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What do people think about a potential PFS scenario where the 'kick in the door/my build pwnz all!!!' approach leads to total party failure of the mission? A scenario where combat leads to failure and careful roleplay/GM interaction leads to success?
Every time a PFS judge gets a table full of min/maxing combat apes, they can crack out the module called 'The Art of Conversation' and laugh at the roleplaying ineptitude of today's Diablo 3 players.
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What do people think about a potential PFS scenario where the 'kick in the door/my build pwnz all!!!' approach leads to total party failure of the mission? A scenario where combat leads to failure and careful roleplay/GM interaction leads to success?
Every time a PFS judge gets a table full of min/maxing combat apes, they can crack out the module called 'The Art of Conversation' and laugh at the roleplaying ineptitude of today's Diablo 3 players.
I haven't played it yet, but I heard that "The Immortal Conundrum", a Season 3 5-9, is a lot like that. Of course, being the shy gamer that only likes to roll dice, I would probably fail miserably at it. But it wouldn't be for the lack of trying.
What do people think about a potential PFS scenario where the 'kick in the door/my build pwnz all!!!' approach leads to total party failure of the mission? A scenario where combat leads to failure and careful roleplay/GM interaction leads to success?
Every time a PFS judge gets a table full of min/maxing combat apes, they can crack out the module called 'The Art of Conversation' and laugh at the roleplaying ineptitude of today's Diablo 3 players.
I can see absolutely no long term negative effects from this.
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"I have to pay for my tanking gear" will be a valid argument when your sword starts costing you 15gp per swing.
As a Gunslinger, I very nearly resemble that remark. (Of course, I bring my own healing, too. You never known when your "Cleric" will be a Bard or a Rogue.)
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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"I have to pay for my tanking gear" will be a valid argument when your sword starts costing you 15gp per swing.As a Gunslinger, I very nearly resemble that remark.
Only at high tiers. Day-to-day black powder & bullets costs 1 gold, 1 silver per shot. Alchemical cartridges or special bullets cost more, starting at 2.5gp for silver, although weapon blanches can reduce the cost significantly (to 5sp/bullet for silver, for example). But you'd have to be using adamantine weapon blanch to get the price up above 10gp/shot. By the time you need that kind of ammunition on a regular basis a simple 'cure light wounds' isn't going to go very far towards healing a typical round's damage, so the healing will cost a whole lot more than 15gp.
[I know the PFS gunslinger pricing only too well - I play a dwarf gunslinger, and he makes sure everybody knows just how much it costs him every time he pulls the trigger. But that's just for the sake of complaining - he's quite prepared to pay for his own potions and a happy stick.]
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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I haven't played it yet, but I heard that "The Immortal Conundrum", a Season 3 5-9, is a lot like that. Of course, being the shy gamer that only likes to roll dice, I would probably fail miserably at it. But it wouldn't be for the lack of trying.What do people think about a potential PFS scenario where the 'kick in the door/my build pwnz all!!!' approach leads to total party failure of the mission? A scenario where combat leads to failure and careful roleplay/GM interaction leads to success?
Every time a PFS judge gets a table full of min/maxing combat apes, they can crack out the module called 'The Art of Conversation' and laugh at the roleplaying ineptitude of today's Diablo 3 players.
Immortal Conundrum is a nice alternative to the "smash in the door, steal the loot" approach some scenarios have. I think you would still do fine in it; the role-play doesn't all have to be done by one player... that is why there is the rest of the party. I do think the final combat seems anti-climatic and flat after the first half though.
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What do people think about a potential PFS scenario where the 'kick in the door/my build pwnz all!!!' approach leads to total party failure of the mission? A scenario where combat leads to failure and careful roleplay/GM interaction leads to success?
Every time a PFS judge gets a table full of min/maxing combat apes, they can crack out the module called 'The Art of Conversation' and laugh at the roleplaying ineptitude of today's Diablo 3 players.
I can think of three.
The first is the Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment. I just got done playing it. It's 75% mystery, 25% combat.
The second is 2-01, The Bloodcove Disguise. If you don't have skills, you will learn the meaning of "TPK".
I have heard that Murder on the Throaty Mermaid is also a mostly RP mystery scenario. I have not read or played it though, this is based on reviews and the description of the scenario on the site.
EDIT: I have found a few other scenarios that reviews seem to state are puzzle or RP heavy.
