7-22 Bid for Alabastrine


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Liberty's Edge 2/5 5/5

I have a question about this in Reporting Notes:

If any of the PCs accepted Myrosype’s deal, check box D.

I thought accepting the deal was only possible if the PCs as a group accepted it. I have one player who did accept it while everyone else did not. Is this a typo or do I give that one player the boon and less prestige while everyone else keeps the normal stuff.

Grand Lodge 2/5

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As a player I was quite disappointed with this scenario.

I went into it with a rouge who was highly invested in charisma skills and was shocked to find that almost all the DCs for Charisma skills were near twice as high as the DCs for non charisma skills.

In the end, partly due to some luck with dice on his part, the player running the pregen slayer did better than I did at the Influence checks.

I dunno, the way the influence system was used here kind of made me feel as if charisma focused characters were kinda invalidated. Its definitely turned me off of purchasing Ultimate Intrigue.

4/5

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

As a player I was quite disappointed with this scenario.

I went into it with a rouge who was highly invested in charisma skills and was shocked to find that almost all the DCs for Charisma skills were near twice as high as the DCs for non charisma skills.

In the end, partly due to some luck with dice on his part, the player running the pregen slayer did better than I did at the Influence checks.

I dunno, the way the influence system was used here kind of made me feel as if charisma focused characters were kinda invalidated. Its definitely turned me off of purchasing Ultimate Intrigue.

The Charisma skill issue is the exact same problem I had with the scenario. "I'm rolling 23s on diplomacy and it's not cutting it? Really?"

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Jurassic Pratt wrote:

As a player I was quite disappointed with this scenario.

I went into it with a rouge who was highly invested in charisma skills and was shocked to find that almost all the DCs for Charisma skills were near twice as high as the DCs for non charisma skills.

In the end, partly due to some luck with dice on his part, the player running the pregen slayer did better than I did at the Influence checks.

I dunno, the way the influence system was used here kind of made me feel as if charisma focused characters were kinda invalidated. Its definitely turned me off of purchasing Ultimate Intrigue.

That left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth as well. It looks like overcompensating against optimized diplomancers. But that leaves everyone who just took some ranks in diplomacy stranded. Meanwhile the antisocial wizard who happens to luck out with knowledges rules the auction.

Perhaps in a "normal" influence scenario these things are more balanced because you can only use your specialized knowledges so many times. But here you're basically grabbing hold of the dude whose skills match yours and not letting go for five rounds of influence.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

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@RealAchemy and @Jurrasic Pratt, that's not complete true. It is just that with some of the interactions Diplomacy was not the best choice. With others, it would work very well.

To be specific (since this is the GM thread, so no spoilers)
Cyran: bluff is moderate, Diplo is hard

Irith: Bluff or Diplo are moderate.

Temel: Intimidate best, Bluff or diplo moderate

Vayde: Sense Motive and Diplomacy moderate, bluff hard

That seems to be a good spread of CHA skills.

Personally, I like that it takes a wide variety of skills to make this work. To me, it can get less exciting when someone maxes out CHA and Diplomacy and just walks over everyone. This shows that sometimes your best way to influence people is to be interested in what they are interested in.

Besides, this scenario sets things up for you to use your skills to determine the best skills to use. If you forgo the analyze checks, you'll never know what to say, or what not to say, to an individual. Example, you don't want to suggest to Irith that she needs the Pathfinder's help (-4 penalty to influence), but praising her previous efforts at leadership will give you a +4 bonus (on a single attempt).

There's a lot there, but people that focus all of their "social combat" on one skill won't get to see it, and will get frustrated.

EDIT: Defining easy/moderate/hard -- at 1-2 it is DC12/17/22, +5 on all of those for 4-5

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5

Jack Brown wrote:

@RealAchemy and @Jurrasic Pratt, that's not complete true. It is just that with some of the interactions Diplomacy was not the best choice. With others, it would work very well.

To be specific (since this is the GM thread, so no spoilers)
Cyran: bluff is moderate, Diplo is hard

Irith: Bluff or Diplo are moderate.

Temel: Intimidate best, Bluff or diplo moderate

Vayde: Sense Motive and Diplomacy moderate, bluff hard

That seems to be a good spread of CHA skills.

