Pathfinder 1st edition Standard Scourge of the Farheavens, 9-18 Outpost VI (Inactive)

Game Master DoubleGold

Don't forget day jobs as well and roll them here.

Day job, Profession (Barrister)

1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23

Unrelated to this scenario, but related to Pathfinder 1e, who here has a character that is still somewhat low level that uses or plans to use an animal companion?

I mean, if you consider lv2 low level...then my character is low level indeed.

Checking in.

https://www.rpgchronicles.net/session/e1aa1253-0826-4860-9ecf-86518644451d/ pregame
I'm sure many of you missed this.

That link doesn't work for me.

You might need to delete the space befroe "pregame"

I tried that. But it still didn't work.

Try it now

Quick question for the players. If the math comes out to APL 3, would you pick the 1-2 or 4-5 subtier to play?

I'd always play up, more gold is worth dying for.

But, I'm not a players, I'm the DM, so this is up to the players.

Please delete Ozymandius as a player (unless we need a 16th level summoner for this table) - the player is creating a new character Lana, 1st level and posted the other by accident.

Usually, high tier with 4 player adjustment is preferred...but it usually depends the party composition. Sometimes the character is not at the level where it would shine, sometimes the character is build more for theme rather than optimization.

For low level scenario, I would say play it safe, as the character that push the APL to high won't have as many tools at hand comparing to, let's say a 5-9 scenario (i.e. a level 5 will do just fine if the character is careful and got many lv8, lv9 teammates)

Ecthelien was actually 4th level (I had to level him just now). Lana is brand new. We are going to try and get at least 1xp for her before this game starts. But at best she would make level 2.

So it appears we have 1+2+2+4+(5) if everyone plays their posted character. That will be less than APL3.

I'm for punching up if the math works out, but happy with the lower tier as well!

Profession (Merchant): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22

I probably messed the math up since we'll now be a table of 6. If we have a choice I'd prefer lower tier; I've had bad experiences playing up. :(

I obviously vote to play up if it is a vote. I fear that a lvl 4 and 5 playing down might kind of trivialize the scenario, but I'm not sure it's up to a vote given the APL math.

Stat block is done!
Since I got a Drow character a while ago, now I have valid excuses to make myself a few COSMETIC ONLY half-drow characters, and the Drow character is their mother.

Lana will be level 2 by the time this starts. But I think that still leaves us low tier.

2+2+2+2+4+5=17/6

Lana will be level 2 by the time this starts. But I think that still leaves us low tier.

2+2+2+2+4+5=17/6

It comes out to 2.86 which is rounded up to 3 so we could pick either high or low tier. With FOUR 2nd level PCs I would strongly recommend the lower tier based on my past experiences playing up particularly when 2/3 of the table is out of tier on the lower end.

What scenario was that you had a bad experience playing up?

If this was PF2, playing up would probably be suicidal on account of the +10 crit mechanic. In PF1, it's kind of a crapshoot. In early years, playing up was a trivial increase in difficulty. Around Season 4, PFS dramatically increased the difficult of missions and there were LOTS of TPKs. I have no idea how season 9 averages out.

What scenario was that you had a bad experience playing up?

If this was PF2, playing up would probably be suicidal on account of the +10 crit mechanic. In PF1, it's kind of a crapshoot. In early years, playing up was a trivial increase in difficulty. Around Season 4, PFS dramatically increased the difficult of missions and there were LOTS of TPKs. I have no idea how season 9 averages out.

Edit: PFS1

3-02 and 5-06, both at the first in-person Convention I attended. One of them (I think 5-06), my L3 Paladin with 28 HPs was hit for 23 HP damage - in one hit. Not one round, one hit. Luckily he didn't get hit again until he managed to heal up a bit but it still almost killed him. In the last slot of the day I played 5-02 but this time I talked a couple of other players into voting to play down as more than half of the table (sort of like this table) were L3. The player with the L7 PC wanted to play up but lost the vote. For that module the GM told us what we would've faced in the 6-7 subtier vs. the 3-4 subtier we were playing. One of the encounters the PCs had literally zero options for fighting it and we would've either died or run.

Even when playing on-tier, you can get near-one shot. Remember that axe wielding halfling in that Lvl 1 evergreen mission. He had a battle axe that did like 1d10 an if it crit, it was insta-death for any level 1 character...ouch.

