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This blog post lists the main Scarab Sage scenarios in chronological order. The post relates to the 'deactivation' of the faction. I have played all of these scenarios, having a level 11 Scarab Sage character about to go through his last pre-seeker game in Outpost 3.
There are a few other scenarios that either have some background, or another tangential link to the faction. The ones I know about are:
Heresy of Man parts 2 and 3 (I haven't played these)
Darkest Abduction (played)
From Under Ice (played)
I don't mind using the odd replay if folks want to experience some of these. Beacon Below and Ancients Anguish are both very good (and challenging) 7-11s.
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No worries if running relevant scenarios to this plot is a challenge, I'm still perfectly happy with running the current list.
TBH with how good the quality of scenarios in the later seasons have been, it'd be fun to play a fake PFS where characters are built for a certain faction/stroyline and then run through the appropriate series of scenarios! I say fake to avoid any sort of replay/credit/potential metagaming issues. Not pushing the idea on the group, just sharing a passing fancy :)
On another note, I really want to say thank you to all of you as players. I can't remember the last time that I've seen some serious topics come up in a RP and how each character would be tested in terms of being true to their alignments. While it was tough to write some of my posts when I could hear how my character was speaking to me, I can't imagine I'm the only one that it wasn't easy for. But overall, I really felt like it made our characters that much more 3-dimensional and not just statistics on a paper and it reminded me a whole lot of the first two books of Dragonlance: War of the Lance trilogy and the conflicts that the party members had with one another because of their personalities but how they would come together when it mattered most. Looking forward to the next scenario and how this one and the Shores of Heaven will have an influence going forward.
I've only just started the books, but I am also really enjoying the character interaction and RP! Who knew a party with strong leanings to both law and good could have so much disagreement? Nothing but respect for the players/GM for the quality of the game we have built together.
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*checking if someone subreptitiously put a "Lawful=boring" tag on her*
*Is still an agent of Chaos, mischief, mayhem and unexpected things*
*sighs with relief*
just to say that this character is my hero:
IIstesya
I laughs everytime I read that, and I've already read it quite a few times…
*re read and giggles*
Hokay folks, you may find your chronicles >>here<<. As always, please let me know if anything looks amiss.
Since this chronicle has a lot going on, any additional notes you asked me to make are down at the very bottom.
You'll also notice that we actually played up with the 4-player adjustment for this; your APL was a perfect 2.5 and so I rounded you guys up to 3. Admittedly I didn't ask the group if this is what you wanted to do because I figured you guys might appreciate a little more challenge. That said, I still should have asked first and I apologize for not doing so. This will not happen again.
Luckily you guys still largely curbstomped everything with only the final fight giving you a small bit of trouble.
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Well, GM, fun fact: I love playing up! Especially with a group that's made decent characters, I find it a lot of fun! :D
Obviously you'd need the other's permission too, but you have my blanket permission to thrust Rumble into high tier (even better if I don't know it!)!
Curious: why did we lose access to what appears to be the lesser version of two items? Now that the scenario is over, any cool tidbits to know about that we missed or just didn't have a way of learning about?
Chronicle looks good, thanks! :)
EDIT: Rumble is so close to a suit of mwk Stoneplate that it huuuuurts! 90gp! GAH!
@Rumble - I marked them that way because those items came with text like this:
They also find <REDACTED'S> lesser circlet of persuasion, which functions as a circlet of persuasion but only grants a +2 bonus on these checks. In Subtier 4–5, it is instead a circlet of persuasion.
My interpretation is that you get the 'normal' version only in Subtier 4-5 rather than both. Admittedly if that was the intent it was a strange way to lay out chronicles but it made more sense to me to read it that way. If I'm wrong I can redo the chronicles, though.
As far as other tidbits go, hmm....
Well, several of the seemingly nondescript items you found in the ruins at the beginning of the scenario had additional details that would've been more relevant to any PCs belonging to the Scarab Sages - relevant enough that discovering enough of those details was what qualified eligible PCs for the faction boon on the sheet.
Oh and Veshtahz was absolutely trying to tell you guys whatever you wanted to hear in order to keep on living. He also totally messed with those folks for the lulz. Interestingly, no detailed explanation of how exactly Mauta wound up in the state she was in was given whereas the other two had a brief blurb as to what exactly Veshtahz had done to them and why. So I had to improvise a bit for her.
