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Ahh, I misunderstood.
It's not secret, nothing about it claims to be secret. There's no false information to be given on a critical failure. Even the diverse lore link doesn't possibly give false info.
There's no reason at all for it to be secret. Also, the results pretty much speak for themselves, so even if it were secret it would largely be obvious what the result is (Also you need to know if you can exploit personal/mortal):
Critical Success: Learn all resistances/weakness/immunities including values. Can exploit Mortal or Personal.
Success: Learn highest weakness. Can exploit Mortal or Personal.
Failure: Can exploit Personal
Critical Failure: Become flat-footed
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Not only does nothing in the rules suggest it should be secret, and the result is mostly obvious but knowing the result is pretty important for the functioning of the Thaumaturge class options. Additionly they get powers which have Requirements like "are benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability against a creature".
In addition to the free pseudo RK from Exploit Vulnerability/Diverse Lore....
esoteric Lore can just be used to Recall Knowledge. (Only haunts, curses, and creatures; Or anything else at -2 with Diverse Lore) and that check is secret as normal for RK.
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Ahh, I misunderstood.
It's not secret, nothing about it claims to be secret. There's no false information to be given on a critical failure. Even the diverse lore link doesn't possibly give false info.
There's no reason at all for it to be secret. Also, the results pretty much speak for themselves, so even if it were secret it would largely be obvious what the result is (Also you need to know if you can exploit personal/mortal):
Critical Success: Learn all resistances/weakness/immunities including values. Can exploit Mortal or Personal.
Success: Learn highest weakness. Can exploit Mortal or Personal.
Failure: Can exploit Personal
Critical Failure: Become flat-footed
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Not only does nothing in the rules suggest it should be secret, and the result is mostly obvious but knowing the result is pretty important for the functioning of the Thaumaturge class options. Additionly they get powers which have Requirements like "are benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability against a creature".
OH! I stand corrected then! :)
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The way I've played it for my thaumaturge (and those I have GMed) is to use the single roll for both the Exploit Vulnerability and the subsequent Recall Knowledge. So this is a rare case where the risk of a crit fail on the recall knowledge is minimal as they already know the roll is decent if the exploit succeeded.Can someone more experienced at playing Thaumaturges look at this please? Who's right? I always saw it as using Esoteric to do an RK using the listed DC. Since nobody's ever corrected me before, I just ran with it...
You don't get the critical failure result there, though you also don't get the failure or critical success results. Just success or not.
(Not getting failure is always relevant for Thaumaturges, since they get Dubious Knowledge as a bonus feat.)
Oh the crit failure comment was about crit failing exploit vulnerability (as Pirate Rob explained beautifully).
Good point about dubious knowledge - that gets forgotten too often and is a very useful and fun mechanic.
awfully tempted to try running something like Fall of Plaguestone (since it's a lvl 1 adventure, how hard can it be?)
(famous last words, I know) :)
It was damn hard when we first started it back around launch time, but we didn't finish. Count me in if you do so.
awfully tempted to try running something like Fall of Plaguestone (since it's a lvl 1 adventure, how hard can it be?)
(famous last words, I know) :)
Multiple character deaths on that one, though it was also the first time any of us were playing 2e. I wonder how it would go with some of the non-core classes and with remaster changes.
I'd join if you did. We could all even play classes we've never played to preserve the newbie feeling.
Fall of Plaguestone sounds like fun...
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Plaguestone is adventure mode. It's also a lvl 1 only adventure. AFAIK it's practically any character you want (someone please correct me if I'm not correct here). You can apply the credit to any PFS-legal PC. 12 XP and 30 treasure bundles I think...
I can try -- I make no promises since this is a bit of a monumental time commitment... (and I've already read part 1 over lunch) :)
I'd be glad to partake in a fall from the stone of the plague.
Plaguestone wasn't too bad running, I'd just caution against overcommiting since you're probably looking at 4-8 months or more depending on the pace of the group. I don't know if you have a number of 'slots'/ tables you've found to be your max you can handle but this basically would take one 'slot' for several months. It's doable, just plan ahead with what you're offering and make sure to keep it within your limits.
That said, longer adventures like the standalone adventures or adventure paths are some of the most rewarding stuff to run IMO. I really enjoy being able to have continuity with the same group over a period of time and see the connections they make and stories they tell.
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Plaguestone wasn't too bad running, I'd just caution against overcommiting since you're probably looking at 4-8 months or more depending on the pace of the group. I don't know if you have a number of 'slots'/ tables you've found to be your max you can handle but this basically would take one 'slot' for several months. It's doable, just plan ahead with what you're offering and make sure to keep it within your limits.
