[PbP Outpost VII] Siege of Serpents- GM Thread

Game Master John Woodford

AFAICT from the scenario, you don't. There are explicit directions at the end of Part 3 for the transition to Part 4, but I didn't see anything similar re the 2->3 transition. I may have missed it, though.

In that case I assumed it doesn't count as an success if the team wasn't able to finish the encounter in time, despise the combat situation is clearly in their favor?

That's my understanding.

Realized that it's not in the report form, but success for Sky Key chamber from 7-8.

That's part of Skyreach. Any success in E1, E2, or E3 is tracked there.

If the team clear out the intruder from the Tapestry room but do not close the portal (haven't go looking for Aram Zey's note yet), does that count as success?

As I read the scenario it doesn't count as a success yet, but once the party has the notes it will be.

The more I think about that, though, the less I like it. Under that interpretation, if you miss finding Aram Zey's notes, you can only get one success of three. On the other hand, the text for E1 says that if you can't find Zey's notes, you don't get a success but "other Pathfinders are able to piece together the secret of how to shut down the tapestry, though it is even more dangerous." Go ahead and take that as a success.

I don't like this "but other Pathfinder finished it anyway" train of thought. It make you feel like whatever you do has no meaningful impact because the NPC/plot deus machina the success for you. If you don't find the note, other pathfinders will find it for you; if you can't close the portal, other pathfinders will close it for you; if you can't deal with whatever that's in the Sky Key's room, the other pathfinders will eventually go there and figure it out for you.

It will make more sense to award them success for the tapestry room when come back with Aram Zey's note to close the portal. It's little bit of running around that we time skip anyway.

AFAICT the "other Pathfinders" dodge is a way to justify the success level at the end--e.g., if the PCs massively drop the ball, they get a Near Defeat success level. The outcome is the same, but no one gets any boons. OTOH, if the PCs do really well, they can get two boons.

This is a reminder that Part 3 will end early April 10.

IMNSHO, and after seeing how the groups are doing in Arliss Hall, having this puzzle come this late in the game doesn't work as well for PbP as it does in person. It's too easy for players who don't have any immediate ideas to disengage, turning the whole thing into a major time sink at a point in the game where they can't afford it.

How long have we got before they should solve it?

In theory the game is supposed to wrap up a week from today.

Oh crikey. It's sort of tempting to give them a nudge - or something.

Which table has the Aid Token right now?

For those of you whose tables have reached the tower, how close are you to the end of the first wave?

Mine haven't even found the stairs yet.

Just start figuring out the puzzle......

Oof. Well, the good news is that I checked, and we don't have a hard cutoff before the end of the event.

This multi-table has double the amount of combat encounters alone compares to some of the hardest scenario in PFS1e. Why are we still ending 3 weeks early?

Not a clue. Considering how Part 2 is set up (each zone has 4x (number of tables) HP), so to get every zone to Green would take an average of 12 successful encounters *per table*, in what's supposed to be 105 minutes of real time), I'd really like to know how this plays out in real time.

On the other hand, running the tables like that isn't necessary: if you look at the success criteria, to achieve an Overwhelming Victory takes an average of 5 successful encounters per table across Parts 2 and 3, which are supposed to take a bit over three hours total. That's still a stretch.

The 9 encounters was the high tier table I'm playing in did. Same cannot be said for other tables, I guess, since the characters have less abilities and resources at their disposal.
I believe the degree of success can be determined right now, since only part 2 and part 3 matters for the Victory Point.

It's second best, one down from Overwhelming Victory.

I had my tracking spreadsheet set up to calculate that from the success reporting.

Good, that mean secondary success condition fulfilled, 2 prestige.

Thank you all again for running, or for volunteering as a backup GM! I don't think anyone needed the backup for this one, but it's still better to have one and not need them.

As stated, the tables earned enough successes to get Impressive Defense, so every player gets 2 Prestige and can choose one boon on their chronicle sheet. Reporting is through RPGChronicles. For GM BB, the last event special we had trouble with reporting Core tables--they got converted to Standard tables, and it took some behind-the-scenes jiggering to fix that.

So, a couple of questions: would you be interested in GMing a PFS1e special for the next event in the fall, and if so which one? Here's the list, with the last time they were run:

3-99 Blood under Absalom (GameDay X, 2021)
4-99 Race for the Runecarved Key (GameDay XI, 2022)
5-S Siege of the Diamond City (RetroCon, early 2019)
6-00 Legacy of the Stonelords (RetroCon, early 2019)
6-97 Siege of Serpents (now)
7-00 The Sky Key Solution (GameDay IX, 2020)
8-00 The Cosmic Captive (RetroCon, early 2019)
9-00 Assault on Absalom (GameDay VII, 2018)
10-00 The Hao Jin Cataclysm (GameDay VIII, mid 2019)
10-98 Siege of Gallowspire (Outpost III, early 2020)

It's been six years since Assault on Absalom, but there's a few in the five-year range. What do people think?

I'll be interested - especially since I'm questing for that 5th Star.

What I haven't GMed are:
3-99 Blood Under Absalom
4-99 Race for the Runecarved Tree
5-S Siege of the Diamond City
6-00 Legacy of the Stonelords
7-00 The Sky Key Solution
8-00 The Cosmic Captive
10-98 The Siege of Gallowspire.

The Cosmic Captive would be my preference to play and GM

I'll be doing my reporting manually.

Not for me I'm afraid - pbp/pbd is simply too exhausting for me personally. I'm involved with the current run of VTT PF1 specials anyhow. [We just did 3-SP Blood, and I think we're doing 4-SP Race next, if it impacts your choices.]

Thanks for keeping us moving along - the organization was good, just the format that's rough on me.

So how do we report this to Paizo. Is there an event code we are supposed to use? Or do we use our own?

In theory you should have gotten reporting instructions, but I don't remember getting them. I'll check.

ETA: I got the email on February 11th. Event code is 2715266.

I got notified there are Boon Rolls.

I used the guest GM form for reporting the results but I have no idea if it went through - as there was no acknowledgement

Just in case:
GM: 124312-24 Prilla Frost Dark Archive
#1: 123584-03 Dexter Silver Crusade
#2: 126566-17 Bob McCallister The Concordance
#3: 2390522-03 Azalmak Liberty's Edge
#4: 141936-06 Syllyn Dark Archive
#5: 125048-16 Carlin Ember Grand Lodge
#6: 239913-10 Wymarc <no faction given>

Willing to use replay or GM 8-00 The Cosmic Captive. Previously I have GM'd 9-00 Assault on Absalom and 10-98 Siege of Gallowspire.

I will be good with anything other than season 2(Shadow Lodge), 3(Blood under Absalom), 4(Runecarved Key), and 10(Gallowspire)'s multi table, as I recently GMed those in the past 7 months or so.

Let's go with Cosmic Captive, then, unless anyone has any other thoughts. I'll keep this campaign active until the other ones wrap up, so you've got a few days to think about it.

I used the guest GM form for reporting the results but I have no idea if it went through - as there was no acknowledgement

I was unable to report either - sent a reply to the organizers notifying.

I reported my GM credit and it went through, though I also had no notification.

They added a timeslot and it processes now.

OK. I'll try again.

Done and acknowledged