Scenario 43 - Pallid Plague Questions

[asymmetricia]

Hi, guys. Our GM ran Pallid Plague last night, and I found it frustrating and unsatisfying in the extreme. We didn't die, but we failed both success conditions; and in this case, I think the GM made some incorrect calls. I'd appreciate if someone could check my thinking on this.

I downloaded the scenario and read through it, and have a few questions...

Spoiler:

At Tier 3-4, Laurel has Heal +11 to help treat a DC22 fort save. She has -20 due to the scenario, making it impossible for her to make the check (she can roll at most an 11). Our GM treated the disease such that *nobody* could make Heal checks to help unless we passed 10 "help Laurel" checks to *completely* eliminate (which I believe is different from the RAW "effectively eliminate") her penalty. I think this is incorrect... Any thoughts? Can Laurel attempt Heal checks while still retaining some penalty? Can PCs make heal checks with or without the cure? (If the PCs recover naturally unaided, does that count for Laurel's purposes of finding a cure?)

Furthermore, during this encounter, we divided the party a bit...

Spoiler:

The Monk and the mounted Paladin Hustled back to the garden to retrieve the body of an infected ex-druid for dissection. The GM had the second encounter, with the beggars, happen while we were gone, which was before Laurel made the cure- the PCs leaving Laurel's shop with the cure is the starting criteria for this encounter. Can someone confirm that the GM should have waited until/unless we had a cure before beginning this encounter?

Still speaking of all those rolls...

Spoiler:

The DM ruled that we could not Aid each other in making *any* of the skill checks to help Laurel, whether or not it would be possible in the context of the action (E.g., I think aiding a Heal check to dissect a corpse is reasonable; more eyes might notice something the first person missed, nevermind that during, e.g., surgery, it takes more than one person to be effective anyway.) I'd be OK with saying that the attempt to aid counts as that character's use of that skill for the purposes of the encounter, but I think making every person roll completely independently is not supported by the rules RAW and isn't explicitly called for by the scenario.

Which brings me to something in the scenario I don't agree with, but it's written that way...

Spoiler:

It's infinitely frustrating for me when the scenario overrides book rules for no reason other than, apparently, to make it harder. Many/most of the skills we were using allow for retry every day; I don't see a justification for the scenario to prohibit this. We're still dealing with a disease that deals 2-4 ability damage per day, including con damage; if it needed to be more dangerous, make the disease more dangerous instead of rewriting the rules. My $.02 on that.

Edited for grammar.

[Jiggy]

Sometimes GMs make mistakes, and you need to just go with it. If you think the consequences of potential errors are serious enough, go back to your GM and politely and clearly make your case. If he's not receptive, repeat the process with your local VC/VL. If you're still unsatisfied after that and think it's necessary, contact Mike Brock.

Hope that helps!

[asymmetricia]

Jiggy wrote:

Sometimes GMs make mistakes, and you need to just go with it. If you think the consequences of potential errors are serious enough, go back to your GM and politely and clearly make your case. If he's not receptive, repeat the process with your local VC/VL. If you're still unsatisfied after that and think it's necessary, contact Mike Brock.

Hope that helps!

Thanks; that does, and that was what I was planning to do.

I wasn't trying to get action against the GM here, or anything. Mostly I wanted to see if I was misinterpreting the scenario somehow, and if others had a different perspective that would show the GM's rulings in a different light; or if indeed, there was some consensus that the GM had misinterpreted the scenario, which I believe makes it much harder than it should have been.

Edited for grammar and clarity.

[Dame Kerline]

making ur saves naturally does not count as finding the cure. i cant remember the cure dc but if i remember right the only way u could aid her was to do other skills to get rid of her penalty. standard aid another only gives a + 2.

as for scenarios having independent rules get used to it], many do

any other issues u gotta settle with ur gm/venture officer

[Patrick Harris @ MU]

pdbogen wrote:

Hi, guys. Our GM ran Pallid Plague last night, and I found it frustrating and unsatisfying in the extreme. We didn't die, but we failed both success conditions; and in this case, I think the GM made some incorrect calls. I'd appreciate if someone could check my thinking on this.

I downloaded the scenario and read through it, and have a few questions...
** spoiler omitted **

Furthermore, during this encounter, we divided the party a bit...
** spoiler omitted **

Still speaking of all those rolls...
** spoiler omitted **...

When I ran this, I was more flexible. That does not necessarily mean that your GM was wrong, but if you're out both PP and you think that's unfair even after reading the scenario, I would advise checking in with the GM with your argument (if you think that will get you anywhere) and/or your Venture Officer (if you think talking to the GM will just antagonize them).

Pallid Plague is not my favorite scenario, largely for the reasons you have discussed here. Fortunately, I would not consider it indicative of Pathfinder scenarios in general. Though, as Dame Kerline noted, it's far from unheard-of for scenarios to override extant rules just for funsies.

[Belafon]

Some answers to your specific questions:

Spoiler 1:

The scenario has specific instructions for the steps that must be taken. First you have to accumulate 10 successes in "helping Laurel with her research" in order to negate the penalty. Then she will start to try (once per hour) to aid the PCs on their next save. She won't even try unless you have 10 successes. So your GM played it right. Once you are all cured she has sufficiently tested her formula to meet the "finding a cure" condition.
And recovering naturally does not count as "finding a cure." (In almost any plague throughout history some fraction of the population will naturally recover from it - that doesn't mean a cure has been found.) The way the text reads Laurel has to aid at least on PC or NPC in recovering before she says "I now have a way to combat the disease."