I recall my lvl 5 Barbarian was fighting a great axe wielding NPC with Power Attack and like +10 damage and I knew if that GM crit me, I was going to die, even from full health.

The times you really get screwed playing up is when there is spell casting or the monsters have status effects, like ability damage, negative levels, or paralyze or something.

The great axe condundrum started in 3.0 with the 'out of the book' orc wielding a great axe. If that baby critted, the PC was a goner. So when they changed over to 3.5 they replaced the great axe with a falchion. Since it critted 10% more often than the great axe, it still bagged many a PC. Luck always plays a role.
The other not near-death part of playing up I didn't like was that my PC, being a Paladin, just couldn't contribute as much. One hit and he was out of the fight to heal or other PCs would have to take their actions to heal/protect him and it just makes things tougher on the group as a whole.

Lana made 2nd level. So that brings her out of stray arrow death range at least. We are both fine low or high tier. Whatever the consensus.

This game might start a few days late, the past few days, I couldn't download files from paizo, it just gives me a loading screen. I seem to get the big Paizo error screen when I try to download.

Unless one of you Dmed it before or does own it. I can still download pdfs, I just can't download them from Paizo directly. In other words, send an extra copy of your pdf to my email until I able to download my own copy.

I was trying to place order for a few scenarios and I got the paizo error screen three six times in a row...

Consortium's sabotage!

Have not GMd this one, so not much help. Sorry.

This game might start a few days late, the past few days, I couldn't download files from paizo, it just gives me a loading screen. I seem to get the big Paizo error screen when I try to download.

Unless one of you Dmed it before or does own it. I can still download pdfs, I just can't download them from Paizo directly. In other words, send an extra copy of your pdf to my email until I able to download my own copy.

So it isn't just me. I was going to send PMs to the GMs letting them know of my connection issues with the site but it appears it's more widespread. Not rush on starting and unfortunately I have not run/read/own this module either.

Finally got this downloaded, will get started shortly.

For those wondering where we are at in terms of city and place in Glorian, see slide 2.

boon roll: 1d20 ⇒ 7

Boon?: 1d20 ⇒ 10

thanks all that was fun, and we talked our way out of just fighting everything we saw!

thanks all that was fun, and we talked our way out of just fighting everything we saw!

Thanks to the Diplomizer Ezekial!

Boon Goon?: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Thanks, the character is built around demoralize/enforcer, but diplomacy works too. I've yet to use Enforcer, but someday!

boon : 1d20 ⇒ 16

Thanks for running this for us GM DoubleGold

Fun times and good group mix!

Yes a special thanks to DoubleGold for GMing! I only wish he would've won the GM boon.

I have good new/bad news. Doublechecking my email, winners are picked randomly instead of by the d20 roll this year. I'll doublecheck with the VOs.

I have good new/bad news. Doublechecking my email, winners are picked randomly instead of by the d20 roll this year. I'll doublecheck with the VOs.

Since none of us rolled a 20 it's all good news. 8)

Gonna roll anyway: 1d20 ⇒ 18
Making it random for pbp make sense, since it's easier to cheat than something like roll20 or discord dicebot.

Thanks for running!

That adventure seemed really short. Did we even have a full combat? I guess they don't make'em like they used to.

Some adventures you can get by with little or no combat. This just happens to be one of those adventures.

Game has been reported and Chronicles have been emailed.

That adventure seemed really short. Did we even have a full combat? I guess they don't make'em like they used to.

It all depends. I recently played a PFS module where a successful Diplomacy check triggered combat. The logic being the NPCs took the PCs ability to talk as weakness. So you never know how the skill checks will work out.

Game has been reported and Chronicles have been emailed.

Received it, thanks! And thanks for running! I'll be the dumb guy and ask: it looks like we cross off the first two boons and keep the last one correct?

DoubleGold wrote:

Game has been reported and Chronicles have been emailed.

Received it, thanks! And thanks for running! I'll be the dumb guy and ask: it looks like we cross off the first two boons and keep the last one correct?

Oh right, ignore the first 2, you get boon number 3, because that is what you did.

Kaseem ibn al Majid wrote:

DoubleGold wrote:

Game has been reported and Chronicles have been emailed.

Received it, thanks! And thanks for running! I'll be the dumb guy and ask: it looks like we cross off the first two boons and keep the last one correct?

Oh right, ignore the first 2, you get boon number 3, because that is what you did.

That's what I thought but I wanted to make sure, thanks! :)