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So, looking at my GM session credit a few minutes ago it appears that I once again have the correct amount. Unfortunately, I'm still listed as a 2-star GM even though I have 62 tables of credit under my belt. Now, I have run a fair number of modules, so I'm not sure if that double credit is somehow affecting my number of stars. Just my best guess....
For those of you worried about how quickly events transpire after the fight with Ghalcor, I'll point out this line in the "Development" for room A7: Once the PCs destroy the allip, there is a brief respite before a calm and peaceful ghost of Ghalcor rises from his corpse and bows to the Pathfinders. I gave the PCs a few rounds to gather up and cast spells after the allip fight (a couple had been commanded to "flee" during the fight). They still neglected to check out the leather suits in the room, but, oh well. I would still keep this interlude short just to keep up the pressure on the players.
I have a couple of questions about keys used in the first dungeon. Spoiler: In the first paragraph for room A12 it says, "One of the keys from A5 can open it." "It" being the door between rooms A11 and A12. Unfortunately, there are no keys in the cells in A5. Was this a typo where the referenced keys were those from room A4, or was there originally supposed to be keys in A5 that were edited out? If it was the keys from room A4, I'm assuming it has to be one of the mithril daggers since they mention being used in room A12, while the jailer's keys to the rooms in A5/A6 do not.
Also, in room A10 there is mention of the keys from A4 working in the locks to both doors, but the keys themselves from room A4 don't specifically mention working on those doors. Can this be explained by the fact that "the locks are in terrible shape" and the keys match the lock closely enough that you can jigger them?
That would have been awesome, and what I think was on the How to Muster boards, but people didn't do that. And even when we'd ask if they had real tickets or generics, those with generics would tell us they had real tickets. To be honest, I played 7 slots and don't recall seeing the How to Muster boards. I'd basically check the boards outside to see where we/I was playing, step in, and look up to see where we/I had to go. Once inside we'd/I'd then stand by the marshal until our group found someone, I was picked by a group, or on the occasion of Bonekeep 1 our group was seated while I looked for a 6th player. Feel free to say, "How could you miss something so obvious!" I was probably standing next to them the whole time. I'm not sure if my friends were aware of the inside instructions or not. If they saw and read them I don't recall them mentioning it. I guess we just automatically tried to muster like we had in previous years. We did catch on to the whole "get into groups of 6 first" thing, but I didn't realize that was official policy until I read about the How to Muster signs here on the boards after the Con.
The emphasis on seating 6 person tables before anyone else was a bit of a problem. I was with 4 other friends for 2 of the specials and we found it a frustrating having to hunt down that last person. There was also one occasion where 5 of us (who all showed up individually) with actual tickets waited around while other mustered groups of 6 were seated, only to be told that there were no tables left. Part of this was on the person doing the mustering as she apparently didn't check to make sure that the 6 person tables she seated didn't have generics mixed in, but I think the emphasis to get full tables seated first didn't help. As far as I know all of us did end up in a game. The tables that were seated first were groups that had 4+ players and were sort of taking their pick of the litter to fill out their group. To be honest it kind of felt like P.E. from my school days all over again. Players would filter in and get picked off, while some of us who didn't put ourselves out there as aggressively waited for others to join (and yes, we have no one to blame but ourselves for that). We did eventually all get together to form a table, but after being sent to two different tables that were already full, we were told that there were no more tables for that scenario. After that we ended up getting broken up and sent to fill in tables here and there that our characters could play. Our musterer did her very best to accommodate all of us. She was kind and patient and very, very tired. A mistake was made somewhere but she made sure everyone got into a game. Everything worked out in the end but I wanted to make sure I let you know about our little hiccup.
