Still think they should go WBG rules on it, since they are pre-generated characters. Or alternatively, if only one person dies (and plays the recruited character); no deaths are recorded. I like the idea of We Be Goblins 1/2/Free (aka 3) and any PFS scenario with mandatory pre-gens being self contained completely.
I figured since this was a playtest; they would go easier on the "if you die in the special, your character dies as well" bit. Would prefer to go the route of WBG 1.
I definitely did this to my players...who then promptly locked me down (with intelligent decision making and my inability to roll a d20 usefully for two rounds) and won the fight. There was quite the feeling of gloating at the end of it.
At the bar after the Special, recounting our victory. We (Darren from Cameron Park), Andrew Christian, Ben from Sacto, & Rich from Sacto) discuss our experiences.
I enjoyed the thing, but that's a much a function of the table make up.
Pros:
More RP than most Specials.
Had opportunities to avoid/solve encounters.
Lots of paths, different ways to do stuff.
Was done in 4.5 hours. Pretty impressive.
Good call backs to previous seasons. (tapestry)
Beer and Bar was available.
Fun RP moments with NPCs. Ample opportunities for ham. Well done, Jim.
Cons:
High tier combats ran out of time.
Pacing was wonky.
Formulatic.
Some GM prep time was limited. Needed more prep time.
Lots and lots and lots of maps. (if your GM doesn't lead you around, with so many locations, it can be hard to have maps ready.)
Table to table Aid thingies were hard to use (and weren't clearly explained at my table).
I think the prep time might have been a function of you being stuck with a last second fill-in GM (ie, Me) :D Glad you had fun - it does seem a bit formulaic; but it appears that they have a general formula they want to use for at least one of the specials every year. I thought it went OK; I wish I had been more prepared all in all.
That mat still smells like beer, and it's fantastic. (Also, it's Mike's problem and not mine, mwahaha).
Definitely liked the second special more than the first special - the pre-gens definitely require some pretty solid knowledge of PF to say the least. But they're designed pretty darn well. Out of the first special; I think they could cut down one of the encounters from a full dungeon to a single room to save time (that's one of the places we got bogged down in, I think). Could shift some of the higher tier fights to more damage / less defenses in the later parts, IMO. Other folks said lower tiers also had trouble finishing the entire last part as well - might not have been a high tier problem.
Gonna R&R a bit and then post some ruminations (if I remember) about the Con. Was definitely a blast for me this year, even if I ended up changing duties within an hour of arriving at the Con. :D
I've had 13th level character abilities "screw" the scenario up 3 times now. Okay, only one ability. Summon monster VII for a T-Rex in the final encounter.
It may make it trivial, but damn is it ever funny.
I desperately want my EoT group to do this. It would be fantastic.
The problem they are running into is that the class title & description don't exactly align with the mechanics of the class. Why would a combo fighter / gunslinger be a swashbuckler? Shouldn't that be a combination of a rogue & a fighter? We think of The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc, when we think of swashbuckler, but a fighter and a gunslinger hybrid doesn't make me mechanically think of that.
This ends up reflected in the mechanics; which just seem to be out there. The high strength swashbucklers, while fine mechanically, seem to go against the class' concept as a whole. STR 18 is Ahnuld level strength.
I think they should make the class far more focused on maneuvers and acrobatic movement during combats. First thought would be the ability to split a full attack action during the class's movement, meaning they could take a full round action to move and make a full attack, but be able to intersperse their attacks throughout their movement; even during acrobatic maneuvers. So a level 11 swashbuckler could run up 10 feet, make an attack, flip over the table, make an attack while a part of the flip, and make their final attack as they land on the ground.
As someone who has been very bummed out by some of the flavor of the new classes (outside the skald, shaman and the investigator, a lot of them felt like they were stepping on other classes' toes) - I really like the new shape of the Arcanist; it gives it an actual "place" in the world.
Color me impressed (a bit reserved, waiting for the actual implementation of the concept admittedly) and waiting to test the arcanist out.
Maybe that means the rogue needs a redesign? (No snark intended).
I mean...I feel like messing with the investigator is dealing with the symptom rather than the cause.
