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I know that we take some liberties with the game rules in some scenarios for sake of time, gameplay, etc. especially with how many skill challenges work. However, do we really need to deviate from clearly defined rules? Why are we allowing players to Aid with a 15 instead of the required 20? And why are we allowing someone to Aid one skill using a different one? The more we vary the org play rules, the less they sink-up with the core rules and the more confusion we sow in the player base, especially at a time when many players are still learning the core rules.
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Again, I think we missed an opportunity to reward the players on the chronicle sheet. It is not a meaningful reward to give special items to the PCs as a prize for performing a service during the scenario when the item/s are nothing more than common magic. Its especially poor when the reward is given out at the end essentially as part of the conclusion when the items cannot even be used in the adventure. What's the point?
Instead of presenting the hatchet and the shield as a reward for helping defend against the attack, just have the defeated enemies have some jewelry or something to represent the treasure bundles. Otherwise, put the items on the chronicle sheet with a 10% discount and a limit-one restriction to represent their value as a reward, a trophy, a medal, representing the gratitude of the gift. Is that really such a big deal? Considering we have asked about this numerous times and it keeps happening, I have to assume that the developers are simply unwilling to consider this complaint.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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So does that make it GM fiat unless it is specifically called out in the scenario? If it’s only typical, then why can’t I decide to make it 15 whenever I want to? The rule does say 20, unless the developer tells you otherwise.
Yes. There is a lot of situation-specific GM discretion in Aid, as written. More than in almost any other game mechanic.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Dayton
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In the encounter with Murta she gives her cloak to the PCs if they get a crit success in influencing her. That section lists 3 treasure bundles in the table on pg 26. The treasure section on pg 11 lists 200 gp (and possibly the cloak).
Do the PCs need to get the cloak for the 3rd treasure bundle, or is the reward for returning her assumed to be the full 3 bundles?
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I know that we take some liberties with the game rules in some scenarios for sake of time, gameplay, etc. especially with how many skill challenges work. However, do we really need to deviate from clearly defined rules? Why are we allowing players to Aid with a 15 instead of the required 20? And why are we allowing someone to Aid one skill using a different one? The more we vary the org play rules, the less they sink-up with the core rules and the more confusion we sow in the player base, especially at a time when many players are still learning the core rules.
This isn't the first scenario to lower that DC. It's just too high to be worth it at 20.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Ok, just ran this high tier at 21 challenge points. Woo-boy, that's a hell of a fight at the end. That's a lot of hp and regen to get through. Kept playing whack-a-mole with which party members were up until it was down to two making my last troll chase them around the buildings.
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Venture-Agent, California—Livermore
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I just finished running this one and that last fight is nasty against an all ranged party. I dropped a couple animal companions and a druid before they got enough AC buffs and distance to start dealing damage and healing. After about 7 crits between the high level champion and the bard throwing alchemist fires they turned the fight around and won. I would still recommend playing some Benny Hill and just running around the houses to avoid hits. Overall my biggest question for this adventure is why do they speak common? They've lived on an isolated continent for thousands of years, if I've read it correctly, and the Ulfen are a proud people with their own language mixing with a completely isolated culture, with their own language presumably, so why do they speak Taldan?
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Venture-Captain, Ohio—Columbus
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Overall my biggest question for this adventure is why do they speak common?
Real answer: Because it’s extremely boring to play a role play heavy scenario when you can’t talk to the locals.
In-world answer: Whatever reason you can think of. Examples to spark your own ideas:
1. They speak common, but very poorly.
2. An Ulfen wizard brought his spell book a century ago and it was written in Common so that no one else could steal his spells. So everyone learned Common as a secret ritual language.
3. Hundreds of years ago, a Linorm King sailed to Valhalla, and her primary language was Common because she was raised in Oppara. She taught everyone.
4. They arent speaking common at all, they just all have babelfish in their ears.
5. They have all had a curse of tongues put on them so everyone learns the cursed language (Common) as a child.
6. It’s not actually Taldane. It just sounds exactly like it.
7. The Ulfen weren’t the only ones to venture to Acadia. Someone from Taldor established a colony nearby and thought all the locals to speak Common.
8. The gnome Lirall put a long-lasting *tongues* spell on you before you left the ship without you noticing.
Etc.
Ooh: my best one yet:
9. Sveinn Blood-Eagle has been teaching them Common for the last year since he knew the Pathfinder Society was coming.
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A couple of things my party asked me:
1. So if people who _seek_ Valenhal never return, but obviously people who scout the forest of trials are able to return, how far can you just scout, explore, travel, while not seeking Valenhal and still return. The party wanted to suggest that tactic to the town :)
2. There's trade along the Scarred Shores, are any of the other ports less 'cursed' in terms of round-trip trade (not Valenhal seeking) journeys? If yes, that helps with the 'why is Taldane the Common here'
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Contributor
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I was putting the finishing touches on my prep to run this tomorrow when I noticed some problems with the treasure bundle chart and rewards. I've tried to parse them out as best I can, but any other thoughts are welcome.
▫▫▫ Mayor Bloodfang’s Request, page 6: Up to 3 Treasure Bundles for obtaining the signed land settlement papers
▫▫▫Area A, page 9: 3 Treasure Bundles for successfully returning Murta to Port Valen.
▫▫ Area B, page 11: Up to 2 Treasure Bundles for completing the scouting mission
▫▫ Area D, page 12: 2 Treasure Bundles for assisting in the defense of Port Valen
Emphasis mine. For Murta it appears the only difference is whether or not the cloak gets crossed off the chronicle sheet and doesn't affect the treasure bundles themselves. That's simple enough.
