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More seriously, we decided that we needed to start incorporating all these PC Venture-Captains we have now in the campaign. The seeker who may provide the PCs transportation is another PC who failed to become Venture-Captain.
While I think this is a cool idea, I very much hope if it continues, it gets extended to the wider society and other player VCs who may not be closely associated with Paizo or active on the boards. From personal experience, my old Living Greyhawk region had several NPCs that were actually player characters and it left those of us who weren't in that crowd feeling very excluded and unwelcome. I don't think it's good to leave players feeling that way in PFS.
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More seriously, we decided that we needed to start incorporating all these PC Venture-Captains we have now in the campaign. The seeker who may provide the PCs transportation is another PC who failed to become Venture-Captain.While I think this is a cool idea, I very much hope if it continues, it gets extended to the wider society and other player VCs who may not be closely associated with Paizo or active on the boards. From personal experience, my old Living Greyhawk region had several NPCs that were actually player characters and it left those of us who weren't in that crowd feeling very excluded and unwelcome. I don't think it's good to leave players feeling that way in PFS.
If not through the boards, how would the people writing these scenarios
know of these venture captains?|
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Off the top of my head, things that might work are sending out an email, putting up a poll on the website, or asking for volunteers in the Monday blog? Include an additional page in the scenarios that people can send back? You could even pull from the high level character thread. I know there are a lot of people (me included) who read the forums or the website regularly but don't frequently post.
I just don't think it's a good idea for players to get the impression that there's a PFS "in crowd" that gets special benefits.
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Three paladins and a fighter mutt sit down at my table... The start of a bad joke? Nay! The opening of my after action report!
Two of them are Hospitalers and the fighter has splashes of barbarian and ranger (for moar beatdown and tracking). Playing high... it looked to be the start of an interesting night. That is when one of our (infamous) last minutemen ask to join us, and brings his Alchemist. Removes the adjustment but brings some desperately needed support...
First Encounter
Before teleporting in, the Alchemist uses his transferable extracts to give folks various potables, including a Vitrolic Mist extract for the fighter. On arrival, only the Fighter hears the sounds at first; fair enough, only two of the swawms hear them and come out of the buildings and become visible.
Then the others (and the locust demons) come out over the next couple of rounds, and things get REALLY interesting. Sadly, no gear eaten and only a little confusion. The looks on their faces were rather priceless. The solution was the Fighter downing his extract gift and becoming a living bug zapper. *ZZZZT!*
I /did/ need to be mildly unsubtle to keep them from just charging down the path of the tracks... I'm much too nice.
Second Encounter
They find the trap, and the Alchemist steps forward to 'disarm' the trap... which then falls on him, sets off the glyphs (which they originally thought was ON the 'falling stone block' trap), and causes the Alchemist to fail the suggestion and have him wandering off... and then they proceed to send the poor companion to the next life.
Finding the Tapestry they go charging on... sadly, time didn't allow for the Optional Encounter.
Third Encounter
What can be said about this? Excepting for the Alchemist AGAIN falling for Suggestion spells, the party nonlethals folks down, the good Captain D-Doors away, and discussions with the Elf Sorceress ensue. (Boy, she is a snotty one! So much fun playing a stuck-up elf.)
Final Encounter
They come to the beach, discussions with the lady on the plant ensue... one of the paladins walk up upon invitation, detects for evil, fails the calm emotions... "Yep, she's evil. *shrug*..." and proceeds to sit down to calmly continue his conversation with her. Fails a SECOND time during the ensuing roleplay so continues to be all chill 'n stuff.
(Did I mention the entire time the Alchemist is tied up like the two Pathfinders previously captured, because they had no way to REMOVE the suggestion? Oops. But his commentaries were entertaining.)
They finally pull the trigger, and the Kapre steps out to pin two of them back at the start of the map while the chill paladin (who finally warms to the fight) and the fighter bring it to the Alrunae. I did mention three paladins and a beatstick? You can guess how it went from there. Much fun had by all.
All in all, a highly interesting time. Next time I run it, I am definitely going to find a different way to manage the double mapping for that first encounter than I originally tried.
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Off the top of my head, things that might work are sending out an email, putting up a poll on the website, or asking for volunteers in the Monday blog? Include an additional page in the scenarios that people can send back? You could even pull from the high level character thread. I know there are a lot of people (me included) who read the forums or the website regularly but don't frequently post.
I just don't think it's a good idea for players to get the impression that there's a PFS "in crowd" that gets special benefits.
It might be a bit premature to say that they are favoring people considering this is the first time it's happened. However, if we start seeing a slew of Southern PCs becoming NPCs, I might be having a friendly word with them :P
Also, considering the tight schedule for writing such scenarios, how long should a poll run for and how do you keep any back and forth spoiler-free? How many submitted entries must someone go through and how much time should be taken away to do such a review? How does a writer write such a character into the story when they have no experience on how that character is role played? Sure it might be fun to have your PC in a scenario, but what if the writer gets it completely wrong?
It seems to me that since Kyle has actually run games for this character and is familiar with that PC, he could write story and tactics much better than if it was for a polled/submitted character that he knows nothing about.
Personally, I don't have a dog in this fight. It's a fun idea but I'm a bit too possessive of my characters to allow someone else free reign to write their personality as they see fit. I just don't think people should be jumping to conclusions when there is no evidence to support such claims.