Overall, I really enjoyed GenCon as a whole and Pathfinder play in particular. It seems like the scenarios are getting better and better. I played both #5-1 and 5-2 and thoroughly enjoyed both. As others mentioned mustering was much improved and coordination better than in previous years. I do have couple of small gripes about it. The emphasis on seating 6 person tables before anyone else was a bit of a problem. I was with 4 other friends for 2 of the specials and we found it a frustrating having to hunt down that last person. There was also one occasion where 5 of us (who all showed up individually) with actual tickets waited around while other mustered groups of 6 were seated, only to be told that there were no tables left. Part of this was on the person doing the mustering as she apparently didn't check to make sure that the 6 person tables she seated didn't have generics mixed in, but I think the emphasis to get full tables seated first didn't help. As far as I know all of us did end up in a game. I was also surprised when they turned away generic tickets Friday night and then the table my group was seated at had 2 empty tables right next to us (with GM's ready to run, no less). I also agree with the advantages of moving to the ballroom. It's nice to be able to hear what your GM and fellow players are saying. The new faction goals were a bit fuzzy, but the GMs I had running season 5 scenarios did a good job of either laying them out ahead of time or subtly pushing players toward them with hints and good role playing. The quality of the GMs I had this year was excellent, with 1 exception (sort of). My first GM on Thursday showed up late and then asked the group if we could hurry through the scenario so he could get to the dealer booth soon after the hall opened. I was not happy with the idea but the rest of table agreed. However, after we started playing he seemed to settle into GM'ing and we ended up not skipping over or rushing any of it (except at the beginning). Finally, I'd like to say a big thank you to all of you (including my fellow players) who made this year such a great experience!
I updated one of my files, so I deleted the old version off the shared drive and tried to upload the new version and received the message, "You don't have permission to add items to this folder." Not sure what's up with that. So, for now I pulled the old version out of the trash and restored it. ================== Ok, well it seems to be working on and off. I am unable to load the file to folder #4-24, but I successfully added it to both #4-23 and #4-25 (and deleted it after). I tried downloading it to a couple of other folders and got no response at all. No error message and no uploaded file. I'm not sure what's going on.
A couple of spoilery questions about one of the stat blocks: Spoiler:
For the Xun Stranglers:
Armor training 2 is listed under their SQ, but an unarmed fighter's Tough Guy and Clever Wrestler class features replace armor training 1 and 2. With an armor check penalty of -2 on leather lamellar, reduced by 1 by it being masterwork, should this reduce Disable Device and Stealth (DEX skills) checks by 1 (down to +7?) I'm doing calculations in my head (I don't have HeroLabs or another similar software program) and I can't get the CMD value to equal what's in the stat block. Here's what I get: 10 + 7 BAB + 4 STR + 1 DEX + 1 Dodge = 23? (listed as 24) P.S. I also see that, while I can't find mention of it, the scenario uses the Map Pack: Mines for the En Route encounter and the Flip-Mat: Darklands for the Ritual Cave encounter. Thanks.
This seems like a RAW vs RAI deal. Ask your GM. Have you looked for a FAQ response? Well, in this case this is a PFS character, so no single GM's opinion is going to cut it. That's why I'm trying to get a feel from the masses about how it should be literally interpreted. It looks like it is probably not PFS legal, but I'm trying to get as many viewpoints as possible before I rule it out.
I guess I've dug up the pertinent information and I guess I'm just wondering if it violates RaW for the purpose of feat prerequisites. According to the description for Archetypes and Alternate Class Features: "A character who takes an alternate class feature does not count as having the class feature that was replaced when meeting any requirements or prerequisites." However, here's the text for Charitable Hands:
The text specifically mentions using lay on hands twice and the last sentence, while saying it replaces lay on hands, also says it works like lay on hands except for the tweaks made to the amounts it heals.
I'm looking at making a paladin with the Oath of Charity. This modifies and renames Lay on Hands to Charitable Hands. The description says it "otherwise works like and replaces lay on hands." I wanted to take a number of feats whose prerequisites require the Lay on Hands class feature (ex. Extra Lay on Hands, Word of Healing, etc.), but I'm wondering if by going with Oath of Charity that I will be unable to do this. I've read through a couple of threads that talked about this question and most seemed to agree that it "should" be allowed, however, this character will be used in PFS, so won't be open to GM interpretation.
It looks like Paizo's taking an interest in the Molthune/Nirmathas conflict in the next few months. We get both the Fangwood Keep module (hopefully) in April and Ed's novel in June.
When playing older scenarios there are 5 new factions that correspond to each of the original factions. I think as long as both eliminated factions aren't both the original and the associated faction (ex. Andoran and Silver Crusade) it won't be too terribly hard to keep older scenarios stitched together. Otherwise, I don't see faction reduction having too much effect on scenarios except perhaps those where the factions are directly involved in the storyline (ex. The Dalsine Affair). As for running older scenarios, that's sometimes a necessary evil. Living in the same town as West Michigan Venture Captain Dan Luckett, (esquire) I can tell you that there are sometimes as many as 3 or 4 games within driving distance within one week. While most players don't participate in all or even most, there are some die-hards that do play in so many that's its difficult finding scenarios for them to play. I have to believe that's at least part of the reason he busts out some of the older ones (in addition to trying to also keep the newer scenarios fresh at local cons, to generate more interest, in order to impress convention organizers and keep PFS coming back).