That said, longer adventures like the standalone adventures or adventure paths are some of the most rewarding stuff to run IMO. I really enjoy being able to have continuity with the same group over a period of time and see the connections they make and stories they tell.
That I agree with -- playing Troubles in Otari with GM Watery Soup and I've kinda fallen in love not only with my character but also the chemistry between the party.
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Just did my first ever live-play PFS Scenario... 04-01: Intro Year of Boundless Wonder. Interesting experience, especially having another veteran GM (Nomadical) in the game.
Forgot about provisions... forgot about awarding HP every hour -- both things that never come up in PbP.. Players had a blast -- which is the important thing.
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Just did my first ever live-play PFS Scenario... 04-01: Intro Year of Boundless Wonder. Interesting experience, especially having another veteran GM (Nomadical) in the game.
Forgot about provisions... forgot about awarding HP every hour -- both things that never come up in PbP.. Players had a blast -- which is the important thing.
If I had a $ for every time a GM didn't hand out a hero point on the hour, I suspect I'd have well over $100. It's super easy to forget.
Remember that making mistakes is natural. Learning from them makes you a great GM.
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GM Tiger did a great job. Especially given that the other 4 players have only ever played once or twice each and only one was playing the same character they'd played before. Lots of learning by everyone!
Hopefully next weekend, I'll be GMing, and he'll get to play F2F for the first time and show these youngun's some serious RP!
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Remember that making mistakes is natural. Learning from them makes you a great GM.
Exactly. I still make mistakes. Best we can do is learn from them. There's always something I think I can do better, whether it was a mistake or just something I didn't handle as well as I would've liked.
As far as hero points go, one thing that really helps me when I run (live) games is have a stenopad (Basically smaller notepad). It's usually organized something like this:
- very top is labelled TB (treasure bundles) and has 10 check boxes.
- below that is labelled HP (hero points) and has 6 check boxes. I know some people use a phone timer or similar to track when to give these out. I just try to watch the time and look here to see if I need to give one out. I also check after each section on the scenario as a reminder in case time flies by.
- next 6 lines I reserve for player info. Steno pads are split down the middle so on the left when players make their character introductions I write down their PC names, phonetic pronunciation if I need it, and PC pronouns. on the right side of these lines I save for later in the session and write a note down about something they did or said for personalized chronicle notes.
- below that I outline any skill challenges+thresholds, or other mechanics that need success tracking. I just do tallies for most success tracking but check boxes for complex ones. So last weekend I ran a chase scene so I had listed the player names again and used check boxes for each round so I knew if they went. (I had set up some flip tiles for different elements of the chase scene so I didn't want to track rounds visually on a map like i normally do).
- and then below that is any other notes I want to remember for the scenario or just leave blank for stuff to write down in session.
With that, then I just need to mostly check boxes for TB/HP and then follow my skill challenge outlines. For PbP I do something similar but its in a google spreadsheet so I'm not counting on keeping a piece of paper for several weeks.
Of course other GM's have different systems that work best for them so experiment with different things to see what works for you.
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So how do you guys prep for high tier combat? I was running Prisoners of the Electric Castle around the table and I sort of bolloxed it.
PbP - Just make sure you have a lot of free time to make the update. High Tier anything usually has a lot of moving parts... and make sure you're not tired when you do so or your math will come out weird :)
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Even if I'm running from my tablet/laptop hybrid I like printing out the statblocks for easy reference. Or I pull them out from the adventure if I'm running a printed copy.
I read through the monsters, and look up any spells/special abilities I'm not familiar with. Hopefully I know at least what tier I'm running, so I can cut down on the number of different stat-blocks I need to prep. Knowing the exact Challenge Points is a big plus, especially with some adventures having quite a variety of monsters at different challenge points.
I try and get an idea of what the monsters' general combat plan is. Are they brutes, ranged artillery. Something with a 3 action combo or a MAPless 2 action activity I can combine with a strike for dangerous output.
A step deeper is to think about each encounter and monsters. What's their motivation? How organized and such are they? How I can help communicate what's going on to the players. Also, thoughts on how to describe things with lesser used senses (smell etc)
I keep a fair amount in my head, but also scribble some notes in the margins of the statblocks and potentially highlight or underline things I'm worried I might forget about.
Examples: Adventure says "The urdefhans are unaccustomed and ill-suited to playing guard and eagerly attack the PCs"
Said urdefhans at high tier have a somewhat complicated stat block.
