ahayford's page

Thank you for the suggestions!

****Possible Spoilers***

#1-06: Lost on the Spirit Road
-> This one was very railroady. I didn't really feel like we made any decisions the entire time. There may have been a spot where we could decide to attack or be diplomatic.

Intro #1: The Second Confirmation
-> This one had some interesting stuff, but also had some dungeon hazards that were kind of boring to deal with.

Intro #2: United in Purpose
-> I get wanting to introduce the factions, but I felt like the mini-mission approach just leads this one to be kind of a incoherent slog. I would change this one to maybe meet all the leaders at once, each one telling a little about themselves and maybe giving a separate mission in the same dungeon or something. Or just have a unique mission for each faction? I don't know.

#5-07: Sewer Dragon Crisis
-> This one was actually kinda cool. Thinking back on it I enjoyed this one.

Intro: Year of Unfettered Exploration
-> Probably the one I enjoyed the least. This one largely made no sense, and I still don't understand what we were doing in the garden, who the people were we met there, or what the riddle had to do with anything. Giving red herrings in a short play slot like this is horrible. I went back and read the module after playing and still don't think it makes a lot of sense. The module itself doesn't clarify what the riddle is suppose to be hinting at.

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-32: Acts of Association
-> This one just doesn't feel very heroic or adventurous. You are escorting a diplomat through absalom station. No real decisions or investigations. Fights were trivial. Possibly suffered from tier spread. (1s and 4s)

Starfinder Society Intro #1: The First Test
-> Hints at a larger mystery but doesn't really explain or answer anything. Heroes go to this planet, do stuff, and then I kept expecting there to be more but there wasn't.

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-24: Siege of Enlightenment
-> Starts with a starship battle, which I was excited for, but it was kind of lame. Rest of the mission didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Starfinder Society Scenario #3-09: Frozen Ambitions: Freeing the Herd - This one was ok, but again, we didn't really make any decisions on our own. There was an investigation that I thought was interesting and we did have a little bit of freedom entering the lab. This one might have promise.

Largely it feels like all the dungeons are mostly straight shots or straight shots with dead ends. There are a lot of spots where I feel like the GMs, instead of asking "What do you do?" say "You can roll Diplomacy, Acrobatics for some reason, or Intimidation". I'm trying to balance my expectations with the limited time slot.

Maybe someone could suggest a module I should try and get a seat at that they enjoyed. When I was initially excited about DMing Society I looked at The Mosquito Witch and thought it read like a more open ended adventure that seemed like it would be fun to play.

I have recently stepped back into organized play after many years. I used to run a PFS1e game at my local workplace for myself and my co-workers. I always GM'd and we'd have a crew of rotating players. I have recently gotten really interested in PF2E and Starfinder after getting kind of tired of 5e. With the advent of VTT's and online play, I decided to come back to PFS and SFS as a player to get some play time under my belt to help me learn the rules. I'm not great at picking up rules myself and thought getting some playtime in would help boost my confidence and help me learn the rules. I went to a few discords and have played in about 6 PFS and 5 SFS games.

So far, the experience has been less than ideal. I really want to be diplomatic and kind, because GMing is hard and anyone that has the confidence to do so instantly gets my respect. I struggle myself with social anxiety issues and self confidence problems that can make the anticipation of an upcoming session difficult. However, all the games I've played in seem to take the same general formula.

1) Players introduce their characters, maybe do a little RP (cool).
2) Mission intro with story NPC that tells us what we are going to be doing (a little slow getting started but cool)
3) Then GM just tells us what all the skills we can use are and asks for rolls. There is typically very little player agency here, just DM asking for rolls. (not super interesting)
4) Mission starts, very railroady...not in the sense that there is a given plot to follow, but just very little openings for ways to do things.
5) Combats are stupid easy and barely worth even playing. Party frequently takes no damage or very little. A lot of time is burned on combats where the outcome is pretty much known from the outset.

I can get behind the idea of the scenario and playing within the restrictions of a pickup game/time limit. However, the whole experience has been largely unsatisfying to me. GM typically whisks us away to each point, with very little options for what/how to do things, and things that could be interesting, just seem to devolve into a series of rolls where the DM tells us what we can use rather then people coming up with creative ideas or solutions. Almost no roleplaying, or if there is it tends to be from gimmick characters that play the same joke over and over.

