I just played a scenario that concluded with a skill challenge. We had 2 rounds to accrue 4 successes. The only allowed skill was Diplomacy. I even tried to Aid by calling upon my knowledge of Society, but I was only allowed to use Diplomacy even to Aid. Literally nothing worked other than Diplomacy. Not even at a higher DC. Not even Intimidation. Of course, we failed. The DC was high, and only one player was trained in Diplomacy while another happened to have a hireling for Diplomacy. Since we failed, we were thrown into an unwinnable boss fight with the equivalent of a dragon with infinite Breath Weapons.
How often does this happen? Not the unwinnable boss, just the skill challenges where only one skill works with absolutely no exceptions?
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I've seen old PFS1 scenarios locked behind two very difficult Perception checks.
I recall that I haven't had branches of a PFS2 scenario gated behind just one skill.
I vaguely recall some side content/assistance being gated behind Diplomacy (and only once specifically calling out "only" and it was just a precursor to a broader arrays of skill checks) very rarely.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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Only being able to use the same skill to Aid has also never been a rule of PF2E in general or of PFS2E in specific. Ways that other skills can be used to Aid are handled by GM discretion, though (so "only Diplomacy can be used to Aid this" isn't technically wrong if it's what the GM rules, but is rarely a good ruling and isn't one that the system is prescribing to the GM).
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I thought I knew which scenario this is but your description of an end boss with unlimited breath weapons totally doesn't match.
So, to answer your question, apparently at least 2. Because there is another scenario where the end challenge basically just allows the diplomacy skill and whatever else the GM would allow (the scenario explicitly considers any attempt to bluff or to demoralize an instant fail - move to combat)
In its defence, throughout the scenario it has been extremely obvious (at least at the player level, not clear that the characters would know) that the end of the scenario was EITHER going to be an interaction challenge OR a fight (or, presumably, an interaction challenge that when failed would lead to a fight).
So, if you have a group with only one character with decent diplomacy then you should really have been gearing up for the fight (literally)
And in that scenario the fight looks hard (it is listed as severe) but winnable to me. Certainly nothing even remotely resembling a dragon with infinite breath weapons
The scenario I'm talking about is
Thick as Thieves
Edit: Just took a look at the reviews for this scenario and this one IS the one the OP was talking about. I have no clue why he considered the end boss the equivalent of a dragon with infinite breath weapons. It isn't even close to that (I've looked at both tiers and at all possibilities wrt challenge points).
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I thought I knew which scenario this is but your description of an end boss with unlimited breath weapons totally doesn't match.
So, to answer your question, apparently at least 2. Because there is another scenario where the end challenge basically just allows the diplomacy skill and whatever else the GM would allow (the scenario explicitly considers any attempt to bluff or to demoralize an instant fail - move to combat)
In its defence, throughout the scenario it has been extremely obvious (at least at the player level, not clear that the characters would know) that the end of the scenario was EITHER going to be an interaction challenge OR a fight (or, presumably, an interaction challenge that when failed would lead to a fight).
So, if you have a group with only one character with decent diplomacy then you should really have been gearing up for the fight (literally)
And in that scenario the fight looks hard (it is listed as severe) but winnable to me. Certainly nothing even remotely resembling a dragon with infinite breath weapons
The scenario I'm talking about is
** spoiler omitted **Edit: Just took a look at the reviews for this scenario and this one IS the one the OP was talking about. I have no clue why he considered the end boss the equivalent of a dragon with infinite breath weapons. It isn't even close to that (I've looked at both tiers and at all possibilities wrt challenge points).
Yeah, that's the one. The boss had a highly powerful AoE at will and was Flying over a bottomless pit. I described it as dragon with infinite breath weapons because the strategy is the same. Due to the random players we ended up with, only 2 out of 6 could even damage him, and the odds of doing so were horrible because we had to fight the high tier version even though we were low tier.
We didn't learn until the preceding skill challenge that the benefits of the diplomacy boons didn't stack, so half of them went unused because we only had one Diplomacy player and one Diplomacy hireling. We thought the boons would give cumulative DC decreases or something. And most social skill challenges I've had to this point have allowed other mental skills, sometimes at higher DCs.
We also wanted to opt out of the fight because the boss was the one wronged here and the culprits we were supposed to protect are rather unlikable.
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Yeah, that's the one. The boss had a highly powerful AoE at will and was Flying over a bottomless pit. I described it as dragon with infinite breath weapons because the strategy is the same. Due to the random players we ended up with, only 2 out of 6 could even damage him, and the odds of doing so were horrible because we had to fight the high tier version even though we were low tier.
We didn't learn until the preceding skill challenge that the benefits of the diplomacy boons didn't stack, so half of them went unused because we only had one Diplomacy player and one hireling. We thought the boons would give cumulative DC decreases or something. And most social skill challenges I've had to this point have allowed other mental skills, sometimes at higher DCs.
We also wanted to opt out of the fight because the boss was the one wronged here and the culprits we were supposed to protect are rather unlikable.
Yeah, the scaling for that end fight looked a little off when I looked at the scenario. I did notice that you could get the same end boss in low tier and high tier.
If I'm reading the Boss ability correctly he can throw level 3 fireballs or lightning bolts essentially 1 per round. With 4th level invisibility up. Yeah, with the wrong group that could be a really bad combination but a level 3 fireball isn't THAT powerful.
