The Fox in: The Dalsine Affair (PFS), light spoilers, Stalker

[djones]

I walked into this scenario half expecting more diplomancy to start, so as usual I was in my social persona. As I had been to Oppara before in Among the Living I decided to foreshadow the appearance of the Vigilante by talking about how he had helped the Society the last time I was in town.

It wasn't a bad choice my any means, but the scenario starts with a choice of social skills, either bluff to help a venture captain slow down the antagonists or bluff, diplomacy or intimidate to aid escaping NPCs.

I tried to take combat notes, but since the scenario was played in French I missed some stuff if the initiatives look in a weird order, because I either missed or just didn't bother writing down unimportant things.

As we had a whole party of 6 and I had just added a permanent bluff bonus while in social mode thanks to the boon from the playtest chronicle for 4 sessions, I opted to slow down the soldiers. The rest of the party however, decided to search the house for what I imagine were victory conditions and the NPCs were not moving very fast.

In the third round I opted to drop the bluffing and try to harry the NPCs out, which was successful except that the VC was now failing his bluffs and the door was being battered down.

Having gotten the party in agreement and completed the evacuation, I urged the party to move on while I collapsed the tunnel behind us...also taking advantage of the chance to be alone to switch personas.

The Fox then joined the party, explaining that he had been wathcing the party since they had entered Oppara, that the social persona had been cut off by the falling ceiling and was unharmed, but trying to find another exit and would catch up later(finding exits was another victory condition, so the party were fine with it) and that he would help them get the refugees to safety.

The party was encountered vermin in the sewers; The Fox rolled perception and was able to act in the surprise round, dealing 15 NL damage including a full hidden strike hit for max damage and a bonus from Omen. Sadly The Fox has not Know: Nature and was unaware that vermin are immune to morale effects, so no Intimidate roll from Enforcer.

The party Magus hit for 18 damage, the Fox hit again for 8 lethal and the Vermin was subdued.

I'll gloss over the details of the next encounter and just describe the villain: an aberration with reach.

The Magus took 8 in the first round from an attack of opportunity as he moved to engage, missed his attack and was slammed hard and went down.

The Fox missed.

Warpriest stablised magus

Samurai challenged.

Priest Enlarge Person'd himself

Wizard Acid Arrow: miss.

______

Villain tried to move away, either fleeing or getting distance, then slammed the Large priest for silly damage.

Fox followed, failed an acrobatics roll to avoid provoking, took damage

Samurai ranged attack, hit

____

Fox took multiple slams from Villain, hit 0 and successfully bluffed to feign death

Samurai: archery attack again, hit

Priest and Warpriest channeled energy

Fox stood up, pulled out an alchemical weapon ready for next round

______________

Villain attacked Samurai for some damage

Enlarged priest smashed Villain into pulp

_____________________

Potential obstacle before the final fight could have resulted in a messy combat, instead I Intimidated my way through it.

I only use Bluff and Diplomacy in my social persona; the Fox just Intimidates.

_________________________________

Moving onto the final fight

Fox attempted to intimidate, rolled intimidatingly high, rolled NL damage and was given a chance to will save due to interaction; revealed the Boss was an illusion.

Boss then attacked from invisible with a rapier and shocking grasp for 14

Moving into initiative, the Fox burned Omen's daily charge to swift intimidate, made it inflicting shaken on the boss plus 2pts NL, then attacked and missed.

Boss critted Samurai for 25 pys and acid, Samurai down and dying

Warpriest stablises Samurai; others do things that are not very interesting

Fox bumps shaken to frightened with an intimidate and 3 more NL; the modifier to will save is enough for the wizard to colorspray him into submission

_______________________________________________________

Lessons learned: with a 1 minute change time it should be possible, even in a crisis situation, to swap personas if you can find a plausible reason to put a bit of distance from the party and if you're not actually in initiative

Don't bother attacking; it is better to Intimidate. Always Intimidate.

[ShieldLawrence]

How are you getting your shaken to get bumped up to frightened? I'm curious because I'm also using Twisting Fear and Enforcer with my Stalker.

[djones]

ShieldLawrence wrote:

How are you getting your shaken to get bumped up to frightened? I'm curious because I'm also using Twisting Fear and Enforcer with my Stalker.

Hmm, now that you've had me specifically researching it the answer is 'A poor application of the rules.'

I believe we were looking at the fear rules "Becoming Even More Fearful: Fear effects are cumulative. A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead" and missed completely the line from Intimidate that says "Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition."

Hey Mark Seifter, I think we just identified a new Vigilante Talent niche!

[djones]

djones wrote:

ShieldLawrence wrote:

How are you getting your shaken to get bumped up to frightened? I'm curious because I'm also using Twisting Fear and Enforcer with my Stalker.

Hmm, now that you've had me specifically researching it the answer is 'A poor application of the rules.'

I believe we were looking at the fear rules "Becoming Even More Fearful: Fear effects are cumulative. A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead" and missed completely the line from Intimidate that says "Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition."

Hey Mark Seifter, I think we just identified a new Vigilante Talent niche!

Perhaps make Rogue's Edge accessible once as a talent

[ShieldLawrence]

Getting some Skill Unlocks would be pretty cool for Vigilante's, especially if they opened it up to all four specializations.

With all of the Intimidate bonuses, it only seems that the Zealot and Stalker gain any way to effectively use them against their foes. The Stalker has Twisting Fear, the Zealot gets the Gaze line, but I'd like to see more intimidate based talents as an option for all of the specializations.

