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While I agree with your conclusion, there is at least an effect for doing well on the research encounter. The Help from Allies action has the following: Requirements The PCs gained enough research points to reach the second threshold of the representative's skill challenge. There are Treasure Bundles dependent on the research also.
There is no other information available for this unfortunately. However, as the outcome of this chase is COMPLETELY irrelevant to the rest of the scenario, I’d say start them wherever you like. Also, be aware that the starting NPCs for encounter A2 in the scenario body do not match what’s in the appendix. The body lists 3 Ulfen Bodyguards at low tier and 2 Ulfen Captains at high tier, while the appendix leaves the number off, implying just 1 of each. The numbers in the body work out to a severe encounter, which matches the stated encounter difficulty. The fact that the PCs will almost certainly have some assistance from other NPCs in that encounter is meant to balance it out I think.
It occurred to me a couple days ago why this infiltration has been bothering me so much. In addition to having either omitted instructions to only run a subset of obstacles rather than all OR wildly misunderstanding the relationship between Awareness Points and Infiltration Points (and an appropriate balance point between the two), the designer seems to fundamentally misunderstand the concept of individual and group obstacles in the infiltration subsystem. Every single obstacle should have been listed as an individual obstacle rather than group obstacle, as they are things that each PC has to overcome (though they might need/receive help, I discuss this later). There are no obstacles like a door needing unlocked or a trap needing disarmed, which are examples of group obstacles. Group obstacles are things that only have to be overcome once by anyone in the group. The obstacles in this scenario are all things requiring EACH PC to do things (swim across a rushing river, climb up or down things, sneak from here to there). In the framework of the Infiltration subsystem, these are individual obstacles. The infiltration system does make allowances for team members helping each other with the Smooth the Path opportunity (pg 198 GMC): Smooth The Path
You might say, “why can’t successes at a group obstacle represent the efforts of the entire group to get everyone in the group through the obstacle, after all that’s how chase obstacles work”, and you wouldn’t be wrong. I have two responses to that, firstly hold that thought for a paragraph or two, and secondly anytime you reference a preexisting game mechanic, but then utilize it in ways not consistent with that mechanic, you encourage misunderstanding of the mechanic and cause confusion down the road. I can’t imagine Paizo wants to encourage that sort of thing. The infiltration subsystem really is an extremely versatile system. The possible addition of PC preparations, edge points, varied types of complications and awareness thresholds, not to mention the option to choose from different paths to accomplish the same goal, can make for a robust and interesting set piece. However, it is understandable that the designer of a PFS scenario might not want to make full use of all the options offered by the infiltration system. It is understandable that they might want to make the skill challenges more cooperative without having to add the complexity of the Smooth the Path opportunity or other means of a PC assisting other PCs. PFS scenarios need to be succinct due to the nature of many store and convention venues and teamwork should be encouraged. A simpler skill subsystem that measures the group’s progress rather than individual already exists…the chase subsystem. I suspect the designer looked at the names of these two subsystems and decided infiltration seemed like a better fit for the theme of the “quiet” path, and so used it without fully understanding how it works. However, the framework of the chase subsystem comes much closer to what the designer seems to have been trying to accomplish. And just because the NAME of the subsystem implies haste and bluster doesn’t mean it can’t be flavored as a quiet and deliberate process. I’m not saying that the designer was wrong to use infiltration, it certainly could have worked with some tweaks. But, as presented, the skill challenge poses problems. The overall difficulty of the challenge is way too high (26 IP to succeed while failing at 10 AP), which is what started this discussion in the first place, and the mislabeling of group/individual obstacles will only foster more confusion down the road for GMs, especially inexperienced ones.
I see the same thing you’re seeing. I don’t see a reason for D2 (quick, assessed at Moderate) to be easier than D4 (quiet, assessed as Severe). I definitely can see having D4 (high alert) be harder than both the other variations, but they didn’t make any adjustment there. Seems like a missed opportunity. D3 high alert is substantially harder to complete without losing TBs, maybe they thought that was punishment enough. I think they had some good ideas for this one, but the execution didn’t quite come out right.
So, I just ran this scenario and there was a disagreement about the tile game that Teritha invites the players to join. I thought that if a PC wins the final round, they get 7GP (in low tier) IN ADDITION to treasure bundles. One of the players said that it does not work that way in any scenario. I'm not sure of what to do. Bit late to answer, but the player was correct. Treasure bundles represent all of the monetary reward in a scenario. It's an abstracted method. On page 51 you can see that the PCs earn a treasure bundle for each of the party festivities they succeed at, up to a max of 2. Those treasure bundles represent the gold they're winning in the games.
