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WA, Seattle - Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Box and Beyond!

I hope I put this is the right place. If not, Mods, feel free to move it.

Looking for 4-6 players to help me try out the Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Box near Seattle (East side).

I will GM and would like to run the adventure several times with different people. Right now I would like to run it at my home (or someone else's) but I could be persuaded to run at a local game store if that makes anyone uncomfortable.

It will likely be a once or twice thing as the adventure in the box isn't that long.

The end goal is to find a group of fun people to play the full game with on a regular basis (2/month).

As I am woefully out-of-date on my GM skills, there will be some learning/relearning on both sides of the Gm screen.

Who I am looking for:

1. Someone who likes fun and doesn't take the rules too seriously. Knowing the rules is awesome, but I don't want to bog the game down for more than a few minutes looking something up or arguing about something. That being said, I will follow the rules to the best of my abilities, unless I have a strong reason not to. Since we are all learning the rules, this is more for the actual campaign if it grows into that).

2. Someone who lives near Seattle and could get over to the East side of the lake. (Bothell, Redmond, Kenmore, Kirkland)

3. Someone who is a team-player and wants to help be sure everyone has fun, instead of only one person.

4. Someone who likes or thinks they might like to try role-playing. You can be experienced or a total newbie. We will learn the system together, as designed, by playing the beginner box.

5. A mature player. While I would consider someone younger if they are relatively mature and fun (or come as a package deal with someone else), I am not looking to run a kid's table. You should be able to carve out a chunk of 4 to 6+ hours, including staying up until at least 10 PM. (Or later if not playing on a "school night"). Also, you should be consistent and could regularly make the game. (If it grows into a full campaign later). Flakes are no fun.

If this sounds interesting to you or anyone you know, please respond here or pm me to get added to my list of potential players. Adding a bit of info about yourself would be great as well so I have some sense of who and what is coming to the table.

I would think a big scary fighter would definitely have an inmate way to burrow. Just hand said inmate a shovel and tell him to get to work! :P

Seriously tho, isn't that why you adventure with a party? It's not meant to be a one-man show. If it were, there are some magic items that excavate, are there not?

I would love to have some sort of GM Ratings/feedback system. Most of them are fantastic and should be applauded, but there are a few who can really ruin it for everyone. ESPECIALLY in a public game where you want to encourage new players to keep coming back.

Everyone already has their PFS games recorded on Paizo.com, so it wouldn't be too hard to add a link to said games in the player profile. This link would go to a simple rating system where the player rates the GMs on several categories (Think Ebay buyer/seller feedback) with 1-5 stars per category and an option to put in some additional feedback. In the game itself, the Gm could hand out a generic slip of paper with a link to the paizo website and the feedback system. This would be for newbies or players who don't know about the website.

I don't think GM feedback should be public, but it should be viewable by the player, Paizo staff, Venture captains, and the Gm in question. You don't want everyone knowing what was said, but I do think it is important for Gms to know (praised/scolded in private)and for Paizo and organizers to know. It's also important for the GM to understand what his players think about him. It might help him tailor his style or point out things that he did not realize were having a negative effect on players. Nobody wants to be a bad GM and everyone has room for improvement.

In my experience 1 out of 6 or so Gms make me almost not want to come back. It's these guys who might need additional help towards becoming the best GM they can be, because we want everyone coming back.

Charming, Eastern Mysteries, Honeyed Words?

Our group has a house rule to accommodate players who miss sessions.

1. The player gains XP to keep u p with the group.
2. The player does not gain any money or loot, since he was not there to share in the finding.
3. The player can email or have a chat with the GM outside of the game and explain what his character was doing in the meantime while the rest of the group was off adventuring. If the Dm feels this is sufficient he can award the same money/loot as everyone else got.

We really like how this works out. Sometimes life gets in the way of gaming. That is how it goes. Punishing people for not being there seems like the wrong way to do things. This way people stay on tier with the group and don't drag them down with having to be protected all the time. It also encourages the player who missed out to put forth effort to make up the lost money/loot.

Congratulations Mike! It's been awesome reading through this adventure and I look forward to seeing it again in print some day!

