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Hmm. That makes some sense, though it’s weird that it’s easier to get the language on a completely different character than the one who played the scenario. I can probably just take multilingual at 2nd. That looks like the only way I’d have the language in time for it to actually be useful in any season 2 scenarios. Off hours study would be an option if it wasn’t 50 days of downtime, which would eat through all the season 2 content I would want to have the language for.
The other option is to just swap the character to a different number to take the language from the start and just GM credit back to 9xp. Which just seems kind of pointlessly complex.
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Hmm. That makes some sense, though it’s weird that it’s easier to get the language on a completely different character than the one who played the scenario. I can probably just take multilingual at 2nd. That looks like the only way I’d have the language in time for it to actually be useful in any season 2 scenarios. Off hours study would be an option if it wasn’t 50 days of downtime, which would eat through all the season 2 content I would want to have the language for.
The other option is to just swap the character to a different number to take the language from the start and just GM credit back to 9xp. Which just seems kind of pointlessly complex.
Retraining would also make it available. Can we retrain a language?
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Yeah, my reading of retraining is that it doesn’t work for things that are “before” your class training. So no retraining backgrounds, bonus languages, heritage, etc. Ancestry feats I believe are ok. It’s not a huge deal in this particular instance, since I don’t really have any skill feats I was set on for the character. I’ll play a replayable to get her to 2, then take multilingual.
I do feel like that seems to create a weird situation where I could have done that without the boon, and also that it’s strange to have a boon that works better for characters other than the one who earned it, but these are the new days of pfs 2, so I’ll just go with it.
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I hate this justification, but it is still a young system and developers are still earning what makes good boons. Access boons (like this one) are generally easy and well received; however I think people might have overlooked how languages work (as you're pointing out).
Its uncommon, so already available via Multilingual. Retraining is silent on changing your languages -- its neither in the allowed list with set times, nor the disallowed list. So there's not a path to swap a language using downtime to take an newly access granted language. You might (not in your case it sounds like) be able to use it when you get the level 5 ability boost, but that feels very late/delayed for someone wanting to follow the metaplot this season with it.
I think they (whether its PF2 Design Team or PFS2 OP/GM) should add a retrain language downtime option -- setting it equal to the time to change a skill feels about correct -- off-hours study ha already said one bonus language = one bonus lore in terms of time for the bonus one, after all.
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I'm a fan of boons that unlock options for all of your characters, so from that respect, I like this boon. As you've noted, there are just some strange aspects of it that would be great to have answers for.If I hadn't played the scenario with my academic/librarian/cryptid hunter character, I could rebuild her and take the language. But because I played it with a character that would want to learn the language, I apparently can't (edit: without using the method that would arguably work without the boon). Again, not a huge deal for me in this situation. For when I ultimately run the scenario, I'd like to be able to explain the boon to players in a way that makes sense.
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Personally it seems a bit silly that if you, as a player, have access to something and you do a rebuild then your -2002 character doesn't get access because the PC has a 2-03 chronicle. But if you started a new -2003 character or rebuilt another character then they are fine because they don't have a chronicle.
What about your -2001 who doesn't have the chronicle but was created before your -2002 that did 2-03. If your -2001 did a rebuild would they not be able to learn the language because your -2002 hadn't yet finished 2-03 when your -2001 was first created? .
Also, I fail to see where in the PFS2 guide it says anything about your chronicle order mattering when doing a rebuild or retraining. In fact the rebuild rules in the guide make 0 mention of your chronicles.
Rebuilding Your Character
After playing a new character, you might find aspects of your character you would like to change. Don’t worry! Until you play a game in which your character starts with 12 or more XP, you can freely rebuild your character completely. The character retains their Reputation earned and character number. Once you begin a session as a second level character, you still have options for changing your character’s choices through Achievement Point purchases or retraining.You cannot use Rebuilding or Retraining to build a character that could not be built without using either of those two tools.
