Just wanted you to know that I have been using your tracker with great success in organizing sessions at my local gaming store. Being able to have people sign up and then determine the scenario based on their availability has allowed some long-time veterans to get back into the game. Kudos, sir!
From a store organizer perspective, being able to track the last time a session has been played at our location and being able to filter out sessions that have occured in the past X months would be a super feature to consider.
I'd say that anyone giving you grief over 1 potential AC is probably overdoing it, especially if you have a decent reason for your decision (having a better touch AC). Paladin/Cut purse is a pretty ridiculous combo role-play wise, particularly since it seems like you're multi-classing that and not just saying "he's a reformed cut purse who has found the light" or vise-versa.
It's hard to know if their beef is with your build or the way you play the character.
Either way, it sounds like you are not fitting in super well with the group. If you think that there's a chance to win them over in time, then just stick with your build and support them, heal them, do whatever you can to help them. If they will never be satisfied with your build/character then you may have to decide between changing your play style to fit in or finding a new group. But only you can make that determination.
Our local society games are all found on meetup.com. You might try that as well! Otherwise, ask at your local game stores, or email your local venture captain directly (their info can be found on the site somewhere).
I haven't spoken to the couple in question. Why? Logistics mostly. They don't attend gamedays only during the week night games when my career and my son don't allow me to attend. Also, they are elderly. I'm not certain of specific ages, but later 60's to early 70's seems correct. Part of the concern was whether their behavior was due to dementia or due to intentional cheating on their part. I am 37, I am loath to call someone out for cheating who is twice my age and may very well have no earthly idea they're doing anything wrong.
But it has gone far enough.
I will be meeting with them as soon as I can contact them. And I will be laying out the concerns and asking them to stop coming.
I am loathe to do this, because as representative of Paizo in my VO capacity, and as a person, I do not enjoy cutting players off from an activity they enjoy. It's bad business, but it has to be done. Thank you for everyone who posted helpful advice.
I, for one, would be interested in hearing the results of your conversation, as it may prove useful to other people in similar situations. I don't envy you. Good luck!
I loved this one. It is my favorite adventure to date. It was super challenging, a bit terrifying, and the story was straight-forward but rife with intrigue. I would play this again if I could!
I ran this for mostly humans, with one dwarf. Dancing lights and patience was the key. Even when the dwarf was separated from the rest of the party
Spoiler:
due to the rubble trap,
they were able to fight their way back to him. The darkness was a hindrance but the enemies are goblins, so just don't use optimal tactics and the PCs should be resourceful enough to get the job done.
Though the larger issue is that this is just the beginning, so if this challenge scares them, wait until they get to the drowned level...
I might be grossly misunderstanding the situation (I tend to do that >_>), but what's wrong with marking upcoming games as "played"? You've signed up to do scenario X on day Y, that means it won't be available to you on day Z anyway.
Because I'm signing up for stuff 2 months in the future and availabilities change, scheduled scenarios change, characters may inadvertently level out of range, etc... I just think it could be possible to mess up and keep something checked as played when it actually wasn't.
Maybe just putting in a date field when all scenarios are played, and that could include future dates. Anything that is a future date could be highlighted for easy differentiation?
Hmm I have heard that one before, we chose against it at that time, but mainly because people would not have a lot pending. I can see how that can be useful though if you have 8 sessions upcoming. Will have to think on this.
I noticed that my statistic cronjob has been dead since I moved to a HTTPS setup, hence the statistic is not updating. Will fix that first so you can see the ranking Mike ;)
EDIT: @Michael: It would require a lot more data input, which is asking lot more from players. At the moment I am thinking a 'basic' mode that keeps things simple and a 'advanced' mode that gives you more options.
Will be discussing things with the team. At the moment more quality of life improvements and more optimization. We are over 160 accounts so gotta make sure things run smoothly. :)
To be honest, that I *can't* denote upcoming games is what will prevent me from using your tracker as a primary solution. I have my own google docs spreadsheet I use and will have to continue using. If you did have the upcoming feature, then your tracker would eclipse mine and I'd switch to it exclusively. Not that you care whether or not one person uses your solution, but I may not be alone here. :)
One suggestion-- it would be helpful to be able to indicate future sessions that I've signed up for. Currently I have about 8 coming in the next month or two, and I've found it is easy to sign up for the same session at two different locations if I'm not paying close enough attention.
And I could use your current functionality and just check that I've played them ahead of time, but if things change (and they often do that far ahead) that could get kind of confusing.
Just having an "Upcoming" or "Pending" radio button with an associated date would be super awesome. That way when new sessions pop up in my area I can quickly look at my tracker to see if I've already played them, or are already scheduled to play them.
Divine Hunter is absolutely a trap. It is great at level 1, but down the road you really are doing your party a disservice. My first PFS character is an archer paladin that started as a divine hunter but retrained to ditch the archetype at level 4.
That being said, almost all of my level 1 PFS characters start as a Divine Hunter and then rebuild to whatever class they're going to be at level 2.
Just played our first session yesterday. Proud of my squishy group of four (dwarven paladin, half-elf rogue, human sorcerer, elven witch) for clearing the entire thing. Had characters drop below 0 multiple times (one rolled a 20 to stabilize 1 hp away from death). Likely TPK if not for the aid of hero points (they each start with one, and we award 1 HP every time they level, and then the group nominates one player to receive one after each session).
Level 1:
I pulled very few punches during this run, including using the trap with awesome effect. The only member of the party with dark vision also happened to be the front line fighter. The goblins lured him under the trap. The rogue was also in the AOE when the chain was pulled. The rogue beat the reflex save, the dwarf did not. He was buried on the opposite side of the trap from the rest of the party.
The Dwarf Pally had very few HP remaining, and with burial damage looming, the rest of the sight-challenged party fought their way through the barracks, found the secret passage, and rescued him just in the nick of time.
The energy and excitement during this sequence was excellent. They all knew they were on the clock and venturing into the dark without their Paladin was nerve wracking. They really enjoyed this challenging level, and this moment especially.
Clanky:
Since I've seen many people mention that the Skizzertz/Clanky encounter was easy, I will mention that in our run, Clanky was a force to be reckoned with, though in part due to sub-optimal tactics on the part of the PCs.
First through the door was the Paladin (approaching from A11 where there was no combat so evil was unprepared) who (mistakenly, in retrospect) b-lined it towards Skizzertz, leaving the rest of the party to contend with Clanky. Clanky took a couple of decent shots before flattening the rogue with his first attack. The Pally made short work of Skizzertz, but the party was at a disadvantage due to the magic users being out of spells. The sorcerer got lucky and rolled high on his crossbow and managed to tip Clanky's HP to less than 1/2. On his final attack, Clanky moved two steps towards the Paladin and dropped him with one massive hit and then exploded the following round. The 8 electrical damage took the dying Dwarf to -11 (with a 13 Con). If Clanky had been 5' closer to the rogue, he'd have died for sure.
Grulk:
The party was overjoyed to find the wand of CLW and used it to revive their comrades. A heavy debate followed about whether or not to ascend to Grulk's chamber. They ultimately did. For us, the Grulk encounter was not as difficult as the previous fight. Grulk only got two shots off through the arrow slit before the dwarf bashed the door in, and the group was able to overwhelm Grulk in just a few rounds (though the Rogue did fall again). Grulk was about to flee but the sorcerer rolled well again with the crossbow and took him to exactly 0 HP. There were cheers following the coup-de-grace.
