Insane Season 5-6 Run (Inactive)

Game Master ScorchedOne

What is he attacking us for? As far as I can tell we didn't insult him or anything, and we said we didn't care if he roughed up the guy. Doesn't make sense to me. Are we not allowed to avoid the fight without upfront paying him off? (wouldn't surprise me. That seems to be the most common style of issue I have with paizo aventures) Or are they just that completely unreasonable that they wouldn't even bluster a bunch of trash talk first?

In any case, I have an announcement for days, like during this last week, when I need to make a general announcement, such as being unable to post or something.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ukd5?TheAlicornSages-Announcements#6

He's attacking you because someone failed a diplomacy check to improve his attitude by a factor which caused him to go from unfriendly to hostile.

Right, mechanics getting in the way again. Definitely need better diplomacy mechanics. It's on my list to fix if anyone has suggestions.

Oops. Been camping with the Boy Scouts. Got the sunburned face to show for it, too.

Will post Carrel's take here shortly. I'm thinking it will start with something like "Being discrete means that we learned nothing, but we could talk about some unrelated bits and pieces."

What would Yumiki know of docking certificates, not that I expect a lot, but hopefully she knows it is? since I actually have no clue. Domething to be found in the harbormaster's office I assume?

Given what the gm said, only the Soveigrn court party members know of that at the moment.

Yeah, it's a sovereign court side-quest. Much like the money from earlier. Yumiki would know that it's a certificate, and if pressed Lady Darchana could give her a brief description.

Hello?

I'm here. Not sure about anyone else.

Strange, I could've sworn I replied just before Saya's post and was waiting on Mivvy or the gm. Mivvy hasn't said anything at all when asked to stay for a moment despite being a soveirgn court character though.

Sorry, I’ve lost track of what’s going on in this game.

I’m not sure who’s who or what we’re supposed to be doing. Finding the source of the sensor?

Anyone want to give a summary, maybe with a cast list? Otherwise I need to find time to re-read the whole adventure before I can make a post that isn’t gobbledegook.

We are investigating to find out who sent and/or arranged the sensor. Thus we are looking at the At Sea as that is where the slave came from.

Okay, so Darchana is the woman who bought the slave? Or the other one? Weren’t there two nobles?

It was Darchana's party, the slave was owned, though recently purchased, by Silviana Dimora.

Dimora's majordomo informed us where the slave was purchased, which was the guy we saved.

He had got the slave from the At Sea.

So, the slave was used to spy on Darchana, the other noble was just a dupe?

That would be the assumption everyone seems to be making, including the npcs. My experience with pfs, limited as it is, implies that most likely the assumption is true simply cause the writers so far tend to treat this as a minitures combat game with story as mere dressing, but they might throw in the assumption being wrong as a twist, but even if theh did, following along the tracks is probably the only intended way for players to make it through.

I would also guess that the 4-hr time-frame keeps things simple.

My experience is that combat creates a level of tension which RP cannot and diplomacy rolls are too simple for complex situations.

I recently had to raise a girl after killing her (evil) father.

All kinds of RP swirled through my head but a 38 diplomacy check did the job...

That is why I invested so much time on my Foil system. It can be used for any type of conflict and is easy to apply RP to the result, of course, it isn't as purely mechanical as combat tends to be, but that isn't a bad thing in my mind.

For social interactions, I much prefer the older (not the new version) of L5R. The rolls aren't so different, really, but the ground which can be covered tends to be smaller, so that it takes more successful rolls to get the desired end result.

But judges can let it degrade to the same single roll triumph environment.

I try to always return to the idea that the mechanics are supposed to SUPPORT the story.

I like to use circumstance bonuses a lot more in social situations.

The challenge is to reward player ideas rather than just the good actors at the table.

My apologies for the absence. I rather unexpectedly spent the days surrounding Thanksgiving camping.

Why are we searching? Is there something wrong with my deception plan?

Searching is the mechanic of finding the other document.

I asked an npc for it. If the module assumes that a PC will never ever use any tactic to get an npc to aquire said item, such as charm, diplomance, or to just trick an npc into revealing those documents, then that is very poor design on the module writer's part and you should compensate.

If you don't feel comfortable with compensating for the scenerio author's failings, then we are not going to have a very game together, since I primarily use non-stereotypical tactics.

I honestly would consider a charm spell here to be a standard tactic (likely the preferred method for any bard or sorcerer) and it should have been considered as a basic tactic in the scenerio design.

This marks another occasion of paizo authors assuming the players are straightforward and evil and incapable of anything beyond charging straight into combat or cat-burglery. I grow ever more concerned that paizo just can't do anything more better than that.

My inclination is to run the scenario as written. I'm sorry that you have these problems with the written material, and my preference to stick to it. While I understand your opinion, and appreciate your role playing, these are the adventures I am running and I am running them as close to as written as I can manage.