The last sentence says you can't build a character that could not be built without using either rebuilding or retraining. But if you are rebuilding you are able to freely rebuild your character completely. No mention of chronicles. The restriction, afaict, is focused on not letting you build an illedgal character in terms of character options that serve as prerequesites to each other. But since you as a player have access to the language then IMO you should be fine.
As a note, this doesn't just impact 2-03. There are other scenarios that have universal unlocks that this could be relevant to. Namely universal backgrounds. If someone spends 80 ACP on an ancestry and then they finish a certain scenario is that really fair to tell them they can't level 1 rebuild freely into a background that is 100% relevant to their character?
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Ok, I thought we were discussing level 2 and higher characters.
The scenario you present is a corner case. If 2002 earned the unlock and had not yet played at level 2, yes, you can freely rebuild and take the language (or background or whatever universal unlock there is).
The chronicles are applied to the character in date order unless held for a later level. That is clearly stated in the guide.
Chronicles apply in the order in which they were played. Add all earned rewards and make Downtime checks before applying the next Chronicle. Applying credit in batches may advance a character multiple levels. The character’s level cannot exceed the level of any Chronicle applied to them, so any out-of-level Chronicles applied are lost.
Earlier characters are not locked out of rewards just because the have a lower number. A 2001 could take the reward. If not played at 2nd level yet, free rebuild. If played at 2nd level, then need a feat, either taking one or retraining a current feat. But it is pretty clear that retraining a language selected at character creation is not allowed within the rules for retraining.
If someone was to use a AcP purchased retraining, that would allow a language to be taken because of the wording on the boon.
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The chronicle has been applied, because it's a level 1 character that played in a level 1-4 scenario. I've purchased the 0 cost boon for that character, because as the only character I have that's played the scenario, that's the only one I can purchase the boon on. The question is can I rebuild that character (who has 9XP) and change one of her bonus languages from intelligence to Cyclops?
Looking over the language from the guide again, I think Race and Gary are correct. When you rebuild your level 1 character, you don't remove those chronicles and reapply them. They're already applied. Applying this particular boon happens to open up an option to all of my characters. Even though that boon chronicle is assigned to a character number, it's a player boon.
So I think I can do the rebuild for this character and not worry about Multilingual. Which makes up a little bit for the clarification on Modern Human languages being Uncommon, and I could instead take Osiriani with Multilingual at 2nd (swapping probably Draconic or Sylvan for Cyclops at 1st with the rebuild).
I'm going to go with that unless there's something new that comes up or the campaign says otherwise, because I do think it's an issue if it doesn't work.
Another example I can think of:
It would be great to get a campaign-wide clarification that these kind of player unlock boons work during the 1st level rebuild (or a GM blob rebuild).
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I think its unfair to use rebuilds as the baseline for an evaluation. Rebuilds are an exception due to the nature of them not being a "core" rule. Primarily the intention is that you can, though gameplay, gain access to new things like languages and then learn them through the rules such as Multiligual. If we wanted everyone to be able to rebuild their character in order to circumvent that and "steal" access for the character from the start, then we would just make it available from the get go. Somethings are just meant to come out through play and we shouldn't be exploiting the rebuild system to gain early access to something that was not available at the time. Though I am sure others will disagree so YMMV.
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I'm not really using rebuilds for the baseline of my evaluation. Several questions were asked, including whether or not a character could rebuild into using the language. I was responding to the rebuild question using what is written in the PFS2 guide for the baseline of that evaluation. One other important piece of information here is that some rebuild boons do specify what can/can't be changed. The level 1 free rebuild doesn't specify so it can be changed IMO. Some rebuild boons may specifically mention what options can be changed, in which case you'd have to read the language on those rebuild boons to see if languages can be changed.
As for the rest of this conversation about "what does this boon even do?" -- I agree that it's not entirely clear what you are gaining. The PFS2 Guide sanctions the Bestiary 1 (where cyclops is introduced as an uncommon language) without restriction so learning Cyclops through something like Multilingual was already an option afaict. Whether or not we need to update the sanctioning for Bestiary 1 or rework this boon remains a mystery to me. As written though I don't really know what you're getting from it outside of the rebuild question i responded to.
Retraining is a different story, and in the Q2 boon I had thought about it and I do not see any issue. The Retraining language in the guide also doesn't make any mention of your chronicles, and it more largely points to the rules within the CRB for retraining. As far as I can tell if you were a monk and wanted to change your level 1 feat then you'd be able to do that through retraining.
Retraining: Using Downtime to retrain character options(Core Rulebook 481) works as written with a few clarifications.
Some items are changeable for free, such as name, gender, appearance, or other cosmetic designators.
Pathfinder training may be changed and costs 14 days.
Changing a selectable class feature, takes 28 days.
If characters earn enough XP to level while still in the process of retraining they can choose options legal for their new build, though the ability is unusable until the retraining is complete. An option being retrained is lost at the time the new option becomes usable.
The issue with 2-03 boon is that languages don't seem to be covered by retraining rules which again just brings us back to "what am i getting from this?"
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I've got no problem with that. I brought the question here, because it started out as a "what does this boon even do?" time of thing. But I've got an answer on that for now, and I know how I'll handle it for myself (and my players). So my main question is answered for the moment. Thanks everyone.
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Hey, this is a great conversation, but can we take the philosophy around what boons work or don't to a different thread. I'm trying to run this tonight and I'm sure I'm not the only GM coming to this thread looking for advice and finding a bunch of discussion about whether or not the boon should or shouldn't be the way it is.
More on the topic of the thread, I've got a high CP (33 CP) playing tonight and I noticed that this results in me having 6 large creatures in part C2. The map is a fairly narrow (10 ft) hallway with a start point only really capable of two of these creatures forming. Anyone have some advice on how they played that out? I'm concerned right now it's just going be a conga line of skeletons blocking the PCs into a corner.
As feedback for developers in the future, especially as we do more Cyclops themed areas, please account for the size of cyclopes in their architecture. I've GMed Giantslayer and while it's annoying making bigger maps, it's kind of necessary in a lot of cases to account for multiple large creatures.
Well C2 is an optional encounter and given that you lack the space to set up 6 large creatures in the 2x4 block provided I'd consider adding more bones to map and include that in the description. Then spawn skeletons accordingly. Given that it's triggered by disturbing the slate finger, I'd consider adding the additional bones in the central part of that bottom corridor or even the central part of the map. Give the PC's room to work with but still set up as being ambushed for disturbing the finger. Or just put 3 skeletons in the bottom right corridor and 3 skeletons in the bottom central corridor and let the conga line commence. Whatever you do I'd just be careful that the PCs still have an advantage with their positioning (don't trap them in the bottom left corridor). Broad swipe hurts.
Not a perfect solution but it's an optional encounter and with what we're given to work with I think it'd be OK.
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So, I am curious. GMs that have run this, how has the chase gone?
It seems pretty tough, especially with the number successes going up based on PCs, not on CP
I played (with Tineke running) in a party that was levels 1 1 2 3 4 4
We consistently did ok in the combats, but this chase just destroyed us. Basically, we failed three in a roll with many of us close to dying.
Except for the lab, you must get a success per player... and the lab needs one more than the players (thus requiring a critical success)
And the high enough than successes will be hard fought for.
If you are trained at level 2, and maxed out on the attribute, you can have +8 to a check.
A DC 16 check to this character succeeds on an 8, so only 65% likely to succeed, 15% likely to crit, and still 5% likely to crit fail.
If only 1st level, and not a prime stat, then this would only be +4, and thus only 45% likely to succeed, 5% likely to crit succeed, and 10% likely to crit fail.
Some of the skills are easier, some a little harder.
And if you are playing up you are really going to struggle, as the same check becomes DC19, and you are only 55% likely to succeed.
Basically, for needing, effectively, ALL of the party to succeed at each check, this has a very high likelihood of a mission ending with a failure. I haven’t really crunched all of the numbers, but it seems like even a well built party has less than a 1 in 4 chance of actually succeeding in these challenges.
Sorry if this sounds like a harsh criticism. This is why I want to hear if our experience (we did not roll well, either) and my gut feelings are not meshing with reality.
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I listed my experience a bit earlier in the thread, the group I GM'd for of 5 playing high tier, made it out, but had triggered two of the three cave-ins. And it was down to the last characters dice roll, with no hero points remaining to escape before the third cave-in. The party rolled very poorly in the first room (two success IIRC), and very well in the third room(2 crits, 1 success, 1 fail in the next room, 1 success), average the rest of time time. That one pushed-forward success is what made the difference the rest of the case.
I think the GMG chase rules aren't balanced for a mix-level party, and it shows here. The combination of high tier + extra player adjustment is very brutal.
I did forget that any healing action costs the character their turn, so the one channel a cleric did would have lost a success, but it was in the second room, which they failed anyways, so I don't think it changed the end result. There was no later healing that was done incorrectly.
Compared to the chase in one of the earlier scenarios, this one doesn't give the characters a head start, which makes a huge difference. If the cave-in after round two, I think it would have worked better. Most parties won't escape the first room in a round, so they'll be in the transition between first /second room in round two, and then being able to prioritize good/bad skills, hoping the next room is better for some characters, etc. (Of course this is not something we can change in the scenario, just theorycrafting encounter design.... probably would have to drop the total failure from 3 cave=ins to 2 to stay balanced).
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Did you come up with a way to extract the images with a blank background?Also, if the intent was to provide these maps to make importing them into VTTs such as Roll20 easier, could you (Paizo) please include any added features, i.e. furniture, bone heaps, etc., like the pawns from the Traps & Treasures Collection directly in the map file, not as seperate icons (maybe excluding the rare case where these would be intended to be moved)?!
What we really need is essentially the map as displayed in the adventure, just without annotations, as a single picture file. Otherwise it's still a major cut, copy, paste nuisance.
Using MS Paint 3D and Gimp, you can extract an image from its background leaving the background transparent, thus allowing the "ambient" terrain to surround the token in its square. With as many tokens as were needed in this scenario, we did not bother to do it and just dropped the pawn with mismatched background on the map.
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What is the motivation for the PCs to gather up the fingers during the investigation? Our GM had to just tell us that they were important to the story otherwise we never would have freed the trollhound. Seemed like an unnecessary risk for an item with little value outside of the material it was composed of. We had to be encouraged with the idea that it could be a dangerous monster if freed and it was our responsibility to make the complex "safe" for the scholars who would research the contents, especially the library.
That's kinda lame to be honest. There should be some kind of in adventure reasoning for us to want to recover these items. Is it in there and our GM just missed it?
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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What is the motivation for the PCs to gather up the fingers during the investigation? Our GM had to just tell us that they were important to the story otherwise we never would have freed the trollhound. Seemed like an unnecessary risk for an item with little value outside of the material it was composed of. We had to be encouraged with the idea that it could be a dangerous monster if freed and it was our responsibility to make the complex "safe" for the scholars who would research the contents, especially the library.
That's kinda lame to be honest. There should be some kind of in adventure reasoning for us to want to recover these items. Is it in there and our GM just missed it?
You can leave all the fingers you find behind. Once you hit the barrier however, you see that there is already a finger inserted, indicating that the fingers are probably used in bypassing the barrier.
Nothing stops you from just going to the end, and then going back to retrieve the fingers.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I don't know if it's intended or not, but given how hard some of these encounters were, it wasn't clear whether or not the party was expected or intended to be able to leave and come back... especially since they're in the middle of an active Pathfinder exploration site. Rather than deal with that, I just encourage the PCs to spend the time they thought they needed to heal up between encounters even though we had several near TPKs. Some text to the effect of what, if any, resources were available above would be helpful.