Things to Highlight for me: Languages (No Common). Necrotic Decay (Death Effect) Immunity to Fear. Harm(Potential 1 action spell.)
Combat Plan: Unorganized aggression. (May note that on the side). Generally in combat they will act extremely aggressively and not with any sort of strategy or defense. They don't have a plan to win, they are just attacking and enjoying getting to be aggressive. They probably prefer to attack squishy targets since they are more fun, but are unlikely to chase them down, preferring to make more attacks than moving strategically.
I'll also look up the spells, maybe preloading some of them into AoN tabs on my device. Also they have a summon, so figure out a good choice, maybe 2 if I'm feeling extra feisty. Hopefully print that out. Maybe add a little I or highlight in a different color for the spells with Incapacitation.
Fortunately the scaling just effects # of foes and weak template so there's only really 1 statblock to prep for this encounter.
Low tier has 2 different statblocks with different abilities. I would like to at least skim them so I won't be totally blindsided if we have to switch tiers at the last moment, but I likely don't have the time/mental bandwidth to fully prep both tiers.
Some RP notes for the encounter: find out about character languages easy and just make a note somewhere on if there's understanding or not. If no overlap I plan to have them point and laugh and grunt "in ways that clearly seem to belittle you, but are in a guttural language you don't understand." If there is a match for a PC language I'll make sure to use that with some quips about puny little ones, or maybe something horrifying like, "I haven't had this much fun since we beat my cousin to death."
Also I like giving clues for abilities with my descriptions. Things like "As your blade cuts deep into its flesh a foul smell emanates from deep within the creature as its flesh around the wound rots away, leaving a horrible smell.
Some bonus thoughts: try and figure out how much time I'll need after this encounter to completed the adventure on time. If the encounter is going over, be willing to call it early. If the PCs are clearly winning, maybe drop the last enemy even if it still has 50hp left. This requires prepping the whole encounter and having a sense of how long things take. I'm far from perfect in this, but it's better to be aware earlier in a session that later when you get to 50 minutes remaining and realize you still have 2 epic encounters to get though.
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Go through this for all the encounters. For more complicated encounters spend some more time prepping the notes and such. For simple encounters I can come up with a lot of flavor on the fly. For a handful of basic zombies/skeletons, I already know how they work, and can spend my brainpower in combat describing the rotting smell of gravedirt. For skeletons, the ones non mindless ones with AoO I try and do things like "An evil red glow emanates from its eyesockets, tracking your every moment, ready to strike as soon as an opening presents itself." vs "The eye sockets of the skeleton are filled with an unmoving black void as it moves forward with the speed of the dead to hack at the closest target"
Or maybe something like "The rotting corpse makes little effort to dodge your blow." (Hinting at low AC on the zombie"
So the short version is: Make you know how the monsters work. Have a plan for how they will act. And have a plan on how to communicate things about the encounter to the players.
Nice! Were you able to role play much? What character did you bring?
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Gotta say it's an unusual situation to be GMing for a 4-glyph GM the very first he ever plays (as a player) face to face. But he RPed a lot, and his character was a lot of fun, even if he had to step back a bit having run and played the scenario before.
I ran Silver Bark, Golden Blades, and I think I chose all the options that no one else ever uses. Even GM Tiger was caught off guard (non-mechanically) by some of them.
It was an honor and a joy to get to play with this new local Manila / Alabang group. I hope Tiger is able to keep the group going so that I can return later in the year when I get back to Asia.
I mean, someone has to GM for him so he can do his own characters' silly voices. :)
Ooooh, I do love silly voices.
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Well, the one time I ran Silver Bark (06-05) was high tier. The one other time I played it (author table) was with my GM Rotation Group, and we had all high tier PCs. So I've never really played this Low Tier...
Silly voices -- all I was doing was meowing at the other catfolk, and yelling "JUST SHOOT HIM!" at the nagaji who kept trying to do something fancy in combat! :)
The times I've played Ulfgar Ironhead in person, I've started by saying "he doesn't talk. He CAN talk. He just doesn't see the point," so people don't think I'm being rude.
I consider it a point of pride any time I can get through a whole scenario without him ever saying a word.
I tend to bring my more gregarious and opinionated characters to live games. In PbP games, I can describe what my characters are doing (and thinking) without saying anything, and in F2F or VTT games, I play my characters as chatterboxes, or at least as chatterbox-y as an introvert can play a chatterbox.
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To all games I GM and play in, I’m on day 2 of feeling under the weather, just some fatigue and a headache. Taking rest to avoid it getting worse. Apologies for delays. Feel free to bot me as needed. Thanks!