Kinda proud of myself that I made (some) of you guys kinda-sorta feel sorry for an evil div, though :)
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I believe that completing the high tier allows us access to both the high and low tier items which would completely resolve the discussion. The Roleplaying Guild Guide only mentions crossing out the high tier items if the players are playing low, not crossing out the low tier if they play high.
This thought appears to be backed up on the organized play GM forum here and here.
In that case I'll update the chronicles and reissue the corrected versions later this evening.
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I'm fairly certain this is a safe venue to discuss this...
What do you do when you have a PFS player who says, "I don't want to do it your (the GM's) way, just do it my way." The level of the rule is PF2's GM option to simply double damage on a crit vs. rolling twice the dice on the crit, so not awful, but the effect of doing it the player's way is to increase my workload by making me type out more dice strings after looking up the player's character's stats that he houses in an unfamiliar (to me) format on an outside website. Basically, he said I don't want to roll, you roll for me.
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Disclaimer: I have no idea how PFS for PF2 works.
If it is the GM's option, I'd cite the rule, re-declare your choice to double the damage and move on. I would keep anything related to increasing your workload or suggesting they just don't want to roll out, since then that would likely invite all sorts of tangential counterarguments/rebuttals that could lead to a false sense of vindication for the player and likely a hardening of their stance.
I'd then just ignore all subsequent responses (perhaps a single reminder that once a GM makes a ruling, the decision is final and should be taken up with the GM or appropriate PFS leadership after the game has concluded). If it starts to detract from the game, issue a warning, and escalate to ejection if it continues to happen. I'd do the same if I made a ruling at a physical table (especially one so explicit in the rules) and a player was continuing to try to pressure me into making another decision.
Last thought I have, keep it all on the public boards and not PM's. On the boards, if PFS leadership wants to look at what's going on, you just send them a link.
I hope this blows over soon Zithembe!
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I was a little bit confused when I first read it because I thought your player was not happy with the rule on resolving damage for critical success roles in combat, but when you mention that he has his character sheet offsite and that he's wanting you to do the dice macros for him, it sounds like it goes beyond unhappiness with the rule itself and a personal issue of "I'm not going to type out dice macros", whether he doesn't know how to do it or just doesn't want to.
If it's a problem with the rule, everything that Rumble has suggested is on point and I can't think of anything else to add.
If it's a "I don't want to do dice macros" problem it gets a little more sketchy. My solution there would be to tell him that if that's what he wants, his character becomes an NPC under GM control with no input from the player on controlling him and that the player would not receive PFS credit or a chronicle sheet for the scenario played.
My "dice marco problem" solution might not be the way to go, but it's the only one I could think of where the GM regains control of the situation in such a way that in doing so is also fair to everyone else who's playing the right way.
Either way, I will echo Rumble in making sure you keep things transparent to all and I hope that everything works out in a way that all parties will be satisfied.
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Yes, Parison has the right of it. I mentioned the critical damage as a reference for the magnitude of the disagreement, which in the morning now seems like useless information. :)
The problem is he doesn't want to type out dice macros in the format I've requested and said, in short, "You roll for me."
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If it's a brand new player I would (gently) explain "that's not how this works", and if they don't like it then I'd say "maybe this isn't the format for you." Otherwise, that player is being an ass-hat - and an inconsiderate ungrateful ass-hat to boot.
When I first played PFS using a VTT the GM (actually a small group of GMs who had set up a regular Warhorn thing) explained what macros were, why we needed them, and how to write them. Here's a useful blog that one of those GMs runs - there's also a link on the site to Flutter's Guide to playing PFS online. link for convenience.
A bit delayed, but your slightly-edited chronicles are >>here<<. Rather than redo all six chronicles from scratch I opted to add a note with my initials as to the error and how the chronicle rewards should actually be interpreted.
And yeah, I think Rumble, Parison, and Effie have all more or less said anything I could say on the matter and in a much better way.
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I don't want to spoiler this. Just want to say that the courage and dedication of healthcare workers during this pandemic is incredible.
Anyway: thank you.
As an FYI guys I don't look to get us started on our next scenario until Tuesday at the earliest. This week/weekend is my 'busier' week where my work shifts are more closely spaced and so I'd prefer to have a little more breathing room before I ramp things up again.