Now, I am no expert or amazing DM, but I just haven't been enjoying myself as much as I'd hoped to. Maybe its just PF2E and Starfinder are a bit more rules heavy than I'm used to and the Society encourages rigid adherence to the rules. Maybe I've just been in games with less experienced GMs or have played modules that aren't the greatest. I don't know.

In contrast, I recently played in a short playtest for a module being written for another system. There was no pretext that our characters would have any use after the adventure we were running. The session lasted 4hrs, about the same length as a PFS/SFS game, and I had a blast. The session as a basic, go find the dungeon, do a short crawl, defeat a boss...but it didn't feel like we were just picking from a rigid set of available options like my SFS/PFS scenarios have felt.

Is some of this because of people replaying scenarios just to level up?
Is some of this because of GMs trying to make sure players get all the rewards from a scenario?
Are the play tiers where tier 4's play with 1's at low tier trivializing the game?

Should I keep trying? Should I try and GM? Is PFS/SFS just not to my liking or have other people had different experiences?

Please, I really don't want to offend anyone and am asking this with the utmost sincerity.

New Store! Thank goodness. I've always found the existing store to be functional, but a little janky at the best of times.

I would love to see something truely underwater themed. I'm not talking about land walking ancestories visiting the underwater world of Golarion, but a push to have more aquatic ancestories and a story completely built around the world that exists below the waves. I've always been fascinated by the ocean and creatures in it, and would love a fantasy take on this. I recently saw the mermaid crewmember for howl of the wild in her little land legs wheel chair and thought it was a shame that we don't have stories about a full aquatic adventuring party doing their thing under the sea. Maybe a few more ancestories to improve the diversity of characters and I think you could do something really cool. I think its an underserved niche.

If I was your gm...I would make the unfortunate victim die...but come back later as some kind of slime humanoid hybrid like a mudman or something...but with acid powers. Maybe as a recurring villain.

I think, there is an emphasis to allow alternative solutions to encounters that don't involve combat/etc...and GMs have more leeway than I think a lot of them tend to think they do....at least based on some of the "this awesome thing happened at my PFS game today" threads I've read.

However, I have had situations, as a GM, where I would just hand wave and move on if it were a home game...where I have felt compelled to waste time looking up the real rules because its PFS...potentially to the detriment of the immediate needs of the game.

And things like rogues wanting to steal etc which kind of falls outside the bounds of the wealth limits placed on the scenarios...

Or trying to integrate new level 1 players into an existing PFS legal group...

If your objective at a con is to play a lot of PFS games to level your character, I can understand a player choosing to run PFS Scenarios over non-chronicled content. I think you'd get a lot fewer people attending cons just for "Paizo" if PFS didn't exist at all. People's free time, particularly time at a con, is precious.

Now, if you were to talk to that person outside of the con environment, I bet they'd be more open to non-organized play...assuming they had time to dedicate both to PFS and an open play (sometimes we have to make tough choices, particularly as we age).

Personally, I find the 4 hour scenario model awesome...both from a community aspect as well as, "fits my style of play" point of view. Right now, I really don't have a lot of time to prepare as a GM. The 4 hours modules are just the right length for my group...and it allows me to swap people in and out relatively painlessly since they are very episodic in nature. I *love* PFS and Shadowrun Missions. Wish more RPGs embraced this type of content.

Eelario has the right of it. Give them a reserved ID number and write that down on your sheets. Or...if they can't be trusted to bring that card back, just keep it yourself and write their name on it....use the number for your records.

Its the completionist OCD mindset. A lot of gamers have it :)

Hi guys,

I'm planning on running Murder's Mark next week to help a couple guys catch up to the rest of my PFS group. I'm planning on running over two evenings and I was wondering what the procedure is for reporting multi-session events on the web page is. I currently have two events scheduled...but not sure how I should report it when its done. Should I just report only the final sessions and cancel the first one?

You could have the players be the clones all along! Dun dun daaaah. The real players are still trapped back at the Demon's base. Then have them come in conflict with their original selves. Do they sacrifice themselves to save the world? Do they kill of their real selves and take their place? Do they work with their real selves to turn the demon's plan against them?