No snark intuited. :)
I don't think the rogue requires a redesign, and no matter your feelings on that particular subject it is beyond the scope of this book and it is not something the design team is planning on doing.
At the end of the day, I want the investigator to be fun, useful, and playable to people who want to play this type of character. That is the goal. I think we are well on our way, unless more playtest feedback says something different.
Heh, it's the internet, tone can be mistaken easily. ;)
Maybe then while in the development of the investigator, some options that aid the investigator can also be modified to aid the rogue - at least perhaps giving the rogue some buffs.
I guess while the investigator is being created, I want to make sure that the rogue has its own spot within the class hierarchy, and it does that "thing" the best. Heck, all of the hybrid classes here need to have that philosophy IMO - take 80% (or what not) of each class, but not being better at what their base class does than their base class is. :)
As an aside: I personally just love ninjas, since I like sneak attack and I like ki as fluff pieces, so I don't really play rogues very much - can't comment too much on whether I feel they're personally underpowered or not, I just know that most players feel the rogue is not to the level of other classes.
Even in the recent movies, Watson was the superior surgeon, but now you're going to let Holmes subsume that ability as well? Sherlock was never required to share the spotlight with a group of other skilled adventurers as is the case in PFS. So yeah, this screams Sherlock Holmes to me in the depth of its abilities, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.
Actually Watson is an excellent surgeon in the original stories as well. A veteran of his era's war in Afghanistan he was also good with a pistol and--while the narrator of the story, and in awe of his friend--is a much better character and companion than is commonly assumed. There were also other side characters in the Holmes tales, so he wasn't always on his own.
Investigators have fewer skill ranks than the rogue, often can't use inspiration if they are not trained in a skill, and will undoubtably lack the punch of rogues in combat. That said, in the initial design process, I frequently told the team that this guy is better than the rogue in some key things, but we decided to playtest that and see what the reaction is. Hence, the version you have and are playtesting.
As for my motivation, these aren't my toys, they are the players. I'm just the designer. I want players to have a good experience with the class, without invalidating other people's experience. The investigator is difficult in this regard. Common messageboard consensus is that the rogue is lower than low. Common messageboard consensus right now is that the investigator is fun, does it job, and is much better than the rogue. If I were entirely basing this on the current consensus, I'm caught in a trap.
But again, that is why we are doing a playtest.
Maybe that means the rogue needs a redesign? (No snark intended).
I mean...I feel like messing with the investigator is dealing with the symptom rather than the cause.
They've talked earlier in this thread about how grit and panache are the same thing, and may have a sidebar pointing out the two are same for feats and such...
Question:
What happens to DPR if you signature deed Precise Strike with that logic? So you can do the double bonus on the first attack every turn?
I'm pretty sure if you're being ruthless on hard mode, you might be able to kill a party outright in the first round. IIRC, you can do 180 damage (assuming players make all saves)
The difficulty of Waking Rune is different than any other Season 4 Scenario as best as I can tell.
+1 on the "DM running same scenario over and over". I ran Rivalry's End...4 or 5 times at PaizoCon, and by the 4th one, it went amazingly well. (I am an evil metagaming bastard w/ regards to the ending of Rivalry's End). I know that it means that I basically got two scenarios worth of credit for all of PaizoCon, but if there was some way to give DMs an incentive to run the same scenario over and over, I would go down that route. Maybe an extra token for boons, or something similar.
Keep the point totals on the screen updated (for turning sections red/yellow/green), but update them only periodically if you want to maintain the mystery / fog of war aspect. That way, groups can see what they're accomplishing.
I envy all of you that have not had to deal with power creep in your local areas -- in my neck of the woods, it has easily taken over the majority of character building. It's turned into a miniature arms race between the players, as those who did not originally give two cents about optimization now find themselves either struggling to contribute or making more powerful characters.
Part of it is that there are definitely many people who play PFS to do the things that would get disallowed in a home game -- the more ridiculous builds, etc etc. Power Creep is a pretty big thing in PF, as it was in 3E / 3.5E. As a DM, I've just more or less given up on challenging my players in PFS unless it's a S4 scenario, and even then, only a handful of scenarios challenge the upper tier characters (I'm about to run Waking Rune, and spoiler alert, holy cow). Ironically, this gives those who make higher power characters the justification they need to keep going with their rather powerful characters.