We also had our first positive case in my county yesterday so testing at my facility is ramping up but otherwise most other folks still seem to largely be staying away. So my ability to post from work is probably going to be all over the place for a while.
People are understandably stressed.
(It doesn't help that there's still some confusion and ambiguity over which departments are responsible for what things, which frustrates me to no end. I just want to know, for certain, what I'm responsible for so I can get on with it and do my job.)
Zith, I'm so sorry about all the stress you're dealing with. For what it's worth, I've been keeping you and your family in my thoughts.
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Works for me GM!
I've been reading the posts, I just have no idea what I could even say to any of y'all that would make a difference/matter. Just know, for whatever it is worth, that y'all aren't alone and I'm rooting for you from London! Idk what I could possibly do, but feel free to reach out if you come up with something or just want to shoot the shit.
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GM Ladile, I've always appreciated you being a good GM, but boy, oh boy, have I been reminded about how lucky I am to have you at the helm.
rant:
One of my Outpost games is being run by a GM that is just utter shit. I'd be much more understanding if this was a newcomer to PFS, or new to the medium, or, really any conceivable reason, but based on the credentials on the profile and 50% more posts than I've made over my PbP career, I can't find a reason to be gentle here. We aren't even through the first combat and I'm already determined to buy the scenario once I get the chronicle to go over this game. GAH!
/rant
...anyways, hope y'all are doing well!
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That really sucks Rumble. I had a scenario where I did exactly what you are considering with buying the chronicle.
On another note, I recently ran a Master of the Fallen Fortress with three Core Players (all were good, yay!) and one of the players is keeping the group going with a Confirmation run. But we are down to two and before opening it up to general recruitment we are opening it up to good players we know. Thus, would any of you be interested and available?
Open to suggestions!
Thinking about the followings classes:
1 Bard
2 Brawler
3 Swashbuckler
You tend to like to throw stuff Hep, how about going a different route with a Hurling Barbarian?
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With the exception of the past year, I hadn't done much PbPing other than playing in Lady Ladile's 'Night March of Kalkamedes' game as a way to try it out. Initially, I didn't think it was for me, but about a year after the fact, I wanted to be more active in PbP gaming and I wanted to get into a long term PbP AP campaign (which I have since done) and I'm also in this long-term scenario campaign and a D&D Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign being run here on the forums.
When I started trying to be more active on the boards, I managed to get recruited into an Iron Gods campaign, but it flamed out after the very first combat encounter we had as a group and it was because our GM for it went AWOL. I want to guess it was primarily due to the GM realizing that he'd gotten in over his head at how much work would be involved and lost interest, but what irked me was that he was still active in PbP gameplay in a couple of other places. There was no reasons given other than the GM simply just stopped posting anything. I won't mention names, but I've seen this person sign up as a GM for an Outpost scenario this year. It might be different with GMing a scenario, but I'd be hesitant to sign up in anything he runs in the future because I'd never know if he just decided to up and quit at any point in the game.
Going back to what Rumble said for first time GMs, I had one for my Starfinder 'Fugitive On The Red Planet' game in last year's Gameday and he was up front in explaining that it was his first time GMing PbP. For story description, he posted what was necessary and he did a decent job in keeping things moving. Also, one of the players was from Japan and was still learning how to speak/type in English and for a first time GM, that has to be intimidating because you're concerned about communicating effectively with this person, but the GM carried himself well under the circumstances and I still had a great time playing and I hope he continues to GM and if he does, he'll get better at doing it.
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As long as you have only played the Confirmation with level one PC's you are more than welcome to bring the Sorcerer. Otherwise, we'd be happy to have your rogue.
Either way, hop on over to Discussion and dot into gameplay with whatever PC you plan to bring.
@Rumble - Thank you for the vote of confidence, though I hate that it comes at your own expense regarding another game :(
@All - Apologies for the delay in getting us started again. I've got my reasons (see the spoiler below) but as I've got plenty of time before I have to head to work tonight I'm working on getting caught up on games and such now. I'll hopefully at least be able to get an opening post up within the next couple of hours.
Life is weird right now and it's a slightly different sort of weird as an essential worker compared to the folks currently stuck at home. The two best statements I've seen to describe it are as follows (quoted verbatim):
'Trying to square my own life rhythms that are so close to being business-as-usual with this tremendous worldwide disruption is so psychologically uncomfortable.'
