PbP GameDay 4: PFS #5-08 The Confirmation (Inactive)

Game Master Wilmannator

I intentionally was holding out so the rest of the group decided whether to stay or fight. There's definite pros and cons either way. Onwards!

Brob has a decent Use Magic Device and will take of the magic consumables no one wants. Can anyone especially use the following?

scroll of entangle
holy water
tanglefoot bag

There's not much Jillia can use besides the potion of barkskin, and even that isn't imperative.

The gamer in me suggests the potion of featherstep to someone with a 20ft move speed.

I certainly wouldn't mind the potion of barkskin and suggestions on how to get a semi-decent AC till level 7 (or even 13 if I take Boris on a retirement arc; practical advice would mean more to me than what I've read in the various guides so far).

Otherwise, I think I'm the only one who can use the wand of burning hands?

Markus can, but not sure if he wants to be melee.

Also, who knew that there's a sorcerer bloodline that learns Entangle? Not sure if that means Markus can use the scroll without a UMD though

It's on your spell list, if it's a bloodline spell for your bloodline.

I think feather step would be better for a melee type for the 5ft step ability.

I can use the wand of burning hands, not sure if I want to get that close though. Boris, you may as well take it for now.

I hadn't thought about entangle, but it's my 3rd level bonus spell so I assume I can use a scroll of it.

Markus, Jillia is correct. You can use the scroll of entangle - so go for it, it's yours.

Hey guys, I'm probably not going to be able to post for the rest of today (or if I do, it will be only once). Please feel free to roleplay amongst yourselves (you do a great job of that anyway) and please also feel free to reveal any player knowledge you have about the twelve guises of Aroden - though I will encourage you not to look stuff up unless you aced your knowledge (religion or history) checks.

I can't say why right now, but it doesn't make too much difference what your PCs know now, just what they have been able to see. The other carvings are genuinely too damaged right now to get anything more out of them without a major restoration effort.

I will move everyone along tomorrow morning (unless there are any objections, of course!).

Not to be overly meta, but I've played and run this multiple times over, so if someone who hasn't experienced this before wants to take the lead, I won't push things.

Run this multiple times, but checking out profiles, it looks like I'm the only one that has skills in Diplomacy. Outside of being the Face, anyone that wants to direct the action, go for it.

I'm totally fine with you who have played and run this before moving through a little. It's mostly just a couple of rolls to get a mechanical bonus anyway, so the roleplay for me is the most important bit - you're not getting an unfair advantage one way or another!

I'll put up his response soon.

Played it, run it many many times. You go ahead Brob.

Just waiting for Rin. Normally, I'd move t along but she has the cloak! I'll move t along tomorrow regardless. Not sure if I'll have a chance to post before then, so have a great Friday night all! Markus, I hope you had a great Friday night and that your hangover is treating you well.

Erm... something doesn't seem right. I made this alias to recruit and run a single scenario. I haven't used it for anything other than this session of the Confirmation... as of this post, I have 200 posts! I've run and completed scenarios in half that many posts from all players total! Believe it!

Never played Song of the Sea Witch, so I won't go and read the thread.

Nonetheless: Yay us!

Today I ran my... 13th(?) session for GMing the Confirmation for a group of new players (two new to PFS, one completely new to RPGs.) They decided to fight the minotaur and nearly had a couple of deaths (a crit almost outright killed one of them) then the blood thirsty murder-hobos-in-training were contemplating killing the gillman when he wouldn't initially respond to them. Good times.

Ah. I remember fondly the one time the PCs decided to face the minotaur. So in character for them. So one-hitted one of them from full HP to 2 more HP away from death. Lovely. Just lovely.

Saddened that you folk fled.

Also... Sorry all. Too drunk to post a proper GM post right now. Had a great day at a mate's pool drinking whisky. Got to 89 degrees though, and whisky isn't good for a thirsty man. Posting early tomorrow if I can.

I think I'm going to recuse myself from the rituals, as I have the answers memorized ;) Not sure if anyone else wants to do them

I'm guessing we're all in the same boat where we don't want to metagame it. Should we do them or just move on?

I'm fine with metagaming it, unless someone here HASN'T played this before, then we can try and give them hints to solve it!