Spoiler 2:

The trigger as written is "when you exit the shop with the antiplague." It makes the assumption that she does find a cure, leaving open the question of what happens if you simply can't get a cure. Without being there and seeing it firsthand, I can't say yea or nay, but what happened sounds reasonable. When I played we did not split the party but completely failed to aid Laurel enough to find a cure. So despite the fact that we left without a cure, we were attacked.

Spoiler 3:

That's up to your GM. The scenario is written as if each PC acts individually, but there is room for the GM to allow aid. I will tell you that from a strictly mathematical/success standpoint your GM was probably doing you a favor by not allowing aid.

Diversion on Probabilities:

For a task such as this you can only aid another if your character could achieve the task alone. In other words if you were playing Tier 3-4, you needed a DC 22 check to succeed, so you needed at least a +2 modifier to whatever skill you were trying to use to even attempt aid. Because each character can only use a given skill once, you're usually better off having everyone who could possibly make the roll roll individually. If you have one person with a +7 and two with +5 and all roll individually, your chances of having at least one success are over 61%. If the +5s attempt aid instead, your chances of succeeding once are around 43%. You can't succeed more than once and that skill is now spent. Yes there are edge cases and combinations where aid is preferable that I'm sure someone will point out but in the vast majority of cases you are better off with individual rolls.

Spoiler 4:

It's quite common for scenarios to have specific rules that override the general. This one represents failure as if you have used all the materials at hand (herbs, books, reagents, etc.) with a negative result. The bigger issue is that there is a ticking clock. Sadly it's in the background info, there's really no way for the players to find out until the very end. Vondrella is planning to release the plague "tomorrow" or basically at the end of the feast you interrupt. By the time you reach Laurel you have plenty of evidence - including the fields and VC Brackett's instructions - that someone is actively spreading a plague. The scenario probably could have been helped by a box text "There's no time to waste. I'll continue my researches, you stop the plague from spreading!"

So to summarize:
From your descriptions your GM appears to have done this quite well. I don't see that s/he did anything that the scenario or the rules was opposed to. There are some places where another GM might have run it differently and still been correct, but your GM did not make any incorrect calls.

[GreySector]

Belafon wrote:

...you needed a DC 22 check to succeed, so you needed at least a +2 modifier to whatever skill you were trying to use to even attempt aid.

That isn't how I interpret the Aid Another section.

PRD Aid Another wrote:

In cases where the skill restricts who can achieve certain results, such as trying to open a lock using Disable Device, you can't aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn't achieve alone.

You don't need to be able to succeed on the check yourself, you simply need to be able to attempt the check. For example, Disable Device is trained only, so only a trained character could attempt to assist. If the check were to use Disable Devise to disarm a magical trap, the assisting character would need trapfinding or a similar class feature.

[Dame Kerline]

yah if aid another requires that each person have the ranks needed to succeed and not just the ability to use the skill........that's alot of diplomacy checks my tables should have failed

[asymmetricia]

Thank you for your feedback, Belafon.

As to your first point:

Spoiler:

I think that there is an argument that can be made around whether or not Laurel will attempt to cure the plague prior to completion of the tasks. This argument, however, seems independent of whether or not she /can/. There is no reason to present the issue as a "-20 penalty" unless she can attempt the check despite the penalty.

As to your second point:

Spoiler:

Although I'd concur with the suggestion that Act 4 would commence when the players exit the shop, having given up their attempts, whether or not the party was divided- that was in fact not the case here. In fact, the players were exiting the shop as part of carrying out the assistance, i.e., on their way to conduct a skill check that logically happened elsewhere. I believe this contravenes both the letter (i.e., they weren't carrying the antiplague) and the spirit (they weren't done with their efforts) of the act's trigger.

In this case, the monk and the mounted paladin had a base speed of 40ft, compared to the slowest party member (20ft). They were Hustling and would have therefore made the four hour trip in one hour, each way.

I believe Michael Eshleman and Dame Kerline have both quite adequately addressed your third point (thanks!); I'll add this text from the PRD (http://paizo.com/prd/usingSkills.html):

Quote:

Aid Another

You can help someone achieve success on a skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort. If you roll a 10 or higher on your check, the character you're helping gets a +2 bonus on his or her check.

As to your fourth point:

Spoiler:

In fact, this is not reasonable justification to disallow retries. As it happens, our party ventured out that evening to find and confront Vondrella, defeated her, and returned; as it's an hour's march away, that's totally reasonable. Defeating this extant threat should have let us address curing the plague with Laurel's help at our leisure.

(Most of my concerns were about Act 3, so I didn't read the scenario word-for-word before now. Holy crap:

Spoiler:

Act 1 gold is from stealing the infected lumber workers' wages?! Why not just murder them outright, too?

)

[Netopalis]

1)

Spoiler:

Every time I've ran this, she's tried to cure the plague before getting the entire penalty removed.

4)

Spoiler:

If that's how your scenario ended, I'd have probably given you the success PP. Not the secondary, though.

Overall, unless there were other issues with your table, I'd say that your GM made a few mistakes, but on the whole did a pretty good job. This scenario can present a bit of a split of opinions - people seem to either love it or hate it. It's one of my favorites, but it's not for everybody.