I'll finish this module then, for the credit and to give you time to find someone else, but I think I'll be on my way after that. I'm not here to play a video game via text. For me, the entire point of pnp games is the lack of computer-like bounderies.

I'm guessing they aren't going to ask for help at this point. I could be wrong.

Okay. If nothing by morning, I'll continue.

I'm guessing they aren't going to ask for help at this point. I could be wrong.

I wasn't going to ask for help, but your question made me go "Ask for help? Who is needing to ask for help?" So I looked back at the thread and realized I had completely missed Carrel's question.

Hope we weren't waiting around for something like that though. Good way to kill a game over nothing.

It has been two weeks, granted most of that was holiday, but hoping to get back into the swing of things.

I’m ready

I'm here, busy but here.

Ready as well....

Anyone care to post IC? Mivvy was last response and was awaiting word from compatriots.

Headed to a Boy Scout Shooting Sports campout to run the archery range. In the Hill Country and a valley, so there is no cell service after I get there.

Will be back Sunday night.

Okay. Don't have trouble with your climb checks there as much. :P

Might be worthwhile PMing Virog: this game is their main activity on the boards.

Virog has actually had to step out from the game. He informed me privately.

If this is calm water (dc10) then anyone without a negative modifier can take ten to swim and aid another on Carrell’s swim check.
Unless there are swim rules I am missing?

Yeah, well, if we're going to go there, needing a 10 to climb up the ladder is a rules failure on the part of the author.

A simple rope with a solid wall to brace against (or a knotted rope without one, or a Rope Trick rope without a wall) is a DC 5. Yes, if the surface is slick that increases the DC by 5. A knotted rope with a wall to brace against is a DC 0, back to 5 if the wall is slick.

But we weren't given a knotted rope. We were given a rope ladder.

There is no form of ladder on the chart. I thought that was because ladders were supposed to be a solution, even for men in armor scaling the walls of a castle they are invading.

I'm fine letting it play out. But if we're going to talk about how the rules describe the situation . . ..

The DC listed for this was 10 in the book, ergo why I only requested it from those with a negative mod.

I think some authors get confused and think 10 is supposed to mean an average person gets an auto success, but what it really means is the 50% success benchmark for average people, as in average people will succeed 50% of the time if they are rushed or focused on something else, like combat.

Any task which an average person can rush through, or do without really focusing on it, and succeed nearly every time needs to have a DC well below 10. I'd say a ladder qualifies as needing a DC well below 10. Even a sea slick rope ladder should have at most a DC between 6 and 8.

Now people do have accidents on ladders, probably enough to warrant a DC higher than 0 (a 2 or 3 I'd say), but not enough to warrant DC 10, not even for this kind of rope ladder (add 5 for being wet with se spray and you still get 7 or 8).

Just my opinion based on the benchmarks of what DCs mean in the rules.

Having climbed a rope ladder on the sea more than a few times, I agree. DCs for such skills are often only in 5 point increments.

I get the distinct impression that as time has gone on, that very few people ever understood the connection between the DC numbers and them actually representing things in the world. Far too many players I encounter only think in terms of rolls being pass/fail and nothing more.

I'd love to see the authors of modules, and of Pathfinder anything especially core, to read the Calibrating your expectations article by the Alexandrian. He does a good of pointing out how well the numbers matched up.

Unfortunately he doesn't give a full reference or anything, but it is still a good step that everyone should read.

To be fair though, the 3.x books never really gave an in-depth explanation, they just kind of left it there for people to figure out by reading between the lines (a mistake I'm not making with my systems).

Right. And I get that. Like for instance, failing by 1-2 while climbing means a foot misses the next rung and you look somewhat foolish and make no progress for a time. Failing by a lot though does cause the sort of thing seen here and, at least on one occasion, someone to break their leg when they fall just wrong enough.

Last week was a shooting sports event for the local BSA council.

This week is a district camp-o-ree and I'm off to camp with the troop. See everybody on Sunday!

Why is Mivvy making a strength check? That makes no sense, unless she's trying to pull them up onto the deck, which also makes no sense.

Because there isn't a "Use Rope" skill in Pathfinder. She can't make a swim check in place of it, I didn't think quite that a CMD check would be appropriate.

I remember a discussion on the Glass Cannon podcast in which the GM said falling and drowning are the two biggest dangers in the game.
They don’t just put you in negative hit pints, they also take you away from your allies.

Because there isn't a "Use Rope" skill in Pathfinder. She can't make a swim check in place of it, I didn't think quite that a CMD check would be appropriate.

I don't see how any of those are relevant either. She is throwing a rope, not hauling cargo. Once the end of the rope is down there, it is up to those in the water to grab it. Sl my question wasn't about why she was making that type of check, it was why she was making any kind of chdck at all. I can understand making an attack roll to get the rope to the right square , but that is it, as there is nothing left for her to do after that.

It is times like this I find a flat roll to be too swingy. Definitely like 3d6 better for these types of checks.