Shade325's page

So I've been playing this game since RotR. I've played every set (multiple times... gotta play every character) plus organized play and never once have I done the following until just now...

Taken an Armor Card feat.

My organized play group had a saying. "Armor is a crutch." It felt like something that just took up space in your deck. We avoided armor for the most part (sure there were a couple awesome ones but generally speaking they weren't very exciting.)

Now I've just finished DD and am playing Valeros and between his powers and the new way armors work and their new cooler powers... armors are finally cool and interesting.

Tip of the hat to the developers. Really love what you've done with armor in the Core. Look forward to what it looks like with Curse. Thanks!

So... if I read this scenario right the only boon you will ever see is the reward boon for completing the scenario?

You never explore the locations so you never see and encounter the boons. In so far as I can tell from my reading of the scenario you could simply determine how many boons each location has and put all weapons or spells or what ever because what they are doesn't matter. They're just a countdown clock to determine if you lose.

IIRC playing this type of scenario in MM got you a reward of rebuilding with what was left in the locations if you won? Been a few years so I could be wrong but I think there was some sort of boon reward.

So far as I can tell this is the only scenario of the random scenarios where you do not get a chance to acquire any of the boons. Is that intentional?

So Heritage... while there are some differences... Heritage just looks like a second Ancestry feat you choose at character generation only this "feat" comes from a small selection of "Heritage" feats. This change doesn't really do it for me. Its not really a change on the macro level. Just another "feat" choice.

Dante Doom wrote:

I'm all for removing magic items from the math of the system!

Seconded.

Third!

Was looking over the multiclass options recently put out and while I like the idea of Multiclassing its so class feat costly. It got me wondering could spellcasting be a class feat.

Every class uses the same spell chart for gaining spells. What if instead of getting a new level of spells at 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc... they got a class feat and had to option to pick the ability to cast the next level spells of pick something else instead.

Example (Wizard class feat level 3): Arcane Casting 2
Prerequisite: Ability to cast level 1 Arcane spells.
Text: You can now cast level 2 arcane spells based on level per the spell casting chart.

Something along this line allows a Wizard that wants to be a bit more gish to delve a little deeper into the fighter class at the cost of higher level spells.

Now this would be a lot more class feats in the hands of casters. Might need to look at non-casters in comparison.

Anyways rough idea I wanted to share.

Also a big fan of Arcanist style casting... although I first saw it (and really dug it) back in the Arcana Unearthed/Evolved days.

Although out the years of 3e/3.5/PF1 I've had an issue with the Aid rules and PF2 has the same issue.

Player #1 offers to Aid Player #2 (let's assume Player #2 has a better skill roll.)

Player #1 rolls the Aid. Rolls a 16+ and would have aced the check on his own... but all he does is provide a +2 bonus (in PF2 maybe a +4 bonus if critical success.)

Player #2 rolls a 5 or less and fails the check.

Does that situation bother other people? Its always nagged at me and happened multiple times in "Pale Mountain" with the elemental puzzle.

I'd love it if Aid allowed you to take better of the two checks results. Not roll but check.

Success = Your ally may use either your check result or their own which ever is best.
Critical Success = As success and add +2 to the result.
Fail = No effect.
Critical Failure = Apply a -2 penalty to your ally's check result.

I would love a solution to this situation cause it drives me nutty.

I'm in favor of the OP's suggestion magic weapons all do the same damage per plus. 1d6 was the suggestion. I'd even take 1d4. Make it even across the board.

In one of the Paizo playtest videos they've put online the PCs were sneaking and it came time to role initiative. GM told a player he can roll Stealth. Player looked at sheet and said do I have to use Stealth. GM said no you can use Perception if you want.

Not sure if that option is represented in the book (RAW) but putting it out there.

Having a target make a saves vs. having the caster make an attack roll makes magic significantly less effective. Here are some reasons.

• #1 Math – Detailed below but saves have a 10% less chance to hit and 5% less chance to crit, both do to ties going to the roller. This difference is compounded when you consider most spells cost 2 actions.
  