And I definitely hear you about the culprits. Both when I played and when I ran the PCs basically hated them and would have happily just turned them over to the boss. That not being an option kinda sucked. It felt like the author had fallen in love with the NPCs and just expected the players to do so as well.
I enjoyed the scenario (mostly for the planar travelogue) but both times the diplomatic route was successful
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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Gonna spoil this, since it has gotten into specific scenario meachanics.
As an at-will spell, there is no expending the spell to do anything.
All Made One [one-action]
The jann shuyookh calls upon all the elements that make up their being and chooses one. They gain an additional arcane spell they can cast at will and empower their Strikes with the element, dealing an extra 1d6 damage of the listed type. These benefits last until the shuyookh uses this ability again. Air lightning bolt, 1d6 electricity; earth one with stone, 1d6 bludgeoning; fire fireball, 1d6 fire; metal noxious metals, 1d6 electricity; water wall of water, 1d6 bludgeoning; wood wall of thorns, 1d6 piercing.>/quote]
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Gonna spoil this, since it has gotten into specific scenario meachanics.
** spoiler omitted **
I agree with you that this is the correct interpretation.
But I don't think its particularly clear. Especially if you're reading it quickly in the expectation that it won't actually come up since surely the group is gonna diplo their way out of it :-).
Or maybe I'm just projecting my own shortcoming :-(. I played this before GMing it and definitely read that whole statblock quickly and did NOT notice that it says what it actually says. I misinterpreted it as just changing the type of the extra d6 damage.
From this thread it kinda seems that I wasn't the only one misinterpreting what it said.
Interpreted correctly its a cool ability but hardly a broken one. Having unlimited L3 spells is useful but in reality I'd rather have, say, 2 4th level fireballs and 2 4th level lightning bolts.
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Average party level is 5.8333336, approximately 6.
Jann Shuyookh; Level 9 = 120 XP
Living Waterfall; Level 5 = 30 XP
Living Waterfall; Level 5 = 30 XP
Total = 180 XP
Severe threshold = 120 + 30 + 30 = 180 XP
So I guess it was a severe encounter for us, not helped by our horrible party synergy. Many of us were pure-melee martials that normally used countermeasures to deal with Flying monsters, but those were thwarted because the boss was Flying over a bottomless pit. And despite being a wizard, I was out of spells that could get around elemental resistance 10 by the time the living waterfalls were dead. The underwater encounter earlier was impossible to prepare for, so we had no fight left by the end. We had no idea the skill challenge would be so strict and the MacGuffins so useless.
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This scenario is one of, if not the, worst this season, maybe in a few seasons.
This encounter needed a few more passes from the developer. The battlefield favors the enemies heavily. A flying enemy can simply stand off and aoe the PCs ad infinitum. A creature 9 at low tier is not appropriate. The DC of the diplomacy checks is too high given that only 1 skill can be used.
I don't know if your GM saw it, but one mitigating factor that is easy to miss is that the macguffins you mention that give a +1 bonus can be used AFTER the roll, so you can save them for when someone nearly succeeds. But this doesn't make up for the overall difficulty of the encounter.
That wouldn't have helped because only one person was trained in Diplomacy, so there was only time to use two of the five boons. Someone else had a Diplomacy hireling, which is ineligible to receive circumstance bonuses.
The GM told us after the session what the combat boons were. They sound like they would have actually helped with the fight. Especially the one designed to defend against Rank 3 spells.
However, I will say that the variety and frequency of skill challenges is why I prioritize INT higher on PFS characters than I would otherwise, for more skills. And for non-CHA based characters I always have a diplomacy hireling.
I decided against getting a hireling because I already have all the Recall Knowledge skills, and a hireling only helps with one skill, so it didn't seem like it would be much of a life saver. Is there a reason you pick Diplomacy in particular? I considered getting a Diplomacy hireling after this scenario, but it sounds like this crummy skill challenge has never happened before and will never happen again.
We ran away from the boss and just let him beat the snot out of the thieves. Then we got chewed out for failing to repair the Open Road.
I was under the impression that we only missed out on the Reputation gained (there were two players with Treasure Bundle insurance). But after three days, the session isn't showing up in my Organized Play session list, which is keeping me from getting Farah's Sword. It's supposed to show up, right?
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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If a session is not showing up as reported, that is either because your GM hasn't reported it yet, or because your player number was incorrectly entered. (Or because whoever hasn't, in cases where someone other than the GM puts in the report, as is common with conventions).
There is no variation of mission failure that results in the session not being reported.
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I played this scenario at a convention 6/1/24. Only one player had met the thieves before and there was table talk about just handing them over to the Jann. But we went and repaired things, and collected all five diplomacy boons, 'cause none of us thought fighting the Jann to protect the thieves was the right thing to do.
I seem to recall Diplomacy being aided by other skills, and we had three characters with the skill at the Trained/Expert level, so we made peace with the Jann, gave him everything (all five diplo items) and that was that.
Sounds to me like your judge was overly restrictive.
Yeah, I even suggested using my knowledge of Society at a higher DC to recall social conventions and Aid the Diplomacy guy in soothing things over, but the GM just said "Nope, that sounds like Diplomacy to me!"