To be more specific, what allows access to Hungerseed, Spirit Warrior, and other Uncommon options in the book is the specific text in the book for each option, i.e. "Characters of Tian origin have access to the hungerseed versatile heritage" and "Access Tian Xia origin"(under the Spirit Warrior dedication feat). If there were an uncommon heritage in the book which DIDN'T have this specific text or something similar, it wouldn't be available despite the FAQ saying that "Characters from Tian Xia have access to MANY uncommon options in this book, including heritages."(emphasis mine).
I’ll agree that was an odd way to give an example. However, it doesn’t limit attempts if the party chooses to address each challenge one at a time, with the whole party rolling, aiding, or abstaining on each. My experience so far is only for a table of 5 at high tier. They accumulated very close to 20 and possibly more, I don’t recall exactly how many since it didn’t matter at that point. They critically succeeded on quite a few challenges.
I had the guard who escorted them suggest that they try to overachieve in each room as there could be extra goodies to be had for more successes, and that merely succeeding in a room might not be good enough to win the gauntlet if their opponents succeeded but did it better than them. Indeed their secondary objective depends on doing more than the bare minimum in each room. Avram, I’m not sure what you intend when you say they can keep attempting. Master E is entirely correct. Yes, if they best two challenges in a room (obtaining enough points to exit) they can still attempt the other three, but as you can only attempt each challenge once, a party of 6 must succeed on all 5 challenges and critically so on 4 of the 5.
And FYI, you can tell when a replay session has been reported but the replay point has not been marked by looking at the "Notes" field of the reported session. It will say "Player has already played scenario at session # XX of event # YYYY Event Name on Date". The character will get no reputation in the Paizo system until the replay point is marked.
I'm considering scheduling 2 Series 2 quests in one of our store slots, and if I'm going to do that, I definitely don't want to schedule 2 long ones together. I'd like to get community opinions on ranking of adventure length so that I at least have a chance to get 2 done in a slot. I've played or run all of these, some only once, but from what I recall this might be a rough order of longest to shortest. I'd love to get other inputs. #20 The Dacilane Academy's Show Must Go On
It's in the book itself. The Character Options tells you everything is Standard availability (unless otherwise noted on that page, and those options aren't noted), the book tells you it's Uncommon, but tells you what you need to access it.
You can only get 4 evidence points from captured legionnaires in the ambush at the research facility, per page 8 under Development. You can get 1 more from the letters they carry. Reviving Nanaeil (and thereby getting his testimony) nets you another 3 (for a cumulative total of 8). The chart on page 17 tops out at 9-10, implying a maximum of 10EP. Further consider that the 9-10 EP entry references Captain Nanaeil’s revival and testimony. All of this, to me at least, is very strong evidence that the final encounter may have been intended to provide a maximum of 2 EP for captured legionnaires, which is the base number without scaling. I haven’t had to decide if I’m running it that way yet, as all three of my parties have revived Nanaeil, making it a moot point. If you do limit the final encounter to 2 EP and the party fails to revive the captain, they would have to make a single DC 22 diplomacy check to convince Captain Rufah, making it a moot point again if they succeed on that check. Anyway, those are my early morning musings on the subject. Take what you will from them.
Travel Phase 1 has 4 obstacles and 2 hazards, of which we choose 2 and 1, respectively.
I ran them as written (2 for phase 1, all 4 for phase 2), except I didn't give the players the choice of order for phase 2, but had them determine order randomly. There really isn't enough information in the name/description to make a meaningful choice, and I'd rather the players not get bogged down in overanalyzing something they don't really have enough info to analyze effectively anyway. The DCs for the 'extra' task in 2 of the obstacles and for the complications are very high in phase 2, so it's likely they will gain a lot more AP there than in phase 1. I took that as an indication that the longer the day wears on the more likely that information gets back to the Restoration Regiment. For the 3 groups I've run so far, they accumulated between 4 and 9 AP. No one has gotten the best result and no one got the worst result. Seemed to work out pretty well to me. All 3 groups got enough EP to avoid making a check to convince Captain Rufah.
Ran this twice this past weekend. One group of 6 left TWO PCs behind to stabilize/guard the downed NPC. I was a bit worried for the rest of the group who chose to take on Norvix without the other two, but they handled it fine, thanks in part to some bad roles on my part. But low level casters just don't pack much punch. I did notice that the trap for Ulthun's office location makes the combat occur at the same time as the trap is encountered, as the trap is located at the top of the stairs and Norvix is in the landing right there. My reduced party handled all of it with aplomb. The encounter is too easy, IMO. The Crowd hazard was bad at one table because I randomly rolled 2 of my 4 players to be in the initial crowd area (I misremembered the scenario text that stated that at least 1 of the PCs should be in the initial area), one of the squishies came up. The crowd rolled higher initiative so that PC took both the initial reaction damage and the routine damage, and I think they crit failed on of the saves. Even though that PC went down, they calmed the crowd easily once their turns came up.