I try to make sure players don't die for arbitrary reasons, but occasionally that 28 point crit is going to land on a 1st level character. I have GM'd enough games to be closing in on that 2nd star, and I've killed 4 players. All of them were in situations where the dice gods landed badly and ended up annihilating the character before I could do anything as a GM to make sure they lived.

This is exactly my point. YOU are the Gm. YOU make the rules of the world. YOU always have the power to overrule the dice or scenario. The dice are there to add an element of surprise and randomness to the game. You are there to orchestrate a grand adventure and help your players have fun. Saying that a GM couldn't do anything because the dice were rolled or the Rules as written forced your hand is a cop-out IMHO. (No offense intended). You could have just as easily said that the player takes a massive hit and is at -9 but stable and moved on. You did not HAVE to kill the player. You never HAVE to kill a player. It's your JOB to keep things fun and fair, not to sit there and throw up your hands and say sorry, the dice rolled it, you are dead. Again, just my opinion from all my years of running games and trying to keep players interested in coming back for more.

Yes, adventuring is dangerous, but I think you are missing my point here. It was asked what I would like to see be done better for PFS. Do what you want in home games or campaigns. In PFS specifically, I want to see less player deaths and permanent less loss of time and effort. I want to see players flock TO PFS tables, not be afraid to play in them because they might lose everything from some random dice roll or GM who was a rules lawyer.

Ok, I don't want to derail this topic too much with all this. (Sorry OP) Any opinions on the positive stuff I'd like to see, or any more positive things YOU all would like to see?

Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful response jiggy! ;)

Todd, If the GM is encouraged to promote fun over RAW, and is allowed to do some hand waving, then the designers of the scenarios can still make them how they want them to. It doesn't have to be a cakewalk. They can still be dangerous and tense, but the Gm has the power to prevent player death. The Gm can always make it more of a challenge as well if need be, but the goal should be to make it a challenge, not to kill players.

For the record I don't mind player deaths as long as they are fair. Players do stupid things and make choices that sometimes seem to dare the Gm to kill them. Fine, no problem. However, when the player has no chance of surviving, acting, responding, or preparing for the death in any way it feels cheap and unfair.

And like I said, personally I'd rather it be a little easier and feel like a hero than feel cheated. In this case it was my highest level PFS character. I barely had enough resources to not be permanently killed. Had I been perma killed I would not have been able to play with my normal group (since they'd be 3-4 levels above my other characters) and would probably not have played PFS again. Attrition in a group eventually means everyone is at different levels and nobody gets to play.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some people only get to play once a week or once a month. For them to lose a character they have spent months/years building up is a HUGE loss. Gamers who play several times a week usually have lots of backups so naturally it isn;t as big a deal for them to lose one.

Player death during a scenario and sitting there doing nothing is enough of a penalty in my opinion. Perma-killing characters and throwing away a significant number of real-world hours building up the character is not cool and too severe a penalty IMHO.

These are all my own opinions. Feel free to agree/disagree as you will. It's only one viewpoint of many :)

1. Loot on the chronicle sheet that is unique or actually worth purchasing. I don't even bother looking at the loot tables anymore because it is all the standard stuff that I can already purchase. "Wow, another +1 longsword... boring." Things like wands that have less charges than normal are awesome. Unique and possibly named things like Skywalker +1 longsword with a side effect of giving the player +2 to the fly skill (or another skill), or +1 damage when flanking or other minor bonuses would be awesome. I'd be much more inclined to purchase something if it was unique or different than the norm, and I would proudly use it in future adventures, remembering where I got it.

2. Regular magical loot on the chronicle sheet that was cheaper than the normal. Even a 10-20% discount would make me consider buying things I find on an adventure rather than just buying normal stuff. "I don't really need this decanter of endless water but it is 20% off... Ok, why not?"

