Best classes, skills for factions

[Jason S]

Shurijo wrote:

Does this seem right?

We could try to answer the question, but the truth is the focus of the factions has shifted since the start of season 3.

For example, previous I felt that some of the factions were better for unskilled classes, because they had a lot of "fetch the McGuffin" type quests... that only required Perception, sometimes not even that. Now it seems like the missions are more demanding on skills.

Also, there's a fair amount of variability between scenarios.

Pretty much all factions need Diplomacy or Perception at some point or another. And in general I need to read more on how the new factions are handled in season 3.

Anyway, here's my best stab at it.

Andoran: Diplomacy / Bluff
Cheliax: Knowledge (planes) / Knowledge Arcana
Grand Lodge: Difficult missions, but limited skills.
Lantern Lodge: Varies but probably a lot of Diplomacy.
Osirion: Linguistics
Qadiran: Diplomacy / Appraise
Sczarni: Intimidate / Bluff
Shadow Lodge: Sense Motive
Silver Crusade: Heal
Taldoran: Varies

[james maissen]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Sometimes the BBEG's speech at the end has been building for 3+ hours and it can be extremely anti-climatic if they don't get it out. Often this means I will evoke GM prerogative to launch the soliloquy regardless of actions. Call it a time out. Then progress as normal without negatively impacting the player's actions.

If the speech is that important, a better situation is to set up the encounter such that it'll go off regardless of the character's actions. A well-written encounter will take that into account.

Funny I always hated the "BBEG time stop" that I saw done, it always destroyed any immersion I had.

Meanwhile the scenarios that went very askew were always quite memorable. When a colossal spider rolled a 1 on it's poison save against a DC 11 sleep poison for example. Sure it made the combat trivial, but there are many reasonable encounters that I'll forget long before I forget an entire small con looking at our table that spontaneously erupted into laughter.

I'll agree with you that if a script is that important to a scenario then you likely have the wrong perspective on it and a well written scenario won't depend on something that may or may not occur happening.

-James