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It seems to me that since Kyle has actually run games for this character and is familiar with that PC, he could write story and tactics much better than if it was for a polled/submitted character that he knows nothing about.
That's actually my point. If VC inclusion isn't something that can be done well for any of the VCs in the player base, I think it's better that it isn't done at all. Otherwise it just becomes a popularity issue and that isn't fair.
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It seems to me that since Kyle has actually run games for this character and is familiar with that PC, he could write story and tactics much better than if it was for a polled/submitted character that he knows nothing about.That's actually my point. If VC inclusion isn't something that can be done well for any of the VCs in the player base, I think it's better that it isn't done at all. Otherwise it just becomes a popularity issue and that isn't fair.
What in Todd's post has anything to do with popularity?
Nikolai Adonai has played at my table two times and died once (sort of twice). Thousands of other characters have played at my table (some dying multiple times as well). Several dozen of them have been Seekers. Any one of them, Seeker or not, and killed or not, are fair game for inclusion in a scenario I write assuming I can contact its player and gain written permission. I'm not going to write about a character I haven't personally experienced. I'm not going to write about a character who hasn't made an impression at my table.|
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Not to beat a dead horse, but isn't that the same argument people have about race boons? Not everyone had access to them so it favors a specific population of players (those who can go to conventions) so it wasn't fair? No one advocated removal of race boons. Instead, PFS opened up race boons to smaller conventions and online conventions while maintaining a certain level of exclusivity. I am assuming PFS will also come up with a good method for VC Seeker inclusion as well.
Again, this is only the first time PFS has moved a PC to NPC. There is zero evidence that it will become a popularity contest. You have valid concerns from prior experiences of feeling unwelcome in LG but I think you are still being a bit premature when we don't even know how they plan to incorporate Seekers into the plot going forward.
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I'm not sure why he would cast it as a Good-aligned character dealing with allies. His tactics state he attempts to keep everyone alive, and knows that Holy Word can kill weaker non-Good creatures. While he wouldn't expect someone so weak to be a part of the party, I can't see him risking being wrong about that and outright slaying a fellow Pathfinder.
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While I would definitely consider it somewhere between an uncommon and rare instance in which a party could not manage a single dominated and/or charmed PC, I can also very easily see fairly realistic scenarios where that might be the case - especially if the varying degrees of system mastery at a given table are in imbalance.
Fortunately, delivering non-lethal damage is not terribly difficult, so I would hope that PC deaths from one another would occur only very rarely.
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Boy this is a handful to prep for a beginner GM like me. I have a few questions which are probably no-brainers for the more experienced.
a) When Nikolai offers one of his personal treasures as a means of winning the PC's favor for the testimony, does that mean they get to pick one of his items to appear on the chronicle sheet and the rest are crossed out? On the contrary, if Nikolai gets murderhobo'd, does all of his stuff appear on the chronicle sheet?
b) What happens to PCs and their items that are left to be eaten by the VSwarms upon death? I assume resurrect is required (some small bits recoverable, akin to disintegrate), but what about their items?
Thanks. Looking forward to running this.
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The more I prep this for Saturday, the nastier I realize it is and the happier I am that my fighter is safely receiving credit from behind the gm screen. This one can totally bleep a party the F up.
My main question is if are bets going on at paizo for how many deaths Kyle can get with this one.
Another question is if everyone keeps failing the will save against the alraune, does it basically turn into a tpk with her feed ability?
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Thanks for the answer. As I was re looking over its abilities, the PCs basically would have to be helpless or be charmed into sitting and letting it feed of them. But still, a DC 24 Will save every turn you are in 60 foot range is nasty by itself. Plus if you-know-who teleported/dimension doored into the area to "help," it can be very nasty for the party. A wall of thorns plus a wall of wind among other things they can tag team the party on if the party does enough bad things.
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Another question: would calm emotions make you flat footed against any attacks while under the effect. I understand that after the 1st attack, you may no longer be under the effect for that turn but since you are no longer "aggressive" or "fighting" for the rest of your turn, are you considered flat footed?
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Another question: would calm emotions make you flat footed against any attacks while under the effect. I understand that after the 1st attack, you may no longer be under the effect for that turn but since you are no longer "aggressive" or "fighting" for the rest of your turn, are you considered flat footed?
I don't think so. Someone approaching you with a sword out is itself a hostile act. They'd have to gain surprise on you some other way.
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What a cool scenario. Only 2 dead and they played up, but this scenario pulled no punches.
Mental note: Have demonic swarms around? Always start the killing with the swarmbane clasp bearing characters. E.g I managed to squeeze out two full attacks and hit a derakni with my 1/career smite evil.
A round passes by and my poor archer magus is dead at -20 Con with 3 negative levels, poison and confusion.
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Ran this today and it was very fun. No one died but I do tend to try and not outright target any character for death. Had a party of 4 - cleric, fighter, paladin, and wizard (all lvl 10). The wizard got hid with 4 temp negative levels but that was the worst for him. If they were about 15 minutes quicker, I would have had the fun of throwing the optional at them but then we would have been well over 5 1/2 hours. We took only 4 1/2 hours. They may have had an easier walk through the encounter because I approach encounters as trying to make it as fun as possible but still challenging.