3. Consumable loot during an adventure that we can use DURING an adventure. When I first started PFS one of my favorite things about it was finding potions and other consumables that I had never tried before in the middle of a mission. Then you got to try them out during an adventure to see if you wanted to buy them later on. It seems like the last 5-10 missions I have played in have had NOTHING at all to find and use during the adventure. It makes me sad to see writers ignoring this fun element of the PFS system. It would be especially fun if some of these items were hidden in secret caches that had to be specifically looked for and found, rather than all on dead body loot.

4. Something to do for the rest of the adventure when your character dies, rather than just walk away from the table. Let them be a spirit that can still communicate with the party (at the very least) but can't affect anything else. I also recently saw a "left for dead" or similar named ability in a prestige class that made it so that you don't die, but instead are left at -1 HP and wake up a minute later. Personally, I think this should be a once per scenario ability for ANYONE playing PFS. They say they want everyone to play, but they don;t encourage it very well. Sitting there doing nothing is not fun AT ALL.

Context: Last week, I played a 6 hour pickup PFS game at my local game store. I've never played with them before as I usually play in a regular home group. My character was lvl 6 playing in a tier 8-9. It was that or don't play at all. Anyhow, my character and a lvl 9 wizard insta-died on the second round of a flame oracle's firestorm attack guarding sticks (trying not to spoil anything here). There really was no way not for me to have died based on the average hp damage per round (I am VERY bitter at the Gm for not warning me that I could not survive ahead of time, or for not telling me that I could play a pregen and save my character, but that is besides the point). So anyhow, I played for about an hour before I died and then spent the next 5 HOURS on a Friday night sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the group barely managed to complete the adventure (aside from the other 2 that were killed). I couldn't help them solve any of the puzzles or influence the group in any way. This was NOT FUN and a huge waste of 5 HOURS of my life. I did not walk away from the table and my "new group" but I had considered it.

5. Make more scenarios where the players have a chance at getting the drop on enemies, or at least buff up ahead of time. It seems like I am always cresting a sand dune or walking into a room and finding the critters on the other side instantly aware of me and running towards me. Realistically, with perception I might have heard the critters before i crested the dune or had some way to make it a fair exchange for who sees who first.

6. Make venture Captains in the adventures be cordial and happy to have your party there to help them. Perhaps it is the GMs but it seems like every venture captain we meet in game is an impatient jerk so sees us as peons to do his bidding, and barely has the time to look at us. The society should be about brotherhood and common good, not jerks. (That's the other side).

7. I know this will draw a lot of ire, but I HONESTLY believe it would be a good idea for PFS in general to give a negative penalty to a GM who kills a player, and give huge penalties to GMS who have Total Party Wipes. I don't know what the penalties would be, but I have seen too many gm's in public venues who seem to take pleasure in killing players (sometimes even adding little flags to their GM screens as trophies for player deaths), and even celebrate it and boast about their player deaths to other GMs. I've even seen official Paizo employees do it at PaizoCon. They should be sad when a player dies, because the players put a LOT of real-world time into their characters and are there to have fun. Gm's should be trying to encourage players to have fun, not trying to kill them.

If you want PFS to flourish you need to give GMs the ability to do a little hand waving and bend the rules rather than follow them to the letter and kill players. In the example of the pickup game above, the GM and his fellow gms seemed pretty proud of killing all those players and played the RAW with no hand waving or consideration for their players "fun". Out of 4 tables there was a total party wipe (of lvl 2-3 characters who are permanently dead), my table lost 3 of 5 characters, and each of the other tables lost at least 1 if not 2 players. That is a HUGE ratio of deaths to players, and that is NOT the way to encourage players to play PFS.

I know I certainly will never go back to that venue for a random pickup game, and I would be very hesitant to ever play a pickup game at a local game store again with Gms I don't know. (And I am a very experienced pen & paper gamer). Want to scare everyone off and shrink your player base drastically? Continue to encourage Gms to kill players, or don't look for ways to discourage them from doing so and you will see this happen.

I understand the RAW guys, but it's no fun to have a character die. And I'm sorry, but I see the role of a PFS GM as someone who should be building the player base (a promoter) and making sure that anyone who sits at his table has fun (try your damnedest NOT to kill players). Whether the GM has fun is not really relevant. (And yes, I've been a Gm many times before in many other games). I'd REALLY like to see PFS take an official stance for their GMs to encourage Fun over RAW.

