"Skip to the END": Handling players bypassing the setup for the main villain

[veekie]

Exactly, this is how you prevent them from skipping to the end, by not showing them the end until they're ready for it. If they are likely to ignore the result on failed information rolls(which only happens if they roll abysmally on a low modifier, gather info checks are fairly easy), then have the process of gathering information attract unwanted attention, etc.
My personal method for this btw, is simply taking the best roll, and for every other roll in the party, apply a cumulative +2/-2(if they fail the minimum DC -10) to the roll, like an automatic Aid Another. Intermediate results then get them partially correct information with potentially tricky mistakes, low results cause them to draw attention from asking around, and high get them directly relevant results.

Look at it from a practical point of view. If you went out there and asked for directions to where Paris Hilton is holding her latest party, even if you know all the right people to ask and how, you'd get where she was holding the PREVIOUS party when you get there. Then you use that location/information/people to narrow down the next one, go there and wait for it to start up. Same deal. Gather information cannot generate knowledge that the group does not know.

[Braininthejar]

If they skip past the adventure, I would design the adventure working on this assumption.

- if they execute their strategy properly, they catch the villain with his pants down and get a level-appropriate battle.

- if they have to do things the hard way, the villain will be alerted to the fact that some pesky adventurers are killing his minions, and prepare a much more challenging battle - but the heroes will have some levelling opportunities to get them up to the challenge.

[InnaBinder]

- if they have to do things the hard way, the villain will be alerted to the fact that some pesky adventurers are killing his minions, and prepare a much more challenging battle - but the heroes will have some levelling opportunities to get them up to the challenge.

Where do these opportunities present themselves.

[Braininthejar]

Where do these opportunities present themselves.

By not bypassing the challenges, they get exp for killing the minions... The problem on page one was that they bypass challenges and get into a boss fight they aren't ready for...its 4 AM though so I might have missed something.

[InnaBinder]

- if they have to do things the hard way, the villain will be alerted to the fact that some pesky adventurers are killing his minions, and prepare a much more challenging battle - but the heroes will have some levelling opportunities to get them up to the challenge.

Emphasis mine.  Sympathies for being up at 4am, by the way.  The way I read this, you're saying that if they're doing things the hard way, the challenge will be greater, "but the heroes will have some leveling opportunities to get them up to the challenge" of doing things the hard way.  That's why I'm asking where the extra opportunities come from when they've skipped the plot arc.

[Braininthejar]

From what I understood, the party uses their skills/magic to locate the main villain and attack him directly, instead of going through the adventures that should lead up to that battle. As the result, they don't face as many challenges as they should and lack the level to tackle the boss.

So, the highlighted option was the situation when this does work - when they fail or don't want to bypass the adventures they level up as planned and the boss is the challenge he was meant to be.

If they do bypass the adventures and skip to the boss, he is weaker and an appropriate challenge to them, not by a life-saving nerf but as the result of them having the element of surprise.


Did I manage to write it clear this time?

[InnaBinder]

From what I understood, the party uses their skills/magic to locate the main villain and attack him directly, instead of going through the adventures that should lead up to that battle. As the result, they don't face as many challenges as they should and lack the level to tackle the boss.

So, the highlighted option was the situation when this does work - when they fail or don't want to bypass the adventures they level up as planned and the boss is the challenge he was meant to be.

If they do bypass the adventures and skip to the boss, he is weaker and an appropriate challenge to them, not by a life-saving nerf but as the result of them having the element of surprise.


Did I manage to write it clear this time?

You did; it means I completely misunderstood your original point as being that, regardless of whether they skipped ahead, they'd still (somehow) find appropriate opportunities to increase their party's power level to meet a challenge at the end of a story arc.  That's what I understood your original separation of points to indicate.  You're also advocating a stealth-nerf on the end boss, who is suddenly not nearly as challenging as originally conceived.  This may require a rapid rewrite or ad-libbing, and, depending on what the party DID find out about their goal, may very well lead to a "that was it?!" response from the players once they've faced and overcome the difficulties of that story arc.

*    *   *

On Gather Information:

Gather Information (Cha)
Check

An evening’s time, a few gold pieces for buying drinks and making friends, and a DC 10 Gather Information check get you a general idea of a city’s major news items, assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld. The higher your check result, the better the information.

If you want to find out about a specific rumor, or a specific item, or obtain a map, or do something else along those lines, the DC for the check is 15 to 25, or even higher.

See also: epic usages of Gather Information.

Emphasis mine.  This is why I'm objecting to folks advising that a 29 Gather Information check should provide the party with vague, somewhat useful intel on the whereabouts and motivations of Smells-Like-Farts in his lair.  The actual, written description of the skill indicates that players should be able to obtain a map with a DC of 15 - 25 (yes, it says "or higher", but we've already established, by making the threat an Orc, that a DC 29 represents an optimal or near-optimal result for the level of the party).  This means, to me, that folks are objecting to, or outright ignoring, the way Gather Information works by RAW, and then using their houserules as an explanation for why I'm having this particular issue with this particular example.

[sirpercival]

That entails that someone has an accurate map to acquire.  You're making Gather Info into at best a 6th level divination spell (Find the Path), and at worst an 8th (Discern Location).

EDIT: Your players are optimizing Gather Info because in your games it's a substitute for high-level divination.

[InnaBinder]

That entails that someone has an accurate map to acquire.  You're making Gather Info into at best a 6th level divination spell (Find the Path), and at worst an 8th (Discern Location).

EDIT: Your players are optimizing Gather Info because in your games it's a substitute for high-level divination.

The thread is about more than Gather Info; it's about skipping encounters in other ways as well.  In this instance, I'm making Gather Info do what it says on the tin: provide a map when you've met or beaten a DC 25.

[Slaughterhouserock]

The thread is about more than Gather Info; it's about skipping encounters in other ways as well.  In this instance, I'm making Gather Info do what it says on the tin: provide a map when you've met or beaten a DC 25.

A map of a city you mean?

Gather Information (Cha)
Check

An evening’s time, a few gold pieces for buying drinks and making friends, and a DC 10 Gather Information check get you a general idea of a city’s major news items, assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld. The higher your check result, the better the information.

If you want to find out about a specific rumor, or a specific item, or obtain a map, or do something else along those lines, the DC for the check is 15 to 25, or even higher.

See also: epic usages of Gather Information.

Emphasis mine.  If you're going by strict RAW, GI only works for getting all that stuff when in reference to a city.

[InnaBinder]

That's assuming that "a map" and "a general idea of a city's major news items" are exactly the same thing, by my reading.  That's again taking Gather Info into "nobody can use this skill for anything useful" territory.

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, it says a map, it doesn't say a map that gives a pinpoint location. It could just be vague inference as to location.

[InnaBinder]

Yeah, it says a map, it doesn't say a map that gives a pinpoint location. It could just be vague inference as to location.

. . .which is a stealth-nerf.  I'm sensing a trend.

[Rejakor]

You'll notice it doesn't say 'an accurate map' 'a map of an obscure thing' or 'a map of a secret location'.  It just says 'a map'.

You're letting a player who rolled a 20 on diplomacy convince the BBEG to be their personal slave.  It's not RAI.

assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld.

Reasons the information would be withheld;

1.  The townsfolk don't know anything other than the general direction of the orc camp.

2.  Anyone who does know is an orcish spy and has reasons to withhold the information vis. his life being taken, income from spying.

3.  People who do know would be scared at the idea of telling in case the orcs hunt them down and kill them.

4.  The person who knows (the hunter) isn't in town at the moment, and thus isn't at the inns in question.  See point 1.



Also, as for the BBEG being weaker, that's pretty easy to fucking ad-lib.  Have his minions show up after the fight with signs of having just gotten dressed or just arriving cursing the PCs and laying into them, which might show them how hard the fight would have been with the minions there.  Have the BBEG curse the party saying that in just a few more hours the power of the Andrades Amulet would have been his and THEN THEY WOULD HAVE SEEN OH YES QUITE.

I mean, hell, there's tons of ways you could do it and perfectly reasonable reasons why he'd be weaker now and stronger later.

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, it says a map, it doesn't say a map that gives a pinpoint location. It could just be vague inference as to location.

. . .which is a stealth-nerf.  I'm sensing a trend.

It's only a stealth-nerf because you've over-interpreted the RAW. Please show me an example in-book of a GI check presenting a perfectly accurate map of a villain's headquarters with precise locations and schedules for the villain and all his lieutenants?

[InnaBinder]

Yeah, it says a map, it doesn't say a map that gives a pinpoint location. It could just be vague inference as to location.

. . .which is a stealth-nerf.  I'm sensing a trend.

It's only a stealth-nerf because you've over-interpreted the RAW. Please show me an example in-book of a GI check presenting a perfectly accurate map of a villain's headquarters with precise locations and schedules for the villain and all his lieutenants?

Right after you show me where I specified the bolded portions would be true, verbatim.   

[veekie]

If considering it a stealth nerf is an issue, make it an open one. Straight out tell the players the change to the skill interpretation, and if they want, they can reallocate skill points for it.

The skill itself does not specify one way or another(much like the knowledge skills), how detailed or up to date the gathered information is.
The DC is also likewise unspecified, does "or even higher" vary by level of detail, obscurity and secrecy, or some combination? How much of an increase is applied for each factor and does it cap out?
Finally, the skill itself describes that only information possessed by the polled group(the relevant settlement) can be obtained in this manner. You cannot ask for information nobody in the group knows about.

A high roll simply lets you 'find out' about the specific topic selected, which could inherently be anything from giving you "I saw them cross the river five minutes ago at the bend" to "They're usually at the abandoned forge at this hour, thats why we avoid that place" to "Oh yeah that, old Jimbo knows where they are".

[Kajhera]

Inna, if your players would rather be TPKed than reap the honest benefits of their actions (the element of surprise), but don't want to be TPKed, I think you may be setting the standards on you a little high.

Also, many of what you're calling 'stealth nerfs' to gather information are actually giving the party more useful information. And as I said, if you want to just give them a map to a place because it does happen to be available in the town, but you want to throw in some complications... gather information is a point at which the party is asking you to tell them random information. Great place to throw it in.

And well, if the information to get directly somewhere is available, expect it might happen.

Reason many of the suggestions have focused on it, is well, it's the example you used, and you've dismissed most of the general suggestions. If you want examples of how to deal with groups using teleport for its intended purpose or groups who start burrowing everywhere or groups who attack someone powerful on a 'gut instinct' they are bad news - those all have their own, individual suggestions. (For that last, I'd advise, if you made the person turn out to be a projected image, be sure this is not an obvious recon.)

[RedWarlock]

You also are within your rights to ask for the players' GI modifiers and roll it yourself behind the screen, so they don't metagame the result based on the dice rolls.

[Rejakor]

I want to play in a game veekie runs.  I'm sure it'd be really awesome.