• #2 Buffs – There are a number of spells, powers, items that provide a bonus to attack rolls but not spell DCs. Why? Both are ways of “attacking” an opponent. Inspire Courage, for example, is an interesting buff in this regard. It adds +1 attack and +1 damage to attack rolls but only +1 damage to spells that call for a save.
  
• #3 Items – Not directly related but spells get no love from items. While a martial character can get a boost to attack (and damage) from finely crafted or magical weapons there is no such items for casters. A martial character’s to hit chance will increase 20-25% over the course of a career due to items (+4 or +5 weapon.) A caster’s spell roll will never increase due to items.

So let’s look at some numbers. Say we have two characters. We’ll call them Martial and Caster.

Martial has a +5 bonus to his melee attacks. Caster has a +5 bonus to his spell rolls.

They are both making an attack against the same target who has a 15 AC and a +5 Reflex save (Goblin Commando as an example.)

Martial rolls to hit and needs to roll a 10+ to hit or 55% chance of success. 5% chance of crit.

Caster has the target roll a Reflex save vs. his Spell DC which is 15 (10 + spell roll.) Target needs a 10+ to succeed. Caster has a 45% chance to hit. 5% chance of crit.

Now let’s level up to level 4. Martial and Caster are both at +8 and attacking the same target as before.

Martial rolls to hit and needs to roll a 7+ to hit or 70% chance of success. 20% chance of crit.

Caster has the target roll a Reflex save vs. his Spell DC which is 18 (10 + spell roll.) Target needs a 13+ to succeed. Caster has a 60% chance to hit. 15% chance of crit.

As the game progresses and we factor in buffs that affect attack rolls and item bonuses to hit, Martial’s chance to hit will significantly outpace Caster over the course of the game.

Solutions to this are many. You could make spells powerful enough that they are still worth the lower chance to hit (I’m not convinced that’s the case given what I’ve seen playtesting through level 4 but am willing to wait and see.) Already many spells do a partial effect on a successful (not critical success) save. This is good. But I seriously feel some consideration should be made as to whether buffs should effect Spell Rolls (and thus Spell DCs) or if saves should reverse and become attacks made by the caster against the target.

Some thoughts I’ve been having about the system. Not a math genius but I think my basics are right. Constructive comments appreciated.

There should be something like handwraps of mighty fists for thrown weapons. Enchant/rune the "gloves of mighty tossing" and the benefit is given to weapons thrown with it. Sure there are loopholes here but the idea is worth considering I think.

Bit of thread resurrection.

Watched the Paizo play through of Lost Star. In part 2 (You Tube video) a monk tries to diagonal around a hard corner in the boss fight and the GM said you can't diagonal across corners. This forced the monk to walk forward into an ally occupied square and then to the side to get into position and since it was a move action it provoked and AoO from the boss.

Not sure how official this is but it was Jason Bulmahn GMing. FYI.

So Guidance says

GUIDANCE CANTRIP

Casting Somatic Casting, Verbal Casting
Range touch; Targets one creature
Duration until the start of your next turn or until dismissed
You ask for divine guidance, granting the target a +1 conditional bonus to one attack roll, Perception check, saving throw, or skill check the target attempts before the duration ends. The target chooses which roll to use the bonus on before rolling. If the target uses the bonus, the spell ends. Either way, it’s bolstered.

So is this saying the target is bolstered against Guidance (which means the target cannot gain benefit from Guidance for 24 hours?) Or is the check/save bolstered meaning the same roll cannot benefit from Guidance for 24 hours.

If the latter this stinks as a cantrip. "Oh sure its at will, you can cast it as many times as you want in a day... I mean how many PCs are there... oh 4? Okay you can cast it 4 times a day, but still at will." ???

You know what's funny (in a mistake kinda way?) RAW you need to invest handwraps of mighty fist (expert) and they aren't even magical yet (except that they are because they have the magical trait???)

Vorsk, Follower or Erastil wrote:

Personally would love the new Errata to be done in a different font color.

Is the bold not distinct enough?

Wow... apparently not! See it now but not when looking at it the first time and not when it printed on my printer. So for me... something a little more obvious would be appreciated.

