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As a 1-star GM I'm still learning the ropes so-to-speak and trying to give the best possible experience to players at my tables. I really do care how a game goes off and feel bad if something I did or didn't do mucked up the experience. Basically, I want to know what I could have done to improve the player experience.
I recently ran a VTT of Song of the Sea Witch. It was with 6 players of low tier (2 3rd level, 2 4th level and 2 5th level). They were soundly in the low tier, but given a full 6-player table for a season 3 scenario, that's usually a recipe for not the most challenging of gaming sessions.
Here's a quick summary and then I'll give a detailed review. The players, in my estimation, overwhelmed the scenario. None of them lost a single hit point; the Magus took out the BBEG at the end with a single strike, and the entire thing took about 2 hours.
I think I got one or two tepid "thank you's" at the end from the players and I got the very distinct feeling they were unsatisfied which in turn soured my experience.
Now, some details:
When I run any scenario, I try to be extremely clear when going through the text, not monotone, sometimes with special inflection based on the NPC speaking, sometimes animated and a little dramatic (and I try not to get too over-the-top) if implied in the text/speech/etc. I think here, I'm not lacking and I try to really add flavor to the background and upcoming scenes.
The first encounter was with a CR 5 Bearded Devil. This could/should be a fairly challenging encounter.
One of the PC's took the book away from the altar and I had the Devil immediately attack that PC to start initiative. Some players complained that they should have seen that coming and been in the initiative with no surprise round. I didn't see it that way given that the Devil was very sensitive about guarding the book.
The spell casters didn't harm the Devil due to his SR. The Devil teleported (which I allowed an AOO on him for casting) once to the front of the room near the door to get away from the throng attacking him. He only used his Glaive (probably should have dropped it to use claws/beard?). The PC's overwhelmed him within a couple of rounds.
The ambush alley encounter I admit I fudged a bit on given the fact that the party had overwhelming power and this was a low CR encounter. The 4 thugs rolled stealths of 24, 20, 20, and 9. One of the PC's beat the 24 and another also had a 20 for perception. I allowed the one PC that beat the 24 to start the surprise round and then I lumped in all the thugs into the surprise round to get off their thunderstones (no sure why this is such a devastating tactic with tough melee characters) and they tried to maneuver near the PC's for possible flanking. Yes, technically, I should have done the surprise round a little differently, but I was not entirely sure how to do that given 4 different foes with different stealth checks against 6 different opposed perception. I think I know how I'd do this now (essentially oscillate between those that meet/beat the stealth check and let them get first shot), but I didn't want to just stop everything and figure things out at that moment (which I admit I should have done as RAW).
Regardless, the encounter didn't take long for the party to blow out the thugs. Yargos was egging them own to find Olyssta. They didn't dilly-dally in the alley, just loot the fallen thugs, didn't stick around to rouse any up for questioning, and moved on.
The encounter with Olyssta and the merchant had some role-playing but not much. One of the PC's intimidated the merchant with a 31(?) check to given into Olyssta's offer. He stayed in a shaken mode but off to the side listening to the PC's discussing the situation with Olyssta. I got the impression from the encounter information that it wouldn't be difficult for the PC's to glean where to go next. They further intimidated the merchant to lower the price of the map to 1 GP after the merchant offered it for sale to help them out. And, they were on there way.
My next regret is that I did not run the optional encounter for two reasons. Even though there was adequate time, I noted to 2 Hell Hounds might cause a few party members to be singed, the encounter would not be too challenging (which I realize now is not a great reason to still not run it). Also, I had neglected to prepare for the possibility of the encounter since I dumbly thought that there would likely be a lack of time when preparing the scenario. I didn't want to put the game on hold while I get the hounds and their tactics ready. In retrospect, I had plenty of time to do just that and there would probably have been about 15 minutes more play. And, just maybe the PC's would have lost a few hit points and had a slightly more gratifying encounter (not that it's necessary for PC's to lose HP to be gratified).