[djones]

ShieldLawrence wrote:

Getting some Skill Unlocks would be pretty cool for Vigilante's, especially if they opened it up to all four specializations.

With all of the Intimidate bonuses, it only seems that the Zealot and Stalker gain any way to effectively use them against their foes. The Stalker has Twisting Fear, the Zealot gets the Gaze line, but I'd like to see more intimidate based talents as an option for all of the specializations.

Absolutely! PFS can sometimes get an unfair rep as being all optimisation wargaming and no roleplay, but that's really not my experience and I've been having a blast being Captain Spooky, scaring all the NPCs into line.

I'd actually be just fine with baking Intimidate skill unlock into a new talent accessible to all Vigilantes.

Twisting Fear, for example, specifically calls out "Whenever the stalker vigilante causes an opponent to suffer from the shaken, frightened, or panicked conditions," and now that I've correctly read the Intimidate entry and assuming that skill unlocks are not available as a talent (which is the case for PFS and probably for a lot of home games), I can't think of ANY way to inflict frightened or panicked outside of a wand or taking 5 entire levels of Unchained Rogue.

Much as I love the Unchained Rogue and all the cool stuff that it adds, you shouldn't need to devote half your career to it to make one talent really cool.

[ShieldLawrence]

djones wrote:

ShieldLawrence wrote:

Getting some Skill Unlocks would be pretty cool for Vigilante's, especially if they opened it up to all four specializations.

With all of the Intimidate bonuses, it only seems that the Zealot and Stalker gain any way to effectively use them against their foes. The Stalker has Twisting Fear, the Zealot gets the Gaze line, but I'd like to see more intimidate based talents as an option for all of the specializations.

Absolutely! PFS can sometimes get an unfair rep as being all optimisation wargaming and no roleplay, but that's really not my experience and I've been having a blast being Captain Spooky, scaring all the NPCs into line.

I'd actually be just fine with baking Intimidate skill unlock into a new talent accessible to all Vigilantes.

Twisting Fear, for example, specifically calls out "Whenever the stalker vigilante causes an opponent to suffer from the shaken, frightened, or panicked conditions," and now that I've correctly read the Intimidate entry and assuming that skill unlocks are not available as a talent (which is the case for PFS and probably for a lot of home games), I can't think of ANY way to inflict frightened or panicked outside of a wand or taking 5 entire levels of Unchained Rogue.

Much as I love the Unchained Rogue and all the cool stuff that it adds, you shouldn't need to devote half your career to it to make one talent really cool.

When you confirm a critical hit, Enforcer bumps it up to frightened for one round, shaken for the rest.

If you go Dazzling Display, you can pick up Disheartening Display which let's you increase a fear effect through the use of Dazzling Display. Whether to take Shatter Defenses or Disheartening at level 8/9 is up to you.

[djones]

ShieldLawrence wrote:

djones wrote:

ShieldLawrence wrote:

Getting some Skill Unlocks would be pretty cool for Vigilante's, especially if they opened it up to all four specializations.

With all of the Intimidate bonuses, it only seems that the Zealot and Stalker gain any way to effectively use them against their foes. The Stalker has Twisting Fear, the Zealot gets the Gaze line, but I'd like to see more intimidate based talents as an option for all of the specializations.

Absolutely! PFS can sometimes get an unfair rep as being all optimisation wargaming and no roleplay, but that's really not my experience and I've been having a blast being Captain Spooky, scaring all the NPCs into line.

I'd actually be just fine with baking Intimidate skill unlock into a new talent accessible to all Vigilantes.

Twisting Fear, for example, specifically calls out "Whenever the stalker vigilante causes an opponent to suffer from the shaken, frightened, or panicked conditions," and now that I've correctly read the Intimidate entry and assuming that skill unlocks are not available as a talent (which is the case for PFS and probably for a lot of home games), I can't think of ANY way to inflict frightened or panicked outside of a wand or taking 5 entire levels of Unchained Rogue.

Much as I love the Unchained Rogue and all the cool stuff that it adds, you shouldn't need to devote half your career to it to make one talent really cool.

When you confirm a critical hit, Enforcer bumps it up to frightened for one round, shaken for the rest.

If you go Dazzling Display, you can pick up Disheartening Display which let's you increase a fear effect through the use of Dazzling Display. Whether to take Shatter Defenses or Disheartening at level 8/9 is up to you.

Oh, excellent! Make the vigilante have to make a meaningful choice as to which talent to take, which results in diversity of character strategies.

[Imbicatus]

djones wrote:

now that I've correctly read the Intimidate entry and assuming that skill unlocks are not available as a talent (which is the case for PFS and probably for a lot of home games), I can't think of ANY way to inflict frightened or panicked outside of a wand or taking 5 entire levels of Unchained Rogue.

A one level dip into Thug rogue (Chained or Unchained) will allow you to stack intimidate into frightening.

The Souless Gaze Damnation feat does this too, but it's not PFS legal.

[djones]

Imbicatus wrote:

djones wrote:

now that I've correctly read the Intimidate entry and assuming that skill unlocks are not available as a talent (which is the case for PFS and probably for a lot of home games), I can't think of ANY way to inflict frightened or panicked outside of a wand or taking 5 entire levels of Unchained Rogue.

A one level dip into Thug rogue (Chained or Unchained) will allow you to stack intimidate into frightening.

The Souless Gaze Damnation feat does this too, but it's not PFS legal.

Worth considering for the rebuild but for the purposes of playtest I cannot dip without losing chronicle progression, and I want my Boy Wonder boon! :D