Thanks for pointing the bold out. Maybe if the whole section was bold and not just the page#?

That's a bad idea as they don't update the pdf. Do you want to have four or five errata printouts and have to constantly refer between them?

No I would not... but it would be nice to have the new errata in each version highlighted somehow so that I can see what's new at a glance and update my documents accordingly without having to work through each item line by line.

The skills Arcane, Nature, Occultism and Religion all have the Identify Magic action which says "The GM sets the DC for the check (see Table 4-2 on page 146)."

My question is how do I use Table 4-2 for magical items. Specifically a level 11+ item (or for that matter a level 6 magic item.) The table gives the DC for Identifying of Learning a spell of level 1-10. It doesn't give information for magical item levels.

I feel that either Table 4-2 needs to add DCs for magic items levels 1-20+ or the text of Identify Magic should say something like "The DC to identify a magical item is equal to the high DC of the item’s level see Table 10-2 p.337.)

Shade325 wrote:

In the case of the ooze should I have called for initiative but left the ooze as unseen? If you call for initiative and the PCs go before the creature that is unseen doesn't that just tell them to make a bunch of Seek checks until they find it?

Initiative is determined by Stealth and Perception checks. If the PC's Perception checks are higher than the ooze's Stealth check, they've seen it and can react first. If the ooze is Stealthy enough, it gets to go first instead.

This works out about the same as the PF1 practice of allowing PCs a perception check to act in the surprise round of an ambush.

So the PCs fail their Perception check to detect the ooze and then the ooze moves to attack and the PCs get a second chance to make that check they just failed?

Same with an invisible PC. Sneaks up to the guard and makes an attack and then the guard gets a second chance to detect him before he can make his attack?

This makes stealth tactics really tough in my mind.

I admit I've been off the PF1E train for a year or two now but I've got over 10 years of 3/3.5/PF1E experience and this feels off. If an enemy is unknown to you (failed to detect them) and the enemy makes an attack you don't get a check to see if you catch them the split second before (in PF1E). You take the attack and then become aware (maybe the enemy is visible now, maybe you just know the direction the attacks came from, depending on circumstances, etc.)

Captain Morgan's note about complex hazards and their reaction is very interesting. Good point.

RAW I played option 2 but it felt off... especially when you put it into the perspective of a PC who's invisible and sneaks up to a guard who's unaware. The PC says I stab him and then rolls initiative??? I guess the PC is unseen (and made his Stealth check so the guard is unaware) so even if the guard makes a better initiative check he shouldn't really do anything and then the invisible player get's three actions???

In the case of the ooze should I have called for initiative but left the ooze as unseen? If you call for initiative and the PCs go before the creature that is unseen doesn't that just tell them to make a bunch of Seek checks until they find it?

Really not sure how to handle one party surprising the other in PF2E. Feels like it should be more than getting to use stealth for infinitive... especially for PCs who set up and plan an ambush scenario.

Started "The Lost Star" (TLS) tonight. In room A1...

So started "The Lost Star" (TLS) today. Have an Elven Wizards with Detect Magic cantrip. He expects it to work like 1E. I explain it just lets him know if there is magic within a 30' radius. He thinks a bit and comes up with the following.

1. Cast Detect Magic
2. Move 5 ft. cast it again.
3. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Essential if you can cast it enough and move around enough you can figure out the square with the magic in it.

In TLS room A2 this was used to narrow down the fact that there was something magical in the north of the room. Due to being unable to move to the side enough he couldn't put down the exact square but it gave everyone else a specific area to look in.

I feel like this is the tactic that will be used with detect magic and is that desired. Seems silly but RAW its the way to go. As it is its sorta a time tax. Given enough time and enough castings you can narrow things down to the square.

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around setting DCs in Pathfinder Playtest. Specifically I’m struggling to judge the level of a task. When acting against an NPC I understand that you can use its level as a baseline (especially if the NPC is not fully defined.) But how do you set a level for an NPC on the fly? What is the level for climbing a tree? What is the level for researching info at the library?

To that end I thought I would look at “The Lost Star” and see where the DCs are set in the adventure and attempt to reverse engineer them to see if I could get a sense of what benchmarks were used to set those DCs.

