Am i the only one who doesn’t like the idea narratively of the players just skipping town for three days to buy high priced items in Vyre
Or is this level of purchasing ability what should be expected by the time you get to book 3 of a pathfinder AP?
Is there anyway I can somewhat control it / stop it getting out of hand ? Or should I just roll with it? I don’t think i can limit certain specific items as my players would kick off (I am thinking super powered no brainer items like boots of speed )
Only other AP I have run is Reign of Winter through to the end of book 3 and there is nothing similar by way of “magic item shop”
So is my perception faulty ?
Are they going to Vyre just to buy items or are they going there as part of the ongoing narrative of Book 3 and intending to take advantage of a larger city (which Vyre is) that is not under martial law? I mean if they're already in the big city hard not to check out what kind of magic items might be available.
The city of Vyre has a base value of 14,400gp. Per Game Mastery, that means "There is a 75% chance that any item of this value or lower can be found for sale in the community with little effort. If an item is not available, a new check to determine if the item has become available can be made in 1 week." So you can block 1 out of 4 of their pursuits pending how much time they want to invest. It's also a GM call on what constitutes a "little effort." Sellers (particularly in Vyre) may ask for things outside of cash or come with other unsavory entanglements (but that requires you to create those.) The 75% chance doesn't apply to the magic items explicitly listed as available in the city stat block (of course.)
Your other mechanical choice is to keep the pc's from having the kind of money to buy such items. But that requires you a) to consciously plan to do that and reduce treasure accordingly and b) to understand how that will affect the pc's effectiveness going forward. The game "assumes" a progression of magic item power for pc's as they advance.
Each table is different but in my experience it doesn't work to well to restrict these things - it just annoys the players. And getting better magic items is part of the fun of the game. There's always something of an arms race going on and as a GM you have to adjust to how your pc's are getting powered. I will say the AP's tend to do a good job of keeping the treasure within the bounds of reason (an eye of the beholder thing to be sure) though this one has particularly bursting treasure piles - Lucky Bones in Book 2 and the Opera House in Book 3 being good example.
Maybe consider yourself lucky they haven't figured out their money would go twice as far if they started piling on the crafting feats. :)
I think part of the problem is that I am doing ABP (except weapons! which even when removing the respective ABP items seems to put them in a net significantly better off position
I don’t really want to sit and do the exact maths on it
Funny they were commenting on it being a low treasure book but Menador keep has I think 4 x “+2 weapons” selling for 4K each
My question was partly whether the access was “normal” by AP standards
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As to the timing they have just walked back from the keep raid and I have decided to make the ball in just over one week to move the story on more than anything
So part of my narrative point is them just walking back from a major operation and being away from town for two weeks and then leaving straight away
As an aside at least one player is nervous because I attacked them with skinsaw cultists last time in vyre (and I used a nasty build someone posted on here where they are sanctified slayer inquisitors - between outflank, precise strike, bane and sneak attack they were doing about 5d6 plus modifiers )
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IMO this is just something that comes with the higher levels of the APs. At some point (if you have someone who can cast it) you are going to have contend with them casting greater teleport and doing Metropolis shopping sprees throughout Golarion.
At that point I have tried to throw in random encounters to make things interesting but I have also gotten lazy and just let them do it.
If you want to keep them invested have people like Little Baby Barzy (what my players called Barzillai (to his face)) commission scrying on them and use sending spells to hire assassins or something of that nature.
That will only work for so long though before they start regularly detecting scrying and then casting non-detection or Mind Blank or whatever they can come up with to cut down on that tactic.
I do feel the pain though. It is part of the reason that I thought I would particularly enjoy Jade Regent (what with the anti-teleportation mechanic) but other parts of that path have been rough for me.
I would take the chance to play up the character of Vyre though. I imagined it as a mix between New Orleans and Vegas and they were tempted in a bunch of ways to spend money (gambling etc) that they otherwise might not have.
IMO this is just something that comes with the higher levels of the APs. At some point (if you have someone who can cast it) you are going to have contend with them casting greater teleport and doing Metropolis shopping sprees throughout Golarion.
At that point I have tried to throw in random encounters to make things interesting but I have also gotten lazy and just let them do it.
If you want to keep them invested have people like Little Baby Barzy (what my players called Barzillai (to his face)) commission scrying on them and use sending spells to hire assassins or something of that nature.
That will only work for so long though before they start regularly detecting scrying and then casting non-detection or Mind Blank or whatever they can come up with to cut down on that tactic.
I do feel the pain though. It is part of the reason that I thought I would particularly enjoy Jade Regent (what with the anti-teleportation mechanic) but other parts of that path have been rough for me.
I would take the chance to play up the character of Vyre though. I imagined it as a mix between New Orleans and Vegas and they were tempted in a bunch of ways to spend money (gambling etc) that they otherwise might not have.