The scouting mission doesn't spell it out, but also seems fairly simple:
As thanks for their assistance, Sveinn provides the PCs with a silver armband worth 80 gp for bringing back Tewakam’s charts or two such armbands if the PCs bring back Tewakam alive.
The implication is 1 TB for doing the mission and 2 for bringing Tewakam back alive.
Mayor Bloodfang's request isn't as clear:
If the PCs have signed papers from both family leaders, Bloodfang rewards them with 4 moderate acid flasks, 4 moderate alchemist’s fire, and 100 gp. If the PCs only convinced one family to sign, Bloodfang gives them the alchemist’s fires and acid flasks, but does not pay them any of the gold. If the PCs failed to obtain either signature, Bloodfang thanks them for efforts and gives them 2 moderate alchemist’s fires and 2 moderate acid flasks.
Gear (for use later in the scenario) aside, I think the implication is 1 TB for making the effort, 2 for convincing one family, and 3 for convincing both families.
Older scenarios used to spell out for GMs which tasks/rewards translated into treasure bundles, either in the treasure entries or on the last page of the scenario (which has so much room it's mostly a blank sheet of paper).
Now, I'd personally love to see this info added to the same page(s) as reporting notes and success conditions and not broken up on the other side of the stat blocks and art, but that's just me. More importantly, with so much open space, is there a reason that listing the treasure bundles has to be so vague? To me it seems fairly logical, as I presented above, but what if someone doesn't agree with my conclusions? This could result in tables of players who complete the same objectives but get different rewards for doing so.
Thanks in advance if any of the developers happen to read this.
PS - when I played this we almost didn't survive that final fight. I'm running this for 29-30 challenge points tomorrow...I may have added a "funeral dirge" to my in-game soundtrack, just in case.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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So does that make it GM fiat unless it is specifically called out in the scenario? If it’s only typical, then why can’t I decide to make it 15 whenever I want to? The rule does say 20, unless the developer tells you otherwise.
No, the rule says 20 unless the GM tells you otherwise.
Likewise, it doesn't require that the skill used to Aid is the same. At all. It doesn't say that anywhere in the Aid section - what the Aid section says is that you need to take some action that would be helpful, and make a check that matches the action you take.
For example, the "good cop bad cop" routine could be using Intimidate to assist someone making a Diplomacy check (or vice versa!). Or as another example, the barbarian could make an attack roll to make some impressive sword moves to Aid the bard on his Intimidate check.
This is one of the neat things about attack rolls, saves and skills all using the same numerical scaling system in 2E: it's far easier to mix and match things to match the roleplaying going on instead of sticking to a very rigid must-use-same-skill system like we used to.
So yeah, there's a lot more GM fiat in Aid in this edition than before. You could certainly lower the Aid DC when as a GM you think it's appropriate. Or even raise it, if the situation demands it, if the thing the character is trying to do to Aid the check seems really hard.
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Okay, so unless by saying “the GM” we are referring to org play leadership and therefore the developers who set the scenario parameters, then I as the table GM can set my own DC for Aid. Seems to me that the basic DC by level chart is a more applicable target (adjusted by the difficulty adjustments) then a static and somewhat arbitrary number. This is what I use in my home campaigns.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Okay, so unless by saying “the GM” we are referring to org play leadership and therefore the developers who set the scenario parameters, then I as the table GM can set my own DC for Aid. Seems to me that the basic DC by level chart is a more applicable target (adjusted by the difficulty adjustments) then a static and somewhat arbitrary number. This is what I use in my home campaigns.
Personally I'll probably not scale them up, which is what might happen if you used the DC by level chart. Once players get to higher level and become Expert or Master the value of a critical Aid gets bigger and I think that may have been intended - that some of the DCs for key checks are based on the idea that you may be getting a bigger Aid bonus regularly.
But on earlier levels, I might definitely scale them down, for example when the primary check's DC is notably lower than 20. It doesn't seem right that the DC to aid on a DC 15 check would itself be DC 20, at that point you'd be better off doing it yourself.
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As a general way of reading things, I think when we see something like "the GM might do this differently", sometimes it refers to the table GM and sometimes to organized play leadership. Because that phrase is used a lot in 2E, and definitely not all of it is supposed to be answered by Tonya. Often it even just means that the GM consults the DC by level table and maybe applies an easy/hard modifier as appropriate.
So to determine which it is, I'll look at what the decision is about.
- If it's for a thing that happens right here right now in the scenario, I think it's for the table GM.
- If it's for a build decision ("the GM might allow you to get a different kind of mount") that will carry across to other tables the PC plays at, then it's probably an OPF decision. This would also be for things that are recurring at the next table so they're sort of build decision stuff, like what skills you could use for Earn Income.
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And obviously, if the scenario gives you specific guidance, that trumps the general rules.
For example if Lost on the Spirit Road says you can roll Nature or Forest Lore for a check, I would also also let someone use "Region Lore: The Spirit Road", because that's clearly appropriate, and the list of lores is infinite, so no author can be expected to enumerate all possible appropriate lores.
But if a scenario had a multi-step skill challenge and in step 1 the player wants to use a specific lore that's not called out, but that same lore does get called out as an option in step 2, then I wouldn't allow it in step 1. Because then the author's idea was clearly that that lore would be used for step 2, not 1.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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I think giving the party their daily preparations is not just a reasonable call but the only reasonable call. I'd put the odds that the party was intended to be without abilities instead of the author simply not having thought about that 1 hour assumption for daily prep (and not having called it out explicitly when that was the intended function) at roughly 0%.