Often in this post I’ll be comparing the DCs presented in the adventure with the DCS on Table 10-2 (p.337 of Pathfinder Playtest Rules.) Rather than repeatedly typing out “this could be a Level 2 Hard check” I will use the following abbreviation system. #X.
# = Level number
X = a letter representing T (Trivial), L (Low), H (High), S (Severe) or E (Extreme)

BEWARE FROM THIS POINT ONWARD THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR “THE LOST STAR.” SPECIFICALLY REGARDING SPECIFIC CHECKS AND THEIR DCs! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

That’s most of the checks called for in “The Lost Star.” I can’t say the experiment worked very well for me. I’m still not sure how to judge the level of a task without having a creature or NPC to base it off of. To be honest the double process of choosing a level for the check and a difficulty is really hard to understand. It sorta makes sense when dealing with NPCs for whom you only have a level. But for everyday tasks than anyone can do and whose difficulty doesn’t depend on someone else’s skill I really want a chart to help me understand. What do the DCs looks like for Average Joe Villager in this world. What’s trivial, easy, hard, difficult and impossible for him/her? Then I can judge what’s appropriate for the PCs.

I'm having trouble understanding how to set DCs.

First you have to pick a level. I don't feel there are enough examples to help me understand this concept enough to set DC's on the fly.

Example... PC wants a new weapon goes to the blacksmith and wants to bargain for a cheaper price. What's the DC? Well sounds like Diplomacy (Request) but that requires the target to be friendly or helpful. So PC starts by making a Diplomacy (Make an Impression) against the taget's Will DC. So what is a blacksmith's Will DC? Let's assume I don't want to stat out the NPC character. Do I pick a level for the blacksmith? Let's say he's level 2. Then difficulty? Let's default to hard. So DC 15?

What I'm not sure about is whether level 2 is appropriate? The blacksmith is the blacksmith and will always be the same blacksmith so his base level shouldn't be dependent on the PCs level. Is level 2 appropriate for a trained blacksmith. What about an expert of master?

Long story short is I feel like I need a lot more information on what the levels mean for setting difficulties especially for DCs that shouldn't be dependent on the PC's level. In PF1E I had a gut sense of this but PP2E I'm very uncertain with the information currently presented.

What is the level for breaking down a door barricaded by a bookcase?
What is the level for throwing a 20lb crate through a second story window?
What is the level for searching a library for uncommon information?

I don't want each of these defined specifically but I feel I need a better Rosetta Stone for understanding how to set it myself.

Anyone else feeling this way?

I've noted this principal (if not by name) since RotR and its always bugged me a little. I guess I'm a detractor. The game is designed to play from B to 6 in a particular order. If I'm in AP 3 I should have played through AP B, 1 & 2 and have those cards. Why not use them... especially if their appropriate and thematic. Instead those cards (locations, henchmen, villains, etc.) become worthless for the remainder of the campaign.

As for the argument about a store only having the core and AP 6 and getting 15 fun scenarios... I understand this but two things.

#1 - It isn't the intended game play. The ratio of boons and banes will be way off. You're either getting a short sword or a runechill hatchet without anything in the middle. Same goes for banes. Its either a zombie or a dragon nothing in between. Sure you can play and have fun but its not the designed intent and that version of AP 6 will probably be too easy by comparison.

#2 - In the comment by Vic he readily admits that the players will have to make some adjustments. They'll need to add some AP 6 cards and gain some feats in order to make AP 6 playable. They players in this situation are already house ruling the game to make it fun under the given circumstances. How hard would it be to house rule a location. (Well we don't have the Temple of God #1 but maybe we can use this Chapel of God #2.)

So I'm a detractor. I'd love to see locations, henchmen and villains from earlier APs used in later ones. It would be awesome to return to a location and have to deal with a villain a second time only now he's really more of a henchman for a greater villain. That adds great story to me.

(Note - Sorry I don't have my collection with me to look up specific card names.)

This is a bit of a complicate system but something I've been working on...

