Thank you very much for the feedback, First Age. It's wonderful to learn that your Players enjoyed SoE so much, and that you took so much pleasure in running the scenario. It indeed works like a charm, provided that the GL is able to handle things right and that the PCs get involved in it... which was obviously the case here!
Now, regarding your remarks:
I had a really basic rule question which the forum had already answered. I was really surprised that there is no consistency in Thresholds. Skills are 'Equal to or Greater Than' whereas Defence you have to Exceed. In my view it would have been better to have a consistent rule that Thresholds need to be met or higher, even if that means increasing Defence (and probably some other values - Tests?) by 1.
I'd say it's for simplicity's sake: in my opinion, substracting Defense from Attack is more intuitive than considering that the attack hits when it reaches the opponent's Defense.
I used the Prologue pregen PCs. I'd actually have preferred to keep the Ways and Domains separate, however I can see why you did this for simplicity.
I like it better when they are separate too, but in this case, the PCs were made to be given to novice role-players, so everything is directly pre-calculated.
I assume no Potential as the stance rules are not covered in the Prologue?
Yup. Having a "Potential" score would have only been confusing for someone with only the Prologue, and it is easy to calculate for someone with the full rules.
I don't know how the pregen PCs compare with newly created characters in the main book? They seemed really weak. Even Arven, the dedicated fighter, was not as good as the Mercenaries in Attack and Defence. Indeed, the Mercenaries with Attacks of 12 could have made mincemeat out of the PCs. I was easily scoring 10+ damage points per round and more with some of the other adversaries in the first location. I appreciate the particular circumstances of the first Act, but nevertheless they seemed woefully underpowered. I fudged some results...
The premades from Book 0 were made according to the Character Creation process from Book 1... I even think that they are a tad stronger. Of course, since they are not all fully combat-oriented, it stands to reason that they are not as dangerous as battle-hardened mercenaries. Moreover, given the "particular circumstances of the first Act" as you put it to avoid spoilers, it's not much of a problem that the PCs are weaker than their opponents.
There is a pivotal encounter in the first Act. It's a shame that Liam is completely incapable of carrying out the particular deed himself as he is so hopeless in combat.
That ticked me off too, but in the end, this part of the scenario is meant to be played as a cutscene, so the Character's statistics are not supposed to matter that much.
I think I did the adventure justice and the players were all ver y excited about Shadows of Esteren, so good job done!
Looking forward to more.
Good job to you too for handling things! I hope we'll hear more of you and other Game Masters! As for us, rest assured that we have more in store for you!