I ran this twice at CinCityCon this weekend. I ran it with Reactive Strikes the first time and then with Retributuve Strikes the second. Unsurprisingly Reactive Strikes made the combat more deadly, while Retributive Strikes made the fight last longer. I’m not sure there was a clear overall difficulty difference. Given that Retributive Strike now needs an aura size to be fully defined, it would be nice to have a clarification.
I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited. While I’ll agree that’s a very obvious error, that really doesn’t address the question.
I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited. A recent scenario in season 5 had a printed weak version of a creature. Base creature, also printed in the scenario, had 60 hp, while the weak one was printed with 15. It seemed clear to me that the weak template hit point value (45 according to the weak template chart) was subtracted from the base hit point value rather than replacing it. But that’s a big difficulty increase. Allowed to change? In the same scenario there were 4 hazards. 2 of the hazards had stealth DCs in the low to mid 20s, while the other 2 had stealth BONUSES in the low to mid 20s. Seems clear to me there was an error on the last 2, but is that an “obvious typo or error”? These are just two of the many, many errors in recent scenarios. While I think that the loosening of GM guidelines is indeed a good thing, correcting errors in scenarios as well would go a long way to improving quality of life for your GMs and providing a more even play experience across the program. The current half-measure of publishing changes to the Foundry modules in an out of the way location is simply not satisfactory, if you ask me. Add to that the Metamorphic team (who produce the Foundry modules) are likely only to catch errors that directly impact the creation of the module. They are unlikely to catch errors or inconsistencies buried in a block of text that they simply cut and paste into the module.
Yes, you can definitely do that. Rogue got an upgrade in the class chassis by getting martial weapon proficiency and better fortitude saves. The only thing you might lose is pathfinder school benefits, if you had any (alternate lore, bonus feat at 5th level or extra downtime from being Field Commissioned before).
Feats, Spells, Items, etc from older sources are still valid. Only if they have been reprinted with the same name are you required to use the version from the remaster. So Minor Magic still exists as a feat, even though it wasn't reprinted. The guidance about class chassis only applies to class chassis. Even if you don't rebuild, you can still take feats from remastered sources, as those new feats are just as legal as the old ones for you. Similarly, Produce Flame still exists, even though the new Ignition is a "replacement" for it. As they have different names they both still exist and are equally valid. That said, some classes have been changed enough that new feats may not work with old classes (like Oracle or Champion) so you can definitely get into some weirdness there.
I suppose, since the players aren't likely to know what the hazards will do until they trigger one, only a few will be activated, only what's needed to get at the phantom. So there will be some AoE damage being tossed around but not enough (hopefully) to overwhelm them. The rest of the party will probably want to stop the hazards and/or heal up while those who CAN damage the phantom deal with it. Still, not much point to scaling as written. What I might do is alternate any extra hazards due to scaling between where the party is likely to run into them (i.e. between where the phantom is and the party's likely path) and further out where the party aren't likely to activate them at all. If someone runs in heedlessly they might trigger 2-3 or more hazards and really make for a difficult fight. If they move in more slowly and tactically they may be able to disable each hazard one at a time and so not get overwhelmed.
Reading over the mentioned encounter, a few things occur to me. You COULD say that the hazards start activated, as there are many people in the area fleeing, etc. That way the other PCs have something to do. But at the higher CPs that would turn into a LOT of aoe damage. There can be up to 5 extra hazards, and all of them will very likely be within 90' of the phantom. So on the one hand we have CP scaling that does nothing (as The.Vortex explains) or on the other hand slays parties outright after just a couple of rounds. Neither seems intended.
As currently WRITTEN, the 'one free rebuild' 'granted' under the Remaster requires that the character be played prior to last November. Therefore, as I read it, any character of a class in Player Core 2 that was first played after November 15 and before August 12 does not get a free rebuild. Am I missing something? Is that the way the Remaster 'rules' are intended? That is correct unfortunately. Alex reiterates this here.
For my online games, I've begun requiring that players import their character to my Foundry table at least 24 hours before game time. People who take the effort to sign on to the table and import/build their character there are much more likely to be serious about playing. If it passes 24 hours I'll send a discord message to anyone who doesn't have a character on my table yet. If they don't reply I drop them and get a waitlisted player in immediately and message them, asking them to import their character. Tends to weed out the people who aren't serious about showing up.