Personally, I like that it takes a wide variety of skills to make this work. To me, it can get less exciting when someone maxes out CHA and Diplomacy and just walks over everyone. This shows that sometimes your best way to influence people is to be interested in what they are interested in.

Besides, this scenario sets things up for you to use your skills to determine the best skills to use. If you forgo the analyze checks, you'll never know what to say, or what not to say, to an individual. Example, you don't want to suggest to Irith that she needs the Pathfinder's help (-4 penalty to influence), but praising her previous efforts at leadership will give you a +4 bonus (on a single attempt).

There's a lot there, but people that focus all of their "social combat" on one skill won't get to see it, and will get frustrated.

EDIT: Defining easy/moderate/hard -- at 1-2 it is DC12/17/22, +5 on all of those for 4-5

Re: Irith

Profession: Barkeep for the win.

Grand Lodge 2/5

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Jack Brown wrote:

@RealAchemy and @Jurrasic Pratt, that's not complete true. It is just that with some of the interactions Diplomacy was not the best choice. With others, it would work very well.

To be specific (since this is the GM thread, so no spoilers)
Cyran: bluff is moderate, Diplo is hard

Irith: Bluff or Diplo are moderate.

Temel: Intimidate best, Bluff or diplo moderate

Vayde: Sense Motive and Diplomacy moderate, bluff hard

That seems to be a good spread of CHA skills.

Personally, I like that it takes a wide variety of skills to make this work. To me, it can get less exciting when someone maxes out CHA and Diplomacy and just walks over everyone. This shows that sometimes your best way to influence people is to be interested in what they are interested in.

Besides, this scenario sets things up for you to use your skills to determine the best skills to use. If you forgo the analyze checks, you'll never know what to say, or what not to say, to an individual. Example, you don't want to suggest to Irith that she needs the Pathfinder's help (-4 penalty to influence), but praising her previous efforts at leadership will give you a +4 bonus (on a single attempt).

There's a lot there, but people that focus all of their "social combat" on one skill won't get to see it, and will get frustrated.

EDIT: Defining easy/moderate/hard -- at 1-2 it is DC12/17/22, +5 on all of those for 4-5

Wow. I think I finally understand why I had such a terrible time with this scenario.

My GM obviously altered these DCs, as I beat a DC 17 on almost every roll I made. I'm not sure if maybe he used the tier 4-5 DCs by accident or just had something against Diplomacy.

Additonally, he made a point of telling us that the traditional social skill DCs (Diplomacy, Bluff, etc.) were far higher than the specific skill the NPC was inclined toward. Like to the point that we really shouldn't even bother trying.

Thanks for making it clear that the scenario isn't nearly as biased as I thought it was, and that my bad experience was just a case of having a poor GM.

Edit: Also, I wasn't focused on Diplomacy specifically, I have pretty much all the Social skills at about the same level.

Dark Archive 4/5

The large range of usable skills is one of the reasons I enjoyed GMing this for our lodge. The diplomatic characters had a chance to shine, but so did everyone else. Of those at my table, there were a couple who didn't have much in the way of social skills, and yet they were all able to contribute in some way. One spent most of the adventure chatting up Cyran about the various planes, and nailed it, even getting him to commit to the wharf district. The bloodrager who (as a player) is generally only interested in combat, was initially unhappy about the turn the scenario took after the first (and only) fight. But once he realized that the few skill points he invested in intimidate was actually a boon to the party, he happily spent the entire three days hanging out with Temel and soloed the influence points. He even got to make a counter argument to Myrosype, since she approached Temel with her gift (as he was the bidder with the most influence points at the time). When a scenario gets players who only perk up during the fights into the story, then I know it's well-written!

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

One thing I would ask of GMs running this, though. Please stop implying that "traditional" interaction skills are far harder to use (even if you think they are). Their DCs are in range for the levels, and, while they may not be the easiest skills, they are most definitely usable.

Statements like this are both harmful to the player's experience, and while not completely inaccurate, they are misleading.

Thank you.

4/5 5/5

I just told my players that the first skill they get with analyze has the lowest DC and that the next skill they will learn will have the same or higher DC. I also told them that the traditional social skills would likely work, but might not be the easiest way to influence the NPC's.

