Infamy mechanic question


Skull & Shackles


I am throroughly confused as to how a pirate crew of lvl 10's who done some seriously impressive tasks find it harder to become infamous (gain infamy) than the level 1 bunch of squibs.

The DC is 15+ 2*level.
This just makes it harder to gain infamy the more powerful and the more 'infamous' you should be.

Please tell em if I am wrong here and if I am not wrong please help me come up with a reason why it is like this, besides to make the check arbitrarily difficult.

As an example of why this is so BS, our bard just made a 33 perform check, which by the core rule book draws the attention of extraplanar beings.
But the bunch of drunk in the local tavern aren't impressed with it.

On a secondary note, I can use bluff, intimidate, or perform. Why can't I use diplomacy? I can play the drums to gain infamy but I can't sit down and talk to someone about how awesome we are?


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Well, for one the infamy score shows how infamous you are already. So if you're some unknown nobody on a ship no one has seen and manage to rob a merchant, that is a good thing.

If you are the pirates that surfed on the eye of the maelstrom and bested the colossal twelve armed beast of the sea. That ship that everyone recognizes and fears when it appears at the horizon...

Well, if you robbed another merchant and tell about that in a drinking bar at some random port you will have problems raising your infamy any further with that. But the rolls are missing some bonus for the kind of deed you did to actually weigh in the merchant or the beast from the sea.


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If you got a bonus on your infamy check based on what infamy you already had, or even infamy/2 I could see it scaling like it does.

But what about sailing onto some island where nobody has heard of you? You tell them the story about how you robbed the merchant ship, still impressive, then you tell them about the maelstrom, even more impressive.

Maybe the DC should be based on how much Infamy you have already gained at a set port


That would be stupid. What is your favorite sport? In my country it is soccer.

If you win Champions Leage it increases your fame. If the same faous club wins in DFB Cup vs. some 3rd league club it doesn't. No matter how famous you were to start with.


But lets change the story.
Slightly.
If i play soccer for a local team and am top of the log, impressive.
Now I go overseas, and I beat a local leagues top team, and a weak later win a regional there.
That local league will be impressed I beat their top log, and then even MORE impressed when I win the regional.

Which part of my previous post is stupid, I am not sure which you mean


That you include your current infamy into your roll to increase your infamy. I don't think the Paris Hilton approach works here.

Best course of action would probably be to simply drop the infamy completely out of the game. Because once you start using the infamy you stumble over more great solutions. Like not being able to gang press people into your crew. Because poisoning people and dragging them onto your ship only works after you made the perform oratory check to increase your infamy over the necessary threshold.

Worst to happen would be that someone tries to interfere and gets beaten unconscious only to find himself on the crew too the next morning.


I agree that that is an issue.
I do feel that having a mechanic that tracks your reputation is an awesome 'mini-game' so to speak.
However the ways to use it I think should be more unique than things you can do normally.
I suppose in the case of the gangpress infamy is being used as a way to hand-waive the process of mass kidnap.
Which is useful I suppose if you don't want to have massive areas of your game being playing out mass kidnappings.


Bit late to the party, but I do have good news:
The Glibness spell gives a +20 untyped bonus to Bluff.
The Honeytongue Elixer gives a +10 untyped bonus to Bluff.
The Resplendent Diplomat's Palette gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Bluff.
Reading a Blue book gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Bluff.

So, for the DC of 15 + 2*Level, I am well equipped:
At 14th level, I have a 28 in Bluff. I have the book (+2), and another +1 circumstance from fancy clothes. So all I need is a 12 on the d20. If I receive an Aid-Another, then I auto succeed on a Take-10.
With my UMD, I could add the spell to my staff, and get +20, which takes me well past 20th level for the DC.
I could also use a ring of spell storing for the spell as well.

/cevah

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