Investing In: Victory Points

14 April

Investing In: Victory Points

Written by Rob Pontious

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You never know what adventure awaits. Sometimes it’s as easy as saving a town from marauding barbarians. At other times there’s a necromancer to vanquish as they raise all the dead from the local cemetery. But it’s not always that simple. People are being found dead all over the city, but who is the killer? A kind gentleman’s home was burgled and they need you to find their missing artwork. Only an ancient elven ritual can restore the wards of this reality and beyond, but the tome that contained it was broken and its pages scattered… How will the heroes save the day? How will you track their epic progress?

Victory Points! Yes, I want to talk about another alternate subsystem from Pathfinder 2E! Well it’s sort of the meta-subsytem as you can frame it to do almost anything. You can even easily see how some of the other systems are built from it like the Influence system I’m already leveraging for our Expedition Coalition game. I needed some intrigue for my heroes as they’re exploring Absalom. Oh and as I mentioned in that article, they did totally want to go to the Grog Pit! It was a nice little waypoint while a cart of possibly stolen goods was being followed by the cat-morphed druid. But yes, I needed to track the development of uncovering that mystery. It can’t all be combat! I also wanted to weave in many NPCs, especially from the Grand Bazaar and locations from it and around Absalom: City of Lost Omens, leveraging both those books as well as Agents of Edgewatch for some useful material. Thus, I’d use the Victory Point system!

Lavender Lil up in Riddleport had tasked the group with two goals: find a dealer in noqual as well as whoever was helping fence stolen goods from the Aspis Consortium, a downright evil organization with ties to Cheliax. I’m no fan of Cheliax, let me tell you! But who is, really? Anyway, I could’ve made both a mystery to track but instead I thought I’d weave one into the other! I identified the two they’d ultimately want to find: Tesyovensku (a mighty fine nonbinary witch of Nidal) and their warehouse as well as Khisa from Relics & Remembrance.

Brainstorming a System

First, we need the final goal to target even if we’ve some along the way. We’ll get to those activities as we brainstorm soon.

Goal: Discover the Fence for the Aspis Consortium

Next, I’d have to determine the challenge duration. This was the main goal of the adventure here in Absalom so I set for adventure-wide, forefront. That means tracking 25-50 victory points and establishing some threshold events with benefits along the way. I’d weave in the locations, NPCs (friends, enemies, and somewhere in between!), a bit of combat, and even a way to build on their influence along the way! While combat encounters could be tied to relevant party level as normal, I’d present them with challenges both social and otherwise and tie the DCs of relevant checks to their 4th level based on average DCs or 19 with some +/- depending if it should be harder and easier.

I started with some core activities I knew they’d do including asking around for the noqual dealer they were eager to find, so they could sell the what they had:

Go to the Grand Bazaar
Check in with Mistress Clavela (their point of contact)
Explore the Bazaar
Ask around about special materials (noqual)
Talk to Tesyovensku

I leveraged the Grand Bazaar’s write up for each major shop and NPC to detail what the heroes saw, to rp the NPCs personality (love Ozi at Merrygleam), and then wait for the inevitable perception check or diplomacy check as they tried to find or get info. Any successes would be 1 Victory Point.

But I’d need some other activities and benefits tied to thresholds along the way. I’d need some encounters too and I wanted not only the legitimate element, but a touch of criminal activity. And thus I thought I’d borrow again from Agents of Edgewatch including the House of the Plans, the Angels group run by Miogimo, and the NPC Ralso though I’d use them differently.

Go to the Grand Bazaar
Check in with Mistress Clavela (their point of contact)
Explore the Bazaar
- Find moving equipment going to Relics & Remembrance
  - Should seem innocuous like lots of selling in Bazaar
Fight ruffians targeting the Heroes
- Find a note suggesting they were hired to go after heroes
Ask around about special materials (noqual)
- Learn about Tesyovensku’s Warehouse
Ask around about how to hire hitmen/assassins
- Learn about the House of the Planes
Talk to Tesyovensku
- Get a dealer for their noqual
Go through the Back Door in Eastgate
- More Agents of Edgewatch use!
Get into the House of the Planes
- Learn about Ralso finding lots of goods at the Carnival at Wondervale in Eastgate
- Learn about the Angels (Miogimo’s Angels)
Perform the Challenges of the House of the Planes
- Be Accepted into the House (influence!)
  - Get confirmed suspicions from House of Planes
- Learn where to meet the Angels
Go to the Carnival at Wondervale
- Fight Ralso
  - If kill, find a lead back to cart with moving equipment
  - Else, make friends and get lead back to cart with moving equipment
Follow cart from Carnival to docks back to Carnival to Relics & Remembrance and possibly beyond
Confront Khisa

The Final Design

The brainstorming is done and it’s time to finalize. The outline is a bit complicated and doesn’t really have any clear thresholds or benefits yet. The programmer in me doesn’t like a lot of nested if then statements either! Before we clean it up, let’s think of some complications for bad checks!