They seemed to pick this up quite well.

Sovereign Court 4/5 *

I ran this a few weeks ago, among others for Lau/Ascalaphus.

First of all, let me say that I enjoyed the background of the various NPC's, and the flavor they were trying to bring, as well as the Kalistrade way of dealing with the rental of a whole city.
Not homes, no...
A whole city. Let that sink in.
It's like the state of New York renting off Manhattan to a few wealthy merchants, to do with as they please. Love it.

--
To the mechanics:

I used the following handouts:
* First handout: Skills for the Discovery checks and what you could get for type of information (Analyze, Strength, Weakness)

* A handout with each mechanic summarized in a sentence (Recognize, Discovery, Influence).
I added an explanation what the Influence check was about (= Convincing the NPC to spend more money), as well as that the first successfull Influence check would reveal the favored location

* A handout for each party:
- What skills were easier or harder (simply with the tag "Easier"/"Harder")
- And the skills how to impress the host
I always portrayed the host being at the entrance to the room, welcoming the guests. This gave the players the possibility to pick up on it immediately, and act upon it

--
Discovery checks
When I gave players the skills to influence after a successful Discovery check, I mentioned the special skills would be easier.
I mentioned nothing about other skills being harder, unless it was written in the description of the specific NPC.
I don't think any of the PCs was put off by that. They went on using "traditional" social skills like Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive when they could, and left the NPC's for which they thought that would work less well on to other players.

All in all, the idea of the skill challenge is interesting, but really a lot for a GM to handle, between:
- The various DC's,
- Special environmental modifiers
- Special modifiers per individual PC (which could not be communicated to them (think of the bonuses/penalties for interaction from the biases, which forces you to keep track of which PC talks to which NPC).
- The amount of success for all 5 districts
At some point, you simply start making mistakes.

I have a question concerning the "selling out to Myrosype" part:
In the end, one of the players (playing the Meligaster pregen) decided to accept Myrosype's offer, causing the party to fail at the secondary objective.
Between the text in Myrosype's party and the conclusion text, I was unsure how to handle the Serpents boon.
One says to give "PC's who accept Myrosype's offer" the Serpents boon, while the other says "If the PC's struck a deal with Myrosype, each PC earns the Serpents boon".
I decided to go with the latter. Was that the correct interpretation?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Developer

Alexander Geuze wrote:
I decided to go with the latter. Was that the correct interpretation?

Yes, all of the PCs gain the boon. If a PC wants to refuse the boon on principle, then that PC is welcome to do so.

Sovereign Court 4/5

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Prepping this today, I really like the mechanics. It makes more sense in understandable terms when it comes to a social encounter, making them reasonable realistic.

Think of it as going to a party. Even though you might be able to talk nicely to people, if you don't actually talk about stuff that they're interested in, the conversation will eventually wane. Find the person or people whose interests are the same as yours, and you'll have great conversations all night long, perhaps even making a friend. The anti-social wizard in the back of the room who likes to talk about history and local politics will only ever have a polite surface conversation with the barbarian who wants to talk about the gladatorial fights and weaponry. Once he finds a like-mind, its open season.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

That is an excellent explanation.

Sovereign Court 4/5 *

Dave Baker wrote:

though you might be able to talk nicely to people, if you don't actually talk about stuff that they're interested in, the conversation will eventually wane. Find the person or people whose interests are the same as yours, and you'll have great conversations all night long, perhaps even making a friend. The anti-social wizard in the back of the room who likes to talk about history and local politics will only ever have a polite surface conversation with the barbarian who wants to talk about the gladatorial fights and weaponry. Once he finds a like-mind, its open season.

I think this might be one of the more sane explanations about how and why this works.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

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This scenario is fatally flawed...

You MUST play this with a full table... 7 is even better...

A table of 4 has almost no chance to succeed at the primary success condition, let alone the poorly instructed Exchange mission or the secondary condition.

Why?
You have 20 chances to make successful Influence checks. You need to make 4 each on 3 different NPCs to make the primary, that leaves a cushion of 8, 12 if you include the Free Discovery Check.