'Not that I’m not intensely grateful to have a job and to have the option of continuing to come to the office, but the sense that there’s this massive shared experience going on that I’m not part of is definitely present as well.'
Life for me is allllllmost normal...but just enough things are Not Normal that it's throwing me off-kilter. I'm very thankful to still have a job and to not have to worry about trying to WFH or figure out how to keep kids schooled/entertained, or how I'm going to pay the mortgage for the month but I'm also not chilling out doing YouTube yoga or getting involved in creative projects or learning a new language or whatever. I'm still working my FT hours at a job where things are changing day by day, where the scheduling has gone from, "Oh we're not busy, gotta cut hours" to "All hands, no vacation time, at least 2 people on shift at all times, even at night" in the space of a week, where everyone is on edge and tense and tempers are short. Heck, my coworker I was partnered with Monday night got into an argument with an employee from another department (I missed it as I was doing something elsewhere) over whose job it was to do what because up to that point there had been no concrete guidance on the matter.
It's definitely been affecting my sleep patterns and I've had a low-grade headache off and on for days (feel as fine as can be expected otherwise, thankfully). Concentrating on writing has been hard.
Blargh.
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My very first PFS experience was at a convention. The game was run by a 5-star GM. My wife and I both played pre-gens in a tier 7-8 game. I had the ninja (chosen because you don't get ninja in very many fantasy ttrpgs and I like to try out the stuff that's unique to a new game system - but ooof, she's not the best of the pregens and was a terrible choice for that mission).
That 5-star GM made a basic error regarding one of the ninja's abilities, despite it being written on the pre-gen character sheet. It didn't affect the outcome of the game and my wife and I enjoyed it well enough that we're still playing PFS six years later. But since then I have certainly found that GM stars are not necessarily the best indicator of GM ability. :o
Our second PFS game, at that same convention, was with a GM who was just starting out in PFS. But my gosh he was fantastic! And we've become friends and enjoyed many more games with him since. (Now he's also a 5-star GM incidentally).
Changing the subject again: don't rush on our account Lady L, we understand.
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I did have some sillier ideas too Hep :)
Shapechange school wizard is funny - grow natural attacks as a swift action!
Urban bloodrager is a great dip, whatever bloodline you choose. Pump that dex!
Spell Warrior Skald would be pretty good, especially with Extra Performance feat: make everyone's weapons magic!
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Trying to find a few new classes to add, which could reflect Hepsubia's past (recent or ancient, for example when we fought some thugs in a tavern barehanded, a Brawler class sounds good, when we mocked the demon and covered his face in pie, a Bard class. No divine classes, as she has low wisdom)
Bard was giving some decent Will saves, too, and was consistent with the eclectic approach of your favorite rogue.
At long last, opening post is up for our newest scenario! Please check Slide #2 and make sure that your character information is up to date. As always, if you prefer to roll your Day Job now you may do so but please be sure to enter the result on the slide. And if you prefer to wait until the end, that's fine as well.
Also, please be sure to check Slide #3 and make sure that your marching orders are to everyone's satisfaction.
You folks will have a little time after the briefing to finalize equipment and such, so don't panic just yet if you haven't yet :)
Given the circumstances I'm happy to take it slow(er) starting off if people need it, so no huge rush to post if you're busy or struggling with lack of motivation to post.
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Effie, why don't you have a pistol anymore?
Ah, but I do. Only now it's stashed in my Endless Bandolier!
Effie is low strength, and wants to have a wide variety of ammo as well as a couple of back-up firearms eventually. The bandolier is the gunslinger's equivalent of the Efficient Quiver.
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Smart move!
Maria is also in a similar boat regarding low strength. But she is going the handy haversack route as she will be loading it up with crafted alchemical items and weapons.
Next scenario Rumble should only have to worry about carrying the team instead of the team AND Maria's pack. :P
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Muleback cords are good, but then you have no Cloak of Resistance. At higher levels especially you really need that boost to saves. There's a hybrid "muleback cloak of resistance" on a couple of chronicle sheets iirc, but I think it only goes up to +2. Being a nonstandard item you can't upgrade it. I think there might also be a ring of resistance somewhere, but again not upgradeable. And there are one or two other magic items that boost saves with a resistance bonus, but they tend to be expensive (like Robe of the Archmagi). Some cheaper items grant a resistance bonus but not to all saves, only to some.