Hi guys
I have some questions about the final play portion of the Sixfold trial
1. It assumes that the PCs have all their standard gear on whilst performing. Is this overlooked if for example a fighter is cast as the Wizard character? Does it not matter that they may be wearing plate armour from the audience perspecitve?
I believe I read something about illusions being used (eg. if a female plays a male etc). But when they go to the manner these illusions won't be in place. Sounds like it could be an issue
2. For trial 1 I assume popularity isn't lost if the whip weilding PC legitimately misses with his whip strikes (especially possible when targetting armoured PCs)
3. If a PC dies during the performance do you only divide the Story awards for the act by the suriving PCs (seems obvious but I thought I would check). And would you pro-rate the XP down (so that a greater proportion isn't gained due to death
4. Is there a DC for the perform required when being burrowed by the grubs (I cannot see one - or indeed any mention of a penalty for failure to convince)
5. Finally I'm not sure I am clear on some of the Perform requirements in the final play
The dress rehersal requires a DC20 from Larazod and DC10 aids from the others. Success increased popularity
However the final performance mentions something about totalling up perform rolls to determine popularity?
So how does it work? Do all 4 roll perform for every act and then the sum total is the popularity increase (meaning no required DC)?
Or do the checks work the same way as the dress rehersal?
Apologies for the long post
Thanks in advance for any help
1. There is going to be illusion magic in play. You can handwave it as Millech placing an illusion on the fighter. You can have them meet with Millech prior to the manor visit to get their illusion. This could be a place to emphasize the fact that Millech is overlooked and not invited to the party if they are sympathetic to him.
If you have this scenario, you may want to add some extra checks to make them seem less out-of-place. I had a barbarian get cast as the wizard, and had him make perform checks whenever he hit people with a flail to not look really strange.
2. I think that is fair, though if they only target the PCs with armor, rather than attacked Larazod, I would definitely say that would affect popularity though.
3. I use XP gains as a party, so no. But really, this is your call.
4. I think the perform check is just like the other acts. Not positive though.
5. As I recall, you will need to track their perform checks, as they directly impact their popularity and the amount of money that each player receives at the end of the play. Unfortunately I do not have the book at hand, so I can't provide more clarity.
The rule for breaking character is that if you're seen doing something that your character obviously wouldn't do then it costs 1d6 popularity. (p. 21)
I made sure that my players knew this ahead of time, so it was up to them if they wanted to have their best weapons (or whatever) along or use something more suited to their role.
The armor issue isn't a big one. Robahl will try to convince players to wear things the characters hypothetically could -- but if they won't budge, he's willing to get a powerful spellcaster to cast Veil if necessary.
However, immersion-breaking actions -- like the paladin of Aroden casting Fireball -- do cause you to lose Popularity.
If you miss with the whip, you lose popularity. The murderplay is a bloodsport and the nobility wants to hear sharp cracks and cries of pain. This is why Drovalid is cast by the person best suited to hitting buckets. Still, you are permitted to miss without losing popularity if you can bluff it.
However, you can try to fake it with bluff checks without hitting the group.
I wouldn't penalize the player by removing all their XP. Death is already frustrating for the player as it is, and even if the raise dead is free, they still have to deal with the negative levels until they can be healed. Just because the BBEG targeted them for a full attack instead of another player doesn't mean they were any less important in the challenges they faced.
Once you hit the final play, you aren't hitting Perform DCs. You make a perform check during / after each act (seven per PC) and total the totals, adding them to the popularity. You'll see that the Fame awards at the end of the Nightshade section allow for players to get +3 fame after reaching a few hundred Popularity -- and this is because players are just making straight checks, and adding an average 10 Popularity per person per act before modifiers (if four untrained people without an ability modifier made 10s every act, that alone would be 280).
When I ran it, I had the players wearing costumes - the party alchemist had some lacquered cloth plate mail to portray the bumbling pal-o-dine, etc. The costuming for stage productions like this is supposed to be broad-stroke and somewhat caricatured - it doesn't need to be 'real' plate mail, or even particularly realistic... it's gestural costuming. I had the stage manager save his illusion concentration for when he'd really need it - covering up if an actor 'forgot his line' (was too mutilated to speak), etc.
As far as the manor party goes, illusions aren't really necessary - the mayor is celebrating the actors, not the characters they were portraying. The players wore their stage costumes for a bit when the first showed for the meet and greet, then shed them before the feast and debauch.. both for comfort, and ease of creeping around later.
Traditionally, when tracking seperate XP per characters (which has fallen out of vogue lately), a character who died still was awarded the XP for the conflict that they died in, and would add it to their total upon being rez'd. Pathfinder has put more of a focus on not dicking people out of levels or XP as a penalty, so that's been more of a moot point in recent years.
The perform checks work the same way as the dress rehearsal - that's why it's a dress rehearsal. The players can figure out before the live performance if there's anything they'd like to work on / buff in order to make the line readings and performance more believable, and then find those plans dashed to the ground when they start puking up demons everywhere while rot grubs chew their guts, hehe.
I should mention that I suspect there's an error in Sixfold Trial -- if Drovalid is whipping several PCs, then it may be necessary for all three of them to be dressed in rags or loincloths, otherwise the whip would likely deal the other two no damage. Tybain is one such role that a PC would not be suspicious to wear full platemail with, and I doubt that this was a feature rather than a bug.
Here's what the book says on Perform checks before the Nightshade segment:
"and at the end of each act, all PCs should make their own Perform (act) checks to determine how well they performed. Record the numerical results of each of these checks; you’ll add these results to the party’s Popularity at the end of the play as well"
It is rather interpretive, but considering an untrained party could easily get 280 from neutral rolling during the final seven acts alone by directly adding, I can see why you'd rule it that way. It's only 500+ total Popularity to get the largest Fame reward.
If you rule that the final play's Popularity is raised in the same way that the other parts of the play were, then I see:
* 31~ Popularity for the initial interviews
* 16 Popularity for getting 20s during casting
* 20 Popularity for 20s during rehearsals
* 8 Popularity on Day 4 street performances
* 70 Popularity for performing the dress rehearsal well
* 28 Popularity for 20s during the Nightshade performance
* 500 Popularity for surviving, (four PCs plus Calseinica)
So the play has a potential income of 173 based on performance, and 500 based on surviving, before adding in complications like a DM adding bonus points for acting, subtracting points for stammering, subtractions from lost popularity in the limehouse or a failed street performance, or otherwise doing something out of character during the play. Also keep in mind that dead characters can't make perform checks, though that hurts the survival Popularity more than it hurts your performance Popularity -- by the time your first opportunity to die comes up (technically Act 2, more realistically Act 3) you're just missing out on 5 more points of Popularity from acting.
One interpretation makes making 500 rather easy; the other makes the Perform checks significantly less important compared to just surviving the play. Granted, I didn't make any 'conscious decision' when I was figuring out how to run the perform checks in the final performance -- I just ran them the way the book seemed to tell me to. In hindsight I don't really regret it, since I dislike how surviving would have made the performing seem comparatively irrelevant.