I've never played this before, it's only my second PFS session and my first one was the end of a module. I'd like to give it a go, if no one minds.

Absolutely.

It's your show!

See my last post. I'm happy for those who have played it (or figured out what to do with those carvings before) to help out - after the others have had a go first. Just have a go, and I'll rule on whether it matched closely enough or not... then Uori will tell you how to modify it, and we can move it along.

This bit just gives a bit of a chance for your characters to truly figure out a puzzle that has a lot to do with these aspects of Absalom's founder.

In case you missed it or can't find it again, the list of the texts below the carvings is here:

http://paizo.com/campaigns/PbPGameDay4PFS508TheConfirmation/gameplay&pa ge=8#395

Thank you for being patient about those rituals, guys. I really should have realized a bit earlier just how bad it would be over PbP! I need to put some brain power into thinking of ways around such situations. I've nutted out the chase mechanics for smoother running over PbP... but the ones that rely on back 'n' forth interaction between GM and PCs (like interrogations, these frigging rituals, and so on) can really kill a game's flow in this format. It doesn't happen often, but often enough that a solution is needed... eventually. We're past it for this game, but feel free to offer any ideas!

For the rituals, I typically have the knowledge checks give the actual actions required for them (admitting a shortcoming, catching a fish, etc) without some of the mechanics. I *liked* the graphics and potential puzzle to be solved that you presented, but I can see where it would get annoying in this format (I dig a ditch. Nothing happens.) Perhaps spoilering the contents for specific DCs?

It's an interesting dilemna, as there's some puzzles in PFS scenarios that probably would be difficult to present through trial and error.

Thanks for the feedback, Wolfspirit. Yeah, I realized I could give a bit of a better clue later on (as I was reading through it, there was latitude given in the scenario as written for more clues). You aced the checks, so I don't think this breaks any rules.

I've got some ideas regarding spoilers or pre-prepared posting formats for things like interrogations and other back 'n' forth encounters. Most of the ideas I have, though, reduce roleplaying. For an AP, it's such small part of it, you can spend a week or so hashing it out - so it's probably not too bad provided everyone can join in, so I wouldn't want to downplay the RP side. For a scenario, though, that can bloat out the game by a lot, and maybe removing a little RP could be a good thing for the overall pace.

I think interrogations are a bit different in that everyone has room to participate by asking questions or just looking intimidating (like us with the gillman) whereas with puzzles (especially open-ended iterative ones) there really isn't much to do until the GM responds.

Definitely an interesting learning experience.

You certainly can't post responses to questions that haven't been answered, so I imagine interrogation-style things couldn't be pre-posted and spoilered.

I shudder to think how a PbP run of Blackros Matrimony would go...

I actually think that scenario would go really well... you'd just need to divide & conquer. You would also need to set aside twice the normal time required to run a scenario!

At least when I've played it and run it it was something like 75% banter. I suppose you'd just have to adapt to the slow game.

That might be worth spending a star on just to see how it would go...

Before I forget... I will be in Minneapolis this weekend with a friend for his table 150 (5 star GM after that!). I'll try to post in the games I'm playing in, but won't be doing GM posts over that time. Enjoy the break and feel free to post without me... unless we finish this by then! ;-)

When are you out? And doubt we'll finish by then at this rate, heh.

When are you out? And doubt we'll finish by then at this rate, heh.

this weekend

:-)

If you want me to be more specific, all of Saturday and all of Sunday.

Have fun in Minneapolis then!

Thanks mate! Will do.

How far is Minneapolis?

...you could detour down to Omaha (only six hours or so).

I'm in Texas... so... yeah, a 3 hour plane ride. :-)

Ah, fair enough!

Unrelated: How is the other team doing?

We're going slightly faster, but pretty much where we are progress-wise - except they went west. Both teams are doing amazingly well for first time PbPers! Loving your work here, everyone!

I would like it to be known that Boris is like my favorite character ever. His linguistic quirks are memorable and his assumptions are hilarious. Such love.

Okay meta time!

So, here we enter into a 'thing' that I have long disliked in PFS scenarios: optional encounters.