[#1] – Do not put the class deck in the main box. Keep it separate at all times.
[#2] – If playing a character from a Class Deck build your starting deck from the Basic cards in the Class Deck and if you do not have enough Basic cards of a particular type fill in the rest with Basic cards from the Main Box.
[#3] – During the game at the end of a Scenario when rebuilding your deck you may take one card that was gained during that Scenario and attempt to exchange it for one of the cards from your character’s Class Deck. To accomplish this the exchanged card must meet the following conditions.
• It must be the same type (weapon, spell, blessing, etc.)
  
• It must have the same Adventure Number or higher.
  
• It must share at least one trait other than: Basic, Elite, Veteran, Arcane, Corrupt, Divine, Magic, Melee, Mythic or Ranged. (List may not be complete… essentially taking out the generic traits so that a character has to change out a sword for a sword or a fire spell for a fire spell.)

If these conditions are met roll a d6 and on a 5-6 the Class Deck card is added to the cards available for rebuilding and the exchanged card is removed from the game. This may only be attempted once per character per Scenario.

Optional Rules:
Choose which ever ones appeal to your group.

[#1] – If the card to be exchanged has a higher Adventure Number than the Class Deck card add the difference to the die roll. Example: If a player wants to exchange an Armor with an Adventure Number of 3 for a Class Deck Armor with an Adventure Number of 2 then he rolls a d6+1.
[#2] – If a player fails to exchange a card he tracks those failures and adds a +1 to his die roll the next time he rolls per failed attempt.
[#3] – After building your starting deck if the Main Box has a copy of a Class Deck card (say Blessing of the Gods or Longsword) you can swap out the Class Deck card for the Main Box card. (This prevents the starting Basic cards from bloating the Main Box as they are replaced over the first few Scenarios… for those who care about such things.)
[#4] - Get rid of the random roll and just let the exchange happen. Or adjust the random roll to 4+ or 3+. The roll is there to simulate the randomness of the card appearing in the scenario at all. Decide what works best for your group.

Anybody else a musical theater nerd and notice that the 5 scenario titles for 1-4 are all lyrics from the Rocky Horror Picture Show song "The Time Warp."

Neat little Easter egg!

Having really enjoyed RotR and S&S I’m finding myself getting really annoyed at WotR and not enjoying the game play at all. I think my primary complaint so far after playing through the base scenarios is that it’s really random and there are too many monsters that are explore, flip and get hurt.

FYI - My party is Alaine, Kyra and Enora.

The randomness is really killing the fun for me. Demonic Hordes has about a 50/50 chance of hand wiping one of my casters. It’s rare they get multiple attack spells in hand so randomly getting selected to face the demonic horde more than once means the second or third time is with nothing but bare fists.

Then there are cards like Carrion Golem whose only purpose is to hand wipe casters who encounter them. First before you act discard 1 card from your deck. Second you cannot use spells with the attack trait. Third if undefeated discard two more cards from the top of your deck. For Enora that’s a 6 card hand loss plus 3 cards from her deck. With a 15 card deck that leaves her just enough cards to drawn another hand and there is little she can do about it (maybe Mirror Image if she finds that spell but Create Pit doesn’t work nor does a Wand of Paralysis.) This is just too brutal. Kyra doesn’t fare much better.

Additionally there are so many cards you can’t do anything about. Mongrelfolk Ranger forces you to take damage before you act. The Mogrelfolk Wizard forces you to take damage before and after you act. Wight forces you take a cold damage and bury the card before you act. Pitborn Scoundrel forces you to take damage if you are alone. The Minitaur Ghost Villian (name escapes me right now) forces you to take damage if you encounter him on your first explore. And it’s all luck of the draw. You don’t know what’s coming, you can’t plan for it and you don’t get a chance to negate or lessen it with a check. It’s like playing an RPG and your character walks into a room and the GM says “You take 40 damage.” When you ask the GM why it’s because you hit a trap or were ambushed. The problem with that scenario and why you feel put out as a player is you didn’t get a chance to detect/avoid it or a save/resist it. That kind of GM fiat in an RPG really leaves a sour taste in my mouth and Wrath is doing the same through the basic scenarios.