8. I briefly touch on this above, but either reduce cost for raise dead (drastically) or give every player a chance to not die when they normally would. The lvl 2 party wipe I mention above is 5 characters who are permanently dead. Being only lvl 2 they have neither the money nor the PA to get a raise dead. All the time they spent making those characters, not to mention playing 4-6 hours per session over a minimum of 15 hours playtime, are just GONE. One random game they played in to have "fun" and their characters are GONE forever. This gets progressively worse as you level up with average 15+ hours per level. Especially low level characters, but all characters, need ways to not be permanently killed.

9. Don't optimize every enemy in an encounter and don't make the difficulty so high in general. If every group consisted of players who have optimized their characters then this would be a fair deal for enemies to be optimized. Remember, however, that more often than not you will have more than half of any party with non-optimized characters. This applies to newbies or RPers, and others who just want to do something interesting. A non-optimized group facing an overly difficult scenario is not fun for anyone. We play games to have fun. We play PFS not to get our teeth kicked in, but to have fun.

I know many will disagree with me on this, but I'd rather have a slightly easier time and feel like a hero than have a total party wipe from a seemingly no-win scenario and feel like a chump. I understand that some optimized groups like a strong challenge, but these adventures should not be the norm for PFS and should be called out as challenges (with copious warnings from the GM) before players try to take them on.

10. Raise the CL of anyone doing Spell Casting services to the bare minimum of the party's level. As an example from above, on the mission where I died some of the party members contracted a very nasty curse/disease combo. When the party wanted to try and cure it after the adventure, the GM used the min caster level to cast those spells. The caster who was paid failed once or twice before succeeding (wasting money and adding insult to injury). It is ridiculous that a venture captain in the game would have sent out a lvl 6 cleric to heal and remove disease/curses from a party of lvl 8-9's. At the very least it should have been a cleric of 8-9 if not higher considering that this is what they do as a job.

11. When the adventure is "over", have the Gms let the adventure be over. In the scenario I mention above (is it becoming clear how NOT FUN it was?) We had finished the adventure out in the deserts several days away from the nearest town. We had killed all the bosses and beasties, gotten the treasure, and finished all our faction missions. One of the 2 surviving characters had the nasty curse/disease combo. Rather than just declaring the scenario "over", allow the character to survive, and pay the costs to rid himself of it, the Gm forced him to roll for each day on the way back to the rescuers coming to heal us. He had 1 con left at the end, if I recall correctly. Had the dice been one point worse his character would have been killed, and his body would have been disintegrated, making the penalties for dying WAY more severe. This was totally uncalled for IMHO. You could argue that the gm was doing RAW, but it seemed like he just wanted to kill another player. It would have been nice if he were able to call it "over" and let the character live rather than fight to survive after the game.

One of the Paizo designers basically said that it was theoretically possible to come up with an advanced tool kit for every skill. I'd like to see all of those.

I'd also like to see a better version of masterwork tools. (even magically enhanced if need be)

Specific armor and equipment for mounts, animal companions, and familiars. These could enhance their combat abilities or skills in minor ways. Cool saddles, metal claws, barbed horseshoes, etc.

There was a weapon type from a homebrew Darksun game I played in that the Dm called brutal. Not sure if it is elsewhere. Basically, it let you reroll low numbers from the damage die, depending on the size of the weapon. One handed/ranged were brutal 1/2, and two handed were brutal 2/3. Or something like that. So for a two handed weapon if you rolled a 2 or a 3 on any damage die you could reroll all those dice again until you got a number higher than 2/3. It was awesome because nobody like rolling 1's for damage. If I recall correctly, the weapons also had a high chance of being damage or breaking (made of obsidian or something. Anyhow, I'd love to see these in some fashion.

Polished mirror armor/weapons that minorly distract enemies in combat (light reflects into their eyes).

More weapons with trip, and make the trip ones usuable with all those trip feats that currently can only be used on whips.

Animal Skull helmets or other worn things that give you bonuses to intimidation and other social skills. (Different from masterwork tools above).