Vyre is fun but I am struggling to think of suitably zaney things that would be there at the moment! I assume there must be some kind of list of crazy things somewhere on the boards that I can steal from...
Thrune is already scrying from them due to book 2. I am not sure how scrying is detected having never played high enough level games for it to be a thing (I haven't given them a chance to work it out so far - should I have?)
Perhaps I could send different type of assassins to skinsaw people next time? But doesn't Vyre kind of have a thing against that (which is weird due the heavy Norgorber influence)
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It doesn't necessarily need to be a combat encounter.
Something weird like a fortune teller who gives them oddly accurate predictions in the style of a voodoo priestess.
Tempting them by having them seeing one of their foes from Kintargo doing something shady that would damage their reputations but having to break the taboo of Vyre by spreading that information back in the home city. (Doing so might get them visited by some kind of higher level planar servant of Norgorber)
Just a good old fashioned salacious parade through the streets of Vyre with all manner of debauchery.
A full blown gambling house with some heavy character.
When my players were in Vyre I used the old module No Response From Deepmar as a diversion (this would take quite a bit of time and work).
As far as the question about letting the group know about detect scrying... I mean... it depends on what kind of DM you are. I wouldn't. If they can't find it on their own then that is their fault.
I made the same mistake letting my group know about Suppress Charms and Compulsions. Deeply regretted it.
At the end of book two a lot of attention was given to the Ravens. Book 3 has a lot of things outside of Kintargo as it's kind of assumed that the players would want to lay low for a little while and not have Thrune and his goons following them everywhere.
Groups playing through Hell's Rebels are incredibly limited to what they can buy and a trip to Vyre allows them to buy items they've likely wanted for awhile. But it sounds like you group has already been to Vyre, then down to Menador Gap, are now aware of the Masquerade, and want to go back to Vyre within the week before the Masquerade? How are they getting there so quickly? Shouldn't they be more worried about actually organizing people to prepare for whatever the obvious trap is?
If you're only partially using ABP and haven't adjusted all of the treasure to suit then you're going to have problems with the group having more treasure than they should, especially since magically enhanced weapons are the majority of valuable things they find (that would have normally been removed when using ABP).
As for Scrying, you did read the spell, right? It takes an hour to cast, there's a Will saving throw to automatically resist, and it only lasts a minute per level.
And, as per the rules for divination/scrying magic (page 210 of the core book), it's a DC 20 + the level of the spell to see the scrying sensor. Unless the PC is actively looking for something (even if it's not the sensor) you should use their passive perception (10 + skill).
Second the motion on Warped Savant's comments - ABP is hard to use with AP's since they are not written to make it easy to adjust treasure. And one of the reasons I use AP's is because I'm lazy.
The comments are also on point about the details of Scrying. I would however add one more detail in spoiler:
The end of Book 2 doesn't really help Thrune scry on the Silver Ravens. Since a) Barzillai having met the pc's doesn't help at all since Scrying isn't on the Inquisitor spell list. So he'll need to get someone else in his entourage to cast it - Tiarise or Grivenner seem most likely. And assuming those casters have met the pc's, that simply makes the save DC modifier = +0; and b) the magic items he gave them don't help with Scrying at all (which is only aided by the caster having possessions of the target.) Those items would be good targets for Locate Object - which is on the Inquisitor spell list. Of course even at caster level 15, it only last 1 minute per level and has a range of 1000 feet. Hard and obvious for him to search the city using Locate Object to find the Silver Ravens.
At the end of book two a lot of attention was given to the Ravens. Book 3 has a lot of things outside of Kintargo as it's kind of assumed that the players would want to lay low for a little while and not have Thrune and his goons following them everywhere.
Groups playing through Hell's Rebels are incredibly limited to what they can buy and a trip to Vyre allows them to buy items they've likely wanted for awhile. But it sounds like you group has already been to Vyre, then down to Menador Gap, are now aware of the Masquerade, and want to go back to Vyre within the week before the Masquerade? How are they getting there so quickly? Shouldn't they be more worried about actually organizing people to prepare for whatever the obvious trap is?
If you're only partially using ABP and haven't adjusted all of the treasure to suit then you're going to have problems with the group having more treasure than they should, especially since magically enhanced weapons are the majority of valuable things they find (that would have normally been removed when using ABP).
As for Scrying, you did read the spell, right? It takes an hour to cast, there's a Will saving throw to automatically resist, and it only lasts a minute per level.
And, as per the rules for divination/scrying magic (page 210 of the core book), it's a DC 20 + the level of the spell to see the scrying sensor. Unless the PC is actively looking for something (even if it's not the sensor) you should use their passive perception (10 + skill).
ABP - I have removed everything that ABP replicates but don’t have any real idea where that places them on “effective” WBL at this stage
Vyre vs. Ball prep - aren’t the preparations technically handled by rebellion activities ? It is worth considering that this is the last chance for a vyre trip until at least the first two parts of book 4 are done.