This is a fair question - IMO unless the party has a reason to know there's a clock ticking in the background, you are not on a hard time limit. Quite a few scenarios have some kind of time limit naturally built into it ("Don't stay in the Gravelands after dark", "The boat will pick you up in seven days.") But there is no rule that you always have to finish a mission in one day. I know it happens so often that some GMs might wonder "are we breaking a rule by taking a break?" but you're really not.
That said, the adventure doesn't become more fun if you take a night's rest after every encounter. And there's a Decemvirate member missing (and it's the friendly one, so we want them back!).
When I was running it, my dice were on fire in the first encounter and I scored numerous crits, nearly killing several characters, it was quite extraordinary. So when the players were wondering the same question my answer was that yes, you could take a night's rest - but if you did it more than once you'd probably get some "looks" from the other Pathfinders at the dig site.
TL;DR - there is no dogmatic reason not to take a night's rest if you really need it, but let's not overdo it either.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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What is the motivation for the PCs to gather up the fingers during the investigation? Our GM had to just tell us that they were important to the story otherwise we never would have freed the trollhound. Seemed like an unnecessary risk for an item with little value outside of the material it was composed of. We had to be encouraged with the idea that it could be a dangerous monster if freed and it was our responsibility to make the complex "safe" for the scholars who would research the contents, especially the library.
That's kinda lame to be honest. There should be some kind of in adventure reasoning for us to want to recover these items. Is it in there and our GM just missed it?
You're Pathfinders and these are weird unexplained items in a site you're investigating.
"But we could leave it to the follow-up team!" Sure you could. But if you leave all the most interesting things to the NPC follow-up team, then they're the ones becoming superstar Pathfinders, not you.
It's really the same logic for any kind of skill challenge to interpret what you've just discovered. You could just play the field grunts that kill monsters and bag shiny rocks, but those aren't going to be the people with their names on the cover of the next issue of the Pathfinder Chronicles. It's the curious people who realize just what they've found, why it's important, and what to do with it, that get to be famous.
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What is the motivation for the PCs to gather up the fingers during the investigation? Our GM had to just tell us that they were important to the story otherwise we never would have freed the trollhound. Seemed like an unnecessary risk for an item with little value outside of the material it was composed of. We had to be encouraged with the idea that it could be a dangerous monster if freed and it was our responsibility to make the complex "safe" for the scholars who would research the contents, especially the library.
That's kinda lame to be honest. There should be some kind of in adventure reasoning for us to want to recover these items. Is it in there and our GM just missed it?
I will say that when I played it, we thought they were an interesting artifact, and immediately translated the first one. From then on, we assumed that they were telling a story, or some sort of prayer or ritual, which drove us to collect and translate them all.
It wasn't until we got to the wall that we had a clue what they were for.
We didn't actually get the secret to them, but we guessed pretty well based on the flow of the verse!
Got the first three right, so just needed to switch the other two. I thought it was pretty good.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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When I was running it, my dice were on fire in the first encounter and I scored numerous crits, nearly killing several characters, it was quite extraordinary. So when the players were wondering the same question my answer was that yes, you could take a night's rest - but if you did it more than once you'd probably get some "looks" from the other Pathfinders at the dig site.I have started to prep this and I think I have found part of the reason why we struggled. I think you had us fighting 2 elite cave fishers when our CP (18 or so) should have had us fighting two normal ones and two usk booby traps. It wouldnt have made a massive difference given how hot your dice were but it wouldnt have been quite so TPK like.
You're right, I did that wrong, I misread the scaling bar while prepping and then when running it ran off of wrong prep. Gonna fix that now so it doesn't happen again.
But yeah, my dice were just out for blood. It would have still been dire but the difference in difficulty with the other encounters was quite noticeable.
Contributor
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Surprised to find that nobody asked this before...
If the cabinet did not collapse, the PCs can find that it’s filled with many now-useless items, but also an acid flask and an alchemist fire, both contained in glass ampoules. If the cabinet collapses, these are lost in the process.