Its a chestnut, but a good one.

Hi guys,

This is a bit of a spin-off thread from the "Future of 1-5 Scenarios" thread. I am not a heavy hitter organizer, or a long time GM. I run a small group of PFS for some folks at work, with my players all around level 3/4. The talk about what type of content to create for PFS is currently centered around the cold hard fact that the current number of scenarios isn't likely to change. In order for Paizo to get the biggest bang for their buck, as they are using a pretty significant amount of their bandwidth to make these scenarios, is to try and market these differently.

I know when I previously went looking for Pathfinder content, I pretty much ignored PFS scenarios because I didn't think they really fit my needs. However, I think if these scenarios were marketed as one-shots or side encounters, rather than "PFS Scenario #23", you might be able to get more people outside PFS interested in purchasing them. Set up a subscription for them just like any other Paizo product and really sell them up to the non-PFS crowd. To that End:

1) Continue to tie in with the Current AP. Maybe even have 2 short arcs a year, one dealing with each AP.

2) Tie in with other Paizo products like campaign materials and modules. Having a scenario that told a little side story in a published module, or that fleshed out a plot hook in the campaign material line would be cool. Or maybe one that featured a new character archtype as the villain.

Anyway, just some ideas to get more people interested in these as I find the format very useful for my group regardless of whether or not we ran it for actual PFS credit. Right now, they are currently kept kind of separate from all the rest of Paizo's content. Whether or not that is intentional I don't know.

I think...that maybe part of the problem with getting more scenarios is a matter of marketing. Rather than making and selling these as "Pathfinder Society Modules", why isn't paizo trying to sell these like every other product they make. They put so much effort into making a polished scenario...why not sell them as single shot encounters that are sanctioned for pfs. Get rid of the perception that these are for organized play only. Create a "one-shot" subscription like everything else but make them digital only. Get people other than pfs GMs interested in these and helping to fund them.

I have to second what Linda says. The secondary conditions should provide the same incentive to explore the entire dungeon.

Creative solutions are good to. I had a party that only survived because they had a member that was a bit of a drunk. She carried around 6 bottles of high proof whiskey they managed to turn into malatovs (I treated it as standard oil flasks) after they climbed up on some stuff. She was pretty angry about it, but it saved their asses. You will find though, after dealing with a swarm once, they will forever be prepared in the future :) I think putting in a single small swarm is a good warning for players.

I agree with the above poster. The "why are these elves so valuable" could be a real good source of interesting plot development. Maybe they could get more money ransoming the elves back to their homeland than selling to the contact in Kaer Maga....Maybe there is an alternative buyer in Kaer Maga willing to offer them more....maybe this angers the first buys...

Or maybe the classic bad "sale" scene in Temple of Doom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxHOCk7Fx2U

True enough....files would be bigger.

I just don't see that. The images in the PDFs are, on average, 32-72dpi once blown up to the standard 1inch grid required for gaming. I wouldn't think a 300dpi image is any harder to make than the shrunken down ones they have in the scenarios. In fact, I bet the source images they have are already way higher resolution than what they actually have in the pdf. Anyway...it wouldn't have to be higher resolution. Honestly though, I'd take the low res stuff if it was all chopped up ready to print.

And honestly, I would prefer if Paizo did provide real printable map-files for each scenario. I do not have time to do a ton a prep, but I have access to nice color printing on card stock. Nice, high resolution 1 inch grid printable files (on 8.5x11 or A4) would be kick ass.

Given how low resolution the map images are in the PFS scenarios, and the fact that Paizo does not provide map files that are printable w/o heavy modification in the scenarios themselves (scaling, adding grid-lines, stretching non square grids to be square) I had assumed putting printable versions of these files up would be ok....if it is not, I can pull them down....I just don't feel like its a problem if Paizo isn't themselves profiting from selling versions of these maps that can be actually used on the table w/ no changes. W/o the the scenario itself, the map files are useless.

The only reason for the player not to play the mission is if they wanted to run it with a different character. <shrug> If you feel the need, I might tell him, "This one doesn't have a lot of social, you can bring her, but if you wanted to bring in a baby whatever to try them out, you might have more fun"....and let them choose.

