Faction Missions and Prestige points

[joshua duncan 845]

This is a question that I have had for a little while, but noone has really directly addressed it. My quetion is if there is a two part faction mission and a character is standard progression and they only complete one part of the whole faction mission, but the scenario itself says reward a single prestige point for doing each part of the faction mission, then shouldn't the player receive 2 prestige points: 1 for completing the scenario and 1 for half of the faction mission. For specifics today I played Shades of Ice, Part 2: Exiles of winter, Scenario 2-17.

Faction Mission:

I discovered that it was grandmaster Torch as a part of the Qadiran Faction, but was unable to interrogate anyone to discover where the slaves were coming from and how they were being transported.

[TriOmegaZero]

Previous scenarios had multiple missions to accomplish. Only one mission needs to be accomplished in those scenarios to earn the prestige point.

[JohnF]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Previous scenarios had multiple missions to accomplish. Only one mission needs to be accomplished in those scenarios to earn the prestige point.

That is incorrect. In an old scenario with multiple faction missions, the only way to get prestige points is to complete faction missions. Complete both faction missions, earn two prestige points. Complete only one faction mission, earn one prestige point. If you complete neither faction mission, you will earn no prestige points.

[joshua duncan 845]

Where would the ruling be at for this? Because in the Guide to Society play the ruling is upon completion of the overall mission you gain one prestige point, the second is upon completing the faction mission you gain a second prestige point. You always get 1 point as long as you do not die, atleast that's how I interpret that ruling, but for Scenarios where they have 2 faction missions, each providing a point its hard to tell which one.

[JohnF]

joshua duncan 845 wrote:

For specifics today I played Shades of Ice, Part 2: Exiles of winter, Scenario 2-17. I discovered *** details of faction mission deleted ***

Near the top of the page when reading the forums is this line:

Note: Please use a spoiler tag when discussing specific plot points or events in a scenario.

If you don't know how to add a spoiler tag, click on the "show" button beneath the text input box at the bottom of the page.

[joshua duncan 845]

Sorry for that Thank you for pointing that out to me

[JohnF]

joshua duncan 845 wrote:

Where would the ruling be at for this? Because in the Guide to Society play the ruling is upon completion of the overall mission you gain one prestige point, the second is upon completing the faction mission you gain a second prestige point. You always get 1 point as long as you do not die, atleast that's how I interpret that ruling, but for Scenarios where they have 2 faction missions, each providing a point its hard to tell which one.

You're misinterpreting. The ruling that you get one prestige point for completing a scenario applies to all scenarios from season 3 onwards, and to the Season 0 scenarios (#1 - #28) that only have a single faction mission.

The section of the guide talking about scenarios with two faction missions is unclear - you're by no means the first person to get it wrong (in fact, as another poster noted the last time this came up we seem to get a thread about it on a fairly regular basis). With any luck the new version of the Guide to Organised Play (which comes out on Monday) will have reworded this section to clear up a lot of the confusion.

[joshua duncan 845]

Thank you so much, that really clears that up for me.

[JohnF]

I've found the easiest way to think about it is this:

• You earn one prestige point for each faction mission you complete in a scenario.

• For scenarios with only a single faction mission, you are awarded a prestige point if you successfully achieve the overall goal of the scenario (as described to you in the briefing at the start of the scenario, usually by one of the Venture Captains).

• for scenarios with no faction missions (First Steps) you are awarded two prestige points if you successfully complete the scenario.
  

I believe that this will get a little more complicated in season four, as there will be alternative ways to earn the "faction mission" prestige point instead of completing the actual faction mission.

[ElyasRavenwood]

“When running a Season 0 scenario with 1 Prestige Point available per PC, treat this as the sole faction mission, and award a second Prestige Point to PCs who complete the overall scenario goal, as given by the venture-captain at the scenario’s introduction. If a Season 0 scenario has two faction missions per faction, consider one mission that of the faction and the other the overall success conditions for the scenario. As Season 0 scenarios are converted to Pathfinder RPG rules, the old scenarios will be brought in line with the current system and these faction mission differences will be eliminated.
Seasons 1 and 2 (Scenarios #29–#56 and #2–01 through #2–26): These scenarios all include two faction missions. For characters using the standard advancement track, one of these should be considered the faction mission and the other the success condition for the scenario, maintaining the 2 Prestige Point maximum.”

Page 26 Pathfinder Organized Play Guide 4.1

I know the new guide is just around the corner, but I hope this will be helpful for now

Good luck

[JohnF]

The problem is that the instructions in the guide to organised play, and in particular

Quote:

If a Season 0 scenario has two faction missions per faction, consider one mission that of the faction and the other the overall success conditions for the scenario

and

Quote:

For characters using the standard advancement track, one of these (two missions) should be considered the faction mission and the other the success condition for the scenario

don't actually explain anything; they just lead to confusion.

It's trying to say something like "if you try and fit these old scenarios into a model where one prestige point is awarded for completing the (only) faction mission, and one prestige point is awarded for achieving the overall scenario goal, you can do that by pretending one of the faction missions is the scenario goal". But that's only true for prestige awards - the XP award is still based off the real scenario goal.

Let's hope the new guide does a better job of explaining things.

[BigNorseWolf]

I thought XP was based off of fighting at least three things?

[JohnF]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I thought XP was based off of fighting at least three things?

True. It's technically possible to get XP for a scenario where you don't actually achieve the stated goal. My mentioning XP didn't really help, did it? Just ignore that last part.

It's hard to exactly fit the old-style two-faction-mission scenarios into the new-style model, because the new model has no way in which one character can earn two faction points, while another character can earn none (assuming both characters participate in every encounter, nobody dies, ...)