I would also REALLY like to see more Handle Animal combat animals that you can purchase like the combat riding dog, but with higher stats. Not familiars, companions, or mounts, but rather something anyone with handle animal can purchase and bring with them. Dinos and others!

On that line of thinking, more mount options for paladins, cavaliers, and anyone who rides a mount. This is a fantasy game, let's live it up!

"Down in a hole, losin' control" Alice In Chains Down In A Hole Lyrics

- Low level/budget magic items; things that you can buy when you are levels 1-5. Many could be once-per day items, very situational (only in direct sunlight, for example) or super weak in terms of power. These minor things give the low level characters something fun to buy, and would be great to see in PFS chronicle loot sheets. There are a great series of books called Loot for Less that gives some great ideas in this regard.

- Low level/budget mystery potions; failed experiments or concoctions that didn't quite work right, so the owners pawn them off cheap. (The blue fizzy one, the red sparkly one, the yellow thick one, etc.) Make several varieties that you can buy for cheap, each with their own d6 table of possible effects, rolled when drunk. Drink at your own risk. These would be especially fun during PFS missions.

- Magic and mundane items for pets/eidolons/summons/mounts/etc.

- Once per day/week infinite reusable scrolls. I think Eberron had these and they were awesome.

- More items that modify skills. +5 to more skills if you have this item or are using/wearing it.

- Something like a Pearl of Power for spontaneous casters. Perhaps allowing an unknown spell once per day.

- Items that work with class special abilities. Wizards have focus items giving them extra spells, so it makes sense that oracles and other classes would have figured out how to get a few extra class powers/day into items.

- Trade-off items. Gain something new and a bonus to this in trade for losing this or taking a penalty to this. (-1 will saves to gain +1 CL for saves against your spells, etc.)

some hilariously bad understanding of physics and statistics ITT.

a dice roll is completely random. there is no such thing as a "bad dice roller".

Actually, this is not entirely true. There are many factors that can affect the outcome of dice rolls in subtle ways, and over time tend to skew the outcome of rolls. Imperfections in dice, edges that are not perfectly cut (like most dice that are tumbled in production), the way you hold or throw the dice, slight weight balance issues, etc.

I am by no means an expert, but what I saw in these GameScience videos was pretty eye-opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxmkWrDbn34&feature=related

I tend to be a bad dice roller and I have a friend who tends to be a good dice roller (better than average). We kept track of all of our rolls over the course of 5 games and more often than not, I rolled poorly and he rolled well. We did not count what the check was for, but did take note of the die rolled (d4, d20, etc.) and the result compared to the average roll (if we had rolled the middle number on the die (3 on a d6, 10 on a 20, etc.). We then switched dice, and the results were pretty similar (I still rolled poorly).

I understand that theoretically, with perfectly cut dice the outcome should be random, but I still feel that there is something to the lucky/unlucky rolling.

As for the OP, I quite enjoy the dual-cursed oracle. It grants/forces myself and any other thing (animals, other pcs, enemies) a reroll once per game day with the misfortune revelation. This can make a huge difference when you or a friend fails a crucial roll, or when the enemy is about to crit you or makes an important save. MISFORTUNE and roll it again. Eternal hope racial variant for gnome is also helpful, it gives a single d20 reroll onec per gaming day. you could also buy a faction shirt, which gives you another d20 reroll per session.

So was this ever errata'ed and where can I find it? I looked all over the website with no luck. (Probabaly just missed it)

After playing PFS for a while (several lvl 5 characters), I started thinking about the loot I find during the scenario. I LOVE that you can use them during the scenario (get a taste for free), and I like the idea that you can buy the items you find after the adventure.

Perhaps it is just the levels we are playing at. However, I am finding that in general most of the loot we find is what I would call secondary items. When it comes down to it, I'd probably never buy any of it and save my money buying the "must have" magic items.

Now this would be offset in that you can only buy stuff you find, but with all the faction points we have (at lvl 5-6) we can buy things up to 5k. So we can buy ANY of the stuff listed on the chronicle sheets anyways, without ever needing to find it on our sheet. So basically, I never buy anything from the sheets.