Speaking of Dark Fey....That is now my new AP wish.

Speaking of maps, I blew up and printed the map of the Opera house from "Among the Living" for last Monday's game. It was almost too big (I added a 1inch=5ft grid. We had to play on the floor because it would not fit on any of the tables. Sometimes, the economy solution is better....Although, admittedly, it was pretty cool.

I just want to clarify....I never intended to state that I found grapplers wrong/bad/fun....just that I wanted to know the best way to respond tactically to provide the best experience....I was woefully unprepared when this player brought it out and was just seeking ideas about how to respond.

I definitely use milestone based XP....Just bump people's levels when it is thematically appropriate. Have your absent player come back 2 levels higher after going on a little side story on his own.

Ah IC. Thank you for finding that. Good to know.

Are all the season 4 scenarios suppose to be on sale? Seems like only part of them are?

ahayford wrote:

Hey guys,

I run PFS for a small group of about 10 folks where I work. One of them playing a brawler with grapple...and he has a buddy that likes to cast vanish on him so he can sneak up on casters and ambush on them. Since many of the "final" battles have included a lot of 1 caster fights, the net effect is this largely trivializes these fights. Now, I fully support this use of combined tactics to take down something that would be harder to drop in a stand up fight....however, I would like to at least provide some level of challenge. My current thoughts on this are...

1) Research all my spells ahead of time better, so I know what I have that is vocal only.
2) If there are any mooks, they immediately go after the grappler since he is also -4 to his dex.

Still, I'm interested in what other people do to at least make things interesting with grapple specc'd players verse casters.

It ain't broke, so don't try to fix it.

You have a PC whose "plan A" is a tactic that's great against casters, kinda "meh" against martials, and pretty worthless against monsters/demons/etc. And even where it's great, he still needs help.

This isn't an issue that needs fixing, this is a case of "working as intended". He pays his dues whenever he faces a babau or a roc or anything incorporeal or a pair of bulettes or... you get the idea. The caster fights are his reward for suffering through those. Don't take that away.

Don't confuse "successfully overcoming" with "trivializing".

You bring up a good point. This same character tried to grapple a ghoul once....and have getting nearly nommed to death, and contracting ghoul fever....he stopped doing it to monsters. I think, at the very least, I will do more research to determine ahead of time what the caster could do if grappled...but otherwise let the tactic stand. My biggest problem has been, once grappled, I didn't know what I could have him do and be effective. (There isn't a whole lot if they have no mooks) But, I suppose that is the casters arrogance. The over-arrogant caster overcome by tricky adventurers is a pretty common trope.

I know you can cast while grappled...Making that check can be troublesome sometimes though....missing just 1 spell can frequently mean game over. I'm not saying I want to be able to overpower my players....just present a challenge or a bit of unexpected problems to deal with. They have used this trick 2 times now, and I can sense a pattern developing...

I just want to avoid this becoming an I win button. Its hard for casters to break free with their usually low CMD/CMB values.

Hey guys,

I run PFS for a small group of about 10 folks where I work. One of them playing a brawler with grapple...and he has a buddy that likes to cast vanish on him so he can sneak up on casters and ambush on them. Since many of the "final" battles have included a lot of 1 caster fights, the net effect is this largely trivializes these fights. Now, I fully support this use of combined tactics to take down something that would be harder to drop in a stand up fight....however, I would like to at least provide some level of challenge. My current thoughts on this are...

1) Research all my spells ahead of time better, so I know what I have that is vocal only.
2) If there are any mooks, they immediately go after the grappler since he is also -4 to his dex.

Still, I'm interested in what other people do to at least make things interesting with grapple specc'd players verse casters.

lol! That sounds ominous. I'll have to do some research about the complaints there.

I ran first steps for my group before they were retired luckily. I'll revisit my Season 3 layout if/when we get there....see if I can't get ruby phoenix in there.

Thank you for your suggetions! I will adjust some of my play orders to take it into consideration. If we TPK, we'll deal with it...all our plans ruined :)

We have a core of about 3-4 regular folks, and then 2-4 that swap in and out playing pregens here and there. We honestly don't mind playing the bad scenerios (although we might change our tune, as we have a long road ahead of us) We have a weekly game night where we get together and play. The one-shot nature of these modules makes them perfect for us as its frequently otherwise difficult for us to keep a coherent narrative together.

