Thamius's page

Frantino moves over to the other bleeding Road Keeper. "Doc, looks like this one needs your help, too!"

Frantino tries to stabilize the guy, otherwise he can't answer questions.

Heal: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

Ooh, good thing this isn't 2e, otherwise that crit fail might have killed him!

Character updated. Upgraded greatsword to masterwork. Added divination to his implements so now he can cast detect magic and heightened awareness. Biggest ability gained is ruin reading, specific to the occult historian archetype. If he examines a ruined structure for 1 minute and succeeds at the knowledge history check, he gets potentially lots of information.

Sense motive: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19

"Captain Freson, you don't seem to find the investigating part of your job as interesting as we do, can you temporarily deputize us to look into this business with The Fangs for you? A brief extension of your authority might help open some doors for us."

"Keela, we're interested in knowing where the primary base of operations is for the Roadkeepers, as well as outlying posts. Roughly how many are there? Who are their leaders? How do they operate? If our investigation takes us there, we'd like to be prepared and not have to battle our way through the Churlwood."

And badges. We need badges!

Let's see. I'm Dan and I've been gaming since the red box in the early 80s, although not 2nd edition D&D when I took a few years off early in my military career. I started gaming again when my son got old enough (OK, he was six) just as 3rd ed came out. FYI, he's about to finish grad school in NorCal (San Jose State), while my daughter is seven and starting to enthusiastically game with us now. Yep, just the two, 24 and 7.

I'm now retired from the Marines, over a decade already, but my wife is still in the Army so we keep moving around. We just did three years in Germany (only visited Paris once but traveled a lot throughout Europe) and moved to Maryland last summer. Apparently we're going to settle in Texas in a few years when she retires, although this Western New Yorker thinks TX is waaaay too hot. I did three tours in San Diego and Oceanside, CA so I know SoCal pretty well. Japan twice, Hawaii for 3.5 glorious years, and New Orleans, too.

I found out about PFS at my first GenCon in 2009, the year that Pathfinder was released. I was a VC for two cities and am now the RVC of my third region, so I think I hold the record for the most different VC/RVC appointments. Side effect of the murder-hobo life of the military.

I've GM'd a few APs but only made it through book 4 each time before we had to move again. I just started GMing the 2e AP Extinction Curse and there are parts of 2e I like, but I've played and run so much 1e that I still look for opportunities to play it. I look forward to the chance to actually finish an AP, and I have no problem taking my turn as a GM for a book. I have only done a few PbP games so that's the part of this adventure that I'm not comfortable with, yet. Well, the Roll20 map part of it, the text part of it here is getting better.

You must have a physical race boon chronicle, and per other similar RSP boons like Xenophobia it must be an UNUSED race boon. This applies even if you received a race boon in the past, used it to start a character, and at some later time that race became always available.

Your second question is unclear per the verbiage. I would think you could apply additional unused race boons to a character with the Xenophile boon chronicle, but some additional clarification would be helpful.

Scenarios with traps that made an impression on me, spoilered per-season to protect the unwary:

Night March of Kalkamedes is the Best. 1-5. Scenario. EVER!

Fixed that for you. ;)

I'm thinking I might try something different the next time the situation comes up if the information has the same table, at least and possibly add circumstance modifiers based on what other skills the character in question has...

Upside: One roll/shot at a given knowledge to prevent a crudtonne of rerolls.

Downside: Roll might be obscenely high or pathetically low, and player may feel robbed despite investing in the skills in question.

EDIT: eg. Skill roll calls for K: History, K: Nobility, or K: Religion. My current thinking is an unspoken +2 for each additional skill they have that could apply to the roll, barring any sort of indication of skill focus or the like.

I've normally seen the OR as allowing only one roll - "Pick your best" - in order to keep things moving, but the discussion of a well-educated character who has invested ranks in many different skills has swayed me to seriously considering Wei Ji's proposal to reward them for that. For example, pick your best but your knowledge in other related areas helps you correlate the information more thoroughly. Knowledge History could be augmented with a +2 per applicable skill if you've also studied geography and nobility, and those are relevant to the skill check. Effectively, you're giving yourself Aid Another bonuses.

This could apply to the "Knowledge Local or Diplomacy (gather information)" rolls. My character likes talking to people, but his preexisting knowledge of local matters can be used to fill in the gaps of what people tell him, mechanically with a +2.

His loss will be felt throughout the PFS community in Switzerland and our entire region. My condolences to his family and friends.

