Has anyone come up with anything creative for the gifts as part of the rebellion mini game?
I am stuck on the armour or wand for 1200 gp as adding +1 to a suit of armour costs 1150gp ruling out most armours. I suppose the key is “up to”
Also wands are 750gp
As an aside my players have seemingly given up on the rebellion game. I know it is clunky and very different from the main game but I feel like they have not really made an attempt to understand it.
Should I ditch it or run it myself? And if so should I remove the rewards such as bonus feats ? Or should those be the incentives for “playing”
In fairness I elected to take over a few weeks pre session to push the game on.
Does the AP assume players have access to extra feats and skills etc ?
I haven't bothered with the rebellion rules (almost) at all. Occasionally I'll use the covert/sabotage actions to give me an idea of things that the NPCs can do. And I've had a rough idea of the Notoriety score in my head based on actions of the group. The exact number has never mattered. I've rolled the dice and made a call based on that but it's almost always swung far enough to one side or the other that it was never close enough to even give me pause and try to decide if it's over/under their number.
I didn't give them gifts, extra feats, anything from the rebellion rules (oh, but Hetamon has a lesser amount of supplies from the stashes that he would provide) and the group has been fine without them.
(Group: 4 players, 20 point buy, Unchained Monk, Unchained Rogue, Shaman, Dawnflower Dervish Bard)
And I'm terrible at figuring out useful items to give the players. I'd suggest either randomly roll on the loot chart in Ultimate Equipment or give them treasure that they can sell for the amount of gold that you want them to have. (Up to you if you want them to have the full value of their gift or half the value if you figure that the girts are meant to be sold.)
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The Rebellion mini-game has worked well for me so far. It's given the players a connection to the larger city - tracking population, etc. and provides some firm benefits for the many people and groups they've rescued and allied with. I've used Events in the game to tie in to what's happening to the pc's and their actions. "So you killed some Dottari? Well this week's event is Increased Patrols." And I've let the pc's interact with their teams in non-mini-game ways - so the pc's wanted to purchase some weapons and armor without it being tied to them so I let them get Forvian and his crew to do it. Wasn't a mini-game action but seemed a reasonable thing they could do.
The rules were published in the player's guide so the players can see what they can get for rewards. And when. That can give them some motivation from a simple greed perspective. Bonus feats and skill points and treasure are nothing to scoff at. I wouldn't try to figure out what the pc's should get - make the players figure it out. Give them the 1200gp budget and tell them to come up with the idea. If armor or wands don't work, let them get anything else (or combination) that fits the budget. And don't let them sell the gifts - that would be like selling your birthday present from your Mom.
Did I read correctly? You ran some turns without the players involved? That seems a fast ticket to disengagement. That will make it less something they do and more something that is inflicted upon them. Or even something that provides rewards they didn't "earn."
Yes i realise running turns without them was a mistake
But they were already seemingly refusing to try and understand and loads of it was falling to me anyway
Added to that there were just two events left in part 2 but we needed to run 3 more weeks I think to get to 7. In hindsight the seven weeks is not a hard coded requirement so that was an error
I will not be doing that again. Reversing the situation might difficult.
I think I will remove the benefits unless they get involved with it . That should be enough given some have factored in certain feats into builds (notably Iron Will)
As an aside the experience gift only seems useful if they really push the game and it might give them a level at max one encounter early? Is this the intention? Perhaps I should reverse engineer this if I am using fixed levelling
On the events are you saying you pick relatively appropriate ones? Or just link rolled ones?
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I have not explicitly picked an event - amusingly Increased patrols came up randomly at a good time. However, I have told them I would roll the event secretly and reserved the right to choose something "narratively appropriate." (Note: they make all the other rolls including the event chance roll in the open.) I might never actually change the roll - the randomness of it adds a "you can't plan for everything" feature to the AP. In this AP the pc's have a lot more control over how and when they will tackle challenges and have many opportunities to scout encounter locations and learn about their opposition, etc. which creates a more deterministic feel (in my opinion.) A little randomness in the midst of that is good.