Hey everyone! I'm slowly getting back into the groove of this PbP thing thanks to @Redelia. I'm also totally clueless about paizo.com since I haven't been here in a very long time. I'm kicking around a little GMing experiment... Does anyone have a list of the sanctioned material beyond the PFS scenarios? Including level ranges if possible?
GM Redelia wrote:
Oh wow! I'll have a look at that Flaxseed Lodge, thanks! There's been zero PFS, 2 or 1, in my country since the pandemic started, and digging up what I needed just to join this table, like the Guide to PFS PDF itself, was such an ordeal that I assumed the campaign was fan-run. There's nothing on Paizo.com itself about PFS1E but a link to the old messageboard, not even a link to First Steps 1 or The Confirmation.
Wrath of the Righteous and Return of the Runelords sound fun! Lady Gabrielle ended up going through Eyes of the Ten for 13.2, then APs and mods to 19.2, and now here. Now that PFS1E is kind of defunct, how do individual GMs feel about playing loose with the level caps? I would love to have Lady Gabrielle interact with the NPCs of Passing the Torch.
Dropping out of character... My main frustrations with this whole special is that we were rushed through the interactions with the scenario itself and weren't really allowed to employ creative solutions. This was a Tier 1-5 scenario in how constrained we were in what methods we could employ! It's as if no effort was made to support anything beyond that, other than a couple lines of text! If that's an okay approach for specials, then why don't they do the same with every scenario, just slap on a couple lines of text and have everything be 1-20? And then, as insult to injury, we got rushed through the interactive pieces, and now, with weeks to spare, there's just nothing left you the GM are allowed to present to us, at all? That's awful! -Matt
Hey everyone! My lady's reporting info is 2351-4. So a bit of background. I haven't played Pathfinder 1E in a very long time, and PFS1E in even longer. Back in 2014, I had leveled a character all the way up to 19 2/3rds, and I GMed this special twice, feeling pretty accomplished that I got someone over the finish line, but I held out hope that maybe, just maybe, I'd get to play a 19th-level module or Special or something, so I never actually applied the GM Chronicle, because, well, if Paizo presented an opportunity, I had GM credit in my back pocket. But then I moved and never got to play PFS again. Flash forward to now, I'm dipping my toes into 2nd Ed play by Discord, and what's this? Runecarved Key, *and there's a high table?* No way! Honestly, I'm just ecstatic at the chance to roleplay the character again. I know this is high-level 1E and how efficient PCs are at vaporising baddies. But that's okay, because I mainly just want to try the persona on again, with the character coming out of PC retirement knowing that she's an incredibly talented and capable aristocrat (ignore those Ninja levels on her character sheet, that's just a records issue. Bureaucracy, am I right?) I'll be playing Lady Gabrielle d'Apcher... Think Bruce Wayne crossed with Black Widow, but in an Alexandre Dumas novel that has finally gotten its anime reincarnation on Netflix. If that sounds like a Mary Sue, well, when your skill bonuses are as high as hers, the comparison can't be helped. She's basically an Exalted PC at this point; she can balance on tightropes, leap over tall buildings, beat Sherlock Holmes in pub quizzes, speak in six million forms of communication, talk the Worldwound into closing itself up, bring down the house as an opera soprano... but don't expect her to punch through walls. Or cook. That's what servants are for. Thing is, Lady Gabrielle knows that superhuman feats at the grocery market tend to make people a little uneasy. So like our pal Bruce (Wayne, not Lee), she puts on a persona of talented-but-mortal. Respect and admiration are helpful, but fear is not. Amongst the Pathfinder Society, she passes herself off as unarmed, capable, but not comically weak. Ignore that ladies' fan she clutches obsessively; it's just for show and totally not made of mithral blades within the imported silk cloth. As for game mechanics, I'm going to need some time with Archives of Nethys, because it's been a loooong time, and she's got a bunch of cash from finishing up Rise of the Runelords. Glad to be here! Thank you so much for GMing!
I've been out of the game for a long time, but I'd dust off my Chronicles and fly to a convention if I got to play my favorite high-level character for a weekend and witness an epic conclusion to the campaign. I'll even set aside the vacation time needed to bring her up to date with all the errata that's probably come out. -Matt
I just dropped in after a long while to see what's been happening in Paizoland, and whoa! This is the campaign I've been wanting to see since forever! Whoever is responsible for coming up with this, you've found my Awesome Button and this might be, after so many years of role playing, be what finally pushes it. I guess all I need now is a new gaming group... -Matt
I'm glad I was shown this thread. I made it up to 20th level in PFS with a fan-using character. Just think simply, I'd say. Simply and practically. Drop your average damage by a whopping one, and you can carry your weapon everywhere, not present a threat to anyone, obey rules of etiquette, and never have to explain to your GM how you have a weapon strapped to your back while having dinner. On top of not looking like a silly murderhobo. -Matt
If it were a feat, it would fall into the same trash heap as Jawbreaker or that feat from Ultimate Combat, the one inspired by Fellowship of the Ring. I think a good rule of thumb here would be "if you liked this one-second shot from a movie, don't make a feat around it." Also, this is Ultimate Intrigue, the book about skills and how to make extensive use of them. It would be silly if the book were full of classes, archetypes, feats, and spells. -Matt P.S. If you want to start addressing the martial/caster disparity, stop making so many feats! Feats for everything only contributes to the problem!
Unrefined thought here... The Free Parking Fallacy This fallacy refers to the notion that a game is poorly designed, when the perceived problem occurs as a result of using house rules. An example would be a GM who claims that the Stealth skill is poorly designed because opposed Stealth vs Perception rolls are too swingy, when that same GM disallows taking 10 on Stealth checks. -Matt
I've been thinking about this thread, and I want to reiterate the "no full casters" recommendation. One of the reasons I've been thinking about is that full casters, more often than not, can only participate in the story by casting things. So, they are often locked into interacting with your world in ways that are very disruptive. Meanwhile, non-full casters have other options for interacting with the story, like skills (ex: Bard, Inquisitor) or through physical combat (ex: Magus, Warpriest). They don't have to resort to casting spells in every scene, so they are most often less disruptive to your story. Just a thought. -Matt
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