I assume you're using HeroLab. If you go to the Character tab, click on Configure Hero. Scroll about 90% of the way down, to Optional Rules, and check the No Coin Weight box. Or you can just drop the money on the ground. Obviously you left it behind in the Grand Lodge Savings and Trust, run by clerics of Abadar, where it accumulates 0% interest.

Sometimes this game feels like real life...

You are not required to carry a physical character sheet. And the reason was, if the GM needs to see your character sheet, they did not want the responsibility of your tablet in someone else's hands.

New ruling is available here

Fixed that for you.

Thanks Bob. I actually already did that, and was just coming back to let anyone else who wanted to know that it sounds like it will be at 8:30 PST.

Given that Ryan is in Montreal and Perram in Kentucky, I'm pretty sure the start time will be 8:30pm EST, 5:30pm PST. The replay usually gets posted to YouTube pretty quickly, too, before the audio gets edited and posted as the podcast. If you can't watch it live, there are ways to watch or listen later!

The Know Direction YouTube Channel to watch it over and over...

Thanks for the info, Thurston! Very enlightening to see the change you refer to.

I find the difficulty and length of a BBEG fight, especially a solo battle, swings wildly based on a single die roll - initiative. If the BBEG gets a poor initiative, they may never get to go, period. I'm not sure how to fix that, unless NPCs and monsters are allowed to Take 10 on initiative, or maybe set a special BBEG rule that the GM rolls, but anything below a 10 gets automatically bumped up to a 10?

Congrats and welcome to the group! I wish I could have made it to PaizoCon UK again this year...

Well, if I ever ran into a situation in PFS that had 13 vampire sorcerers I certainly might reconsider how I do it.

As a player, the only times I can recall having serious problems with all the monsters going on the same initiative went something like this:

1) Monsters all go and take me down to negative.
2) I go and lie there pathetically wasting my turn as I bleed to death.
3) The cleric goes and heals me.
4) Monsters all go and take me back down to negative before I can get an action.
5) I go and lie there pathetically again wasting my turn.
6) Cleric goes and heals me again in order to keep me alive but the order insures I never actually get a turn.

It doesn't happen very often, but I admit it is very annoying when it does.

Since no one addressed this particular corner case on page 1:

In my games, if a character is in the negatives and his turn comes up, he rolls his stabilization check and then I put him in delay, albeit an involuntary one. Then when he gets healed, I let him know that he can come out of delay whenever he wants. Usually they want to go right away to avoid the "I never got to go" situation described above, although on occasion they are sitting at only a few hp and prefer to Bluff that they're still unconscious until the tactical situation becomes a little safer to act.

Same goes for the enemies, of course! I don't consider this to be a PFS rule, just a Pathfinder RPG rule.

Let's see, it should still be there. Yes!

Can the Charter title be handed down in my will? I'll let my son and daughter fight over it.

Speaking for yourself, I hope. For me: yes really. I've run 9 PFS games in Normal mode, and I'm dying to run in Core mode. I have the Core classes mostly memorized and understood. I know nothing from Advanced Class Guide, and I'm dreading the Occult book classes. I simply feel out of control when I have 5 out of 6 players using classes I've never heard of, and abilities that I don't understand and cannot double-check easily without slowing down the game. That is just my personal brain at work. We can all be derogatory of people like me and suggest that slow people shouldn't GM or something, but until they actually bar me from GMing, I will GM, and I will extremely value a Core game that sets my mind at ease.

Even if you think my mind being set at ease in a Core game is irrational, it doesn't change the fact that that's how my brain works and I'm fine with it, and I want to embrace the Core game. It's delightful to me. So I'm thankful to management for creating it, and I hope my Core games pull in a new player or two (or three).

(I think the concept of a Core game has merits and is easily defensible, but my point here is that there is no need to defend it with merits -- entirely subjective comments such as "I like it for no legitimate reason and irrationally feel good when I do it" is a 100% good enough reason for a person, since each person is fully entitled to decide for themselves. They don't even have to defend it or assert the good qualities of a Core game. They can simply say, "But I want it" and that's legitimate. If the detractors are right and the idea is terrible and yet people still respond to it anyway, then we have still met the target of pulling people in. So that's how I'm going to handle people telling me that I'm wrong to like this or that it will ruin PFS: I'll say, "OK, but I'm having...

Great post!

No one has every single rule and character option memorized! I've run over 250 PFS games and I doubt I've scratched the surface on more than 10% of the stuff out there. I've asked Jason Bulmahn rules questions at conventions and he has to look some of them up to try to remember how they were intended, and he literally wrote the book! (Of course, I tend to only bother him with the most obscure rules questions since no one else can really answer those. Well, not always, "How were haunts intended to work mechanically?" isn't really obscure, just confusing.)