Onto the final area. The whole sewer water trap ended up being a non-issue with the party, but perhaps I ran things a bit too easy for them? One PC who was about the pull one of the chains noted the Azlanti writing above the blocks and another PC rolled a 16 Linguistics check to determine those were numbers and what they were around the room. They quickly figured out since the stairs were 30' high, how to use the doors to raise the water to exactly 30 feet triggering the door to open. Some of them failed their swim checks and they held their breath until they could make their swim checks and/or received help with others from ropes.
Here's a spot perhaps I'm too lax (lazy?) in and maybe there was some mechanics I overlooked. I would think that characters in armor would have a hard time getting to the surface of the water. But, the players pointed out that they would assist in getting them to the top and I didn't see much reason to belabor the situation trying to figure out how every character would get rope assistance or swim up and fall back down, etc.
For the most disappointing (from a GM perspective) and supposedly second most challenging encounter, the PC's met up with the Cecaelia (CR 4), tried to Diplomacize with a 31 but only tried asking it questions and not offering any sort of tribute as indicated in the encounter. He took this as a reason to distrust the party and immediately attack which initiated a combat round. The Magus went up and rolled a crit and took him out in one hit. All over. The party quickly concluded the adventure by joining the books.
I was astounded at how fast the entire scenario went and how unsatisfying it seemed to everyone. One thing I do try to do for all my scenarios so that they run as smooth as possible is try to be very prepared for each encounter. With a VTT, things like attacks are extremely efficient with macros and that made things work very quickly as far as encounters went. I also was attentive to making sure that combat rounds went efficiently with the PC's and kept it moving along.
There it is. I laid it all out and tried to bare all. Give it to me straight. What could I have done to improve the experience/challenge? I'll try to lick my GM wounds, learn, and move on.
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Well, the final fight is quite underwhelming on the lower tier all in all, so do not blame yourself for that being over fast. And well, you cannot help the boss having low HP and the PCs critting. Especially on such a low level a lucky crit can change everything very quickly.
For the other encounters I cannot say much, as I don't remember them that much, having only played, not GMed this. Well, the water level puzzle really depends on the players realizing the meaning of the numbers, so it can feel a bit more difficult depending on who is playing. Again, not really your fault.
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Well first I'll let you know you did just about everything correct (except prepping the optional encounter. Those tend to be the most fun when you get to use them but not an issue here)
Second, the scenario itself is woefully underwhelming and ranks about as difficult as a season 0 mod so, meh. The only suggestions I can give is to work on your immersion. Remember you have a full on Paladin leader of the goody goody faction standing right there. I don't believe she would be comfortable with a group of heavily armored thugs effectively robbing a merchant directly in front of her.
Honestly, for this scenario the only fight that matters is the first one against the devil, prep that one as much as you can then focus on the RP for everything else.
The fights are a non-issue for any party, the boss is a pushover but the story is interesting. Focus on getting that into the event and amp up the social possibilities as much as you can.
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Sigh. The Internets ate my post.
Prethen,
You did a fine job, given the limitations of the scenario, being a Season 2 being run for 6 players. That is half again as many actions as the scenario was written for. And then the Magus, who went first in that final fight, was the 5th level PC, with a very unusual item for that level: A +1 spell storing fauchard.
So, given everything, he frontloaded all the abilities, both class and item, onto that poor NPC, and did a honking large amount of damage. Sometimes, the poor thing gets pwned quickly.
My own thanks were probably a bit lackluster, as I was a bit frustrated with Roll20 deciding that I shouldn't get over a 5 for my SR rolls, so I spent a good portion of the scenario feeling useless. It happens, and I don't run many spellcasters, so SR is always an unpleasant sensation for me when they run into it.
Then again, I didn't think that a 16 for my PC's Linguistics check was all that good, but that is because he has a +11 for it (Class skill, 3 ranks, 20 Int), so Roll20 only gave me a 5 on the die.
On the Stealth stuff, that is one of the more difficult areas to deal with, whether online or face-to-face. "Okay, you two get toi go in the surporise round. You saw only this mook, but you saw him, and also this one and this one. Let me count something here... No, you didn't see this one, the range modifiers for Perception lowered your roll below his Stealth check."
Almost as much fun as adjudicating light and darkness effects can be... Main thing is to make sure that each person knows whether they even saw anyone, who gets to go in the surprise round, and what legal targets they have.