Complications

Anger a shop owner (cost 10% more)
Drakes in Relics & Remembrance
Attention of Guard
Confronted by Guard
Attention of Aspis
- Victory Points were 30+ and then fall to 10+

Some failed social checks would anger a shop owner, especially if you were caught poking around their shop! I knew they’d go to Relics, so I leveraged the house drakes already mentioned in that write up. Also asking around the carnival or Eastgate was bound to attract some attention, especially for the less discrete members of the group. If they failed too many checks then the Aspis was bound to notice, and I decided that was getting half way through searching but then failing enough to fall back to 10 or less. A failed check would be anywhere from -1 to -5 victory points depending on the blunder. A bad diplomacy check with a frequent shopper in the bazaar is not nearly as bad as failing a stealth check while tailing the cart pulled by two Aspis henchpeople!

Let’s put together our threshold benefits. We’ll make a special one for some foreshadowing.

Thresholds & Rewards

5 VP and successful Perception Check(s)
- Meet NPCs related to character back stories
- Note a special kind of shop there in the center of the bazaar
- Find moving equipment going to Relics & Remembrance
  - Should seem innocuous like lots of selling in Bazaar
10 VP
- Learn about the House of the Planes
20 VP
- Learn about Tesyovensku’s Warehouse
30 VP
- Be Accepted into the House (influence!)
  - Get confirmed suspicions from House of Planes
40 VP
- Learn where to meet the Angels
50 VP
- Confirmation and proof enough to confront Khisa

And now for our list of activities that earn Victory Points!

Accumulating Victory Point Activities

Go to the Grand Bazaar – 1 VP
Check in with Mistress Clavela (their point of contact) – 2 VP
Explore the Bazaar – 5 VP
Ask around about special materials (noqual) – 2 VP
Fight ruffians targeting the Heroes – 5 VP
- Find a note suggesting they were hired to go after heroes
Ask around about how to hire hitmen/assassins – 2 VP
Talk to Tesyovensku – 2 VP
- Get a dealer for their noqual
Go through the Back Door in Eastgate to get into the House of the Planes – 5 VP
- Combat from Agents of Edgewatch use!
Learn about Ralso finding lots of goods at the Carnival at Wondervale in Eastgate – 2 VP
- Pharasma will note during her challenge or through a friendly conversation
Learn about the Angels (Miogimo’s Angels) – 2 VP
- Various NPCs might note
Perform the Challenges of the House of the Planes – 5 VP
Go to the Carnival at Wondervale 4 VP
- Various checks from talking to NPCs to searching stalls, etc.
Encounter Ralso – 3 VP
- If kill, find a lead back to cart with moving equipment
- Else, make friends and get lead back to cart with moving equipment
Meet with the Angels – 5 VP
- Set up Miogimo for future
- Miogimo points the heroes to confronting Khisa for a permanent end…
Follow cart from Carnival to docks back to Carnival to Relics & Remembrance and possibly beyond – 5 VP
Confront Khisa

Now we’ve a set of activities that will slowly build the heroes’ victory points as they seek out the mysteries presented to them as part of their trip to Absalom while weaving in both social and combat encounters. I’ve always tracked my adventure building, pulling from various source materials and paths into an outline of NPCs and encounters. The Victory Point system provides a structure to tie those activities of when to reveal certain details. I imagine if I had an Investigator in my party I’d be using this system far more often. Perhaps I should call it a Mystery Point system!

If you’re running an adventure with some non-combat encounters and want to track overall progress of their adventure, I highly suggest you invest in the Victory Point system!

Investing In:

I wasn’t quite sure what to name my article series when I first started but the idea of showcasing or discussing things that make me excited, that I find new and interesting, or maybe I’m otherwise passionate about seemed to fit with the idea of Investing In something like the Pathfinder 2E mechanic. To use some magic items you have to give that little bit of yourself, which helps make these things even better. I like the metaphor of the community growing and being strengthened in the same way!

I also want to hear what you’re Investing In! Leave me a comment below about what games, modules, systems, products, people, live streams, etc you enjoy! You can also hit me up on social media as silentinfinity. I want to hear what excites you and what you’re passionate about. There’s so much wonderful content, people, groups (I could go on) in this community of ours that the more we invest in and share, the better it becomes!