I do think there are scenarios in S4 that are extremely newbie unfriendly - I started playing / DM'ing PFS in S4, and the difference between S4 & S0-3 is night and day. I would be extremely hesitant to start new players to PFS / RPGs in general in S4. The hard mode option in Waking Rune is a start, but honestly, most of the optimizers I've talked to have no intention of playing hard mode unless they get some reward from it (even though they have characters that would only be challenged in hard mode). I am starting to wonder whether hard mode should be a DM option, rather than a player option (but it must be announced to the players ahead of time, and it can't be used on a group playing up, etc etc).
So far my best option has been to play up the campiness of having ridiculously powerful PCs in a scenario -- this keeps the non-optimized players highly entertained, as they watch their DM get (faux) frustrated and curse that he would have succeeded if it were not for those meddling kids!
Des C. (Reno) - Scorch
GM Chris (Bay Area, CA) - Seeker
Miles (Oregon) - Oslin D
Elizabeth (Oregon) - Katsue
Greg (Local WA) - Maglock
Painlord (Demiplane of Pain)- Princess Isis & Bast
Krupal gives a good GM intro about his GM style, something I really appreciate. He even offered water & pens to the party. It is infinitely loud in the gameroom and it is difficult to hear the GM.
Plot points happen, knowledge rolls are made, but the results are lost in the chaos and noise of the room. I get a quick recap, but it is still difficult to get full flavor. This is a recurring theme and difficulty in planning large conventions. On one hand, organizers want to minimize costs by packing in tables while working with the hotel's available space. That is weighed against issues of noise, smell, and space between tables that affects the players and play experience. Having tables too close together also enhances interruptions as people and chairs get bumped as players move from table to table.
Krupal has a good clean style, very playful and is just easy to play with.
As my yahoo (Princess Isis) can sometimes be useless in combat (more out of laziness than lack of things to do...a character defect that few understand), I spend the first combat looking around and watching other tables play.
** spoiler omitted **
I am glad you had fun! (This is Krupal, btw). I wish I had noticed the "10 ft squares" aspect of the map before I ran the entire scenario, but, hey, fun was to be had, and it was. :)
Apparently it is pronounced like the metal "steel". Had a player in the game who has an AA in Arts, and he told me how it was pronounced because otherwise I would have driven him insane. :D
I almost didn't even have them make checks on Magra, just because they came up with some amazingly awesome taunts & comments. They hit a pair of 30+ bluff and diplomacy checks, so they would have made it anyway I think, but they enjoyed messing with the orcs.
Second and Final Encounter:
The players correctly surmised that the final encounter creatures would see the constructs as a bigger target, and thus positioned themselves in AoO position for the creatures. On top of it, they arranged themselves a certain way such that the juiciest targets would be behind the constructs regardless, increasing the chance that their plan would work. 2 of the four creatures didn't even survive the AoOs (2 PCs with Combat Reflexes, boo), and the constructs + the PCs decimated the remaining two. In a straight fight, I'm decently certain the constructs would still dominate the final encounter's creatures. The constructs can almost one shot them, max damage on a non crit might actually take a creature out.
I ended up misplacing the stele right behind the constructs (right up the initial set of stairs), so an additional twist was thrown in where the PCs were attempting to distract the constructs from smashing the one person who could use the stele into dust. On the bright side for the PCs, this also meant they could get to the stele much quicker, which I think is the only thing that saved them. The rooms are REALLY big, and it takes someone hauling butt multiple rounds to get to the stele. Those constructs will be doing 44 damage a round most likely (the to hit is so high). Unless the players are toting adamantine...oof, I think melee characters die in that fight.
When they activated the stele post fight, they got to use the big center room (C4 I think?) as a viewing room, which made the holographic images the stele produced to show them where another Sky Citadel was far, far more epic. Rather than just contact the Citadel located in the WorldWound, I had the stele show the PCs, Google Earth style, where they were, and then trace a path around Golarion to where the next one was.
