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While reading the module, I was curious to find that the following was possible to do while playing Blood Pig at the behest of the Emporer:
1. provoke attacks of opportunity although no one is supposedly armed. Is it assumed that the guardsmen are armed when the game begins or do they have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat?
2. The guards, as part of their part of the game immediately commit a coup de grace on the pigs to keep them from wriggling. While the pigs are being held - are they considered to be helpless or pinned for some reason?
The game is interesting and I'd like to run it, but these questions will cause problems for my players.
Thanks for a great product and keep up the good work.
FW
I am going to say it is non lethal dm. They are trying to knock out the players not kill them. I also see the pigs as being pinned if you are holding it like a football so they take a whack at the pig knock it out and run with it.
Creative Director
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1: Although most folk are unarmed... that doesn't mean they HAVE to be unarmed. Anyone with a natural attack or Improved Unarmed Strike will be able to make those attacks of opportunity as they become available. Note that all of the Old Dock Captains (whose stats appear on page 22) who comprise the opposing team have Improved Unarmed Strike, so they'll be able to punch away with abandon.
2: In order to do a coup de grace, your target must be helpless. Pinning a foe doesn't make them helpless, so a thug who grabs a pig and pins it technically can't make a coup de grace attack. Instead, he'd just punch or crush it with his unarmed strike... the pig doesn't have THAT many hit points, after all. A coup de grace isn't exactly required to calm him down.
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Thank you Mr. Jacobs, That clears things up for me. I missed the IUS feat reference in the stat.
EDIT: After re-reading the rules/etc of Blood Pig on page 31 (under "Picking Up the Pig" it mentions that the Emporer's men "Spends the next round delivering a coup de grace attack against the pig". I was just wanting to be clear that I wasn't totally mis-reading things.
:^D
FW
EDIT: After re-reading the rules/etc of Blood Pig on page 31 (under "Picking Up the Pig" it mentions that the Emporer's men "Spends the next round delivering a coup de grace attack against the pig". I was just wanting to be clear that I wasn't totally mis-reading things.
There's a whole thread on this board dedicated to the notion that NPCs don't have to strictly adhere to the "coup de grace" rules if the end result looks cool (like coldcocking a squealing pig, f'rinstance).
;-)
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Creative Director
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Thank you Mr. Jacobs, That clears things up for me. I missed the IUS feat reference in the stat.
EDIT: After re-reading the rules/etc of Blood Pig on page 31 (under "Picking Up the Pig" it mentions that the Emporer's men "Spends the next round delivering a coup de grace attack against the pig". I was just wanting to be clear that I wasn't totally mis-reading things.
:^D
FW
Nope! That was us being a little fast and loose with the words. What we should have said was "Spends the next round killing the pig" basically. One of the trickier parts about editing content for RPGs is that a lot of words and phrases that would work fine otherwise don't work in the context of the game itself. Coup de grace is a great example; in the game, it refers to a VERY SPECIFIC action, and as such we shouldn't use it as a general term, since it causes confusion like this.
More Blood Pig questions:
#1: Players start in C4D and their pit is C4F. That puts their area and the pit next to each other. If the pig comes up on that side, they get it and immediately toss it in the pit. I assume they are supposed to get the pig in the pit OPPOSITE where they start?
#2: Assuming the participants stay unarmed, not a lot of PCs have unarmed strike so they get no attacks of opportunity. The Shinglesnipes can get a pig and likely run right past all of the PCs to the pit since they have no AoO. PCs would have to Ready to try and stop someone. On top of that, all of the Shinglesnipes have Improved Unarmed so they DO get AoO. Sounds like that would really play out unbalanced. Should everyone be allowed to make AoOs during Blood Pig?
#3: The Shinglesnipes all have 2d6 Sneak Attack. You can Sneak Attack, with flank, with an unarmed strike can't you? Sounds like the PCs are going to get beat up quickly?
#4: Do the players go back to their starting position after scoring or is a new pig just immediately sent up?
#5: If my players refuse to play this cool game, am I justified in killing them all?
My responses are just my opinions on the matter, but for what they're worth:
#1: Players start in C4D and their pit is C4F. That puts their area and the pit next to each other. If the pig comes up on that side, they get it and immediately toss it in the pit. I assume they are supposed to get the pig in the pit OPPOSITE where they start?
Each time has to go to the opposite side in order to score.
#2: Assuming the participants stay unarmed, not a lot of PCs have unarmed strike so they get no attacks of opportunity. The Shinglesnipes can get a pig and likely run right past all of the PCs to the pit since they have no AoO. PCs would have to Ready to try and stop someone. On top of that, all of the Shinglesnipes have Improved Unarmed so they DO get AoO. Sounds like that would really play out unbalanced. Should everyone be allowed to make AoOs during Blood Pig?
