OK, everyone! We'll be using the quest series the Silverhex Chronicles, available for free here. The first thing I need each student at this table to do is to acquire the adventure.
Because PF1 does not have bounties, we will be needing to run one quest at a time. I'll start out, then you'll each run one quest, and then I'll run the remaining ones. Unfortunately, you won't be able to report the game to Paizo or to get GM credit, but you will get credit for the entire series to the character you choose to play as.
This is a level 1 quest series, so I need each of you to pick a level 1 character you plan to use whenever you are not the GM.
Adventure acquired, level 1 character picked, dot and delete is done.
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I've got a question, though:
It looks like the quest series The Silverhex Chronicles is an evergreen - freely replayable with any level 1 character (but only once per char), right?
If that's the case, then it confirms my theory that there is a general problem with the reporting of a few evergreens. I did not get any prestige for a couple of evergreens that I played the second time - The Silverhex Chronicles is one of them, Heroes for Highdelve is another one.
I found this list of evergreens online: https://pittsburghpfs.com/resources/evergreens-list/
Is it up to date/still correct?
I'd like to have my bases covered before I report a problem with reporting...
Yes, Silverhex is an evergreen, to the best of my knowledge. And yes, it's once per character, unlimited at level 1 on different characters. There are not any adventures that were evergreen and then made not so.
I have not heard of the precise problem you're talking about, but it sounds like the kind of thing that happens. Let me know if you want to report it and have any questions about how.
edit: I just checked, and I got the prestige for two GM'ed games of Highdelve.
Redelia, can I assumed you will also have play a character in this to substitue the GM's character when it's that GM's turn to run the quest, so that the Pathfinder team don't down 1 member?
And for lv1 games, I usually use a placeholder character or pregen so that it can actually do something, then free retrain back to the actual character once it reach lv2. I hope you don't mind.
Paizo website doesn't always record evergreen play correctly, because it doesn't have a way to till whether you are replaying at lv1 or play the non-replay version at lv2.
Yes, I will be playing when you GM. I will also either find one more player or else I'll run a pregen the whole time to get up up to 4 players. I will wait to see what characters you bring before deciding on mine since I have lots I'm excited to play.
I will use a melee Occultist. Will work on the character profile next week, real life stuff demands most of my time before March.
I would prefer running Crash
I would like to run Webs.
Colony looks interesting to me. I will be bringing a gunslinger who I haven't made yet.
Ran out of time to put together that Occultist idea...so here comes the PREGEN Crowe!
We will start soon. I just want to make sure we have our full table first.
The person who was going to join us found that she had a real world situation prevent her. I'm going to reach out to someone else.
Meanwhile, please provide me with the information for your chronicle sheets here in the discussion thread.
It's important to gather reporting information before starting the game. If players know the game isn't going to start until they post, they almost always post the information quickly. If you don't ask for it until near the end of the game, it often takes quite a while for everyone to post.
On another matter, if you've looked over the scenario, you'll see it states that everyone has to use pregens. This was true at first, but then was changed to allow players to use their own characters, although the scenario was not updated. Unfortunately, there isn't one good source to find changes like this, it's usually just a matter of someone knowing it was changed.
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Player: Chris N. aka kaervek78 aka GM Kaervek
Character Name: Newt Lopo
PFS #: 331079-9
Faction: Grand Lodge
Day Job: none
Progression: normal
Newt Lopo is a sword and board oread fighter who is quite tanky (AC 22 at level 1). As soon as he hits level 3 he will start dabbling in alchemy (Mutation Warrior archetype), drinking mutagens to enhance his physical abilities.
Klonac, Kaervek, and Colin, I need you to complete the most recent assignment from classroom...
Crash is faily short, but it could be interesting.
I've finished reading the quest and had the maps and tokens ready.
Klonac, Kaervek, and Colin, I need you to complete the most recent assignment from classroom...
Sorry, I need a bit more time. It's been a very busy weekend and also quite challenging at work... :-(
I read the quest once (to get an overview and a feeling for it) and was planning to read it again to do all the preparation stuff. But then life happened.
Also, to complicate things, I need to be in front of my private laptop to actually do the preparation as I am not allowed to use google slides/docs/... on my work laptop - access is denied.
As a player I can post from my phone and edit google slides (although it's easier and quicker to do it on my private laptop), but I cannot do GM prep work on my phone.
All this means that on a weekday I only have a narrow time window when I could do this - in theory. However, this week I was more busy than usual, so...