Another issue making the basic scenarios harder is lack of Blessing of the Gods. First when you encounter Blessing of Ascension you are not guaranteed to get it. In the previous two sets BoG was auto put in hand. It’s essentially a free explore. The lack of free explores is making the basic scenarios much harder. Secondly you can no longer copy the top card of the blessing deck which is something that could come in handy from time to time, especially in the early scenarios.

I'm really bummed Wrath is leaving me with a sour taste so far. I played the hell out of the previous two games and loved every minute of it. I'm really feeling a lack of control in Wrath and that luck is guiding my games more than skill, tactics or strategy. I truly hope the scenarios in AD 1 feel different as many people have said.

I believe the intent is that owners can start with them in their starting deck... but I may be wrong. If this is the intent then the Starting Character rules will have to change because as per the rules all cards in your starting deck must have the Basic Trait and the B Set Indicator.

If I understand it correctly, owners treat the card as if it had the Basic trait but technically these cards have the P Set Indicator.

Yeah, I already messed this up for my solo Olenjack character since I finished Adventure 3 with him before scenario 4C was available, but from now on (unless they decide to change the 4C reward and move that power feat to, say, 5A), I'm going to be sure to not finish Adventure 3 with any of my characters until I've finished Adventure 4. That way I'd only have to take 3 power feats before selecting my roles. I'll suggest the same to the rest of the people in my group unless some of them are totally fine with taking all four of their base power feats. This would also give players plenty of time to finish scenarios 3A, 3B, and 3C before the group tries 3D.

Ugh... I hate that the system can be gamed like this. If you really wanted to game it you could skip 2D and 3 Adv, play through 4 Adv but take no level 4 upgrades, then get your role card and go back complete 2D and 3 Adv and pick those power feats from your role card.

Here is my question. Why wait to have the role card until the end of adventure 4. The role card typically comes half way through the AP. Getting to only play with it for 1/3 of the AP is kinda a bummer.

I wonder if the APG wouldn't benefit from feats not being related to rewards. Rather each completed scenario gives you 1 XP and each completed Adventure gives you 2 XP (these would be 1 time rewards... can't mine a scenario over and over again for XP.) Then in the Guide to Organized Play you have a chart that says a character with 2XP gets a Skill Feat, 4XP a Power Feat, 6XP a Card Feat, 8XP a second Skill Feat, etc. (numbers made up.) At ##XP get a role card and a Power Feat.

This would mitigate the pain a missing a scenario with a Feat reward and keep things a little more balanced amongst party members who had to miss a week do to such crazy things as Life!

Being a visual person, it would be great if somebody would do a series of videos for PFSACG stuff. I would love to see videos of the following:

How to build a deck
How to apply your upgrades
How to fill out a Tracking Sheet

I would offer to do it, but I'm not sure I have all of the fine points down yet.

Well I took a crack at the first two. Check them out.

Starting Deck Tutorial

Rewards, Upgrades and Rebuilding Tutorial

Hey all,

I got some Regatta questions and maybe a couple comments about the ending.

Regatta Time - How long is this expected to take? D to H looks like about 40 miles, H to J looks to be about 40 miles and J to M looks like 25 miles. Let's round that to 100 miles for ease. According to the Core Rules a sailing ship averages about 2 miles per hour, a war-ship 2.5 miles and a longship 3 mile per hour. That's between 33 and 50 hours. Now assuming the contestants are pushing there ships maybe you half that. Trying to get a sense if the PCs get a chance to rest and refresh spells during the Regatta and generally how long the event takes.

Hazards - Is it just me or do some of the hazards seem like they won't have much effect on the Regatta. For instance "Slippery Deck." If that hazard comes up does it have any effect on the Regatta. It seems like time is abstracted in the Regatta so if the "Slippery Deck" only applies for 1d4 rounds does it really come into play. "Violent Swell" is similar. Does falling prone have an effect on the Regatta checks. "Wind Against Tide" as speed isn't tracked outside of Part "F" does this have an effect on the Regatta. Does it reduce the PCs Race score. "Torn Sail" if one sail is torn what effect does this have on the ship for the Regatta. The Hazards seem like an awful lot of rolls for things that may not really affect the Regatta? The idea is cool but how they affect the Regatta seems a mystery to me.