I think it would be quite reasonable to allow AoOs (to deal nonlethal damage only) during the game, as long as your players are okay with it.
#3: The Shinglesnipes all have 2d6 Sneak Attack. You can Sneak Attack, with flank, with an unarmed strike can't you? Sounds like the PCs are going to get beat up quickly?
I think you're right on this but hopefully someone else can respond with more confidence.
#4: Do the players go back to their starting position after scoring or is a new pig just immediately sent up?
I think it plays more smoothly if you send everyone back to their starting positions. On the other hand, both teams will be gathered near the scoring team's goal so the other team would have the advantage if it's immediate.
#5: If my players refuse to play this cool game, am I justified in killing them all?
Kill all the PCs, possibly. Kill all the players???
My responses are just my opinions on the matter, but for what they're worth:
#5: If my players refuse to play this cool game, am I justified in killing them all?Kill all the PCs, possibly. Kill all the players???
Hoorah!
Very good advice Cintra - the death of your players could impact upon their likely success in the adventure and may prevent them from playing in the next one I write, which may also have some coolness.
Slithers off...
...and I say may purely to say so before Vaughn does...
sorry, Vaughan:)
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Creative Director
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Blood Pig isn't supposed to be fair, or even all that well thought out; it was created by a lunatic, after all! Cintra's correct on her responses above, in any event; here's some more clarifications:
#1: Players start in C4D and their pit is C4F. That puts their area and the pit next to each other. If the pig comes up on that side, they get it and immediately toss it in the pit. I assume they are supposed to get the pig in the pit OPPOSITE where they start?
Yeah; the basic idea is that you have to move a pig from one side of the field to the other to score.
#2: Assuming the participants stay unarmed, not a lot of PCs have unarmed strike so they get no attacks of opportunity. The Shinglesnipes can get a pig and likely run right past all of the PCs to the pit since they have no AoO. PCs would have to Ready to try and stop someone. On top of that, all of the Shinglesnipes have Improved Unarmed so they DO get AoO. Sounds like that would really play out unbalanced. Should everyone be allowed to make AoOs during Blood Pig?
This combat is very much intended to award PCs like monks, or PCs who have improved unarmed strike or natural attacks. That DOES mean that PCs will need to do a lot of ready actions, or take the offensive and actually try to intercept enemy pig carriers. That's what kind of makes it hard and an unusual but worthwhile encounter for high level PCs. And even though they are supposed to stay unarmed, the rules don't REALLY change if a rogue uses sleight of hand to hide a dagger, or if a cleric fires off a few inflict wounds spells... it's not cheating if you don't get caught, after all!
#3: The Shinglesnipes all have 2d6 Sneak Attack. You can Sneak Attack, with flank, with an unarmed strike can't you? Sounds like the PCs are going to get beat up quickly?
Yes; if the PCs get surrounded by Shinglesnipes, they'll get hit with lots of sneak attacks. PCs should avoid being surrounded.
#4: Do the players go back to their starting position after scoring or is a new pig just immediately sent up?
I believe that the pig pops up immediately. Makes for a more chaotic game that can be abused by cheaty or suspect tactics, and keeps the whole game going fast without pauses to regroup.
#5: If my players refuse to play this cool game, am I justified in killing them all?
HA! Yeah... keep in mind the difference between player and character! :)
If they DO refuse to play the game, they'll just have to resort to other methods to get to their goal, be that stealth or combat or magic or whatever.
I think a sentence with two repeating words in it is poor, gramatically.
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Blood Pig isn't supposed to be fair, or even all that well thought out; it was created by a lunatic, after all!
Wonders how to take this...:)
Played this last week, my two cents:
1) Stopping the chaos after a score didn't seem right. I just stayed in initiative and threw a pig out at the top of the next round.
2) Starting the pig in a specific place after a score didn't seem right - it was too easy either way. I flipped a coin. If I had it to do over, I'd have the pig come up in the middle of the field after a score.
I wish I'd read this before running Blood Pig last night. I missed the part where the Old Dock Captains all had improved unarmed strike. But, the PCs had a hard enough time of it as it was.
I liked having the two teams regroup before the combat, back in their starting areas.
I actually accidentally had the goal be behind each team, but that didn't affect much, really.
The Shinglesnipes won the first two rounds, the PCs the second two, and that had taken long enough, so I just said that we jump forward in time to when the score is 4 to 4 and had one last round for all of the marbles.