I have read through the quest as instructed.
https://paizo.com/campaigns/v5748p75ivn8j/gameplay&page=last
Campaign created as instructed.
Kaervek and Colin, can you please complete the latest assignment?
Sorry, busy week.
Thanks, everyone. Your assignments look good.
I'm cleaning out my unused player boons folder, and would like to give each of you a player boon, if you're interested. Please let me know which of the following you would like (first person to speak gets it, one per person)
Season Explorer 2 and 3 (bonus for completing lots of scenarios from these seasons)
Season Explorer 9 and 10 (bonus for completing lots of scenarios from these seasons)
Celestial Traveler (access to planar infusion feats, limited bonus on saves versus evil creature)
Oh! If no one else wants it, I'll take Share the Wealth.
I want Glorymane on my Cavalier but he had leveled out by the time I had a chance to play that scenario.
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Keeping a PbP game from getting too slow can be challenging. If you're following along in the adventure, you may notice that I've put into one post what would be drawn out over several steps for an in person game.
Keeping a PbP game from getting too slow can be challenging. If you're following along in the adventure, you may notice that I've put into one post what would be drawn out over several steps for an in person game.
This is so true.
Would like the Season Explorer 9 and 10 boon, since I already had the season 2 and 3 one.
Then I'll take the remaining boon, Celestial Traveler. Thank you!
One thing I've found that is important is getting to a point where the players have a decision to make. Often adventures are written with multiple sections that are just descriptions or story but don't require player interaction. Grouping them all together and then presenting the players with the choice(s) that come up from them helps keep things moving.
Students, please complete your most recent assignment. (the one about maps)
Klonac, that link doesn't work. Also, part of the assignment was to post that link to your campaign header.
Kaervek, I still need your maps.
Kaervek, I still need your maps.
Done. Sorry I kept you waiting.
Looks good, Kaervek.
Klonac, you need to change the permissions so others can access your maps.
Sorry, everyone, this particular quest seems poorly written to work for PbP, so it's not really a good one to be using for GM school. Hopefully the other parts are better.
Part of being a GM is to endure some of the editing that Paizo might not be so proud of. *wink*
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@Redelia: I did not want to quickly present the solution to the puzzle because I already played it twice. However, I think my character could solve it in the intended way:
Newt's climb skill isn't that bad (+5 / +7 without armor). If he wields his longsword with two hands, he gets 1 1/2 Str-bonus to damage. That increases his damage to 1d8+4 (with a 25% chance to do at least 1 damage).
Also, would the energy damage of his Elemental Strike feat bypass the hardness of the tower? I think it does not, but it still would increase his total damage output to 1d8+4+1, with an even better chance (37.5%) of doing at least 1 damage on a hit.
Of course we can try to outwit the puzzle!
I'm just asking for clarification if I run into something like this in the future. Thank you!
As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with elemental energy. For 1 round, your weapons deal an additional 1 point of energy damage. The type of energy damage depends on your race: acid for oread, electricity for sylph, fire for ifrit, or cold for undine. For every 5 levels you possess, this bonus increases by 1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.
The thing also has 72 hit points...
I don't think the energy damage would get through hardness; in fact, objects only take half damage from energy attacks. Half of 1 rounds down to 0, so I don't think elemental strike would apply at all.
On average, in 8 strikes (if they hit) Newt would do 3 damage. In order to do 72 damage, he would have to hit it 192 times (on average). It is immune to critical hits, so no speeding it up with luck that way.
Actually, I misread the adventure; the hardness is only 8. That would change things some, but it would still take a ridiculous number of swings.
I think that if Lara had not found a cool workaround, I would have made you roll the climb check until you got up there, and then roll to attack until you damaged it once, and then narrated the rest. It would have been the right amount of tedium to make the point without making one quest take a whole year.
There is a weak point in the tower that Newt might have noticed when he got up there, but no guarantees he would have seen it (perception DC 15).
I think this has to be just about the worst writing of an adventure I've ever seen, and I'm sorry I picked this quest series to run. I hope the rest of the quests are more reasonable.
I also owe all of you an apology that I let myself get caught up so much in the paralysis of not seeing anything reasonable to do, rather than pushing us forward much sooner.
If any of you in running the other quests run into a big issue like this, please reach out to me by PM and we'll find a solution together.
The next few quests will be student run. They can happen in any order, so who would like to GM first?
I'm in the process of moving to another state, and there're some tables for PaizoCon Online next week that I need to prepare. I would prefer not running my part immediately after this one, but I will be fine as the 3rd (when all the May madness is over)