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When to use them, when they should never be used.
Some optional encounters are just bad. Either not of any benefit to the flow of the story, or just likely to be a major waste of PC resources.
8 DC 12 Acrobatics checks.
Some PCs can take 10 and never fail.
Other PCs would have to make every die roll with a 15 or higher on it, if they can make it at all.
Each Acrobatics check that fails causes a DC 13 Fortitude save.
For first level PCs? No Take 10 for this, so there is a good shot that the ones most likely having to make it multiple times, no matter how good their Fort save is, will fail it.
Add in that each time a PC falls, there is a flat 25%, 1 in 4 chance, that they will get 1-2 leeches on them.
Which causes them to have to make a DC 10 Perception check. Again, some can never fail, if allowed a T10 on this, others will have a significantly reduced chance of making this...
And that also adds another variable number of DC 12 Fortitude saves.
Which stacks up, actua;;y, to slowly reduce the PC's Fort save chance for succeeding saves.
And the GM/Jusdge needs to determine if the PC has any sort of Natural Armor bonus, too.
This optional encounter is very ... mechanical in effect, has no really interesting text associated with it, and just winds up draining PC resources from 1st level PCs.
And, on reflection, it could actually cause extremely unheroic PC deaths, in a serious case of bad luck, since, while the odds are low, there is still a chance of a PC suffering 16 points of Con damage.
As a player, this isn't fun, not the times I have actually had to slog through it. As a GM/Judge, I don't get enjoyment from this, don't see my players enjoying it, and see no reasonable way to make it enjoyable.
Am I just missing something?
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First Steps part 3 is a flat out bad scenario.
I like optional encounters. They provide more fun if you have the time to run them and most of the time they're thematic to the mission at hand. Having them as optional just gives the GM more flexibility to include or cut depending on time.
I have seen a few optional encounters that make the final boss look like weak in comparison though...
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I try to include the optional encounter when I run, but in a 4 hour slot, it just doesn't happen all that often.
Now I've gotten peeved before as both player and Gm, when the optional encounter has been the only way to get a faction's prestige. (I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I've run into that at least twice.)
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I seem to be the only one who actually likes First Steps, part 3, but it was also my first PFS scenario, so maybe that colored my opinion.
As for the topic at hand, I have a tendency to skip all optional encounters out of hand. They never add anything to the story, or they wouldn't be optional, and some are just silly.
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At least
has an optional encounter which is the only way to find a particular enemy, which is required for one faction mission. This is on the lowest tier only.
I usually tend to skip optional encounters as our games tend to run long anyway, but sometimes if there is time, or if the encounter is particularly cool I'll run them. Or I ask the players if they want more encounters if the scenario has been a bit uneventful or easy.
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Normally, I skip the optional encounters due to time. Last session we had a 4 player table for Way of the Kirin and there was plenty of time. Well, the optional encounter ended up killing a character.
This makes me wonder, when people say the scenario wasn't difficult enough how often was the optional encounter skipped?
Removing optional encounters for scenarios is a bad idea. It gives us as GMs the chance to scale up or scale down a scenario legally.
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Removing optional encounters for scenarios is a bad idea. It gives us as GMs the chance to scale up or scale down a scenario legally.
Sorry about the double post. And while this is true, it flies in the face of the concept that every player at every table experiences the module the same way.
GMs can't modify individual encounters to scale against the party at the table but are free to add an entire encounter to the scenario? That just doesn't make conceptual sense to me.
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I seem to be the only one who actually likes First Steps, part 3, but it was also my first PFS scenario, so maybe that colored my opinion.
As for the topic at hand, I have a tendency to skip all optional encounters out of hand. They never add anything to the story, or they wouldn't be optional, and some are just silly.
I never had a problem with First Steps 3 either. And the leech swamp can help make a dextrous character feel awesome--if the GM is good at getting everything rolled out quickly. If it takes more than 5 minutes of table time to adjudicate (not the RP part where the GM plays up the atmosphere, just the rolls), the GM should skip it. I've never seen it take very long where it is played.
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I never had a problem with First Steps 3 either. And the leech swamp can help make a dextrous character feel awesome--if the GM is good at getting everything rolled out quickly. If it takes more than 5 minutes of table time to adjudicate (not the RP part where the GM plays up the atmosphere, just the rolls), the GM should skip it. I've never seen it take very long where it is played.I seem to be the only one who actually likes First Steps, part 3, but it was also my first PFS scenario, so maybe that colored my opinion.
As for the topic at hand, I have a tendency to skip all optional encounters out of hand. They never add anything to the story, or they wouldn't be optional, and some are just silly.
And, like some of the other optional encounters listed, it cause extreme differences in both player experience of the scenario, and massive, for the level, expenditures to recover from.
Players with dextrous PCs have plenty of other ways to feel awesome. And a 1 on a Reflex save, no matter what your modifier is, will still leave you potentially screwed royally in this encounter. Especially ig the GM decides, for one reason or another, that you can't Take 10 for this scene.