I've been working on a new wizard character and I was looking for a way to sort through which spells require saving throws and which type of save. Something to sort out the ones that are affected by SR would also be helpful. Does something like this already exist? If not, its a bit of an obscure request, but if someone has time....
In the same vein, I think they probably should have done something like: Tier 1-5 2154 (62.8% sold)
I have a 5th level cleric and was interested in playing in higher level scenarios mostly because I'd like more of a challenge. Last year I found myself having to continuously play down because the majority of players at the table were lower level. I don't plan on playing pre-gens. However, I only have a single higher level character. If he dies before I get to the 2 5-9 level scenarios I signed up for I won't have any choice but to do that as I don't believe my almost 2nd level fighter will be high enough level to play in those scenarios by the con. I think most people prefer to play their actual characters. I'd say if you see a fair number of pre-gens you may be seeing others in that situation.
It's kind of weird how the tier 3-7 scenarios are so full and the other tiers not as much. Maybe people play in that tier to play with friends? (Just a theory). Actually if you look at the way the demand is distributed 3-7 looks pretty normal. 1-5 has the most demand (and tickets available). You figure there will be a fairly deep dip to 3-7, then a gradual fall off to the other tiers. Unfortunately, they scheduled the exact same number of tickets to 3-7 as 5-9 when you should figure there will naturally be more players at those levels (they took into consideration the drop from 5-9 to 7-11 pretty well).
Yeah, it looks like there is a bigger demand for higher level scenarios than anticipated. It looks like they could have cut a couple of hundred tickets from tier 1-5, added most to tier 3-7 (and a few more to 7-11), and had a fairly even distribution between all. Perhaps some of the players that would in the past have jumped right in to the tier 1-5 scenarios are instead stearing themselves to the Beginner Box demo and First Steps, part 1. Also not sure why they scheduled the same number of tickets for 3-7 as 5-9. I guess that's where analysis of the data pays off. ;-)
Anything and anywhere by Howard Andrew Jones. I loved Plague of Shadows and I'd love to see more by Mr. Jones. As for locations, I love epic storylines (like the Star Tower in Plague of Shadows). I'd love to see something on one of the other world's in Golarion's solar system. Perhaps an expedition to the Crown of the World or deep into the Orv vaults. Or closer to the Inner Sea a trip to the Mana Wastes or Kaer Maga would be interesting. You also have an amazing and diverse group of cultures mashed together in Absalom and it's been so little explored (outside of the PFS scenarios). Hermea also makes an interesting study in cultural experimentaion.
Are there going to be more senarios written in Kaer Maga? If so where is the source book available at? It's not a scenario, but they certainly aren't ignoring Kaer Maga as seen in the upcoming module The Godsmouth Heresy.
All I can say is Ms. Feathers... Huh, I guess our group totally missed Ms. Feathers. Ah, well, our GM was running the scenario with his young daughters at the table so I guess he had to do a little editing. The battle with Wymand Pratt can be very deadly. One group I ran, had one 3rd level, four 2nd levels, and one 1st (APL3). Sounds okay, but Wymond's save or suck spells nearly crushed them. I thought the save DC's were slightly inflated. Not illegal, just a little high for a low-level band of PC's. Even the monk with the best saves had to roll an 11 to succeed. With mooks to keep the PC's at bay, bardic performance, and a minimum of four incapacitation spells (Sleep/Hideous Laughter) at tier 1-2 and add in Grease, Glitterdust, Fear, & Invisibility for tier 3-4, plus his multiple one shots (scrolls/potions) and foreknowledge of the PC's approach, the encounter has the feel of a TPK. Our group didn't have a problem with him at all. While it's usually not recommended that groups break up, we split up as soon as we broke through the back door of the theater. Pratt hit a couple with his Glitterdust spell, but with 2 characters being infused with speed from the Expeditious Retreat scrolls we found, plus an animal companion (cheetah I think) charging around the theater to the box seat he was in, he didn't stand much of a chance. He focused on the rest of us on the stage since he couldn't see the others running down the hall behind him. We took the brunt while they came up from behind, cut off his escape and took him down. Even after he went invisible the rogue and cat were able to land blows and bring him down. |