It's true that diseases are cleared for free after all scenarios, so the advice is definitely redundant for Putrid Plague and Zombie Rot. As for Corrupting Spite, it's a curse, but has listed Stages, which I think means you could eventually remove it with enough successful saving throws, as Curses with stages follow the normal Affliction rules. So yeah, the whole statement is a bit redundant, but maybe good to clarify for the curse.
I’ve read the scenario now. As written, it seems to me that stabilizing the victim (via a 10 minute treat wounds) is a red herring (though seemingly unintended). As you mention they will still die at 15 minutes if Norvix isn’t stopped, and at 25 minutes if the ritual isn’t disrupted (via dispel magic or a 10 minute skill check).
I get that it would be a great if Alex or someone else makes an official announcement of the errata location, but I don’t understand the hesitation to accept Andrew’s posts as legitimate. He has the official title of Digital Products Lead, and the information is posted in a read only forum. And as to the errata itself, it is posted in the official, read only Updates and Patch Notes subforum that you linked to.
GMs will earn one replay for each GM rank they achieve. Additionally, on January 1st of each year we will run a report to grant GMs one replay per GM rank for each active system. The granting of GM replays for 2024 hasn’t happened yet. They are waiting for the new website to do that. The old website doesn’t currently have the ability to do it (without a very time consuming manual process), so instead of coding the ability into the old website which will soon be obsolete, they are simply waiting for the new one to be ready. To see your current replays, go to your Organized Play page, the GM/Event Coordinator tab, and click the Refresh Point button.
Thanks for your input Ivis! As for the bonus rep, I think the most telling thing is that there is no bonus rep on the reporting form on the website for this scenario, therefore there is no bonus rep. Reputation is one of the few things tracked on the website, so it is the ultimate arbiter. On encounter B2, low tier, the appendix indicates a roper and an elite willowisp while the earlier text indicates two weak ropers (ie 2 cr9 vs 1 cr10 + 1 cr7). Both are 80xp and a moderate encounter, so there’s no help there unfortunately. Personally I’d go with the choice with fewer ropers, as they are super annoying to deal with.
Also adding, if you created the character AFTER November 15th you don't have a rebuild (unless Org Play decides otherwise once PC2 is out), but that means you can continue playing your character as it is (with the caveats I mentioned above about errata and reprinted spells/feats/equipment with identical names).
Do you mean the Remastered oracle which will be printed in Player Core 2? It hasn't been released yet, so how do you know it has ruined the character? If you created this character before November 15th, 2023 then you have a free rebuild option. In that case, you MAY rebuild it into the new Oracle class, or you can keep it built under the old oracle class from the APG. However keep in mind that any spells/feats reprinted with the same name in the remaster books must be changed to the new rules. Any feats/spells which are NOT reprinted with the same name in the new books can continue to be used from the original printings (but be aware some things like damage cantrips have gotten errata). However, if you have a rebuild (by virtue of creating it before November 15th) you do NOT have to rebuild the character into an oracle. You can completely rebuild it, changing ancestry, class...everything. You may use a chart in the Organized Play guide to quickly determine how much gold you should have for the new rebuilt character OR you may sell everything you have back for full price and then purchase new equipment with that gold. Full rules for how the remaster rules affect PFS2 play can be found in the Org Play Guide There is also a clarification thread for questions. If, after all is said and done, you still do not like the character at all, there really is no process to "retire" a character. Just don't play them any longer.
On the Character Options page for Lost Omens: World Guide the archetype is still listed as Restricted, so no such luck, sorry. https://paizo.com/pathfindersociety/characteroptions#lowg-sanctioning
I simply used a couple of fliptiles from the Dungeon set to make a generic 30'x20' room with an entrance and exit. But yeah, rather annoying that a whole map is missing. I forgot about that when I wrote my review lol As for the walls, I also added them on the sides of stairs in addition to replacing the railings in the elevated rooms. It's interesting how closed in it makes this map feel, given that we've had it totally open in previous scenarios. I feel that's how it SHOULD have been in 1-25.
I SOOO wish I had had a slot free to play it at Origins! I'm jelly.
I’m far too exhausted after running 10 slots at Origins to get into this too much, but this has been a source of much frustration for me for some time. The poor editing of scenarios this season exacerbates the issue, there are simply more problems to fix. The fact that the Foundry module team has access to get answers to the problems that make it through development and editing, while users of the PDFs do not, means more and larger discrepancies between the two.
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