The PCs did disable about half of the opponents by the end of the game, and because of my screw up with missing the improved unarmed strike, they didn't really take much damage. But, because they're not likely to accept the Emperor's offer of, "BEST TWO OUT OF THREE!" it's probably good, because between the Emperor, Jabbyr, and 16 more Old Dock Captains and a bunch more Old Dock Thugs... the party is going to have one heck of a fight on their hands. Fortunately they have Laori with them and there are 7 of them, to begin with.
The players LOVED Blood Pig. And they are suitably creeped out by Laori. This adventure is progressing excellently!
I have it set up so that Devargo Bavarsi has been in a gang war with the Emperor, and one of the PCs has ties to Bavarsi, so I think I'll use an idea someone else had posted on here to have it so Bavarsi had been betrayed by his Ettercap buddy, and when the PCs go to see him at Eel's End, they get a few more battles in. I'll have Pilts spout some bravado how "I am the Emperor of Old Korvosa, how dare you challenge my rule!" Someone is bound to bring up the Spider, and when that happens, Pilts will spill that he has taken down Bavarsi, setting his own spiders against him, which will give them a clue to go and try to save Devargo, and get some more experience before having to venture into the den of the Arkonas...
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I too enjoyed this game. Our party used shield bashes (knight with a heavy shield) and slam attacks (archivist had a construct graft that allowed a slam attack) to whittle the opposing team to a pasty goo. I think there was spiked armour involved too.
We only played one round (we won) and then ended the game with a really high diplomacy roll (this is embarrassing your men, your majesty).
Still, it was a lot of fun. Thanks for the great game!
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My party Loved this game, thank you to the creators and insane genius' who came up with it. By the way, my party suggested we try it with a bunch of Orc Barbarians and tinker with the rules for a fun diversion some time. Something about Blood Bowl was mentioned (Oh was that a cool game back in the day) Just wanted to say thanks though, this little 2 page thing alone was worth the price of the book.
My party Loved this game, thank you to the creators and insane genius' who came up with it. By the way, my party suggested we try it with a bunch of Orc Barbarians and tinker with the rules for a fun diversion some time. Something about Blood Bowl was mentioned (Oh was that a cool game back in the day) Just wanted to say thanks though, this little 2 page thing alone was worth the price of the book.
Ah, now I'm going to be unbearable for the next few days, thank you.
I'm really pleased your players enjoyed the game, I had great fun writing it. The original idea came from a halfling villlage festival adventure I had in mind where the game would be the centre-piece of lots of eating, drinking and intrigue:) I've heard of blood bowl but never got to play it, although it sounds like I may enjoy it.
Hopefully you and your players will enjoy the Sixfold Trial which is the next adventure I've been lucky enough to write for Paizo. I'm rather pleased with it, so please check it out if you can, I think you'll enjoy it.
Rich
I just finished this encounter with my players, and unfortunately they are all a bunch of dirty, rotten cheaters. They spent about 5 minutes whining about how they were 2 players down, then about how small characters and min/maxed wizards are useless.
Then they realized there were no rules about physical violence.
2 points were eventually scored before they incapacitated every single one of the Shinglesnipes. Still, I think they had fun punching out the thugs.
I'm probably still going to have him shout "BEST TWO OF THREE!" even though the Shinglesnipes are in no condition to play. Just to emphasize how crazy he is.
- Lesser Geas only affects up to 7HD. Pilts is 10.
- Even without the level-limit, Pilts is a Bard, so he has good will saves. I'm playing Beta, so he gets another +4 from Well-Versed.
- Lesser Geas is a full-round casting time, so Pilts's guards can try to interrupt, but more importantly Pilts can start in with a Countersong, just in case he fails his +11 Will save.
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Am I the only one who feels bad for the poor imaginary pigs?
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I will probably play the game in our next session and I decided to custom the Shinglesnipes team. Did someone do this change too ?
here is my team:
Gore and Gree Bognov. Dwarves (ft2/rog3) blockers who resist bull rush and overrun
John half. (urban barbarian 4) Middle field. He is an half ettin with a signle head but an half mind. He is considered as a Large npc for the CMB and CMD . In the match, he will sometime try to grab the pig'holder in order to drop him/her in the pit. (Int check to release her if she had drop the pig)
Jojo the sardine, human (rog5) runner. high dex, acrobtic
One-eyed Henry (he had the lost eye regenerated, but kept his street name) human (fgt 4), middle field. unarmed strike and as many Aoo as possible.
The girl Bertha . Human female. runner (ranger 2/rog 3)
Reef Claw, (ft2/rog3) human. middle field. SoB. he is here to inflict pain and drop down the other team's members (especialy if the opponant is alone and far away from the pig)
they seems strong but I have six high powered PC to manage.
I realy hope they will accept the game :)