If you want to know what skills to make for the checks, there go 4, if you want to know what their weakness is, there is another 4, and that doesn't grant you all the info for each NPC...

If you don't fail more then 4 checks, and only make 1 check each for a Weakness and Influence Discovery, You can JUST make it.

It is mathematically improbable. The odds are monumentally against you.

~

TL;DR - NEVER PLAY 7-22 Bid for Alabastrine WITH LESS THEN 6 PLAYERS.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

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My table did it with 4.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

As I said, it is improbable, not impossible.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

They just stopped bothering with discovery checks.

Scarab Sages 4/5

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Tempest_Knight wrote:

This scenario is fatally flawed...

You MUST play this with a full table... 7 is even better...

A table of 4 has almost no chance to succeed at the primary success condition, let alone the poorly instructed Exchange mission or the secondary condition.

Why?
You have 20 chances to make successful Influence checks. You need to make 4 each on 3 different NPCs to make the primary, that leaves a cushion of 8, 12 if you include the Free Discovery Check.

If you want to know what skills to make for the checks, there go 4, if you want to know what their weakness is, there is another 4, and that doesn't grant you all the info for each NPC...

If you don't fail more then 4 checks, and only make 1 check each for a Weakness and Influence Discovery, You can JUST make it.

It is mathematically improbable. The odds are monumentally against you.

~

TL;DR - NEVER PLAY 7-22 Bid for Alabastrine WITH LESS THEN 6 PLAYERS.

Copying and pasting my response from the General Discussion thread. Removing Spoiler tags.

These numbers are not correct.

A table of 4 gets the 4-player adjustment. The 4-player adjustment for the scenario is that all participants require one less Influence Point. It is possible to succeed at both the primary and secondary success conditions with a total of 5 Influence Points for a 4-player table.

Passad - Only requires 1 influence point with the adjustment.
Irith - Only requires 2 Influence points with the adjustment.
The Luminous Wharf - Only requires 2 Influence points with the adjustment.

Granted, for reasons one of those Influence points will be taken away at the last minute, so you'll likely need 6 total successes, but that is easily workable for a 4-player table. If you choose to influence different people, the number of successes goes up. Worst case, if you choose Cyran and Petronax, you'll need 8 (or 9 for reasons) successes.

You're also forgetting that it's possible to achieve more than one success on a single roll. I ran this for a tier 1-2 table, and their one Diplomacy specialist hit a DC 30 a couple of times, netting 2 successes each time.

It sounds to me like you or your GM were not applying the 4-player adjustment. 5 players is the more difficult number to attempt this with, though it's still achievable.

EDIT: Or I suppose 4 players that fall between tiers and play down with the 6-player requirements might have a hard time if they also don't have high skill bonuses. In theory, they'd be more likely to hit the DC+10 level and get multiple successes, but if it's 4 low-skill characters that could be a challenge.

Scarab Sages 4/5

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Posting this here and not in the general thread:

Scenario page 19 wrote:

SCALING THE BIDDING

Make the following changes to accommodate a group of four PCs.
All Subtiers: Reduce the number of influence checks required for all NPCs by 1. Also, reduce the number of influence checks required to champion the Luminous Wharf district by 1.

To achieve the primary success condition, Myrosype must win no more than 2 sections of the city. She'll win at least one out of spite, regardless of how many successes the group gets. Again, when I ran this for a party of 4 (with a pregen no less) in tier 1-2, they actually succeeded in convincing everyone to purchase a territory, but Myrosype pooled her resources and bought the Worker's End out from under Passad, leaving him with the Luminous Wharf. I thought it would be cruel to take that away from him without the PCs having a chance to defend it, since it was the secondary prestige point.

Without adjustment, each participant needs the following:

Passad: 2 Influence Points
Irith: 3 Influence Points
Cyran: 4 Influence Points
Petronax: 4 Influence Points
The Luminous Wharf: 3 Influence Points on the same person. This can be someone who is also purchasing another territory.

So as you can see, your numbers are off even for the 6-player requirements. You don't need 4 points on three different people. There are only 2 people that need 4 points in the first place, and you can achieve success without ever talking to them.

