GM Aid in Mods

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  • June 29, 2015 at 3:56 pm #268819
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    That’s why I love my cheat sheet, it takes me seconds to flip a page as opposed to trying to find the right page in a book. Use one in Pride Goeth Before A Fall last week and it really made things go faster. Inflict Pain is such a fun spell…. \":twisted:\" Plus if any questions come up I can simply show them the sheet.

    As for “what happens behind the screen stays behind the screen,” in general that holds especially in time sensitive scenarios like BIs. But if what happens seems “too good to be true” I guarantee you players will call you on it, just like a GM will question a player who does the same. It all comes down to trusting the players as a GM and the players trusting the GM. It can be a delicate balance.

    To be clear John I am not challenging you on this, merely having a discussion here. By and large I agree with you.

    June 29, 2015 at 6:37 pm #268823
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Good call-out. I would never use the ‘make something up’ to penalize the players or characters at all. In general I’m familiar with a lot of things just by running. However, when a caster has 12 spells listed, I tend to concentrate on a few of them.

    Your cheatsheet sounds like what would be great to have in the mods to begin with. Time is precious for me (as I know it is for all), so spending 1-2 hours reading/ getting familiar with a module from just a running standpoint combined with the 5-6 hours of prep/running the mode doesn’t usually leave me another 1-2 hours to pre a cheatsheet. This is particularly true if I don’t see myself running the mod again.

    Now, perhaps a resource where GM’s can publish/trade their own cheatsheets would be useful. That way if I create one, at least others can benefit, and vice versa.

    John

    June 29, 2015 at 6:50 pm #268824
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    One of the things I do when looking at the bad guys spell list is looking for ones that make the most sense to use in the fight, quick and dirty as it were. Also anything that fits the character’s description (unless already spelled out in tactics).

    As for preparing a cheat sheet it’s not hard but does take time to cut and paste, not to mention the reformatting that has to be done. Generally speaking I’d say it takes about 30 minutes. I don’t see it taking 1-2 hours though. I suppose if one could take up to an hour if everything was included.

    June 29, 2015 at 6:55 pm #268825
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    One of the things I do when looking at the bad guys spell list is looking for ones that make the most sense to use in the fight, quick and dirty as it were. Also anything that fits the character’s description (unless already spelled out in tactics).

    As for preparing a cheat sheet it’s not hard but does take time to cut and paste, not to mention the reformatting that has to be done. Generally speaking I’d say it takes about 30 minutes. I don’t see it taking 1-2 hours though. I suppose if one could take up to an hour if everything was included.

    I’ve done a couple cheatsheets for modules with say 3 combats (and 2 BI’s) and it took over an hour for the module between finding the Talents, Spells, and Maneuvers, writing out what they do, making notes on restrictions, etc. Now, knowing which Talents were included, and having the Speed/Recovery and Effects of Maneuvers will speed this along in the future. I also try to ‘pre-compute’ any advanced maneuvers or spells that I feel would be useful.

    Again, perhaps it’s a matter of sharing this work amongst GM’s so one person isn’t doing cheatsheets for every mod they run. I’m not sure where this fits into the ‘fair use’ for copyright or how PCI could (or even should) support this for the GM’s.

    John

    July 1, 2015 at 9:47 am #268835
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    When stats are written, under the “Special” section, I list the martial techniques with a Speed/recovevery and the bare bones effect. The only thing the judge has to do is the quick math if he makes them advanced maneuvers.

    As for Talents, if the Talent can be already factored into the stat block, it is (such as weapon mastery). I have been thinking of putting in non-factored Talents into bold or italics fonts to differentiate. I would eliminate the Talents that are already factored in, but I sometimes re-skin stats and if I delete Talents, I will not remember how the opponent was built.

    As for spells…well, spells suck. They take up a TON of room in stat blocks beccause of the various adaptations/manipulations. IIRC, i wrote out the combat options for Elemental Bolt for some of the Harvesters at this year’s Arcanicon…it nearly doubled the size of the stat block. (and that was only 1 of their spells)

    Break the talents block into an ‘Active’ and a ‘Passive’ block, where the passive either have no foreseeable use in the adventure or are already factored into the NPC stats.

    July 1, 2015 at 2:46 pm #268839
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Break the talents block into an ‘Active’ and a ‘Passive’ block, where the passive either have no foreseeable use in the adventure or are already factored into the NPC stats.

    +1

    July 1, 2015 at 9:09 pm #268850
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Break the talents block into an ‘Active’ and a ‘Passive’ block, where the passive either have no foreseeable use in the adventure or are already factored into the NPC stats.

    Btw, the added benefit… saves bold for the key ‘active’ talents \":)\"

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