In person, they kinda make sense. If you're playing at a gameday and you're expecting to be there for 4-5 hours, it can be a bummer to only get to play for 3 hours... so optional encounters help fast parties to still play for the duration of their allotted session. In my mind, it's mostly poor pacing on the GM's behalf if they need the optional encounter. There should be roleplaying and giving players all kinds of other things to do in order to keep the scenario up to the required time length (if they're going too fast).

Over PbP, optional encounters just drag things out. PbP games take a long time as it is, and your characters are unavailable for play in anything else while the PbP is going on, so I habitually ignore the encounters as a way to "give you your character back" as quickly as possible... but I do give you (as players) the option to do them.

Even in person, though, the thing I don't like most about optional encounters is the same thing I don't like about random encounters: they add nothing to the story.

Worse, over PbP, optional encounters could kill you, either directly or by draining your resources. They may also drain expendables, which costs you cash. If your GM decides to run one, they're increasing the encounter cost and difficulty and these encounters typically offer no extra items or boons on your chronicle sheet, and never any extra GP. SO WHY DO THEM - EVER?

Anyway...

The Confirmation has two optional encounters of a kind.

The first is a typical optional encounter (no plot, no rewards, just more risk, more resources and extra time). Unless you guys really want to, I will skip it.

The second is based on whether you go east or west... you don't have to loop back and go the other way to get full GP for the scenario. You will miss out on some items on the loot list for the chronicle sheet, but (and I can't emphasize this enough): by the time you can reasonably afford them, you will have enough fame that they are always available to you anyway.

For the second encounter, I am happy to skip it. If you feel your characters would fully explore the cave system, I would be glad to cinematically say you go back and finish your exploration as part of the scenario wrap up (so no risk on the encounter, but you also don't get the items on your chronicle sheet).

Skipping both encounters will not negatively impact the GP you receive for this scenario one way or another.

So... discuss this amongst yourselves here. Chat with Uori in the gameplay thread, and after the weekend, I'll move it along either to the final encounter or one of (or both of) the optional encounters.

For what it's worth, I pretty much always skip actual optional encounters- -unless they're particularly interesting strategically.

(Or, if I have a table of combat monstrosities that are here to Borderlands it up. Which is fair, but I don't think our group is the "kill stuff, get loot" crowd.)

So I'm okay with skipping the optional. But don't make the decision strictly on my opinion.

On the subject of Optional Encounters, I tend to only run them with a completely over-optimized party to give a bit more of a speedbump, or if they're an optional RP encounter in an otherwise hack and slash scenario. I think I've personally GMed... 2... in 90 table-worth of credit, though.

I have seen a near TPK from an optional encounter, though.

I'll take that as 2 votes for 'no optionals', 0 votes for 'one or more'.

As Wolfspirit just pointed out in the spoiler, there is actually no effect on your chronicle for missing the west encounter (only if you had missed this one... the east encounter)... making it less worthwhile than otherwise for fully exploring out to the west.

Oh, and a TPK from an optional... that's just plain mean.

No optional for me either! Pretty much for all the reasons listed already.

Seems there's not a lot of love for optional encounters! I bow to those with more PFS wisdom than myself.

Okay all, no more time to post today. Explain your way to Uori... and then move on out through the secret passage when you're ready (that's the way to bypass the semi-optional encounter).

EDIT: 4 votes to 0 in favor of 'no optionals'... so we have a majority either way. I'd still like to hear from the other 2 (we might be able to find a compromise).

I usually skip optionals when running unless they are mechanically interesting or provide good story background (but the almost never do). I'm all for skipping both.

I was wondering how you were going to deal with that stupid [redacted] optional encounter. Not that it's hard; it just feels "grindy", even at an actual table. So I'm not going to cry over missing out on that one.

The west encounter though; the puritan in me want to do it because we actually would encounter it if we were to play it "by the book". But then again, that's just me.

I'm back! Had a great time in Minnesota. Thanks for your patience, guys. I've moved it straight into combat - I hope you don't mind.

@Boris: The west encounter does not need to be encountered if you play "by the book". The northern passage from the eastern cave bypasses it completely. You only have to encounter it by the book if you fail to spot the secret door.

In either case, I will run a cinematic for you guys that has you going back through and clearing out the caves after the adventure is over. This will be for storytelling only, and won't involve any real combat (since it doesn't have an impact on your chronicle sheet). Hope that helps for any completionists out there!