With the adjustment, it's:
Passad:1 Influence Point
Irith: 2 Influence Points
Cyran: 3 Influence Points
Petronax: 3 Influence Points
The Luminous Wharf: 2 Influence Points on the same person

Myrosype also bribes one of the participants to take away 1 Influence Point (I had her bribe Passad, since he has no love for the Society and at that point he controlled the Worker's End and the Luminous Wharf).

One of the things I applaud about this scenario is that the 4-player adjustment lowers the required successes. That was not the case in a previous scenario that used the Influence Mechanic, and I remember complaining about that one.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

TOZ wrote:
My table did it with 4.

Table I played in also did it with 4, and we didn't just ignore discovery checks. Heck, we essentially wasted two on Myrosype :p So yeah, totally plausible to do

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5

We also did it with 4 players and half of us were very limited in our ability to do influence checks (and we had someone going for the Serpents boon which makes things a bit tougher). Undoubtedly things can get a little bit tricky because you never know for sure how much influencing you need to do, so strategy is a big portion of having enough space to get the secondary condition. Another big variable is how successful you are out of the gate on the free chances at discovery checks and recognition.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Davor Firetusk wrote:
We also did it with 4 players and half of us were very limited in our ability to do influence checks (and we had someone going for the Serpents boon which makes things a bit tougher). Undoubtedly things can get a little bit tricky because you never know for sure how much influencing you need to do, so strategy is a big portion of having enough space to get the secondary condition. Another big variable is how successful you are out of the gate on the free chances at discovery checks and recognition.

I was wondering about that, and I wonder how many people noticed this nugget in the Influence rules?

Bid for Alabastrine p. 25 wrote:

A PC doesn’t necessarily realize whether or not she

has succeeded at an influence check unless she succeeds
by at least 5, but a character always knows when she has
achieved the maximum possible influence over an NPC.

Some NPCs might act as if they were being influenced
even if they have no intention of listening to the PCs.

That's a very important rule because it lets the players know when they can start focusing on someone else. In combat it's obvious when an enemy is beaten; apparently here it is as well.

Conversely, if a PC is missing the DC barely on a Take 10, he might never notice. It might be in the interests of general fun-having for the GM to give some clues at that point though, because spending five rounds barely failing without knowing it isn't going to make people any happier.

Likewise, no provision is made for telling a player when he's failed so badly (>5) that he can't use the same skill anymore to influence an NPC; the GM should probably tell the player, or at least allow a Sense Motive check to notice a change of tone in the conversation.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

For those types of things, I try to use slightly over the top voice tone and body language tropes. I don't want to just tell the players, but if you make the "hints and clues" too subtle, then they likely will miss them.

This is supposed to be fun. Hiding too much info can just turn this into a guessing game, and that's on the GM.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Andrew Christian wrote:

For those types of things, I try to use slightly over the top voice tone and body language tropes. I don't want to just tell the players, but if you make the "hints and clues" too subtle, then they likely will miss them.

This is supposed to be fun. Hiding too much info can just turn this into a guessing game, and that's on the GM.

I agree. You don't want to expose too many naked numbers, but players can only make meaningful tactical choices if they have some idea of what's going on.

I think a big part of making these mechanics more mature and enjoyable is coming up with best practices on how much information to share and how.

Scarab Sages 4/5

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They also included the Dwarf guy (H-something, can't remember his name) who announces the current high bidders at the end of each event, and the scenario makes suggestions about how you can use him. At the end of each event, if the PCs had successfully influenced someone during that event (not convinced, just gained 1 point or more), I made sure that they were announced as the current high bidder. At the end of the next round, if the PCs did not convince them further (gain another influence point), and they were not already fully convinced, then Myrosype became the high bidder. That clued them in a couple of times when they still needed to talk to people, and especially when she bribed Passad to remove one Influence point.

EDIT: I should have pointed out in my messages last night that the bribe from Myrosype only happens as a tie in to the Serpents Rise boon, so it's not guaranteed to happen. Which means a 4-player table that makes lucky choices about who to try to influence can succeed by only gaining 5 Influence points.

Scarab Sages 4/5

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
They just stopped bothering with discovery checks.

Also, people seem to be forgetting that you can gain Discoveries by trying to influence someone.

