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I have always seen him as a coward that refuses to be held accountable for his own mistakes.
That's definitely how the writing of this scenario portrays him. It also portrays Drandle Dreng as over-estimating Nigel.
So I was doing last minute prep to run this tonight, and I had a question I wanted to post here, but now I can't remember it. Expect me to be back in this thread in the next couple of hours.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah, this was the first Museum scenario I've played, so I got a bad impression of Nigel at first. When I was reading reviews though, a lot of them were outraged at the things done to Nigel in this scenario; it seems some other people do like the guy. I guess you could also portray him as a sort of Marcus Brody kind of guy; a nice guy but fearfully out of his league.
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Wow, all news too me. Everyone I've every run a Blakros game for (that I know of) and all the games I've played have had him be a well-received reoccurring npc that we all enjoy getting back to.
It might be the progressive sense of turning him into an ally of the Society and helping him to get over their past issues that caused his mistrust. It might be more along the lines of DM's adding their own spin to turn him into a jerk like the various VC's?
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I think part of it is that it is not clear if Nigel is just really bad at his job, or really good at a job that is impossible.
It all comes down to how you phrase the following sentence:
Under Nigel's leadership, the Blacros Museum blows up once a year.
or
Under Nigel's leadership, the Blacros Museum only blows up once a year.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Beckett/Jess/FLite - basically that's what I meant.
Personally I prefer him as an affable guy with the perhaps unwise idea of having a museum of things better left buried, but then I also enjoy the old Taldan faction missions where you're basically cleaning up other people's embarrassing mistakes.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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In my games, Nigel is the only person with enough personal experience to use Pathfinder as a verb. As in, "Please save the day, but don't you dare Pathfinder my museum!" Happy to have left for greener pastures and constantly aghast that he needs the help of his old colleagues.
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The thing that really annoys me about this scenario is, while Nigel doesn't have the highest wisdom score, he's at least competent. So what made him think using an artifact from the Shadow Plane (IE: The Plane that the Blackrose family is currently at war with) to re-arrange the museum, was a good idea/
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I think part of it is that it is not clear if Nigel is just really bad at his job, or really good at a job that is impossible.
It all comes down to how you phrase the following sentence:
Under Nigel's leadership, the Blacros Museum blows up once a year.
or
Under Nigel's leadership, the Blacros Museum only blows up once a year.
This is very clever and I appreciated reading it.
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So I ran this last night. I was very worried about running low tier, but these guys were uber-prepared. I suspect some metagaming.
We had a Dwarven Stonelord Paladin (can ignore hardness a few times per day), a sunder specialist with an adamantine weapon, a witch who had some electricity damage mixed in with the other spells, and a summoning focused cleric who really likes Lightning Elementals. There was also a more normal paladin with Power Attack who got a little damage past hardness, but not a ton.
It was also the only table I can ever remember playing where every PC had a lawful alignment.
It was a long enough session that we skipped the optional encounter, and I scared them a little with the damage in the first fight, but it wasn't terribly difficult for them. But they also had about as optimized a group for that subtier in this adventure as you can get. I'd still be afraid to run this at low subtier for any sort of average group.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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The thing that really annoys me about this scenario is, while Nigel doesn't have the highest wisdom score, he's at least competent. So what made him think using an artifact from the Shadow Plane (IE: The Plane that the Blackrose family is currently at war with) to re-arrange the museum, was a good idea/
I just assumed that they are laying the ground work for season seven's Blacros Museum scenario
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I have always seen him as a coward that refuses to be held accountable for his own mistakes.That's definitely how the writing of this scenario portrays him. It also portrays Drandle Dreng as over-estimating Nigel.
I ran him as a hysterical moron only concerned with self-preservation, because that way I could get a bit more RP into an otherwise relatively dungeon crawl-scenario. It might not have helped that the last time I personally encountered him he almost got me killed (Mist of Mwangi)...
