must only roll a 6 on their check.
4. Officer Kasadei +2 bonus, effectively reducing the checks to DC 18 and DC 15, respectively.
5. Underbridge +6 bonus, making this a DC 24 check (but aid another is allowed).
6. Terisha Skiloni +1 bonus to improve Terisha's attitude (DC 18 then). Rest unchanged.
7. Lockerbie Brast - unchanged.
8. Liza Jane Brast +6 bonus, making this a DC 14 check.

Avarage DC for Diplomacy is now DC 17 (17.4), so much more achieveable for fresh PCs.

This proves that GMs who use the settlement statistics are actually really nice to their players. At least as far as Diplomacy is concerned :) I haven't checked any other important rolls in Shards of Sin yet, but I wanted to share this with you as a fun little experiment.


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Thanks for sharing. I've been trying to figure out how to use settlement statistics and wasn't sure how it worked.

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