Adapting Enworld's Zeitgeist to FC: A Few (Character Related) Issues

[Sacretis]

Hey guys, I've been running Zeitgeist under Fantasycraft for about 6 months or so.  First off, I want to say the the adventure path is completely brilliant.  Excellent characters and setting, and a brilliant arc that, while convoluted, has drawn my players in and kept them interested and excited for every session.  So far I haven't had too difficult a time adapting it to the cinematic action style of Fantasycraft, but I have had a couple issues come up.

The first issue is that Zeitgeist is set during the early industrial revolution.  Because of this, guns are fairly prevalent in the setting, and revolvers and the like are common on as low as street thugs.  I began the campaign without really considering this, so I've stuck with the standard black powder rules for the most part.  I like the punchy strength of firearms in FC, and I've ran with the idea that any real firearms user has the quickdraw feat (to cut a round off of the reload time).  Unfortunately, one of my players has munchkined out a clockwork unborn character with 6 arms AND the quickdraw feat.  This adds up to him being able to fire off his 3d6 rifles multiple times a turn.  He has shred through all of the combat encounters without any real difficulty so far (even inflating the two player group by multiple threat levels).  Despite this, he is pretty heavily disadvantaged outside of combat, as he has put very little of his character toward that.  Still, an 8-some foot tall robot masquerading as a beat cop has a pretty imposing presence that has allowed him to intimidate his way through many of the non-combat encounters (mostly through roleplaying as opposed to dice rolls).

My call for help is that the campaign slowly gives gun using characters cooler and more powerful weapons.  I hope to allow this, but I fear that anything I give him will make this phenomenon even worse.  The first cool bit given to "gunsmiths," for example, allows for a single free crit (with an hour preparing a "vendetta bullet") against a character for whom the PC possesses a strong, justified ill will.  My thought for this is to give this bullet an increased threat range (something like 15-20).  Even this might be too strong.  I have no idea what I'll do about the machine gun next adventure.


So my next issue is that my other player chose to play an absurdly intelligent (19 int at the moment) battle mage (martial artist with int plus the zeitgeist theme martial scientist).  Unfortunately, he is slightly less experienced and has allowed himself to be pushed around a bit by the robot.  This partially stems from the fact that the campaign is extremely involved, and because of our somewhat irregular play schedule, he's having some trouble tracking the plot.  I have a thought to allow him to commit basically any detail or fact to memory and then recount them at any point (in private conversation with me).  I think that would make it much easier for him to follow the plot and stay involved and at the forefront of non-combat encounters.  My thoughts are torn between this being extremely overpowered and it being almost necessary to follow all of the complicated intrigue and espionage in the campaign (which both players seem to be involved in and enjoying, despite the difficulties).  Any thoughts on this solution?

The other thing that has presented a problem with this character is that the campaign slowly provides these "martial scientists" with what amount to tricks.  My first thought was to either adapt them as tricks or give him a premade trick from fantasycraft.  The issue I've come up with, however, is that very little of the tricks give much combat utility to his character specifically.  Would it be too good to allow him a free base or unarmed combat feat?  I would have to space it out, and maybe alternate with the tricks that would be useful to him, but I feel like this might allow him to have just a bit more combat presence with the munchkin robot.

Finally, the campaign has some rules for "prestige" with the various factions throughout the world that allow the players to call in favors and change (effectively) the starting disposition of members of these groups.  This is also designed to reward the players for investing in the world, and for rewarding or punishing the players for their interactions with NPCs.  This sounds extremely similar to reputation and renown (although not identical).  I havent implemented either system with the group yet.  This system is summarized in the players guide (available here.  My question is whether I am better off using one or the other (I don't have any experience with Rep and Renown yet) or trying to combine the two.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Luke

[Krensky]

Let me look over the players guide and the released installments over the holiday so I can give you something resembling an educated answer.

In the meantime, could you post the sequence the munchkin is using? Not saying he's doing anythin illegal, but it's possible. Also, are you using the first or second printing? Also, you're making a classic example of letting a combat optimizer ignore the weaknesses he accepted for his combat strength. Make him roll those dice in social situations.

[Sacretis]

Let me look over the players guide and the released installments over the holiday so I can give you something resembling an educated answer.

In the meantime, could you post the sequence the munchkin is using? Not saying he's doing anythin illegal, but it's possible. Also, are you using the first or second printing? Also, you're making a classic example of letting a combat optimizer ignore the weaknesses he accepted for his combat strength. Make him roll those dice in social situations.

Thanks for the response Krensky!

Most combats he is firing one rifle, dropping it to fire another, and then reloading the second with all of the free actions before the next round.  I don't remember the precise details, but I let him begin play with a firearm with reduced damage but (I believe) load 5.  This may have been a mistake, but I wanted to throw him something regarding his theme.  We are both game masters, and I munchkined one of his (combat heavy) SC2 campaigns, so I think he is returning the favor .  There is no real ill will between us, so I could take him aside and discuss the problem, but I want to have some sort of solution to present before I do that.