Max Dex PC, 20 Dex, Acrobatics as a class skill, trained, no ACP: +9
It is possible for a Half_Elf or someone willing to burn a feat on Skill Focus (Acrobatics) to make it +12 or +13 (with a trait like Rice Runner).
Not a lot of "fun", there, either. Especially as you watch your companions all get diseased, infested with leeches, and just roll play through this scene.
I'd ruther have more time to role play with the three ship captains...
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Optional encounters aren't supposed to include treasure or faction missions...
The one Mary Leathert posted above does. I was the GM for that scenario.
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I never had a problem with First Steps 3 either. And the leech swamp can help make a dextrous character feel awesome--if the GM is good at getting everything rolled out quickly. If it takes more than 5 minutes of table time to adjudicate (not the RP part where the GM plays up the atmosphere, just the rolls), the GM should skip it. I've never seen it take very long where it is played.I seem to be the only one who actually likes First Steps, part 3, but it was also my first PFS scenario, so maybe that colored my opinion.
As for the topic at hand, I have a tendency to skip all optional encounters out of hand. They never add anything to the story, or they wouldn't be optional, and some are just silly.
And, like some of the other optional encounters listed, it cause extreme differences in both player experience of the scenario, and massive, for the level, expenditures to recover from.
Players with dextrous PCs have plenty of other ways to feel awesome. And a 1 on a Reflex save, no matter what your modifier is, will still leave you potentially screwed royally in this encounter. Especially ig the GM decides, for one reason or another, that you can't Take 10 for this scene.
Max Dex PC, 20 Dex, Acrobatics as a class skill, trained, no ACP: +9
It is possible for a Half_Elf or someone willing to burn a feat on Skill Focus (Acrobatics) to make it +12 or +13 (with a trait like Rice Runner).
Not a lot of "fun", there, either. Especially as you watch your companions all get diseased, infested with leeches, and just roll play through this scene.
I'd ruther have more time to role play with the three ship captains...
The disease doesn't lower your constitution, so it seems pretty unbelievable that any PC wouldn't recover on their own, given the DC and maybe an untrained "Treat Disease" Heal check if necessary. I've always run the optional and I've never seen anyone coming even remotely close to needing to pay to have the disease removed. Furthermore, players who failed against the insanity mist enjoyed the descriptions I gave of their increasing paranoia and hallucinations, and it often led to amusing roleplay in the later encounters. The descriptions of the leeches and how disgusting the place was increased players' buy-in for how nasty and gross the swamp was, and made a lot of players have their characters make relieved comments on escaping the swamp. Also, the probability that players just say something like "meh, log house with humming crazy? let's just go way way around it through the deep bog" decreases if they've seen the nastiness that waits outside the main path.
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Optional encounters aren't supposed to include treasure or faction missions...The one Mary Leathert posted above does. I was the GM for that scenario.
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know if this is as written, or if it was our GM letting the player come up with a creative solution, but...
On the topic of First Steps, after another character death at our event today, this time in First Steps 2 (which has resulted in at least one TPK in our area), I'm not sad to see the first steps series being retired. Part 3, though, has always seemed like the least likely to kill a character to me.
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The disease doesn't lower your constitution, so it seems pretty unbelievable that any PC wouldn't recover on their own, given the DC and maybe an untrained "Treat Disease" Heal check if necessary. I've always run the optional and I've never seen anyone coming even remotely close to needing to pay to have the disease removed. Furthermore, players who failed against the insanity mist enjoyed the descriptions I gave of their increasing paranoia and hallucinations, and it often led to amusing roleplay in the later encounters. The descriptions of the leeches and how disgusting the place was increased players' buy-in for how nasty and gross the swamp was, and made a lot of players have their characters make relieved comments on escaping the swamp. Also, the probability that players just say something like "meh, log house with humming crazy? let's just go way way around it through the deep bog" decreases if they've seen the nastiness that waits outside the main path.
No, the disease doesn't deal Con damage, but you can still take Con damage during this Act.
Assuming best case, of course, no Con damage. Worst case, assuming you have the luck of Captain Eddie Murphy (If anything can go wrong, it will, and in the worst possible way), you can get 16 points of Con damage.
Since you aren't taking normal damage, no need to heal you, right?
Yet, 16 points of Con damage will kill most PCs.
And the one time we had the time for this, it was a pure dice-slog. As a GM, I look at it, and I don't see any way to make it much of anything but a dice-slog. It doesn't really give you much to work with. "You are in a foggy swamp. As you travel along, I need you to make me an Acrobatics check or fall down because of the fog." Meh.
Some optional encounters are worth it, some appear to be essential, but many, in my experience, just seem to eat time and offer little back. I can't swear for sure, but I suspect that an optional encounter may have caused one or more mission failures.
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Just today I almost killed a group of players with an optional encounter during Song of the Sea Witch.
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Optional encounters aren't supposed to include treasure or faction missions...The one Mary Leathert posted above does. I was the GM for that scenario.
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know if this is as written, or if it was our GM letting the player come up with a creative solution, but...
** spoiler omitted **
Well, according to Rei, who GM'd this for us: