1 - The Show Must Go On (GM Reference)

[Zapp]

Riobux wrote:

Zapp wrote:

I'm just pointing out that Ron's answer maintains the illusion NPCs follow PC rules.

Ron Lundeen wrote:

Can PCs do this? Nope. Can monsters and NPCs do things PCs can't do? Yep.

I'm not sure if we read the same thing here.

I'm pointing out that statements like "Nemmia adds her Dexterity modifier to damage rather than her Strength modifier with the sickle, because it's a small and fast weapon (agile, finesse)" make monsters appear to use or honor rules like "you add ability modifier to damage".

What Nemmia can do that PCs can't isn't "add Dex to damage". Instead what Nemmia can do that PCs can't is use a completely made up damage expression, with guidance (or not) from table 2-10 "Strike Damage" of the GMG.

I trust that clears things up. Should you have any follow-up questions, however, feel free to ask! :-)

[Deadmanwalking]

Zapp wrote:

What Nemmia can do that PCs can't isn't "add Dex to damage". Instead what Nemmia can do that PCs can't is use a completely made up damage expression, with guidance (or not) from table 2-10 "Strike Damage" of the GMG.

She can do both.

Paizo's in-house damage guidelines for NPCs (and other weapon users) seem to almost universally follow the PC ones in terms of what adds to damage, plus Weapon Specialization style bonuses and specifically enumerated, or at least logically consistent, other ones to round things out to make them more or less equal the GMG guidelines. But you don't find longswords not doing 1d8 damage without some reason, nor people with lower damage bonuses than their Str Mod.

Which is to say, you're not wrong that the damage guidelines are what's most important, but you are wrong that they are all that's important. They have primacy, but they aren't the only thing going on. Monsters are also designed so that their damage numbers will generally feel intuitively correct (like the aforementioned 'no melee damage mods lower than Str Mod'), and so you can swap out weapons on them and have it work just like swapping out weapons on a PC.

[Zapp]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Which is to say, you're not wrong that the damage guidelines are what's most important, but you are wrong that they are all that's important. They have primacy, but they aren't the only thing going on. Monsters are also designed so that their damage numbers will generally feel intuitively correct (like the aforementioned 'no melee damage mods lower than Str Mod'), and so you can swap out weapons on them and have it work just like swapping out weapons on a PC.

Absolutely.

Remember, I only posted because Riobux didn't seem to understand the potential for misunderstanding when Ron said "Can monsters and NPCs do things PCs can't do? Yep." but then immediately maintained the illusion they still respected ability scores and equipment.

The bigger point I felt needed makin' was to make it clear to the poster starting this that no, there's no point in looking for errors when only player characters can have those errors.

Cheers

[stevenac]

Hey everybody. This is a very useful thread - thanks for your thoughts. I read through it the other night but don't remember this being asked. Apologies if it has: My players are in the process of developing signature tricks in preparation for Session 1 and I'm wondering if a signature trick HAS to have a trait. On pg 63 there's phrase "...each PC CAN add one trick trait to their signature trick" (emphasis mine).

I have a player who wants to design a trick but doesn't feel like agility, animal, fire, or water are thematically relevant to it. I'm inclined to go off the optional bent to the quote above unless there's been an "offical" ruling I missed.

[Zapp]

stevenac wrote:

Hey everybody. This is a very useful thread - thanks for your thoughts. I read through it the other night but don't remember this being asked. Apologies if it has: My players are in the process of developing signature tricks in preparation for Session 1 and I'm wondering if a signature trick HAS to have a trait. On pg 63 there's phrase "...each PC CAN add one trick trait to their signature trick" (emphasis mine).

I have a player who wants to design a trick but doesn't feel like agility, animal, fire, or water are thematically relevant to it. I'm inclined to go off the optional bent to the quote above unless there's been an "offical" ruling I missed.

You can choose to not get the benefit of a trait if you can live without a small bonus. The rule is only that you can't get the benefit of a trait unless you have recruited a NPC with that trait.

For instance, you can describe a performance involving alchemical items. You don't get the +1 for expending your item until you've recruited a NPC with the alchemical trait so you can choose that trait, but you can still do an alchemical show.

My personal advice, however, is to choose "agile" when in doubt, since it's so generically useful. You can always select a second trait later on (at level 8).

[Trevorish]

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My players went to the church but, after a near TPK during the fight with the wrecker demon, they opted to flee back to the circus with the priest, leaving the vermleks and quasit un-harmed. They plan to come back in the morning. What would the demons be doing next after they get new bodies and finish desecrating the church (especially without Nemmia around to command them)? Kill the Hawftons? Attack other areas of Abberton?

[profounddark]

Trevorish wrote:

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My players went to the church but, after a near TPK during the fight with the wrecker demon, they opted to flee back to the circus with the priest, leaving the vermleks and quasit un-harmed. They plan to come back in the morning. What would the demons be doing next after they get new bodies and finish desecrating the church (especially without Nemmia around to command them)? Kill the Hawftons? Attack other areas of Abberton?

If the PCs didn't see the Vermleks yet and you want to keep it easy on yourself, you can just presume that the Vermleks were not actually there digging up graves on the first day but show up on whatever day the PCs get to the graveyard.

In the alternative, the Vermleks are described as feasting on corpses at the graveyard. So, maybe they just keep doing that. So, the alternative is, "nobody found us at this buffet, so we just went back the next day."

Another alternative could be that they go back to the Lindell Barn to take an extended nap. "We ate SO MANY corpses that we have to sleep it off for a few days."

Of course, the fussy option: the description indicates that "Vermleks use their powers of deception and disguise to infiltrate mortal settlements and influence unwitting acquaintances of the bodies they wear." So I would imagine that they'd find some friend or acquaintance of the Lindell Brothers. This is where I'd base it sort of on where the PCs go. For example, if they decided to go to the local shop for supplies, maybe the Lindell Brothers were associates of the shopkeep and they encounter them there, trying to terrorize the shopkeeper. I'd only go with this if the PCs happen to go somewhere where it makes sense (like a shop, or the mayor's house, or something).

In general, my instinct would be to avoid anything that involves the vermleks going off to places that the PCs wouldn't already go (or wouldn't be directed to). Especially if they hadn't even seen them to begin with, because then they don't really know what they're dealing with.

[Trevorish]

Thanks, that's helpful. My players did already see them and talk to them briefly but didn't fight them, seemingly buying into their explanation about the plague. So I'll probably take option 2 or 3.

[organized]

Trevorish wrote:

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My group also fled from the Vermleks. I had them return to the barn. Nemmia was also present, as she fled from the initial circus encounter. It made for a rather epic, and very difficult boss fight.

[Zapp]

organized wrote:

Trevorish wrote:

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My group also fled from the Vermleks. I had them return to the barn. Nemmia was also present, as she fled from the initial circus encounter. It made for a rather epic, and very difficult boss fight.

My analysis is that Nemmia isn't actually very difficult for being a level's boss fight.

So in this case, it stands to reason it worked out alright. The fight was epic and fun, but ultimately winnable.

But this should not obscure the greater message - you generally can't have fleeing monsters gang up with other encounters. The encounter math in PF2 does not allow it.

Remember that while most Moderate encounters are not that difficult to handle on their own, combining two Moderate encounters are an instant Extreme encounter! Most boss fights are "only" Severe.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm cautioning everybody against using the same instincts that might work well in AD&D or 5th Edition. Reinforcements, retreats and backups can't be handled the same way in PF2.

The encounter balance of PF2 balances on a knife's edge, at least in official APs.

Unless you know precisely what you're doing, use caution in combining encounters.

For instance, in any Extreme encounter created through these developments, I would have half the monsters react/attack one round before the other half. This small change alone can do wonders in a party's capacity to handle the whole encounter.

[Golbez57]

I will admit to not having read all posts in the thread, so apologies if this has been covered.

As far as the difficulty of hitting 15 Anticipation for the first show, I think that is due to an enormous discrepancy and a possible (thankfully rare for 2e with a data-head like Mark and possibly others on the design team) conflict of terminology.

The adventure itself states that the clowns can be sent in once per SHOW.

The circus rules state more than once it can be done once per ACT (four acts in a show).

With the non-performer clown-related roles written as they are, I believe the latter was intended, but most play it as written in the adventure.

Each time my group sent in the clowns, I had them describe how they enhances and/or salvaged the trick. My favorite was them getting birdseed tossed in their hair and "atracked" by Axel's birds.

Our first session today had Anticipation of 17 in the end (Flambonis and Throwers had crits early on), and the final roll was to determine overall-fail-or-critical-success.

They now have Prestige 5 and a 36 gp payout.

Happy to hear from the Ron or Jason on the intended frequency of the clowns.

[Zapp]

The first show is still very difficult even when you allow Clowns once per Act.

We're level 11 now. It's apparent by now the Circus rules aren't nearly as balanced and well-engineered as the regular rules.

Expect a pastime, not a game (within the game).

[profounddark]

Golbez57 wrote:

Happy to hear from the Ron or Jason on the intended frequency of the clowns.

I'm pretty certain the the intended frequency was once per act and that the line on page 7 is a typo. I feel like if it were once a show, the Backup Clown non-performer role would be crazy required (instead of doubling number or clowns, it quadruples!).

As Zapp mentioned, even if you have a once/act frequency, the initial show is pretty difficult with the rules as written. There have been quite a few discussions about it on other forum posts.

The whole Circus thing is a pretty light sub-system. If, as a group, you get more into it, you'll probably want to look around at some of the different ways to expand it that people have proposed. If not, it's probably something that can fall by the wayside.

[Trevorish]

I saw this question asked earlier but it didn't receive an answer so I'll ask again. The Mechanical Carny has three variant features with instructions that you can use them instead of the Berserk and Berserk Slam features. However, the Mechanical Carny does not have a Berserk feature or a Berserk Slam feature.

If I wanted to use one of the variant features, which feature(s) should I replace?

[Moppy]

Started reading this to run it. Surely written by an American. Villain has sabotaged the safety nets. Obviously the correct thing to do is to postpone the act until the equipment can be repaired, or improvise some solution to find new nets, but the XP reward is for continuing the act and convincing the performer to go on regardless. It's like the Jaws movie when the shark attacks and they don't close the beach. I will do it differently and award points for any solution in line with the players alignment.

[Moppy]

Too late to edit, but just to be clear, that last comment was basically about capitalism not alignment as such. I meant to write 'capitalism alignment' and missed the word.

It's probably a good idea to remove both posts.

[Trevorish]

Moppy wrote:

Started reading this to run it. Surely written by an American. Villain has sabotaged the safety nets. Obviously the correct thing to do is to postpone the act until the equipment can be repaired, or improvise some solution to find new nets, but the XP reward is for continuing the act and convincing the performer to go on regardless. It's like the Jaws movie when the shark attacks and they don't close the beach. I will do it differently and award points for any solution in line with the players alignment.

As I see it, the right thing to do morally is indeed to not let them perform, but that will hurt the performance, just as in real life the moral decision often is more difficult not less. It doesn't make sense to me to give them the bonus for performing with less performers. However, it might make sense to introduce some other bonus like have the Kanbalis later give the players a gift or perform better on the next performance because they trust the ringmaster.

[Liegence]

Almost through book 1 and it’s been a lot of fun. Highlight of the adventure so far for me was their investigation of Hawfton Mill. They were -so- smart and cautious (at first, as you may have guessed). They wanted to stalk the perimeter stealthfully - noted the webs in the garden and the Druid used their knowledge to successfully ID what spiders it could be and decided wisely to avoid them. They circled around the wheel and carefully up the cliff to spy the rooms through the windows. Snuck into the girls room to investigate, snuck into the miller’s room to investigate. Readied actions against what was in the closet and smashed it immediately (which OOC was a loss but they had no reason to know that) - when I noted to the Druid knew that these Mephits were neutral she correctly pointed out that the last time they encountered them they were immediately hostile and almost killed them so no chances would be taken due to their power and prior aggressions - fair enough. They found the lockbox and held it “for safe keeping”. And at that point I knew Hawfton Mill was done - nothing else was there to find. And they had basically stealthed to the end of the dungeon fairly successfully. They were at the parents room door and I described how wasps were crawling in under the door but not fast enough to swarm. They headed back to the kids room... then ofc they were like f-it let’s kick down the door and use our AoEs against the swarm so they got their vials out and the barbarian smashed through the door ... swarm won initiative, covered two of them on their first turn and did a ton of damage. Our brave adventurers immediately ran out the mill slapping themselves and screaming “Swarm!!! Swarm!! Ruuuuuun!!” as they leapt into the river!

LMAO

Oh by the way, fair warning to new DMs. When my player group met Cubby for the first time they got unreasonably upset with me “How did we not know there was a taking dog at our circus!!!!” So maybe introduce the sideshow as part of the backdrop :)

Also fun thing my group did is after they killed the Boar they spent the rest of the day finding a way to haul it back to the circus. They picked some apples too, and immediately proceeded to set up a pig pickin for their roustabouts and fellow performers. Even prematurely cracked open the ale they bought for concessions to give everyone a relaxing time the next morning when the pigs were cooked. Was a real nice touch to build comeraderie with their troupe and a very nice display of leadership

[Captain Morgan]

I'm running a second group of players through this, and they include a gnome druid with great deception. He managed to con Nemnia into thinking he was on her side and the party killed her while her guard was down. Then he grabbed her hood, armor, and a disguise kit, and proceeded to convince every chapter 2 encounter that he was her. It made a lot of fights easier, especially the wrecker demon because he was able to observe and identify it ahead of time, so the whole party grabbed polished steel shields and set some mirrors up outside the church for an ambush. They killed it without getting hit, though it broke one shield and destroyed another.

[Luebbi]

I'll run this AP soon, but wanted to ask if the sideshow characters from book 1 will play bigger roles in future books? I'm not chuffed about them, and think about skipping them. They don't feel like they add much of value, especially since I will spend more time developing the other performers.

Before I cut them out, I just wanted to make sure they won't somehow be more important in later parts of the story.

[Sporkedup]

Luebbi wrote:

I'll run this AP soon, but wanted to ask if the sideshow characters from book 1 will play bigger roles in future books? I'm not chuffed about them, and think about skipping them. They don't feel like they add much of value, especially since I will spend more time developing the other performers.

Before I cut them out, I just wanted to make sure they won't somehow be more important in later parts of the story.

Nope, in fact the AP encourages players to swap them out for higher level and more interesting people as it goes along.

Frankly, the circus can really be any degree or flavor you want. Very little within it will directly impact how the story progresses, so you can create a vibrant cast of brand new weirdos or write the whole circus out together. Whatever suits your table the best!

Like for example, I threw in a cook/brewer who happened to just be villain from Plaguestone this group failed to kill in the spring. It's fun watching them squirm a bit, even though there is no reason for their characters to distrust said character (and because I am honestly not turning this into a secret villain situation, just a poke across the nose).

[Zapp]

Sporkedup wrote:

Luebbi wrote:

I'll run this AP soon, but wanted to ask if the sideshow characters from book 1 will play bigger roles in future books? I'm not chuffed about them, and think about skipping them. They don't feel like they add much of value, especially since I will spend more time developing the other performers.

Before I cut them out, I just wanted to make sure they won't somehow be more important in later parts of the story.

The simple answer is no.

Quote:

Nope, in fact the AP encourages players to swap them out for higher level and more interesting people as it goes along.

The AP doesn't actually talk about the sideshow artists at all in later installments.

The only member of the circus at all that's repeatedly referenced is the Professor. (There's also one or two offhand references to first-installment performers) None of it assumes a particular member of the circus is around, and none of them are crucial to the story.

The AP never actively encourages the players to swap anyone out, it just keeps presenting them with new better performers. While one can easily interpret this as encouragement to constantly "upgrade", that's never stated outright.

[profounddark]

Yeah; the circus characters certainly fall by the wayside after their introduction. It sort of requires some group investment.

I was watching the 2Perception livecast and they do quite a bit to reference the circus performers quite a bit. I feel like if that's something the group wants to have as part of the game, they sort of have to make it important on their own.

[Zapp]

Remember, the AP is specifically written with a clear directive: "make the adventure work even for groups with zero interest in the circus".

It's always the same: do you go for a more specific story that's more satisfying to those that purchase it (but fewer do), or do you go for a more generic story that's less satisfying to those that purchase it (but more do)?

[MosBen]

Ok, I'm still a fairly inexperienced GM. I've run two groups through the first book of Age of Ashes, and another group through The Fall of Plaguestone. So I've used some Paizo materials, but still consider myself a bit of a novice.

Which leads to some questions now that I'm prepping for starting a group on Extinction Curse. It seems like a lot of the materials in the first book, like how to make tricks, how to run the circus, the circus weapon list, and juggler and staff acrobat archetypes would be useful to have put into the Player's Guide. I mean, circus weapons and available archetypes are the kinds of things that will affect the character concepts that my players will come up with, and running the circus seems like a fairly complicated procedure. I'm not sure why those materials, or some version of those materials, weren't presented in the Player's Guide, or at least mentioned as something to talk to the GM about with a player-safe description.

Has anyone made a handout that can be given to players with this sort of material? Or at the very least can someone explain to the novice why I wouldn't want to just snip and save that material to send to my players?

[Zapp]

MosBen wrote:

Or at the very least can someone explain to the novice why I wouldn't want to just snip and save that material to send to my players?

You can totally just snip and save! :)

(The material is presented in the "toolbox" as directed to the GM, but there's no spoilers, and like you say, the players need this info)

Good luck with your campaign!

[Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion]

As an aside, it looks like to get the circus tent and circus grounds maps to line up, you have to assume the circus tent is 15 foot squares, and the circus grounds are 10 foot squares, and then it lines up nicely.

[Ron Lundeen]

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

As an aside, it looks like to get the circus tent and circus grounds maps to line up, you have to assume the circus tent is 15 foot squares, and the circus grounds are 10 foot squares, and then it lines up nicely.

I don't know that you need to shrink the squares in the circus tent, but the circus grounds should definitely be one square is 10 feet (not 5 feet).

[profounddark]

Ron Lundeen wrote:

I don't know that you need to shrink the squares in the circus tent, but the circus grounds should definitely be one square is 10 feet (not 5 feet).

I just assumed that everybody in the Circus of Wayward Wonders lived in very small wagons.

[Moloch1066]

Had a session 0 a few weeks ago, and ran my first session of The Show Must Go On last night!

I started with a quick intro scene where Myron strolled through camp and checked on everyone just so they'd get to know him before he died, and it definitely added to the shock factor.

For the performance, I lowered the starting Anticipation to 12 based on recommendations from this thread (I still wanted it to be tough, but not impossible). They ended up failing with a final Excitement of 13 and Anticipation of 15. They earned the extra excitement from the vipers, but the healer wasn't comfortable making the Kanbali perform without a net... which is too bad bcs that would have gotten them a critical success!!

For those who crunched the numbers, did you take into account Hero Points when determining the odds of getting to 15 Excitement? They helped a bit for my group.

What really hurt was that they had 3 critical trick checks. About halfway through, one of the players asked if they could Send in The Clowns to reduce a crit to a regular success. I'm going to allow for that moving forward, as it is not a huge alteration to the rule mechanically and makes logical sense (the clowns distract from the amazing performance).

The session ran roughly 5 hours, including my intro scene the circus performance and examining Myron's body. I stopped them before exploring the camp so we could have a quick check-in as it was our first session (and many new players to Pathfinder). All-in-all, it was an awesome game! We had a ton of fun and I can't wait for next time!

[Moloch1066]

For anyone interested, here is a recap one of my players wrote:
Ack the bard, Aidyl the cleric, Alaska the barbarian, Redmaw the rogue, and Zanah the barbarian have found themselves working together in the Circus of Wayward Wonders, and it’s the night of the biggest show this underdog carnival has ever performed! Everything must go perfectly! Good thing they have Myron “Thunder” Stendhal to guide them as ringmaster; under his watchful eye and keen sense of showmanship, nothing can possibly go awry. ...Whoops. He’s dead.
With a lifeless gnome backstage and a full house in the bleachers, this circus is truly about to become wayward. Luckily, Ack remembers the old adage: the show must continue! He galvanizes the crew to put on a performance so good, we’ll hear Myron clapping from Elysium!
First up: the clowns mug for the audience with Bardoph the bear, then Redmaw comes in and literally steals the show. The crowd goes wild at the sight of a bear chasing and nipping the goblin, knowing of course Redmaw isn’t in any real danger (right?). Looks like the CoWW is off to a good start! Unfortunately, a few ruffians in the audience sour the mood. Ack intimidates the first one with some well-aimed taunts, and off he slinks. Aidyl beguiles the next into joining the show with Axel’s amazing aviary, and then subtly suggests he fly the coop. Zanah and Alaska take turns taunting the third, ultimately making him punch his own stupid face to the hoots of a delighted crowd. Unfortunately, the ruffians still managed to be a distraction, and the Durable Duo isn’t able to drum up any more excitement for the rest of their act.
Before the next performance can start, Redmaw notices a disturbance in the crowd. Sneaky snakes are slithering through the stands! Redmaw calms the audience and battles the snakes with help from Zanah. Ultimately Elizia the snake charmer does her thing and shoos the danger noodles away, assuring the party that they’re not snakes from her act (which soon follows). Hmm. Something is amiss, and Redmaw and Alaska decide to spend the rest of the show patrolling the stands.
Ack does his best to keep the show running, despite venomous vipers and egomaniacal escape artists. The show launches into its big finish: fire juggling, water tanks, risley acrobatics! The crowd loves the performances, but maybe would have loved it more with an aerial act. Unfortunately, the Kanbali Family’s nets have been destroyed, and overall the circus ends up as “close but no cigar” on the success scale.
As the crowds disperse, Redmaw notices an intoxicated couple picking fights in the stands. They are ready to rumble, and things quickly get out of hand, despite Alaska’s attempts to scare them straight. The entire party moves into the fray, and Ack gets knocked out in the ensuing chaos. Luckily Aidyl is ready with some healing, as well as some impressive magic. Redmaw subdues Rhovo, but an enraged Zanah continues to batter at Jaleen: taking her out just because she can. The crowd is horrified, despite Aidyl’s healing of the intoxicated brawlers and Ack’s fancy concertina-ing.
The mood is glum backstage, as the circus realizes Myron’s death was more than just a heart attack. The poor man has been bitten by vipers, likely the very same ones that were in the stands. It’ll be impossible to track them now, nor the rats that have apparently been scuttling backstage… these were the culprits who chewed the nets of the Featherfall Five! Redmaw stakes out Myron’s caravan, noting the lights are on but the door is locked. The party does some preliminary interrogation, but it really seems like no one had special access to Myron nor wished him harm. The party can’t deny the obvious: this has Mistress Dusklight’s stink all over it. But she’s way the hells in Escadar… so how and why would she bother a puny show like this? The party better find out fast, because the show must continue!

[Moloch1066]

Quick question: do the Dream Pollen Pods (or complex traps in general, I guess) suffer from MAP?

[Ron Lundeen]

Moloch1066 wrote:

Quick question: do the Dream Pollen Pods (or complex traps in general, I guess) suffer from MAP?

Complex traps that don't suffer from MAP should say so, IIRC.

[Moloch1066]

Ron Lundeen wrote:

Moloch1066 wrote:

Quick question: do the Dream Pollen Pods (or complex traps in general, I guess) suffer from MAP?

Complex traps that don't suffer from MAP should say so, IIRC.

Sounds good, thanks Ron! I was picturing it as 4 distinct pods, and started to over-think things!

[thewastedwalrus]

One thing to note if worried about these early performers being forgotten or useless as time goes on is in how Critical Successes are earned in the circus.

After running up through part of book 3, it's often the case that the party needs only 1 or 2 more excitement in order to equal their anticipation, so the level 4+ performers would probably go overboard and limit the show to a success only.

[AceofMoxen]

My group of players wanted to investigate every single wagon on the map outside the tent. There's about 20 wagons, and only 3 of them have any information on what they hold. I had to quickly come up with ideas for what's in a wagon.

My group had no tools to deal with swarms, so Nemmia wasn't as much of a problem as the swarm of rats she commanded.

[Demonknight]

Moppy wrote:

Started reading this to run it. Surely written by an American. Villain has sabotaged the safety nets. Obviously the correct thing to do is to postpone the act until the equipment can be repaired, or improvise some solution to find new nets, but the XP reward is for continuing the act and convincing the performer to go on regardless. It's like the Jaws movie when the shark attacks and they don't close the beach. I will do it differently and award points for any solution in line with the players alignment.

It was exactily what i tough! My party refused to put them doing the same thing they were doing under the Mistress Dusklight, so what i did was i gave the extra two excitment anyway, divided one extra for the Vipers encounter, and another extra for the gamblers.

[LoreMaster GM]

I am getting ready to start up a game in less than two weeks and one of my players wants to be security for the circus. In a normal show being a security guard would negate hecklers and scalpers but in the first show you have ruffians and drunks. What benefit did you guys give to the group/the player who is a security guard during the first show?

[thewastedwalrus]

I rolled for a random event with the first show, so they would have stopped the hecklers event from happening but not the particular ruffian/drunks.

I also let them start the altercations closer to the stands than the rest of the party backstage.

[BoscoDM]

Has anyone made any of the Abberton NPCs circus-recruitable?

The circus in my game is a bit short on performers, after Nemia TPK'ed the heroes and then continued on to several of the circus cast. The New PC's are all from the sideshow, and only two of the other acts escaped unscathed. They really enjoyed the first circus, so I do want to let them fill the roster again.

Any NPC *can* join, of course. Just curious who others have identified as a good fit.

[Eltaris]

Hello,

I started to go through this campaign and I wonder if there is, somewhere, an exhaustive list of NPCs belonging to the circus of Wayward Wonders.

I found difficult to imagine the family it should be for its members if I have no idea about who is part of it...

Thanks for your help !

[BoscoDM]

Eltaris wrote:

Hello,

I started to go through this campaign and I wonder if there is, somewhere, an exhaustive list of NPCs belonging to the circus of Wayward Wonders.

I found difficult to imagine the family it should be for its members if I have no idea about who is part of it...

Thanks for your help !

I think there was some discussion on that earlier in this thread if you want to comb through it, and there are some other threads with suggestions like this one. You might also be able to crowdsource from the Obituaries thread. Sadly we don't have much official to go on.

[Farnaby]

I'm about to start this AP soon with 5 players.
Does anyone have any specific suggestions how to adapt the encounters and treasure for 5 players?

[thewastedwalrus]

Farnaby wrote:

I'm about to start this AP soon with 5 players.

Does anyone have any specific suggestions how to adapt the encounters and treasure for 5 players?

There are rules in the CRB for Different Party Sizes in terms of treasure that should have the amount of additional treasure to award. In terms of items specifically, there are usually a few extra thematic items/spells in the back of each adventure that would be good candidates to add (spells as scrolls for consumables). Beyond that, you can also pay attention to any characters that are struggling particularly and give them something to try and remedy that. These extra items can be added to any section where there's already some treasure fairly easily.

As to the encounters, there are rules for Different Party Sizes and for the adjustment values for each XP Budget. In my experience, some parties will be fine without this additional difficulty in adjusting encounters. If things are too easy with 5 players, then I'd recommend adding lackeys to boss fights and increasing the number of creatures in fights with more than a few copies of a creature. I'd strongly recommend against ever applying the elite template to creatures as a way of handling this, after trying it a few times I've found that it goes a bit too far in adjusting the difficulty and makes the players feel pretty helpless.

I've found that having say, 5 mephits instead of 4 is a pretty simple change, but that figuring out a good lackey for some bosses is trickier. Boss fights are pretty tough in PF2 usually, so I don't think my players have minded the hidden reduction in difficulty if I just didn't adjust those encounters for the extra player.

[Farnaby]

thewastedwalrus wrote:

Farnaby wrote:

I'm about to start this AP soon with 5 players.