The burden of proof is on the PLAYER to understand and be able to explain/prove how his character's various options work, as the GM I have the plot, all NPCs and monsters, and the rest of the world to worry about. As David said, if it takes longer than a few minutes I start to get suspicious. When I have time (and I remember) I ask the players to tell me up front some of the less common things their characters have or can do.

I'm really looking forward to promoting the Core Campaign locally as a way to help new GMs ease into big chair! The opportunities for new players to start the game easier, or people to replay their favorite scenarios in a different mode, and all the other positive things people have said are just icing on the New GM cake.

If you only take one thing from my post, it's that we GMs have to stop holding ourselves to the unrealistic expectation that we have to know everything that the players might pull out. Prep the scenario to the best of your ability and make the players explain their abilities if and when they come up. It took me a long while to accept this.

Here's the signup thread from last GenCon. I assume the tier rewards will be similar. There are normally 10 total sessions available, 3 Thurs/Fri/Sat and 1 Sun.

LINKIFIED THAT

I think you missed the point, aboyd. The "difficult situation" wasn't the scenario, it was you as the GM.

You could always contact your local Venture-Captain and ask him. Let me summon him.

Casts Summon Me

Here I am, how can I help? Because everyone was signed up via Meetup we can easily contact the other party members and see what they'd be willing to voluntarily kick in toward your resurrection. First you'll have to calculate how much you'll be able to pay toward it yourself (including what you earned from the scenario) and how much more you'll need. You said you don't have enough Prestige to pay for a Raise Dead, but how about one or both of the Restorations? Those cost 4 PP each to remove a permanent negative level. You could even pay for one with PP and one with gold, they're all separate spellcasting services so you pay for each separately.

If you can't get returned from the dead, the chronicle is still tied to this character and he is reported as Dead. Please don't delete him, at some point you may want to go back and make sure that you don't accidentally sign up with a different character for a scenario that he was played in, that would violate the No Replay rule.

In the future, feel free to e-mail me directly at theVCofDC@gmail.com.

Paper trumps the electronic record, always. So long as you have the physical chronicle you're fine.

Correction, the Restorations for the two permanent negative levels following Raise Dead cost 4PP or 1280 gp each. Because they are two separate spells that have to be cast at least a week apart, you can buy one with PP and one with gold if you want. You can get the Raise Dead in gold or PP, but you can't split the cost between PP and gold (so, no trying to spend 8PP and 2725 gp, it's either 16PP or 5450 gp). As Acedio said, the body recovery can only be paid for with favors, meaning PP.

Archangelex, everything to answer your question is in the Guide to PFS Organized Play, currently version 6. The price for spellcasting services in gold is in Table 5-2 on page 23, while spending Prestige is covered in Table 5-4 on page 26.

A very well run con, special thanks to Chris and Tonya, plus Dave and Rob of course. Everyone was very welcoming and every table had great players and GMs. My wife and I had a fantastic time! Well worth starting our UK vacation a few days early.

I'd like to congratulate Keith Klee on his promotion to Venture-Lieutenant! Keith has really taken the lead by expanding PFS into the northern Virginia region northwest of DC, to include Reston, Herndon, Ashburn, and Leesburg. Thank you, Keith, for all that you've done and will continue to do, as usual good work is "rewarded" with more work and a new title!

Dave, please add me to your list of GMs for the con! You can reach me at theVCofDC@gmail.com.

It has always struck me that most of the time diplomacy role-playing is done completely backwards.

The numbers and the dice rolling are the mechanics of the results and laws of the game - and how people interact with the game is based on the results of those numbers.

The following is my opinion on how the social mechanics work.

Have you ever had to prepare for an important conversation with someone, and in doing so held the discussion several times in your head? In my head, they always go great. But then you either nail it or totally screw it up when you actually start talking?

I view the "Tell me what your character says" explanation as the in-your-head, perfect world conversation detailing what you want to say, and the dice-rolling part as the "Let's see how it actually comes out of your mouth" moment.

Pout when the PCs defeat their opponents earlier than was expected.

This is one of the first things I tell my student GMs in GM 101: "Don't take it personally when the PCs kill the boss before he ever had a chance to act, even if you spent an hour last night prepping his feats, spells, etc. Sometimes that's just how it goes. You've all been on the other side of the screen, too, so congratulate the players and move on with the story."

But both the wizard and the barbarian said "I'm feeling half-dead".

So how would you prefer the players to indicate their actual needs while speaking in character?