Hi guys,

The group I run PFS for, mostly friends from work, and I decided we'd like to run the scenarios by season for each character...to kind of experience them as they were originally released. No real reason other than we though it might be cool and we are all ridiculously OCD. At the end of each season, we'll let everyone roll up new level 1's so they can experience a new class. When we hit the level where their previous character left off, they can bring in the old one or keep the new....

To that end, I have devised the following progressions. This took a bit of effort in order to keep everything with-in a single season. Thus, I thought someone else might be interested in it. Let me know what you guys think. Yes I know its going to take us a looooong time to do this...but I was bored this afternoon and this problem tickled my brain.

The level next to the Scenario lists the level the players will be coming into the scenario. I'm not sure we'll ever do Eyes of the Ten, as my guys like lower level play...but we'll see.

Let me know what you guys think? Are there some other full modules I should try and work in rather than the ones I have listed here?

Season 0:
First Steps 1 1.0
First Steps 2 1.1
First Steps 3 1.2
Silent Tide 2.0
Mists of Mwangi 2.1
Frozen Fingers of Midnight 2.2
Perils of the Pirate Pact 3.0
Among the Living 3.1 <--- This Week
Decline of Glory 3.2
Prince of Augustana 4.0
Tide of Morning 4.1
Hydra's Fang Incident 4.2
Murder on the Silken Caravan 5.0
Black Waters 5.1
Slave Pits of Absalom 5.2
The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch 6.0
Our Lady of Silver 6.1
To Scale the Dragon 6.2
Fingerprints of the Fiend 7.0
Lost at Bitter End 7.1
Lyrics of Extinction 7.2
King Xeros of Old Azlant 8.0

Season 1:

MOD: We Be Goblins 1.0
The Devil We Know Part 1 1.1
The Devil we Know Part 2 1.2
The Devil We Know Part 3 2.0
The Devil We Know Part 4 2.1
Voice in the Void 2.2
The Beggar's Pearl 3.0
The Pallid Plague 3.1
Among the Dead 3.2
Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible 4.0
Delerium's Tangle 4.1
The Infernal Vault 4.2
The Citadel of Flame 5.0
Fortune's Blight 5.1
The Darkest Vengeance 5.2
City of Strangers 1 6.0
City of Strangers 2 6.1
Sniper in the Deap 6.2
Echoes of the Everwar 1 7.0
Echoes of the EVerwar 2 7.1
Echoes of the Everwar 3 7.2
Echoes of the Everwar 4 8.0
Drow of the Darklands Pyramid 8.1
Encounter at the Drowning 8.2
The Jester's Fraud 9.0
No Plunder, No Pay 9.1
Hall of Drunken Heroes 9.2
Mod: Curse of the Riven Sky 10
Mod: Ruby Pheonix Tournament 11
Eyes of the Ten 12

Season 2:

Mod: Crypt of the Everflame 1.0
Before the Dawn 1 2.0
Before the Dawn 2 2.1
The Penumbral Accords 2.2
Mod: Masks of the Living Gods 3.0
Shades of Ice 1 4.0
Shades of Ice 2 4.1
Shades of Ice 3 4.2
Murder on the Throaty Mermaid. 5.0
Mod: City of Golden Death 5.1
Shadow's Last Stand 1 6.1
Shadows Last Stand 2 6.2
The Dalsine Affair 7.0
Shadows Fall on Absalom 7.1
Fury of the Fiend 7.2
The Rebel's Ransom 8.0
You only Die Twice 8.1
The Sarkorian Prophecy 8.2
The Heresy of Man 1 9.0
The Heresy of Man 2 9.1
The Heresy of Man 3 9.2
Below the Silver Tarn 10.0
Chasm of Screams 10.1
The Flesh collector 10.2
The Forbidden Furnace of Forgotten Koor 11.00
Warth of the Accursed 11.1
The Mantis's Prey 11.2

Season 3:

Mod: The Godsmouth Heresy 1.0
The Frostfur Captives 2.0
Tide of Twilight 2.1
Echoes of the Overwatched 2.2
The Quest for Perfection 1 3.0
The Quest for Perfection 2 3.1
The Quest for Perfection 3 3.2
The God's Market Gamble 4.0
The Icebound Outpost 4.1
The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenmeant 4.2
The Goblinblood Dead 5.0
Mod: Carrior Hill 5.1
Sewer Dragons of Absalom 6.1
Song of the Sea Witch 6.2
Among the Gods 7.0
The Midnight Mauler 7.1
Storming the Diamond Gate 7.2
The Ghenett Manor Gauntlet 8.0
The Immortal Conundrum 8.1
Wonders in the Weave 1 8.2
Wonders in the Weave 2 9.0
The Haunting of Hinojai 9.1
The Golden Serpent 9.2
The Rats of Round Mountain 1 10.0
The Rats of Round Mountain 1 10.1
The Kortos Envoy 10.2
Red Harvest 11.0
Portal of the Sacred Rune 11.1

Season 4:

Rise of the Goblin Guild 1.0
Severing ties 1.1
The Disapeared 1.2
The Cyphermage Dilemma 2.0
The Veteran's Vault 2.1
The Night March of Kalkamedes 2.2
Mod: Feast of Ravenmoor 3.0
Mod: Fangwood Keep 4.0
Wrath's Shadow 5.0
The Sanos Abduction 5.1
The Blackros Matrimony 5.2
My Enemy's Enemy 6.0
Way of the Kirin 6.1
Rivalry's End 6.2
The GolemWorks Incident 7.0
The Green Market 7.1
Fortress of the Nail 7.2
Glories of the Past 1 8.0
Glories of the Past 2 8.1
Glories of the Past 3 8.2
The Fabric of Reality 9.0
Tower of the Ironwood Watch 9.1
King of the Storval Stairs 9.2
The Cultist's Kiss 10.0
Feat of the Sigils 10.1
The Refuge of Time 10.2
Words of the Ancients 11.0
The Waking Rune 11.1

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Measuring tape. Move people by inches instead of squares until they get close enough to interact.

most flip mat/ blank maps are 1 inch grid, so saying move an inch instead of squares is like saying don't eat an apple until you eat an apple.

I think he is assuming you don't have a surface with a grid on it already.

Depending on how tight you are...get a pack of graph paper and make some paper tokens. Work in a scale smaller than 1 inch.

This seems like a deficiency that could be fixed going forward yes? Is there any campaign reason we couldnt have a set of high level pregens?

If its just the fluff you object to, why make things so m ch more difficult for youtself, and just use gunslinger as is with xbows instead of guns. Make the class use special exotic crossbows with the same chances for failure as firearms...and special rare bolts to replace the expensive ammo....maybe alchemical in nature.

The idols have very little offensive capability. How did they put a fight? I did this on Tier 1....so maybe they are harder on the higher tier. I did not check.

So much hate for those scenarios :p. My group enjoyed the urban/dungeon/outdoor progression...but they are pretty green so maybe they just didn't know any better

I hear you :) I enjoy running larger campaigns. The reality of life is that one shot PFS scenerios are about what I can manage these days.

Part of saying you can DM a specific scenario, assumes you have access to it...IMHO. Unless you are told otherwise by the coordinator.

How about just give out less gold?

Is turning on your master and attacking it something a Charm Person (monster/animal/whatever) can do, even with an opposed Cha check? That sounds more like Dominate Person (animal/monster/whatever)territory.

Well, being magically influenced by the TikTan Idol isn't exactly the same thing as turning against the master that trained and fed you as a pup.

I missed the block that said the creatures are immune to charm....Oops....It kind of caught be by surprise...though it really shouldn't have. I did have the Druid do a charisma check and he rolled a nat 20.

How would you rule this?

5ft step can only be taken if you do no other type of movement. I believe standing up counts as movement.

Anyone who thinks this is ok or intended is looking for ways to break/beat the system. There is no way retraining was intended to allow characters that couldn't exist otherwise. Unlike some rules questions, this one seems pretty clear the intent. Most honest players/gms can easily come to the same conclusion.

They should be replacing the faction missions with secondary objectives...eventually...