Does anyone have any specific suggestions how to adapt the encounters and treasure for 5 players?

There are rules in the CRB for Different Party Sizes in terms of treasure that should have the amount of additional treasure to award. In terms of items specifically, there are usually a few extra thematic items/spells in the back of each adventure that would be good candidates to add (spells as scrolls for consumables). Beyond that, you can also pay attention to any characters that are struggling particularly and give them something to try and remedy that. These extra items can be added to any section where there's already some treasure fairly easily.

As to the encounters, there are rules for Different Party Sizes and for the adjustment values for each XP Budget. In my experience, some parties will be fine without this additional difficulty in adjusting encounters. If things are too easy with 5 players, then I'd recommend adding lackeys to boss fights and increasing the number of creatures in fights with more than a few copies of a creature. I'd strongly recommend against ever applying the elite template to creatures as a way of handling this, after trying it a few times I've found that it goes a bit too far in adjusting the difficulty and makes the players feel pretty helpless.

I've found that having say, 5 mephits instead of 4 is a pretty simple change, but that figuring out a good lackey for some bosses is trickier. Boss fights are pretty tough in PF2 usually, so I don't think my players have minded the hidden reduction in difficulty if I just didn't adjust those encounters for the extra player.

Thanks, that's a good place to start.

[Eltaris]

BoscoDM wrote:

I think there was some discussion on that earlier in this thread if you want to comb through it, and there are some other threads with suggestions like this one. You might also be able to crowdsource from the Obituaries thread. Sadly we don't have much official to go on.

Thanks BoscoDM, it is helping.

Maybe Paizo should think to share in a dedicated blog the additionnal background developped by authors but not published... I read on this forum that for many other campaign they had to make some cuts to fit with the books sizes...

[jimbob5555]

What are the rewards that the PCs get for running a good circus? I scanned the books very quickly using the keyword "prestige" and only seemed to find one instance of an easier diplomacy check.

I know some GMs offer a small cut of the profits towards their individual purses but what else can I expect if anything?

[Joe Hex]

jimbob5555 wrote:

What are the rewards that the PCs get for running a good circus? I scanned the books very quickly using the keyword "prestige" and only seemed to find one instance of an easier diplomacy check.

I know some GMs offer a small cut of the profits towards their individual purses but what else can I expect if anything?

The goal is pretty much to have the coolest circus. As characters level up and hire more performers, they get access to tricks with more traits. But outside of the circus itself, there isn't much the characters get.

At least not as far I've gotten running the AP. Basically it's just fun running the circus.

EDIT: You mentioned prestige. It unlocks upgrades to the circus and increases the payout for a good show. But again, it doesn't do anything for the PCs outside of the circus.

[jimbob5555]

Joe Hex wrote:

jimbob5555 wrote:

What are the rewards that the PCs get for running a good circus? I scanned the books very quickly using the keyword "prestige" and only seemed to find one instance of an easier diplomacy check.

I know some GMs offer a small cut of the profits towards their individual purses but what else can I expect if anything?

The goal is pretty much to have the coolest circus. As characters level up and hire more performers, they get access to tricks with more traits. But outside of the circus itself, there isn't much the characters get.

At least not as far I've gotten running the AP. Basically it's just fun running the circus.

EDIT: You mentioned prestige. It unlocks upgrades to the circus and increases the payout for a good show. But again, it doesn't do anything for the PCs outside of the circus.

Huh, that is sort of strange. I can obviously throw my own rewards into it but it seems so weird to have no sort of reward in it for the PCs. Be it tangible stuff like money, new opportunities or even character interactions.

I'll just have to work on my own stuff!

[Zapp]

The reason the circus performance is "it's own reward" (i.e. there's nothing in it for the characters) is because it frees the developers from having to ensure the circus rules are balanced.

Otherwise the circus would have to be treated (and balanced) as, say a magical item or a feat.

In retrospect, since the circus rules are horribly busted (they don't come even close to the balance and "tightness" of the Paizo rules design we've come to expect; except at the very start of the campaign, getting successes is trivially easy - the mechanisms are just thrown together and there is no challenge or balance) this was probably for the best.