Here is what I am thinking. Feel free to tell me why it would be a bad idea, I haven't reached the upper tiers yet.

All the equipment you find on the chronicle loot sheet can be purchased for 75% base price. That way they seem more attractive (it's a deal) and you actually consider taking the risk on a secondary item. Realistically, if the party finds all that stuff and can't use it, they'd sell it all anyhow, but not in PFS. We already can't make our own items so I don't see why this would be a huge deal.

Here are some questions:

1. Does the end gold gained total already take into account the selling of all found items at 50% value? (potions and weapons)

2. If so, then isn't it weird that if you wanted to keep something you find, you have to pay full price for it, even tho you just sold a perfectly good one for only 50%?

So, what do you think? Awesome, broken, am I missing something important?

This is so awesome! Well done guys!

A few things.

1. I'd love to see a living-construct type so we can make warforged.
2. It seems like all the core races have 10 RP. Then you have the other special characters that were given out as PFS special prizes. Some of the "might" be future PFS legal player characters. While most of them are in the 10-14 range, some of these have significantly less than 10. For those poor ifrits, gripplis, orcs, etc it seems like you could add some things to get them up to around 10. You could have another category for adventurers or heroes that goes beyond the base racial stuff, and get them up to around 10. Now that we can see the rough power comparison, those weaker races would be a hard sell for player characters.

I have never used stealth much and am not too familiar with how it works currently, so take this with a grain of salt. When I have attempted it, I fail miserably because it is my single roll against everyone else who cares to roll perception. And, I move super slow so it takes me twice as long (or longer in rough terrain) to even reach my destination. And I have to roll against the others every round. This doesn't seem fair. It seems to me that if you put points into stealth, it should mean something.

The new proposed rules seem VERY CONFUSING. Perhaps it is the grammar or the structure of the rules, but I am having a hard time understanding the whole thing. Is there any way to simplify this? Other games have similar mechanics and it is way easier to understand.

Here are some suggestions, feel free to hate them or use them. If I am completely off my rocker and don't know what I am talking about, then feel free to disregard this.

1. Rather than everyone in the area getting their own roll to detect a stealthed person, have ONE person make the roll and anyone else merely try to aid that person. This makes it one roll against one roll (with possible aid).

2. Rather than make a stealth user do a check every round, allow them the option to do a full round action to move and keep their previous check. They can always reroll as normal using a move action. This lets them carefully maneuver to nearby the destination, but will require a final stealth roll before they go in for the kill/shot.

3. Allow party members with ranks in stealth (or with stealth as a class skill) to stealth themselves AND aid another by taking a penalty (-4?). You could even add a rogue talent to do this w no penalty. Right now, it is almost impossible to get a party to sneak up on anything. You always have the guy(s) who fail their stealth check and then the ones who are stealthed get screwed when it goes to the combat round. This way, the guys who are good at stealth can wrap the armored tank's feet or show them how to move without stepping on twigs, and so on. Alternately, make a feat that allows one ally per round to also use your stealth check roll, even if they have no ranks in stealth.

4. Stealth in rough terrain does not slow you down any more than normal. You are already being very careful and picking your steps, and nobody likes moving 5 ft/round. (It will only take me 14 round to reach the enemy).

1. I don't see any feats for extra ninja trick like there is one for extra rogue talent. Is this by design or will it come later?

2. Can a ninja take the extra rogue talent feat? Must he first take the ninja trick that gives him a rogue talent and THEN take it, or does that not count as a rogue talent class feature?

3. If I had a ninja with a -2 CHA bonus would I have 0 ki until 6th lvl or is it min 1 or min 0? Ninjas get 1/2 level + cha bonus for ki pool.

4. If said uncharismatic ninja took the extra ki feat how would his ki pool be calculated? Assuming lvl 2 ninja, would it be 1(half lvl) -2 (Cha) +2 (feat) = 1 total OR would it be 1(half lvl) -1 (Cha, min 0) +2 (feat) = 2 OR something else?

Thanks!