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I ran him as a hysterical moron only concerned with self-preservation, because that way I could get a bit more RP into an otherwise relatively dungeon crawl-scenario. It might not have helped that the last time I personally encountered him he almost got me killed (Mist of Mwangi)...I have always seen him as a coward that refuses to be held accountable for his own mistakes.That's definitely how the writing of this scenario portrays him. It also portrays Drandle Dreng as over-estimating Nigel.
The last time I encountered him he was crying on the steps of the museum... Running away once he had briefed us.
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Off the top of my head, a few facts about Nigel that we have.
1.) He cares deeply for the Blakros family, who he has married into, but particularly their youth which he has personally encouraged, tutored, and mentored.
2.) He has a bad history with the Pathfinder Society, but willingly left that organization. Unknown why or how, but mistrusts them greatly at first. (and keep in mind that the PFS has an absolutely terrible, and even more absolutely terribly deserved reputation throughout the world. They are not heroes or "the good guys" in anyone's eyes.)
3.) He is a pretty fledgling wizard, having given up his studies of magic to serve the family.
4.) Was exiled unwillingly from his elven homeland.
5.) Various "high ranking" Pathfinders owe him.
6.) He cares a great deal for the innocents caught in the crossfire, specifically the various employees of the museum.
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So what you're saying is Nigel is morally grey normal elf who wants to earn a living and cares about other people normally and is capable for seeing the murder hobos as the pathfinders they truly are!
No, he is a less-than-capable person, who has managed, through luck, to buy in to a wealthy family, who has risen well past his level of competency, and has had a mixed experience with the Pathfinder Society, starting with his old friend, Adrim Hestril.
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So what you're saying is Nigel is morally grey normal elf who wants to earn a living and cares about other people normally and is capable for seeing the murder hobos as the pathfinders they truly are!
Depends. Morally grey can be anything from Good to Evil, Lawful to Chaotic. I believe, but could be wrong, that he is noted as NG. No more morally grey than any other person that sees thieves enter their house and weary that they might steal or wreck the place, and treating them like thugs (that they are).
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We pulled out the front door and ran from the first fight. Then spent time, and take-20's to find a back way in.
Final fight, my wizard grappled the dude while the others finished off the robot. The swarm came out and it was a titanic battle.
Nigel proved himself quite the ass (my wizard was contemplating and advocating murder). He insisted we go in the front.
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A few reasons, really. Its "a large metal box", large enough to hold at least 4 medium sized robots, plus others.
It was damaged to stop it from working, but we don't rally know how.
It needs to be "plugged in", somehow powered by running electricity through it constantly.
Mending is probably not an option based on it's size and weight. But, we don't actually get any stats for it, so not 100% on that.
so, doesn't look like it's even possible.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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So, one of the problems PFS has had in the past is that people go through entire scenarios, and never find out why the scenario happened because that information was given (at most) by a single NPC (who might even be hostile.) So the Players wind up confused and frustrated.
I assume the stasis chamber is alluded to several times by several people because otherwise there is a decent chance the PCs will not get the info in question, and the players will miss backstory
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If the Cyberplasm manages to use its 'Deconstruct' ability on a dead Pathfinder then it turns them into a 'Hungry Flesh' creature, which is an Ooze.
If the party then kill the Ooze do we think that we need a Resurrection or a True Resurrection spell to bring them back?
I initially assumed Resurrection but the fact that they are becoming not only a different creature, but ALSO a different creature type, not even just a different subtype, gives me reason to ask.
Thoughts?
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If the Cyberplasm manages to use its 'Deconstruct' ability on a dead Pathfinder then it turns them into a 'Hungry Flesh' creature, which is an Ooze.
If the party then kill the Ooze do we think that we need a Resurrection or a True Resurrection spell to bring them back?
I initially assumed Resurrection but the fact that they are becoming not only a different creature, but ALSO a different creature type, not even just a different subtype, gives me reason to ask.
Thoughts?