Worst thing I have had to deal with, though, is the non-surprise round where no enemies are visible or available as targets, yet, when that high Initiative PC gets to go. And, sometimes, I am the one playing that PC, instead of GMing for him.
Overall, you did a fine job, and I can see both sides of the first encounter discussion.
Then again, that is almost surely a situation where you can start the Initiative counter early, so everyone gets to react in order, and things start happneing on the initiative of the person who actually tries to grab the book...
Then again, I couldn't finish running the Devil We KNow series, because I TPKed on Part 3...
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Kinevon, I very much appreciate your reply.
I try to provide as good of an experience as I possibly can while I lead a table. As I implied above, I did perhaps take a liberty of letting NPC's go first (by either realistic or contrived reasoning) to try to create a bit more of an immediate challenge to the PC's (without illegally rewriting the scenario itself). In the future, I'll be a bit more sensitive about that. But, you have to admit, that regardless of the NPC tactics, the party had virtually no issues (and bizarrely no damage...damn high AC's! lol).
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Kinevon, I very much appreciate your reply.
I try to provide as good of an experience as I possibly can while I lead a table. As I implied above, I did perhaps take a liberty of letting NPC's go first (by either realistic or contrived reasoning) to try to create a bit more of an immediate challenge to the PC's (without illegally rewriting the scenario itself). In the future, I'll be a bit more sensitive about that. But, you have to admit, that regardless of the NPC tactics, the party had virtually no issues (and bizarrely no damage...damn high AC's! lol).
You just went after the front liners. My PC's AC is something like 11 or 12, when not flat footed.
There is just something about a Wizard, who owns a wand of mage armor, who doesn't have it on his list.
Believe me, third level, playing 4-5, AC 11, 17 hit points. Now you know why my PC tried to stay far back in any potential combat situation.
Thassilonian Specialist does have its drawbacks. For my Wizard, that includes both Abjuration and Conjuration as forbidden schools... Every time I get him a wand, it turns out to be of a spell from his forbidden schools. And I took the trait that lets him use Diplomacy as an Int skill, rather than UMD...
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I'm not finding Pathfinder Society scenarios difficult for players at all, and I too am disappointed as both a GM and as a player.
Maybe it means I need to take a break from GMing; maybe it means I need a break in general. But I'm now actively seeking out scenarios at the last minute that have only 3 players, both so I can make a table legal to run, and because I might have more fun if there are only 4 of us playing against the GM.
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Sior, it went pretty well. I encouraged a bit more RP, included the optional encounter, and by a stroke of luck the first encounter was actually a bit more challenging. They also went low tier and only had 4 players. It's a shame I haven't had a chance to run this high tier yet. It still took only 3 hours to complete the whole thing.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I'm not finding Pathfinder Society scenarios difficult for players at all, and I too am disappointed as both a GM and as a player.
Maybe it means I need to take a break from GMing; maybe it means I need a break in general. But I'm now actively seeking out scenarios at the last minute that have only 3 players, both so I can make a table legal to run, and because I might have more fun if there are only 4 of us playing against the GM.
Two things leap to mind upon reading this:
1 - The two tables you played with me on a particular Saturday in February resulted in several deaths - one of them yours. Both were six player tables. I recall concern from you at that point about player capabilities (and errors, considering one player's assumption that his 2nd level PC was welcome at a tier 3-7, which of course forced him to play a 4th level pre-gen and bumped the tier up for the group - subsequently forcing him to play the 7th level pre-gen in an interesting chain of events). So, now things are too easy? Perhaps instead of worrying about scenario capability I simply need to give GMs a few lessons?
2 - If you're actively watching for 3 player tables at my location so you can make a 4th, I am a store that is destined to disappoint you. I actively work to be sure that all my tables are full at 6 players, and if that isn't happening consistently I will adjust things (tables, scenario offerings, etc., to be sure that it *is* happening). If you and I are working at odds with each other, then something has gone wrong. Seeing as it is my livelihood we are discussing I would rather things go my way than yours.
So, any proposed solutions to our problem?