Excellent question, and I agree that some aspects of healing have to involve numbers - Kyra can't say "I heal your booboos but not that big sword gash," her player has to ultimately say "I heal your character for 8 hp." Another example, the oracle of life with life link up has to ask, "Who is down at least 5 hp? OK, you three heal five, now how do you look? Oh, that barely closed one of your many wounds? Well then..."

For your example:

Wizard: "In my experience, a couple of pokes from that happy stick should be enough to fix me up, this isn't my first time being bit by some creature."

Barbarian: "If you're going to use your stick we're going to be here a long while, I've been doing this adventuring thing for a few years now. Best hit me with once or twice with Sarenrae's really good magics and then we'll see how I feel."

Is there an element of metagaming going on in the back of each player's head as they calculate their hp and the average healing they can expect from the various Cure spells? Yes, can't get rid of that completely, so experienced players/characters will be able to read between the lines without having to completely break into metagaming at the table.

I give a lot more leniency to new players, of course, as they try to figure out how the various numbers on their sheet should translate into the character in the game world.

And then you cure them with Science! Can't type that without the exclamation point!

While I sympathize with you I strongly believe that you are wrong.

Then we must agree to disagree. Players should not treat their PCs as buckets of numbers.

Many times the PCs are being grabbed out of the hallway in the Grand Lodge and sent on a mission together without any foreknowledge of each others' abilities. How do they find out about each other? They talk, presumably, but no PC should ever say "I have a +9 to Diplomacy." However, they could say "I took Diplomacy 101, 201, and 202 while in Pathfinder training, plus people seem to naturally like me," as compared to the guy who never went to Diplomacy class (i.e. no ranks) because he was too busy taking and retaking "Sword swinging for dummies."

It would be like me walking up to you and asking you what your Diplomacy score is - a meaningless question. How good are you when talking with people? A much better question, but one that can only be answered with adjectives, not numbers.

All of my players seem to appreciate the reduction in metagaming and increase in pseudo-realism at the table. At GenCon many of my players also said they were going to steal these policies for use at their own tables.

GM Lamplighter wrote:

I have the same pet peeve, to the point that I don't allow numbertalk at my table... In terms of hit points, skill bonuses, or any other number. Players should be able to describe their characters in the same terms as they would in real life.

So, do you letr them set up consistent equivalencies, or do you just enforce mumblety g@&$?

And what do you do when the real life descriptions would alreay be a number? "I am 5' 6" tall."

So, is a +9 Diplomacy good, mediocre, or excellent? Or would you just let me describe it as, "I can automatically assist anyone performing Diplomacy."?

Sorry, when a skill number can ligitimately range from -3 to +30 or more, not even counting ACP or encumbvrance, it is hard to force someone to use a non-numeric descriptor withotu a defining table.

Heck, even as a GM, I have to check the spell detect magic to give the proper aura strength reading...

Do Native Outsiders radiate their alignment at 1st level if they are not a Cleric/Paladin?

Kinevon, I completely disagree with you, and this same rule is something that I brief in my "tables rules" talk before my games begin. In character, ability scores, hit points, and skill ranks are meaningless. If one character asks another how he looks, I don't want the player to say that "I'm down 6 hit points" because that number has a totally different meaning for a first level wizard vs a 12th level barbarian. I tell my players to describe their health from the perspective of the character: "I'm barely scratched" or "I'm about to fall over from blood loss."

Same with skill levels. There is no set scale! If your character thinks he's the best diplomat in the history of diplomacy, say it that way! I don't care if it's a +21 or +2. After a few rolls the other characters will step in and say, "No, I'll take the lead this time, you assist me." Use your words, not your numbers!

I also make people declare that they're assisting a skill check in advance, and saying how they're going to do it. Once the primary has rolled, no jumping in and say, "Wait, I'll assist you." Too late.

Or bouncing the lightning bolt off the back wall and back at you, so long as you stand JUST far enough away that it hit everyone in front of you twice?

A year ago I wouldn't have said this, but with the impending exploration of Jormundur I recommend that PCs who can spare the point learn Dwarven.

Now that's a Venture Captain.

So is Sheila Heidmarch, try not to hold that against the rest of us!

Putting on my Big Boy pants.

Time to clear the air. I thought I recognized aspects of the OP's story when I first read this so I reached out to one of my players and it turns out this is about my Meetup site, thus I'm the nameless VC. However, like all stories there are two sides, so grab a beverage of your choice and read on.