If you exceed the DC to influence someone by 5 points, then you gain both 1 Influence point and one Discovery. Granted, it will be easier to beat that DC if you've already gotten a Discovery, but it's worth remembering you can still get information about them that may be useful even if you never attempt anything beyond the initial free Discovery at Passad's event.

Beating the DC to influence someone by 10 gains either 2 Influence points or 1 Influence point and 1 Discovery (player's choice), so if the players think they're close to having someone convinced, they could choose to take a Discovery and gain information they could use either for the Exchange goal (if it's an Exchange character doing the Influencing) or to convince that bidder to bid on The Luminous Wharf.

I really do think the scenario does an excellent job of accounting for possible limitations of the party. With a few minor exceptions (like the Know: History roll to learn Irith is the lord-councilor, which Passad tells them already during the intro), there's always some option for a player to contribute or some alternate way to get a useful piece of information. It's a complex set of rules, but turning Social combat into numbers driven gameplay, while keeping it from being "I roll a 45 Diplomacy, we win!" is a complex task.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Ferious Thune wrote:
It's a complex set of rules, but turning Social combat into numbers driven gameplay, while keeping it from being "I roll a 45 Diplomacy, we win!" is a complex task.

Other than Dave Bakers post above, this is probably the single best justification for the Social Combat system. If you want to make an adventure based on social stuff, and have it actually last longer than a single roll, then you need a more robust system than simply diplomacy.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Had another run of this scenario over the weekend at a new con. It proceeded much the same way as before, although the six man team only just managed to shut Myrosype out in the final bidding round. The Exchange faction member also did not manage to accomplish his mission, having not discovered any of the bidders trade interests.

I did have an interesting bit at the start where the party wizard and 'master of disguise' took to the streets the night before the bidding to try and charm an underling of Myrosype. I didn't want to just shut him down and really expose the railroad, so some bluff and stealth rolls were made and failed. Any thoughts on what the resident scrymasters would do in reaction? I didn't think an arrest would be warranted, just perhaps a warning if he had bombed his escape too hard. My thought is he would be able to learn a little about what was planned for the last party of the bidding, but not much else.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

I ran this last night and on the whole it was successful. Man, does this take a lot of prep work though. I'm very, very, very much NOT surprised how much table variation the now closed thread revealed. This was more complicated than it should have been. Do NOT run this warm, let alone cold.

I was quite unsatisfied with one part of it. I'd like advice on how to do better at it.

Note : The Venue I play at is quite busy and noisy. Noise is probably a factor in what follows.

I'd given out various handouts to the players. They had pictures of the NPCs together with their descriptions, they had the rules summary from the pfsprep site, etc

The problem I had was in making the skill checks and discovery checks seem remotely natural. How does one seque from "Skill check to impress host" to "Time for Discovery checks" to "Time for Influence Checks"? And how does one make the Discovery checks the tiniest bit more interesting than "Well, roll Sense Motive" ESPECIALLY as they tended to be done by the non socially interactive players. All the Discovery Checks use the same skills so the same characters were making them and they got really old and stale really really quickly.

Even with the Influence checks there were difficulties, even after they knew what skill to roll. They talked fairly naturally, and were surprised when I had to take what they were telling me and basically go : That is diplomacy you're rolling, right? Not the Knowledge Planes that you know is the best skill? Heavy handed questions like that got them to adjust what they were saying. But asking a player with 0 knowledge planes to improvise a speech involving knowledge planes that the other guy would approve of didn't work well with all players.

As another example, in the Garden Party scene. I lovingly described the gardens, how the plants were huge and had obviously been alchemically influenced. None of the group took the hint and had the conversation go in a direction that could conceivably justify one of the listed skills.

I realized later that I could have had the other NPCs go first and show them how it was done but that also feels a bit contrived. And its not as if they'd have Perform Comedy to describe why they'd picked their costumes, for example.

2/5

Just wanted to add a little typo/omission. In the stat blocks for the Isgeri Outlaws the heavy steel shields are missing, even though they have a +2 shield bonus for their AC.

5/5 5/55/55/5

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/25/arts/city-of-possibilities-etienne-malapert/i ndex.html

5/5 5/55/55/5

The exchange bonus is reward is... a one time +2 knowledge nobility check? Really?