Is the gap for them to plan between the return from the keep and the ball being only a week unreasonable? The ball was mentioned at the start of the book so arguably they could have sent their spies at any point and didn’t think to (although I really don’t think I would have thought of it as a player)
Scrying - I did not read it. I kind of took it as a “block text” thing that happens since clearly as Latrecis mentions the writer got this wrong as well
ABP - I have removed everything that ABP replicates but don’t have any real idea where that places them on “effective” WBL at this stage
But you didn't remove the magical weapons because you're not using ABP for weapon bonuses, right? Which is going to easily give your players a higher WBL. (You get more wealth from weapons than from probably everything you removed but a lot of the gold you usually get from selling weapons goes towards more than just getting a better weapon).
If you wanted to keep WBL at what it should be, it would require WAY more work. ABP tells you to halve what the WBL is but assumes you use the full rules for it. Using all but the weapons means you should've figured out what WBL would be if.... I don't even know. What percentage of a characters wealth per level goes towards their weapon? That amount, plus 50% of what the standard WBL would equate to what your groups WBL should be. (Because ABP tells you WBL is half.) Once you have that 50% + Gold for Weapons you'd have to adjust all of the treasure to keep that consistent.Or do as you've done, leave it as is, take out some of the magical gear, and be aware that your party is going to be better equipped than the books expect.
Vyre vs. Ball prep - aren’t the preparations technically handled by rebellion activities ? It is worth considering that this is the last chance for a vyre trip until at least the first two parts of book 4 are done.
Sure, if you don't want the leaders of the rebellion overseeing the people they're trying to organize and the people that are preparing everything.
I guess my group just wanted to be more 'hands on' than 'the NPCs will do everything perfectly'.Is the gap for them to plan between the return from the keep and the ball being only a week unreasonable? The ball was mentioned at the start of the book so arguably they could have sent their spies at any point and didn’t think to (although I really don’t think I would have thought of it as a player)
No, a week is fine, depending on what they want to do. But with only a week left until the ball I'm surprised the PCs would want to leave the city and trust that they won't have any problems and that they'll be able to get back in time.
And that Thrune isn't going to do something evil beforehand.And that the NPCs don't get squirrely about the leaders of the rebellion wanting to skip town rather than help them plan things...
The rebellion, in my game, needed some oversight beyond simply "I tell the NPCs to do this thing." (Probably because the players wanted to make sure things went right but maybe I said something at the beginning to set expectations? I don't remember.)
I don’t disagree with any of the points regarding rebellion management and there might even be a party debate about it in the next session where not everyone wants to skip town
I just know that as written the whole thing descends info chaos after the ball where they can no loner buy anything of any real value - the group doesn’t know this of course
I might let them use Cassius favours to buy expensive items
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As to ABP I changed weapons to non ABP last session and have currently made a retrospective cash adjusted for those they have sold that should have been more expensive (actually very few as most “sold” / non held magic weapons to date seem to be from Menador which they haven’t sold yet). Up until now I was playing ABP exactly as written
But it the more wealth than expected point makes me feel better about applying ABP to all NPCs. 20 point buy and ABP on Lucien actually made him somewhat nasty
I just need to be careful about applying it to monsters with levels such as Ciz as it keys of HD as a level analogue for that .
Putting ABP on Menotheguro on HeroLab made something horrific !
Instead of applying it to monsters why not just leave them as written but remove the items from the loot (but have the enemy still have the benefit of it)?
Enemies typically have a lot less treasure than a PC would have at the same level so applying ABP to them will make the enemies roughly 1 CR higher. (If I'm remembering correctly, it's a +1 to the CR if the enemy has PC equivalent wealth.)
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Instead of applying it to monsters why not just leave them as written but remove the items from the loot (but have the enemy still have the benefit of it)?
Enemies typically have a lot less treasure than a PC would have at the same level so applying ABP to them will make the enemies roughly 1 CR higher. (If I'm remembering correctly, it's a +1 to the CR if the enemy has PC equivalent wealth.)
Some people like simulationism even at the expense of ease of use.
I have not had any significant issues with ABP. You just eliminate any treasure that's in the XMas tree of magic items: weapons, armor, rings of protection, etc. And, yes, I simply retain the bonuses on the monsters that they got from their now-deleted loot.
I have not had any significant issues with ABP. You just eliminate any treasure that's in the XMas tree of magic items: weapons, armor, rings of protection, etc. And, yes, I simply retain the bonuses on the monsters that they got from their now-deleted loot.
This is how I've also have done it while using ABP from start, and it has worked out fine.
The only possible downside has been that quite many enemies' loot have only been items which ABP removes, making for some dull cadaver shakedowns for my players. Not that I feel sorry for them...As for Vyre, I just let them shop for what they wanted (with the 75% chance on the 14,400 base value), even though I usually detest the magic-shop prevalence in Pathfinder. It was a nice change of scenery for the PCs and reminded them how freedom tastes (at least for rich adventurers).