Do we know what type of acid flask / alchemist's fire these are for each level range?
Thanks in advance!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Surprised to find that nobody asked this before...
If the cabinet did not collapse, the PCs can find that it’s filled with many now-useless items, but also an acid flask and an alchemist fire, both contained in glass ampoules. If the cabinet collapses, these are lost in the process.Do we know what type of acid flask / alchemist's fire these are for each level range?
Thanks in advance!
Yeah I noticed that too, I assumed lesser (L1 items) in tier 1-2, and moderate (L3 items) in tier 3-4. Although making them lesser in either tier is probably sufficient. The key thing is just having some of that damage type at hand.
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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Yeah I noticed that too, I assumed lesser (L1 items) in tier 1-2, and moderate (L3 items) in tier 3-4. Although making them lesser in either tier is probably sufficient. The key thing is just having some of that damage type at hand.Surprised to find that nobody asked this before...
If the cabinet did not collapse, the PCs can find that it’s filled with many now-useless items, but also an acid flask and an alchemist fire, both contained in glass ampoules. If the cabinet collapses, these are lost in the process.Do we know what type of acid flask / alchemist's fire these are for each level range?
Thanks in advance!
Yeah, that is my bad. My brain had gotten stuck in the PF1 groove where there is only one type of such items.
Having them be a lesser version in both tiers would work, as its sufficient to stop regeneration, and weakness scales over the tiers.
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I ran this last weekend with 24CP, 3 level 4 and 3 level 1. The party had a great time! It was tough because I almost killed the main front line with a nasty crit from the elite cave fisher.
The lack of a proper healer kept the party off kilter after that.
But the chase was brutal! The increase for having over 4 players, 1 more success for each character over 4, made the last two checks, when all the hero points were gone and characters having to burst heal instead of trying the check, meant the party failed and was dug out of a collapse and lost the secondary reputation.
As for the Acid and Alchemist Fire, I ruled they were moderate. Didn't matter, the party took are of the trollhound first. Had a kobald (1st level) who could spit acid! Gave him the "luggy" hero point.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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Compared to the chase in one of the earlier scenarios, this one doesn't give the characters a head start, which makes a huge difference.
Just went through the scenario again (prepping for a Friday run as GM). It seems to me that it does give you a bit of a head start as the first stage is in the antechamber and the first room to collapse is the throne room. Still looks tough though for all the reasons stated above.
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Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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I think it mostly depends on whether gm let party rest(despite amount of time it takes to translate fingers, there isn't actually time limit in scenario, so nothing really prevents them from resting before going to antechamber) before continuing onward to dungeon and how they did with the puzzle. Like if they are at full health, the collapsing room can still be dangerous with bad luck, but considering they need to fail thrice for them to fail section and they do have head start, they can pretty believable succeed even if they fail twice.
That said, depends on which way of branching path they select, the alchemical lab's obstacle is really hard to bypass for some parties :p
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Ok. My two cents from playing it and then going over some of the details.
The Puzzle. I am comparing this to the one in 1-16. In 1-16 all the clues were give in context to the players and the characters (cycle of seasons) and explicit connections were stated in though out. Also there is in game hints/safety at the cost of some treasure.
In this, there is no in context solution. It requires a word game to be seen by the players that has no context in part of the characters. For those that have issues processing the written word there is no alternative. Either you see the pattern or you do not.
I will just add that what others have stated.
As for the chase. this has the same issue as 1-17 and that failure is the most likely outcome. I did some penciling on just this one and a few notes.
For a part of 4 level 2 characters assume an average skill of +6 for each challenge and split the possibilities. In quick sum up, each round the party has an expected value of about 2.5. So "average" dice should allow them to clear each obstacle in two rounds. The chance of clearing one obstacle in one round about 15% but as low as 3% for room 3.