Ran this last night with no prep time, definitely messed up some of it, but oh well. >_<. Group was low tier, with no dwarves. (PS: Have a dwarf for this series. Makes life much, much better.)
the Map:
As a note: If you want to draw the map to scale, get a MondoMap -- you're going to need it. The place is huge. I'd personally Theater of the Mind the entire first part of reaching the citadel; there's nothing that is positional dependent, and it saves you a ton of map time.
The second part of the citadel is one of those crazy diagonal maps...I just rotated it 45 degrees and it made everyone's lives significantly simpler. This is also a huge area, but however, positions may matter due to the potential for combat
First Encounter:
So, assuming the party does not sneak up to the banner, Shield Other and Sanctuary are cast already. They went the duel route, so I had the orc call for a fair fight, and make enough lawyer-level comments such as "No more spells" or "Our men fight as they are right now", which tipped at least one player off to cast detect magic on the orc champion. Once it was revealed that he had Shield Other on him, the players could use bluff / diplomacy / intimidate to get Magra mad enough to dispel the Shield Other.
Anvil & Hammer:
Don't mess up like me and not read all of B1 to B6 before describing things to the players. I messed up a couple of the handouts & sayings, but it is a really cool scene if you do it all correctly. So read B1 through B6 before you start describing B1.
Second & Third Encounter(s):
At low tier, the guardians kicked the holy hell out of my group. +15 vs AC for 2d6 + 15? 10 Hardness? 15 ft reach? Yikes. The players are either toting adamantine weapons or they need to get to the stele ASAP. The rogue was able to UMD the stele the turn before the guardians turned 2 of the PCs into mush. I had the rust monsters show up in 8 rounds after they opened the door, so they ended up using the guardians to annihilate the rust monsters.
The puzzle was complicated for me to figure out, I wish I had heard Mike's explanation prior to Sunday. :D
Key things to note
1) The maps are designed to 10 foot scale, not 5. Let's say I only realized this AFTER I finished running it. Oops. >_<
Spoiler:
2) They almost have to have someone who can deal with traps. I had to change things on the fly (letting them use knowledge: engineering, survival, and stonecunning) to make it remotely fun at the table I ran. That said, they decided to just send some poor summon monster in, the hound archon.
3) Air Bubble + Dim Door + Gloves that let you see through stone = no underwater encounter
4) Telepathic Bond + a wizard who speaks Dwarven = the puzzle becomes trivial.
I ended up liking it OK. Not as good as Rivalry's End (which is what I ran for four other slots), but was OK. Definitely a heavy prep time scenario.
So, was looking through the SRD for Counterspelling, and found the following entry
Quote:
Counterspells
It is possible to cast any spell as a counterspell. By doing so, you are using the spell's energy to disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character. Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other arcane.
How Counterspells Work: To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing to ready an action. In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. You may still move at your normal speed, since ready is a standard action.
If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell's level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent's spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can't do either of these things.
To complete the action, you must then cast an appropriate spell. As a general rule, a spell can only counter itself. If you are able to cast the same spell and you have it prepared (or have a slot of the appropriate level available), you cast it, creating a counterspell effect. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results.
My buddy and I disagree on one aspect. The line that is parentheticals "or have a slot of the appropriate level available", he believes could apply to a wizard with an appropriately open level spell slot. I believe that line refers only to spontaneous spellcasters.
So if an enemy casts a fireball, if a wizard has an open 3rd level spell slot, he could use the arcane energy from that open spell slot to counterspell the fireball. That's his belief. My belief is that the "slot of appropriate level available" is only for spontaneous spellcasters.
So are we both right? only spontaneous casting, etc. I don't think the wording is ambiguous enough for it, he does.
My DM says that you can only target large creatures with this spell since it can only be cast on grid intersections, thus medium creatures are immune. Is this correct?
Why does it take longer for the Assassin Prestige Class to do the death attack (3 round study) compared to the ninja and slayer talent assassinate (1 round study). Shouldn't assassins due to their namesake be better at what they do?
Can you target a worm that walks with smite evil? I was playing a paladin character and we met an evil aligned worm that walks as the final boss of the encounter. My DM told me that smite evil doesn't work on the worm that walks for some reason. Was he correct?