3-10 The Immortal Conundrum
2-03 The Rebel's Ransom
3-02 Sewer Dragons of Absalom
3-18 God's Market Gamble
I have no direct experience with these but the reviews seem to indicate that they are not playable by sociopathic humanoid chainsaws.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Last night at a game I found out that I have been gaming almost longer than one of the Judges Father has been alive... his Dad was 3 when I started... sigh. And he's not even one of the the "kid gamers"...
I think I'm beginning to know how those Elves feel...
I know the feeling. I've been gaming longer than my niece and nephew have been alive...
... added together.
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To the original poster: I don't know how long your local group has played PFS, but what happened with my local gamers might be encouraging to you. When we first started playing, most players wanted to build very powerful characters, either out of fear that they would get killed if they didn't, or just due to desire to beat the game system. It's quite natural and understandable really, especially if one is new to Pathfinder or organized play.
But already by their second characters, they started to focus more on building interesting characters, both from the rules and role-playing perspectives. By that time they had learned enough of the campaign setting and the place of the Pathfinder Society (the in-game organisation) in it, and realized that PFS isn't so hard that you can get by with a suboptimal character, as long as you like what you have. Hopefully gaming groups elsewhere will also mature like that.
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Immortal Conundrum is a nice alternative to the "smash in the door, steal the loot" approach some scenarios have. I think you would still do fine in it; the role-play doesn't all have to be done by one player... that is why there is the rest of the party. I do think the final combat seems anti-climatic and flat after the first half though.
I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I like to acknowledge my weaknesses as well as my strengths. Of course, I plan to shore up that specific weakness, it's just a matter of not letting my nerves get in the way of having fun.
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To the original poster: I don't know how long your local group has played PFS, but what happened with my local gamers might be encouraging to you. When we first started playing, most players wanted to build very powerful characters, either out of fear that they would get killed if they didn't, or just due to desire to beat the game system. It's quite natural and understandable really, especially if one is new to Pathfinder or organized play.
But already by their second characters, they started to focus more on building interesting characters, both from the rules and role-playing perspectives. By that time they had learned enough of the campaign setting and the place of the Pathfinder Society (the in-game organisation) in it, and realized that PFS isn't so hard that you can get by with a suboptimal character, as long as you like what you have. Hopefully gaming groups elsewhere will also mature like that.
+1. Excellent post, Jussi.
There is definitely a learned/comfort curve for playgroups. It takes a while for a group to understand what power level is needed for PFS play...and newly formed groups will have different expectations groups who have been playing a while.
New players into our local games will see many creative and interestingly RP characters than 2 years ago.
-Pain
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It's definitely been getting better. For the last three years, I've spent most of Origins playing PFS, and every year, skills and roleplay have mattered a little more.
The first year I played almost all combat scenarios. There were some fun scenes and one scenario full of traps, but the most skill heavy element was the faction missions, a lot of which boiled down to "Do you have skill X? Yes? Have a Prestige point"
The second year the scenarios were still mainly combat, but one of them had a chase scene, and the party, low skill point characters bogged down by heavy armor, nearly failed it. It was only the unarmored Wizard getting lucky on untrained Dexterity skill rolls that caught the bad guy.
This year, I played a low skill character, and felt like I was missing out. One of the scenarios I played gave us a combat encounter that was well above the general difficulty level, and allowed us to use various skills to drop the difficulty back down to sanity.
Another scenario I played was a mystery. We spent about 3 hours on the mystery and 1.5 hours on combat. I really hope we get more scenarios like that.
I personally also hope we get more scenarios that use Dex based skills and punish heavy armor reliance. Traditionally, heavy armor has the disadvantage of killing any acrobatics or mobility of the wearer, but in standard dungeon crawls, this usually doesn't matter. If there are more chase scenes and mysteries, well-rounded characters who pay some mind to mobility will probably start to look more attractive than heavy armor DPR machines.
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I personally also hope we get more scenarios that use Dex based skills and punish heavy armor reliance. Traditionally, heavy armor has the disadvantage of killing any acrobatics or mobility of the wearer, but in standard dungeon crawls, this usually doesn't matter. If there are more chase scenes and mysteries, well-rounded characters who pay some mind to mobility will probably start to look more attractive than heavy armor DPR machines.
I really hope that Paizo never never does this. Any design choice made with the intention to "punish" builds that you don't like will never work out in the longs run, and chases already have the problem of marginalizing players, which is terrible adventure writing.
