Somehow, the ship combat went way faster in this game, and I would swear we ran the mechanics very similarly. I ended my combat a little early because it was plain that the PCs were going to crush the Honorbound in the next round or two, and things were getting repetitive.
The one place I may have strayed was that I deviated from the script that indicated the engineer always boosted weapons and the science officer always targeted engines. If a shield went down, I repaired it or rebalanced, because it just seemed really stupid not to. That may have been what dragged things out. I think we spent an extra week and a half or two weeks on the ship combat. (That's when your game caught up to mine.)
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The other big difference was the captain's quarters. My PCs went there first. And I think I blew it. The description for the main cabin, mentions that the door can only be opened with the keycard found in the mess hall. So the door is locked. My PCs immediately wanted to pick the lock; I didn't want to put them on rails. So after not finding a DC in the scenario, I assigned one -- and they passed it. It wasn't until they were inside the cabin that I realized this would be a TPK without the force batons and fore-knowledge that you'd be fighting an undead.
You just didn't let us in the door. It was about this time that my PCs were staring down at the captain's force field, talking about what to do, and I was holding my breath that they wouldn't touch it yet. (Thankfully they didn't. I could breathe and think Crunch definitely called that right. He has wisdom and I should consult with him.)
I partially blame Paizo's editing. The description for the mess hall and bridge have banners that say, "You can't open the doors without power." That makes it very clear that GMs should deny entry, even if the PCs have a workaround. Whereas for the captain's quarters, the keycard is mentioned almost as an afterthought in the main cabin description. I concluded that Paizo'd forgotten to throw the engineering DC in. It was still my mistake.
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My PCs missed the second turret and the exploding bodies by the bridge door. It almost turned disastrous because the second turret popped down when one PC went back to power the bridge door, and was attacked by the turret on his way to rejoin the others. A second PC thought, 'I'll shut down the turret from the bridge." They would have been fighting the xill and the turret simultaneously. But I ruled that the larvae trap interrupted his action. So he had a second to think and the party told him don't open the door.
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Otherwise things ran very similarly to your game. After thoroughly searching the crew's quarters, both sets of PCs missed some helpful items in other rooms because they didn't search every room. (Potions! Medpatches! Medkits!)
My PCs also jammed the mess hall door open so that they didn't need to disturb the captain's body to get the battery to open the bridge door.
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I guess any comments you have would be helpful. Is there anything that you do to help with organization and remembering details over the course of days instead of the minutes or hours of a face to face game?
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Mustachio, you are and always will be a star! Even if it is just in the theatre of your mind!!! ;)
It is, and now I feel much more comfortable with starship combat in PbP. It's not really harder at all, just takes a little longer.
Does 'Into the Unknown' have a level limit, I remember posts about character's being too high to play? I have played through it once.
If you need a seat filled, I've got a few characters I wouldn't mind taking through it (lvls 1 & 2).I only have a few I can still GM and they're also earlier ones.
I didn't realize there was a limit on how many times you could GM a scenario for the society... What's the limit?
You can GM a game as many times as you like. You only get credit the first time unless the scenario is tagged 'evergreen'.
Thanks for GM'ing. We appreciate you.
Mustachio just made level 4. At what level is it appropriate to become a real celebrity? :) In this case, probably never.
Icon -- 6th level:
CELEBRITY (6TH)
You are famous enough that pretty much everyone has either
heard of you or can quickly find information about you (it’s
a DC 10 Culture check to recognize your name and a DC 20
Culture check for someone to recognize you out of context
from your appearance alone). Among those who follow your
iconic profession, you’ve built up both fans and detractors due
to your celebrity. If you’re looking for a generic person like
“a doctor who can treat this disease,” you can almost always
find one who’s a fan and whose attitude starts as friendly or
helpful to you; this takes 2d4 hours. At the GM’s discretion,
fans might give you services (although not goods) for a
discount or even for free.
That seems like a pretty good level of celebrity. You're definitely a B lister who's flirting with A list status.
Great job keeping everyone on their feet and motivated and standing in melee when needed.
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Posting from work, I'll talk about my running the game when I get home.
Ninja'd on the Icon thing, I can't wait for mine to hit 6. Especially because he doesn't actually want to be famous.
Into the Unknown is for level one only. And I don't have to stop humming FTL music in my head, because I'll be GMing it! Anyone who wants a spot, sound off.
I'd like to play because I've got many many first level characters, but I am departing on vacation for a couple weeks. Good gaming to whoever plays in that one.
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I'm fine to wait until then to start, it'll help us get more people if needed anyway. I'll make another thread at some point.
As for this game...
I don't have a lot to note regarding the starship combat. It isn't very hard, their guns can be outranged and they won't shoot the asteroids even while letting you. And like you said, bad tactics. I didn't think much on tweaking their tactics. Were they to up their shields, it could take longer, but also detract from their piloting (which they need more of for their clunky ship to get in good positions). I couldn't tell if changes would make it easier or harder, longer or shorter, so I went with the vanilla fight.
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I see how letting PCs into the captain's room early would be a problem. The text for it being inaccessible seemed ironclad to me, and it made sense. I didn't think about the possibility of jamming the doors until it was mentioned. Wasn't brought up in the scenario, but unlike picking the ghost's door it didn't change much. So I allowed that, but set a DC, which you (Ears) made without much trouble.
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You guys breezed past the turret and bursting xill eggs without trouble. If you hadn't noticed them but had yet to trigger either, I would've asked to be specific in your movements. But that didn't need to happen.
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Other than that, it was pretty straightforward. A single tear rolled down my cheek when the xill's head exploded. Had Akkedis failed his save, it would've been pretty seat-of-the pants and he'd be nice and paralyzed so she could try to implant in him on her turn. It was good Mustachio was a surprisingly good medic, just in case.
Agreed the cards are stacked for the PCs in the ship battle. All improving the Honorbound's broken shields did was prolong the fight and deprive their gunner's of resources and potential crits. I'll try to cleave closer to the stated ship's tactics in the future.
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Captain's room. Big mistake for me. Maybe I would have headed that off if I'd made notes to the PDF file, like I did with paper copies years ago. Maybe flow-charted the scenario. And I could post the notes to another google page so they'd always be accessible. Seems like I always need to look something up and I didn't have a copy of the pdf available.
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We got lucky with the traps.
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The xill was anticlimatic, but that was probably the best supercharge I've ever seen. Thank heavens Oda had already done some damage. One round of melee with that beast could have hurt us badly.
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Overall your game seemed to run so much more smoothly. Thanks again. I had a great time. I'll let you know how my game turns out. Right now my party is trying to summon up the courage to actual enter the bridge.
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No, I hadn't finished the Chronicles yet. But now I have, they're here! Let me know if there're any problems there.