F. Raker Shoals - Why is there a -10 penalty to the Prof. (sailor) check due to speed. Is that just because of the shoals or is that a general rule that applies when a ship is moving that fast? If so I can't find that rule and would like to know where it is.

M. Finish Line - So RAW the PCs cannot lose the race? I gotta say that sorta rubs me wrong. Sure they can lose to Harrigan but he's later disqualified so by the rules there is no way the PCs don't win the Regatta even if they get a -20 Race score? I hope my PCs never learn this. It takes away from their victory because they don't have to earn it.

I'd much rather have the PCs come out of the hurricane and see two to three ships ahead of them with the Wormwood in front. The PCs then need to make successful checks to close the gap, increase their Race score and take the lead. Lets say three ships Darcy's Pillage. Promised Bounty and the Wormwood exit the hurricane before the PCs. The PCs get four checks to add to their Race score. 1 success catches them up to the Darcy's Pillage, two gets them caught up to the Promised Bounty leaving Darcy behind, three gets them even with the Wormwood and four puts them in the lead. If they only get 3 successes it becomes s photo finish with the PCs having to make one more check to edge out the win. When the PCs are about to try for their 3 successes threatening to pull even with the Wormwood, Harrigan has Peppery send the attack.

Break out of the Regatta time and go into combat for this attack. PCs have five rounds to deal with attackers before their next check to increase their Race score. Pilot must spend a move action each turn or he takes a -1 cumulative penalty to next Profession (sailor) check to increase the ship's Race score. If they fail to defeat the attackers in 5 rounds the pilot is harassed and takes a -5 (for one attacker) or -10 (for both) penalty to his Profession (sailor) check to increase the ship's Race score.

If the PCs get increase their Race score by 4 they win. If they increase by 3 have another final check to break the photo finish. If they increase by 2 also have a photo finish check (because coming in second actually means they win because Harrigan is disqualified.)

In the above the PCs have to earn it. I like that a lot more (although I suppose the rest of the adventures assume the PCs win and not winning could create a major kink in the storyline.)

Thanks,

Shade325

4th Dimension Games invites you to check our recent blog post detailing the Highlight Reel.

The Highlight Reel is a great 15 minute way for GMs to wrap up session. It recaps the session’s events, highlights the high points and gives everyone a chance to note what they enjoyed about the game while the events are still fresh in their minds. It also serves as a great way for GM’s to unobtrusively gain feedback and improve their campaigns.

Part 1 of the Highlight Reel can be found here.

Part 2 can be found here.

Take a look and let us know if you give it a try or what you think. It’s become a staple of our table.

All the best and good gaming,

www.4th-dimensiongames.com
For Gamers By Gamers. Level up your game!

What's a GM to do when a player can't make the game but his character is needed for the story to continue? 4th Dimension Games discusses an option we call Cardboard Mode on our Blog.

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While looking for clues to their current adventure the PCs discover an information broker named Ms. Dalu who claims to possess the knowledge they seek. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The PCs have fallen into a scam run by expert con men. Can the PCs discover the ruse before it’s too late?

Inside you’ll find:

• Everything you need to run the con on the PCs including the flirtatious Ms. Dalu.
• Richly developed NPCs complete with specific goals and in-depth backgrounds.
• A detailed and fully realized rough and tumble tavern called the Broken Jug.
• Side encounters at the Broken Jug for PCs to explore including a rotgut drinking contest against the Broken Jug’s in house champion Korg Blindside.
• Scalable NPCs usable at all levels.
• Rules for inebriated characters and the tavern's signature spirit Axegrinder Blue.

Want an encounter your players will talk about for years to come... then Unforgettable Encounters is for you.

www.4th-dimensiongames.com
For Gamers By Gamers. Level up your game!

What if you don't do facebook? I'll gladly be your friend... just don't ask me to sign up for something (facebook) I'm not interested in and don't particularly trust. Any other options? Really interested in the Sky Pirates idea.

Shade325?