I have 285 players registered on my local PFS-only Meetup site, and I haven't had a chance to meet all of them. The OP is one of those that I've never met in person. (Because he posted anonymously I will honor his desire to remain that way. In no way does it change the story.) A few weeks ago he "Suggested a new Meetup" at his house, but in my opinion he used some pretty strong language, to the effect of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "I reserve the right to select only those players I want." It came across as fairly elitist in my opinion, so I posted a comment that it seemed counter to the spirit of organized play and that I preferred games posted to be first-come, first-seated. He deleted the event and e-mailed me to get clarification on my posting policies. However, life and work happened and I didn't immediately get a chance to answer him. He also began posting more games on the site to be run at his house, but without this language.

After I saw this thread, I reached out to him to ask if he was the anonymous OP so that I could find out what was really driving this and get the story on what had happened with the problem player at the referenced game back in October. He responded that he was the OP and let me know that the only point of his original statements were so that he could exclude this one problem player if necessary, and he agreed that perhaps his original comments could be construed as somewhat elitist. With that point now known to me, I agreed that yes he could exclude specific players if he had cause. Said player had RSVP'd to one future event at the OP's house so I overrode the RSVP, and then contacted that player myself to let him know I was the one who had done it so that the OP wouldn't have to deal with this player if he didn't want to. For those of you posting that, within reason, an event host has the right to exclude certain problem players for cause, I agree with you, I just didn't want event hosts to start cherry-picking players who signed up for their games. I believe that, by-and-large, we should be more egalitarian than that.

If players want to set up private PFS games with certain people only, they are welcome to do that off-line via e-mail. As has been said, I have no power to control that, nor would I want to so long as it's working for them. I know of several local games that have occurred this way. Heck, I've done it myself - there are only a few of us with high level Seeker characters, so when we wanted to play a level 15 module we just e-mailed each other to organize our schedules, there was no reason to post that on the Meetup.

Mike Brock, when he was still a lowly VC, once posted that many players use PFS as a way to meet other players, decide which ones they feel comfortable gaming with, then invite them to home campaigns or adventure paths and sometimes disappear from PFS. He didn't say this in a derogatory way, he supported it as a neutral way to safely meet a variety of players before inviting them into your house! I even let people post one-time organizational meetings on my site for those GMs looking for interested players for an AP or home campaign, although I don't let them use it to coordinate their routine gatherings after that, mostly because it would clutter my site with events that the vast majority of the players would be excluded from. Once a home group is formed they can use e-mail to coordinate their schedules after that.

So, back to the story. Of great concern to me were the particulars of the questionable GM behavior, even though it was four months ago. The story from the OP was so far out there that I needed to get a second viewpoint from the game, so I checked the Meetup history, found out from the RSVPs who the father-and-son were, and contacted the father directly to get his side. He responded immediately and we talked by phone last night, in which his telling of the story was nearly identical to the OP's, even though I only asked the question in an open-ended fashion, not in a leading manner. I'm telling you, this was a "Stop, turn around, use your binoculars, and look for the line that you crossed way back there" moment. With this information in hand, I took the action to ban this person from my Meetup site. I had recently spoken to this player/GM about several much more minor complaints about him so that he could correct his actions, but this egregious error in judgment could not be overlooked.

None of the players ever reported this behavior to me or my VL back when it happened. The father and son simply haven't returned to another game, although I hope they will now. Another of the players later left the Meetup altogether, and the OP almost left. If it weren't for this thread I might never have found out. I have never banned a player before and did not take the action lightly.

Anyway, that's the rest of the story. The OP and I are good, and we look forward to finally meeting and gaming together some day. I have found the comments on this thread to be very thoughtful, given the partial information available, and I thank you all for the food for thought. Now, let's go roll some dice!

Here's another example, which only applies to a tier 1-7 scenario.

Four characters, levels 2, 3, 4, and 5. Clearly they play sub-tier 3-4.

The level 2 is not in the 3-4 sub-tier, so his gold is the average of the 1-2 and 3-4 rewards.

The level 3 and 4 characters are in sub-tier, they get the 3-4 gold.

The level 5 is also out of sub-tier, but his gold is the average of the 3-4 and 6-7 rewards.

The problem here is that you cannot 'trip lock' a person.

This statement is completely accurate. If you need to prove it to the player, look at the FAQ post from 2010.

Two years ago Jim Groves, author of Hinojai, went through his thoughts/intent on the scenario and we debated whether he had the mechanics correct or not, but after this I modified the way I GM'd the haunts in this scenario so that the players could experience the important story elements they provided while still having a chance to counter the negative effect of the haunt.

If anyone is the group can see invisibility, then bags of powder work well.

If not, then even misses from bags of powder leave a film on the ground that will show footprints, to help with the aiming of the next bag.

So long as the invisible enemy isn't flying, use Create Water to form pools of water that will spread out, then look for the displaced footprints or the splashes and ripples as they move around.