Paizo Employee 5/5 Contributor—Canadian Maplecakes

BigNorseWolf wrote:
The exchange bonus is reward is... a one time +2 knowledge nobility check? Really?

There's another paragraph before that, with another bonus.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Thurston Hillman wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
The exchange bonus is reward is... a one time +2 knowledge nobility check? Really?
There's another paragraph before that, with another bonus.

Fame is rarely a limiter on purchases, and the benefit does nothing if you're sitting on full PP.

Paizo Employee 5/5 Contributor—Canadian Maplecakes

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Fame is rarely a limiter on purchases, and the benefit does nothing if you're sitting on full PP.

That wasn't the question :)

Grand Lodge 4/5

Is it just me or does the dwarf rogue cheat by drawing a concealed weapon as a free action?

4/5 5/5

Yep, he cheats. I noticed that too and decided to ignore it.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Magabeus wrote:
Yep, he cheats. I noticed that too and decided to ignore it.

Likewise. Just thought it was odd.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

I read it as she has it in her hands under her cloak / blanket. You can't see her hands until she drops the blanket. I actually described her (low tier) as "she seems to be wringing her hands" under the blanket (bluff as she applies the oil to the blade.)

If you are really woried about it, let her use "Slight of Hand (Palm Weapon)" (From Spymaster Handbook) as the party gets close.

"You can draw a light weapon without anyone noticing.

Check: A successful DC 20 Sleight of Hand check allows you to unobtrusively draw a weapon or other object no larger or longer than a light weapon (which includes potions, but not wands or alchemist bombs). Observers can notice you drawing the item as normal with opposed Perception checks. Creatures carefully observing you gain a +4 bonus on this Perception check."

Remember she gets +1/2 level to her check.

1/5 *

Ferious Thune wrote:

Posting this here and not in the general thread:

Scenario page 19 wrote:

SCALING THE BIDDING

Make the following changes to accommodate a group of four PCs.
All Subtiers: Reduce the number of influence checks required for all NPCs by 1. Also, reduce the number of influence checks required to champion the Luminous Wharf district by 1.

To achieve the primary success condition, Myrosype must win no more than 2 sections of the city. She'll win at least one out of spite, regardless of how many successes the group gets. Again, when I ran this for a party of 4 (with a pregen no less) in tier 1-2, they actually succeeded in convincing everyone to purchase a territory, but Myrosype pooled her resources and bought the Worker's End out from under Passad, leaving him with the Luminous Wharf. I thought it would be cruel to take that away from him without the PCs having a chance to defend it, since it was the secondary prestige point.

Without adjustment, each participant needs the following:

Passad: 2 Influence Points
Irith: 3 Influence Points
Cyran: 4 Influence Points
Petronax: 4 Influence Points
The Luminous Wharf: 3 Influence Points on the same person. This can be someone who is also purchasing another territory.

So as you can see, your numbers are off even for the 6-player requirements. You don't need 4 points on three different people. There are only 2 people that need 4 points in the first place, and you can achieve success without ever talking to them.

With the adjustment, it's:
Passad:1 Influence Point
Irith: 2 Influence Points
Cyran: 3 Influence Points
Petronax: 3 Influence Points
The Luminous Wharf: 2 Influence Points on the same person

Myrosype also bribes one of the participants to take away 1 Influence Point (I had her bribe Passad, since he has no love for the Society and at that point he controlled the Worker's End and the Luminous Wharf).

One of the things I applaud about this scenario is that the 4-player adjustment lowers the required successes. That was not the...

I played this at a 5 player table that was just barely pushed into high tier. While we almost succeeded, completely failing a mission due to missed skill rolls wasn't fun for anyone at the table. In fact, to me, this is now one of the worst PFS scenarios I have ever played from an actual "how fun was it" perspective.

I flat out lost a character in Bonekeep 1, but I was relatively new to Pathfinder at the time and I enjoyed the challenge. It encouraged me to create a new, better and more prepared character. Failure in this scenario encourages me to find out what scenarios use the intrigue system (before playing them) and avoid ever playing the ones that do. Call that metagaming or whatever, I just have no intention of wasting my time again.

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