Right now I see less than a 30% success rate on the chase. Without some stretching by GMs (extra forgotten hero point or two)
Success then gets worse with more players. The needed success goes up by 1, but the expected value of success goes up by about 0.6.
The quick fix would be to have the collapse happen every other round. That would make the chase closer to 50-50. Though in the long run, I think chases need to be montiored and tuned. Right now I think both this and 1-17 are well below 50-50 success.
Now this may be intentional to have the occasional mod with a low chance of secondary success. So that is a whole different discussion :)
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I ran this today and was rather confused by the chase rules. Is the damage supposed to occur every round the group fails to clear an obstacle? I had initially read it as happening if the collapsing section catches up to them but reading back I dont think this was the case.
If it matters, that was how Tineke ran it for us. Every round had a collapse.
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When I ran it, even thought they mistranslated all but one, they caught the clue on the fingers.
However they quickly figured out they needed to try and retranslate some, so took another attempt.
They got lucky, and figured another out. So, they correctly tried putting the basalt back in. They then put the two they figured they had correctly translated (they went from two threes to a three and five). Then with one failure they could figure out the rest. The puzzle is doable, but hard.
However, I do worry that it is so language specific that this could be an issue, especially if it get translated
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Contributor
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If it matters, that was how Tineke ran it for us. Every round had a collapse.I ran this today and was rather confused by the chase rules. Is the damage supposed to occur every round the group fails to clear an obstacle? I had initially read it as happening if the collapsing section catches up to them but reading back I dont think this was the case.
I guess that would be my first (and so far only) criticism of the scenario. As written "after one round," seems to suggest that the collapses don't start until the second round of the chase, which is how my local GMs had been interpreting it. If it was meant to start at the end of the first round, it could have been written "at the end of the first round," instead.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I ran it with the collapse starting after the end of the second round, and that seemed to be just doable.
Looking in the GMG at the chase rules to try to understand why PFS chases seem so rough, I noticed an interesting tidbit:
SETTING OBSTACLE DCS
When you set the DCs for an obstacle, you’ll typically be using simple DCs. Use a proficiency rank that’s generally appropriate for the PCs’ level if you want the obstacle to be a significant one. As noted earlier, you’ll typically want to select a couple different ways the group can get past an obstacle. At least one check should be have an easy or very easy adjustment, while the other check should have a standard or hard DC. In some cases you might use something other than a simple DC; for example, if a specific NPC has put up a magical barrier, you would use their spell DC. This might result in some pretty tough DCs or even impassable obstacles, so use this carefully!
Then we go look at simple DCs and see that the ones that might be applicable here are:
Untrained: DC 10
Trained: DC 15
Expert: DC 20
Now, I don't think any of the skill checks should be Expert DC - that would imply that on average, people attempting the skill are expected to be Expert or so in the skill. It could make sense for Perception or saving throws however.
Should they all even be Trained DCs? For that you'd have to comb the Skills chapter and compare the obstacles to the examples of what would earn an Untrained/Trained skill DC. Probably not all of them. The checks should probably be a mix of DC 10/15 then. Of course that doesn't entirely scale to the 3-4 tier, as PFS scenarios are written for a wider level range than an AP/module/home campaign adventure tailored to a specific group. But the +3 DC is probably appropriate.
And then there's the "easy or very easy" part. If we also apply that, what we'd be looking at would be something more like the following:
- base DCs are 10 or 15
- further DC adjustments, with one of the options getting a -2 or -5 DC, but the other sometimes getting a +2
- a +3 to the DCs when running at high tier
So the DCs would range somewhere between 5 (yes, five!) and 18 on low tier for skills. Let's say an average DC of 12, instead of 15. That should result in a lot more critical successes and a lot fewer failures/critical failures! In fact, at DC 12 you can usually avoid critical failures on anything but a 1 and score critical successes a significant part of the time.
And then the idea that you need 1 Chase Point per PC suddenly makes a lot more sense!
(I'm not blaming this particular scenario - this seems to be an endemic problem in PFS scenarios.)