Also heavily armored builds are a mainstay of D&D, so I am not seeing why "paying mind to mobility" belongs in the same breath as "well-rounded character". You are setting up a false dichotomy here.
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Im what would be described in the Gamemaster Guide as a Thespian gamer and I have to say that the variance of RP from scenario to scenario depends a lot of the group and GM. Im lucky in that my GM is an RP first type so players like me thrive. That said, one of the great things I find about PFS is that there is a lot of variation in scenarios. As a die hard RPer I am rarely unsatisfied when playing with my core group. I hope you too find a core group that matches your style so you too can enjoy PFS as I have.
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chases already have the problem of marginalizing players, which is terrible adventure writing.
Chases are quite commonplace in fantasy literature which our hobby is largely based. There is nothing wrong with chases in gaming, just like there is nothing wrong with heavy armored tanks, or glass cannons, goblins with levels in alchemist, or...
Not every character is going to excel at every aspect of the game. Is it fair to marginalize a well-rounded character in combat because he cannot keep up with the tank? The answer is the same. As long as there are equal opportunities for all character types to excel, it should be fair. That means, no matter how well you think your character is optimized, there will be weaknesses that will occasionally arise and you will just have to deal with them.
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I personally also hope we get more scenarios that use Dex based skills and punish heavy armor reliance. Traditionally, heavy armor has the disadvantage of killing any acrobatics or mobility of the wearer, but in standard dungeon crawls, this usually doesn't matter. If there are more chase scenes and mysteries, well-rounded characters who pay some mind to mobility will probably start to look more attractive than heavy armor DPR machines.I really hope that Paizo never never does this. Any design choice made with the intention to "punish" builds that you don't like will never work out in the longs run, and chases already have the problem of marginalizing players, which is terrible adventure writing.
Also heavily armored builds are a mainstay of D&D, so I am not seeing why "paying mind to mobility" belongs in the same breath as "well-rounded character". You are setting up a false dichotomy here.
I currently percieve an imbalance. If mobility is not an issue, heavy armor builds have strengths, but no weaknesses. It should be the case that light and heavy armor choices each have pros and cons, but in a room by room dungeon crawl, heavy armor will be better 95% of the time. What I am saying is that I hope that both groups equally get a chance to shine. I currently see light armor and mobility builds getting the short end.
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And, frankly, for Pathfinder Society's overarching themes, light armor and mobility builds should be the minority. Delving dungeons and running archaeological digs are the Society's job. Light combat mobile scouting seems to be a sidelight at best, per currently available fluff.
An overarching theme of get in, get the item, get out? How does that *not* sound like the job for a rogue? If anything, heavily armored behemoth don't belong in the society, they belong on the battlefield. And I think chases are where they start to show that weakness, and I am fine with that.
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An overarching theme of get in, get the item, get out? How does that *not* sound like the job for a rogue? If anything, heavily armored behemoth don't belong in the society, they belong on the battlefield. And I think chases are where they start to show that weakness, and I am fine with that.And, frankly, for Pathfinder Society's overarching themes, light armor and mobility builds should be the minority. Delving dungeons and running archaeological digs are the Society's job. Light combat mobile scouting seems to be a sidelight at best, per currently available fluff.
It really was only after reading the above reply that I realized the original said "minority", not "majority". Pathfinder Society is the Indiana Joneses of Golarion, what could be a better place for a lightly armored mobility type?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Re: Light armor.
When I ran Among the Living, the party would let the rogue scout and then rush to the rescue. With the barbarian in the party, and the wizard, they could rush to the rogue's aid. More than once the tank paladin didn't get to the fight until it was almost over.
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Ah, I wish I could invite you to my PFS group. Yeah, there's always gonna be some high DPS dude who put a lot of thought into making a character that makes my Ninja look like a child, but hey- nothing livens up the table more than the hilarious roleplay.
"I roll for Perception... 28!"
"But there's nothing to........ okay, you spot something bobbing up and down in Grandmaster Torch's tub."
"What?"
"It's his penis. Make a Will save."
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My character was trolling him the entire adventure by associating each phallic object we come across with Torch. He had to make Will saves each time. Almost convinced the GM that he's beginning to go gay for Torch as I kept reminding him.
After that adventure, all DMs are informed that the character must have some minor Torch-related event in every adventure he's in. XD