I regards to letting him ignore his weaknesses, I agree that I am somewhat guilty of this.  The problem I have run into, though, is that he does have a lot in intimidate, and that when I play hardball with noncombat situations he goes sociopathic on me.  My players have both been frustrated by how hesitant and untrusting the NPCs have been to the PCs as officers of the law, and the robot in specific has been roleplaying as a hardcore (the wire-esque) beat cop.  Because of this, my ideal solution will be investing the other player more heavily, and making him seem much better in social situations.  Buff rather than nerf is the hope.  The other player has let the robot take the lead just because the robots player has slightly better sense of what is going on.

Luke

[Krensky]

Well, remember with both Browbeat and Coerce that the target's Attitude drops one grade below it's original value at the end of the scene. So if Dirty Harry keeps intimidating witnesses, have Flint and RHC's Attitude towards him drop as well as the witness' Attitude. If he goes sociopathic, well, that has consequences. Just make sure the player understands that.

Now, for the guy having issues following the plot, again this is a player versus character thing. The Player is having issues, but the Character shouldn't. Let him take notes. Let him ask questions and decide or make Knowledge checks. Heck, let anyone do that.

Which brings me to the prestige system.

The Flint and RHC factions corespond pretty well to the Heroic and Military Renown tracks. I'd probably split the RNC into the military and para-military and the civillian government and use the Military and Heroic tracks, combined with tracking Attitude with the factions and using Contacts.

As for the reloading, he gets three Handle Item actions a round for free. This isn't much different from my trick using Surge of Speed, but it does have the advantage of being eternal. So basicallt he can fire two shots in round one, followed by one shot a round for six or so rounds, then has to spend an entire turn reloading, followed by starting the one shot a round routine over. Of course if you gave him a faster loading gun, you may have to take that away. Combat wise, it's not game breaking, just be willing to activate errors.

As for the free crit... That's the Soldier's schtick. Leave it be.

As for encounters, you may need to fiddle directly with the NPCs, boosting defense or adding cagey/tough or some other things.

[Sacretis]

Well, remember with both Browbeat and Coerce that the target's Attitude drops one grade below it's original value at the end of the scene. So if Dirty Harry keeps intimidating witnesses, have Flint and RHC's Attitude towards him drop as well as the witness' Attitude. If he goes sociopathic, well, that has consequences. Just make sure the player understands that.

Now, for the guy having issues following the plot, again this is a player versus character thing. The Player is having issues, but the Character shouldn't. Let him take notes. Let him ask questions and decide or make Knowledge checks. Heck, let anyone do that.

Which brings me to the prestige system.

The Flint and RHC factions corespond pretty well to the Heroic and Military Renown tracks. I'd probably split the RNC into the military and para-military and the civillian government and use the Military and Heroic tracks, combined with tracking Attitude with the factions and using Contacts.

As for the reloading, he gets three Handle Item actions a round for free. This isn't much different from my trick using Surge of Speed, but it does have the advantage of being eternal. So basicallt he can fire two shots in round one, followed by one shot a round for six or so rounds, then has to spend an entire turn reloading, followed by starting the one shot a round routine over. Of course if you gave him a faster loading gun, you may have to take that away. Combat wise, it's not game breaking, just be willing to activate errors.

As for the free crit... That's the Soldier's schtick. Leave it be.

As for encounters, you may need to fiddle directly with the NPCs, boosting defense or adding cagey/tough or some other things.

Thanks again for the suggestions.  I really like your solution for the prestige system.  Something as simple as tracking the factions prestige with disposition (basically what it is anyway) didn't even occur to me.  I've given the skills and specifically the persuade, browbeat and coerce checks another look and I'll try to use them more effectively.

I realize that knowledge checks and player notes help deal with the issue the battlemage is having, but they only get so far.  My players have four pages of notes for the current adventure (to be fair, it's probably about 3 four scene adventures in FC lingo) and they've still forgotten a large number of relevant (and background) details.  This may sound awful, but the adventure is a sherlock holmes-ian mystery city romp, and we've had to take a number of IRL breaks from the weekly schedule of the game.  Does the solution presented (having the player be able to commit anything he asks to memory) work?  I just want to make the player feel like his sherlock holmes level int character is actually a genius. While it eventually adds up, an additional 2-3 on his knowledge check result doesn't seem like it's enough to do that.

Regarding the autocrit, I realize that this is a bad idea and would never give it verbatim to my players.  Is a greatly increased threat range on single attack enough of a nerf?  Remember that it takes an hour of prep time and foreknowledge of the villain.

Oh, and I do definitely plan to tweak encounters to give them more of a challenge.  I hope to eventually find the balance to still reward him for his absurd character concept.

Thanks again for your help.  I greatly appreciate it, especially given that I have wall-of-text-ed you three times now.

Luke

[Blankbeard]

You might want to try these guns that I posted.  They're worked over versions of the ones in the book meant to represent firearms up to the US Civil War. 