Hungry Flesh consists of the character's flesh, though in a form that doesn't have viable limbs or organs. Once destroyed, it should be a valid target for resurrection, which restores the character to full health - comparing with the text of raise dead, it should certainly remove the risk of tumour growth.
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A couple of observations from running this past weekend (with spoilers, but I'm assuming if you have gotten up to post 180 in a thread in the DM forum then you probably know most of what is in this mod!) . . .
1. Using Star Wars minis was a great tip (I forget who mentioned it earlier). I used battle droids and super battle droids for the various robots/gearsmen, and also found a appropriate woman with a laser pistol for Gerda.
2. My players apparently hate Nigel so much that they took the time to ransack his office (and "steal his paperweight and engraved letter opener") even though none of them actually needed to for their faction.
3. I was very sad that one of the hungry fleshes died when it was one growth point away from becoming bigger :-(
4. My PCs were woefully unprepared for getting the cyberplasm out of Pendleton at the end (since they basically told Gerda to scram as soon as they talked her down). Eventually they tried to grapple him and tie him up, and I thought it was reasonable that the cyberplasm would come out and try to seize a less incapacitated host. Then they got to enjoy another couple rounds of trying to beat it out of the bard without killing their friend!
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I was not aware that lightning elementals were legal summonsand a summoning focused cleric who really likes Lightning Elementals.
The list for the Summon Monster spells just says Elemental (Size) at each level that allows summoning them. The caster chooses the type.
I just double checked, and the Additional Resources doesn't specifically say what's legal/illegal for summoning, so I'd assume that it's dictated by the spell description. The Bestiary entries in Additional Resources should probably make a note of that, as they do with druid wild shaping and other polymorphs.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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I was not aware that lightning elementals were legal summonsand a summoning focused cleric who really likes Lightning Elementals.
The list for the Summon Monster spells just says Elemental (Size) at each level that allows summoning them. The caster chooses the type.
I just double checked, and the Additional Resources doesn't specifically say what's legal/illegal for summoning, so I'd assume that it's dictated by the spell description. The Bestiary entries in Additional Resources should probably make a note of that, as they do with druid wild shaping and other polymorphs.
it's illegal.
Only clerics of specific deties get to add summons for 'free' if the player owns the book.
There are some feats that add possible summons to the list as well.
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I was not aware that lightning elementals were legal summonsand a summoning focused cleric who really likes Lightning Elementals.
The list for the Summon Monster spells just says Elemental (Size) at each level that allows summoning them. The caster chooses the type.
I just double checked, and the Additional Resources doesn't specifically say what's legal/illegal for summoning, so I'd assume that it's dictated by the spell description. The Bestiary entries in Additional Resources should probably make a note of that, as they do with druid wild shaping and other polymorphs.
it's illegal.
Only clerics of specific deties get to add summons for 'free' if the player owns the book.
There are some feats that add possible summons to the list as well.
If that 3 year old post is still true, then it really needs to be in an FAQ and/or the Additional Resources. This isn't the first time I've seen elementals other than those in the original Bestiary in PFS sessions. I've never had any reason to think it wasn't allowed.
So what book(s) are you talking about that add additional possible summons?
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Last I heard, the PF rule was that all "priests" got access to them unless they specifically specify Cleric, Druid, etc. . . (don't personally like that, as Clerics really need as many ways to differ from Oracles and Arcane Casters as they can get).
Unless PFS made a special rule against it, then it should be legal, as Paizo said that they left it "priests" intentionally to allow it to be vague and open.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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Last I heard, the PF rule was that all "priests" got access to them unless they specifically specify Cleric, Druid, etc. . . (don't personally like that, as Clerics really need as many ways to differ from Oracles and Arcane Casters as they can get).
Unless PFS made a special rule against it, then it should be legal, as Paizo said that they left it "priests" intentionally to allow it to be vague and open.
The last PFS ruling I know of did only allow this for clerics.
