Deurn Ironbelly's page

GenCon, while playing #8-99 The Solstice Scar...

There's a battle that's basically a mini-boss with a few minions. I was playing my compulsion specialized Evangelist 5/Sorcerer 1.

It went down thusly:
I cast Hold Person on the mini-boss (a cleric). Next round, I cast Murderous command on the nearest minion (a barbarian of some type). He coup de grace's the cleric. Next round, cast murderous command on same minion. He attacks, and crits, on the other class-level minion...while raging, with a falchion...and one-shots the enemy bard.

The barbarian had the rest of the round to consider his failed will saves before the two bloodragers in our party took him apart.

The look on the GMs face when he failed the Hold Person will save was great. When he failed the murderous command save and he coup de grace'd, the look was annoyed. When he rolled the nat 20 on the attack against the bard? Absolutely priceless. We couldn't stop laughing.

Hi, I've only been with the society a short while- I really only learned about it GenCon 2013, and will be DM'ng my first PFS scenario next week (although I've been DM'ng D&D 3.5 for years), but wanted to throw my .02 in on this.

Let me say that a lot of people show up for our PFS games that won't ever see the forums, optimize their characters, and aren't 'tactically' the best players.

A 'Hard Mode' is great for those that want it, but I think for many people, PFS is their first real exposure to RPGs. I know our group has attracted quite a few that are:
1. Completely new to RPGs (actual first time players).
2. Casuals/Role Players (they just want to have fun, and don't try to make their characters uber-elite).
3. Not interested in buying all of the source materials necessary to go crazy optimizing their PCs.

For the above, the CR system is a great fit- and the PFS scenarios we've played together have been challenging enough to nearly kill off a player every other scenario or so.

Again, add 'Hard Mode' (or Nightmare- "replace all enemy human NPCs with Polymorphed Ancient Black Dragons, and all non-human NPCs with Balors"), as long as it's optional- but the core of the scenarios seems challenging enough as it is for new players, and those uninterested in optimization.