The multiarmed unborn will still have his reloading advantage but since everyone is reloading every few shots rather than after every shot he's not putting out several times the amount of lead everyone else is.  Have your important baddies carry a pocket pistol to use instead reloading and consider letting the battlemage use an unseen servant or elemental to reload his guns for him.

[Krensky]

Oh, also, I'd remove the pine renown track limit.

[Gentry]

I admit to ignorance of the adventure path, and I have not read the material like Krensky has. Just reading your initial post, however, it looks like what the adventure path is doing is awarding benefits to the players that FC *already has hard-coded into advancement*. The auto-crit, for instance, is already a Soldier ability. And gaining new tricks is a function of new proficiencies, which FC already does. Rather than letting the adventure path give them *more*, it sounds like you'll be fine just letting them use the character options FC already presents (and which the adventure path looks to be retrofitting onto Pathfinder).

As to the multi-armed shooter, count your blessings. I've seen that done before, but with blunderbusses and the Floater feat on top of it. The spread rules allowed the character to get above mobs of NPCs and wipe them out 6 to 8 at a time. Don't be afraid to activate those errors, especially with the amount of moving parts involved in multi-armed two-gun reloading.

[Krensky]

Oh, two other things for Mr Multi-Arms.

He's always dropping his precious rifles on those hard, slick, cobblestone streets, right?

Sounds like a perfect excuse (like we GM's need them, hah!  ) to make use of either the Lost Item or the Shoddy Item complications.

Also, to be clear, I was suggestion using the Renown system and tracking Disposition. The track represents  your pull, but not necessarily how liked you are. So, a few levels of renown and a low Attitude with Flint means that you can lean on people to get things done, but the city doesn't like you. The papers say bad things about you, people avoid interacting with you, etc. Particularly, people are less likely to help you spontaniously. If you have a high Attitude, people pass on clues, you can't pay for a cup of tea and a pastie now matter how hard you try, etc.

As for the info, I'd say just fill the players in on what it seems reasonable for the characters to know. One way to do it might be to write up a quick recap every session or two. This lets you highlight the important points and red herrings. Make Checkov's Gun work for you to help reflect that the players only get to go to Flint once a month (or whatever) the characters live there. Past that, does he have any free hints?

I still have to look over the themes a but more, but most of them look like they're duplicating specialties or such.

Gunsmith is a Specialty. One I wrote up for my Golarion conversion should work:

Gunslinger
You've got Grit.
Requirements: Reason Era or later (see page 305)
Bonus Feat: Quick Draw
Unnerving Shot: You gain the Unnerving Shot trick.
Black Powder Proficiency: You gain the Black Powder proficiency.
More then Luck: You gain an additional starting Action Die.

Docker's Jank is basically the Sage's schtick along with Hero of the People. I'll have to think about that.

The Escthatologist feat is the Bandage Feat and the ability to cast something similar to Chill Storm I.

The Martial Scientist is actually sort nifty. Here's my take in the feat:

Experimental Strike Basic Combat
Prerequisite: Forte, Cheap Shot trick, Relentless Attack trick
Whenever you make an attack and miss you gain 1 edge.  Once per round where you have failed with all attacks or combat actions you may spend 2 edge to make a free attack benefiting from either the Relentless attack and Cheap Shot tricks. You may not apply additional tricks to this attack. You may spend 4 edge to apply both tricks to the attack. Alternatively, you may describe some use of the environment to hinder your opponent, at the GM's discretion.

Toss that with a martial specialty, or make up a new Martial Scientist one that grants it.

The Technologist is just a weak sauce version of a Construct PL. A Contraption Feat based off the PL one, keyed to skill or gear feats with a lower XP budget and a specialty should work there.

The others are doable with a mix of feats and custom specialties. Where are the advanced benefits shown? I don't see them listed in the Player's Guide.

[Krensky]

Oh, it should go without saying, but:

You might also need to take Riflebot 9000 aside and explain to him that acting like a sociopathic cop will cause problems and ruin your and the other players' fun, so he might want to tone it down and be more the intimidating presence in the back to the face's smile.

Even suggest that he can still use his intimidate there as a part of a modified cooperative check with the face's Impress, Bluff, or Investigate. He rolls Intimidate using the helper rules, face makes a Investigate roll as the leader.

I use this modification of the co-op check all the time for more complicated things when I want more of the part involved. I also modified it more so you get +1 for beating the DC, and an additional +1 for each 5 you beat the DC by to a max of +5. You need to be slightly careful here if some players try to game the system by choosing the leader and helper based on mathematical probability rather then narrative continuity.

Riflebot will get to be the scary machine-gun contributing to the talky scenes, but Sherlock gets to shine.

[Sacretis]

Hooooly crap guys!  This is AWESOME!

I really appreciate all of the help.  I will definitely be implementing a lot of these ideas.  Thanks for taking such an indepth look Krensky!

I'm going to take a bit of time to think all of these suggestions over.


Luke