Great Things Come in Threes!

Monday, March 13, 2017

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show in Las Vegas has wrapped up and I'm headed back to Seattle early next week. GAMA brings retailers and industry professionals together once a year at their trade show, as well as sponsors the Origins Gaming Convention every June in Columbus, Ohio. The Paizo team was busy this year! The Jasons (Keely and Bulmahn) ran lots of Starfinder ship combat demos, Erik Mona talked to loads of attendees about upcoming Paizo products, including the Starfinder line, Jeff/Cosmo/Pierce/Jenny spent lots of time in meetings, and I gave presentations on Paizo Organized Play. By the way, how many of you caught our live tweets from the presentations? That was the brainchild of our new Outreach Manager, Dan Tharp. You should see his fingers fly on a phone keyboard.

Between meetings and presentations, we all took a spin in the booth talking to retailers and other industry folks about our awesome games. Loads of drool over Starfinder, including the Free RPG Day offering, Starfinder: First Contact, a sleek book filled with monsters that work well in both the Pathfinder and Starfinder settings, and the shiny Buyer's Guide, listing the upcoming Starfinder products. Equally exciting to attendees, the news that Ninja Division will produce pre-painted miniatures for the Starfinder line. While at the show, I handed out over 150 Organized Play packets to stores looking to start organized play or expand their offerings. If you don't currently have Pathfinder Society in a location near you, one may be coming soon. Otherwise, email me at organizedplay@paizo.com and we can work together to get something started.

Starfinder Society and Know Direction

This Wednesday, March 22 at 8:30 PM Eastern time, the Starfinder Society team (John Compton, Thurston Hillman, and myself) will join Know Direction hosts Ryan & Perram for an evening of questions and answers. While focused mostly on the newly announced Starfinder Society Organized Play program, we can field some questions about Pathfinder Society as well. If you have a question you really want answered, put it in the comments and we will add it to our growing list. But be warned, some answers must stay under wraps until closer to the launch in August. In the words of the great River Song, "Spoilers!"

You can find the feed, and other Know Direction podcasts and interviews on their website. We'll see you there on Wednesday!

The OPC Needs a New Character

In my recent travels, I've gotten to play more than I've GMed or organized. Crazy, right? But it means all my characters leveled up and are now in the Tier 5+ range. So I need new characters to take on my great con tour this summer.

I've been trying to come up with ideas, but nothing really tickled my fancy, so I'm asking Pathfinder Society players to help me out. I'm actually making a contest out of it. Character concepts must fit the criteria below. Include a backstory of between 280 and 300 words that provides insight into the character and their motivations. Submit your entry as email text (no attachments!) to pathfindersociety@paizo.com (Subject: OPC Needs A New Character Contest) along with your Pathfinder Society number. Entries must be received by April 3, 2017 for consideration for the contest.

I've asked the Organized Play team (and maybe a few other staffers) to help me narrow down the options. We will put our top choices in a blog on Monday, April 10 for the community to vote on. The concept with the highest votes becomes my 23rd character. The winner receives $20 paizo.com store credit, as well as bragging rights and a named acknowledgement every time I play the character.

Criteria

  • Race: Any legal without a boon
  • Class: Any
  • Gender: Any
  • Name: No puns and suitable for playing with younger players
  • Stats: Balanced (nothing lower than an 8)
  • Resources: Any
  • Format: Paizo stat block
  • Play Style: I like to participate in all aspects of an adventure, so a mix of skills and combat, don't mind being a "face" but prefer not to be the front line fighter, and prefer cool concepts to min-maxed abilities
  • Level progression: 5th for feats, skills, and selectable class features

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with for me to play!

Next week is John's scenario introductions, so I'll see you in two weeks with a wrap up of Who's Yer Con, which I'm attending March 31 to April 2 in Indianapolis, IN.

Until then—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Community Contests Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
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3/5

Cool idea for a contest!

So, what classes have you played past 3rd level more than once?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

Cool! I have a few concepts you might enjoy, Tonya.

Do you mind filling out the race/class of your current PFS characters? To give us an idea what you've been playing?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

That sounds like a fun contest, Tonya. I would love to hear what you've been playing so far! It will be fun to create a character based on fluff rather than entirely on crunch!

Hmm

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Would you mind posting the stat block format? Also, in what format would you like the level progression?

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Limit one submission per person?

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

As I can hardly decide what to play myself, I probably wont participate but will take a good look at what will be on offer!

Liberty's Edge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Starfinder Superscriber

No... PUNS????

*sniff*

Silver Crusade 2/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

I agree with Hilary Moon, can you list a couple of your favorite current characters so that we can take a little tid-bit from one or two of them?

Paizo Employee 4/5 Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

rknop wrote:

No... PUNS????

*sniff*

This is for everyone's benefit.

My Reasoning:
No doubt Tonya has her own reasoning for the choice. Were I running the contest to select my next character, I would include a similar rule because I would want the character to be more than a joke name that represents the overall mechanics. Yeah, you could give me a maximum height nagaji named E. Normous or a swashbuckler named Esse Nif, but the joke would wear thin pretty quickly—at least for me.

Anywho, a pun-less submission means more attention paid to creating an exciting and well-rounded character with a cool backstory!

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Coordinator

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Some of my favorites! Sigvard, being my -1, has a place near and dear to my heart. Second fave was Eve, and Kelby is a blast. In writing these out, I realize how many humans I have in the bunch. I think I like them best because of the versatility in their bonuses.

Sigvard Tornkvist (Osirion/Scarab Sages) Seeker Half-orc Diviner Wizard 13

Tia & Tsarina (Andoren/ Liberty's Edge ) Human Witch 10

Brynja Sokki (Taldor) DEAD Human Drunken Barbarian 3 (back before there was an archetype)

Pavle Macek (Qadira) Human Phalanx Fighter 2 (before the archetype) - retired

Eve Chorta (Cheliax/Dark Archive ) Human Rogue/Pathfinder Chronicler 11

Giampalo d'Arezzo (Scarni/The Exchange)Human Asmodean Inquisitor 12

Tigra (Silver Crusade) Human Hermean Haunted Oracle 5

Bob the Brewer (Shadow Lodge/Sovereign Court ) Human Cleric 10

Kelby Springspark (Lantern Lodge/Dark Archive) Gnome Alchemist9

Sung Ka Ri (Scarab Sages) Protegee Samsaran Arcanist 5

Argan Methield (Liberty's Edge) CORE Fighter 2

Kiv Hyl (Liberty's Edge) Human Unchained Rogue 2 (used in PbP)

Mirabeta Atlee (Sovereign Court) Suli Magus 5

My fave non-PFS character was Astrea - a halfling druid with childlike and pass for human traits. She was constantly accompanied by a stuffed animal named Snowy, which she often used to get her animal companion, Master Snowdon, into places!

Stat block like those found in Season 8 scenarios. I will pull one and post tomorrow. I am open to more than one submission per person. Lets go with limit 3?

No puns in the name. I don't mind punny concepts, if they are more than just one liners.


Like some of the above, I must abstain from the contest. However, in regards to the Know Direction podcast:

When will we see a full reveal of the last race and presumably the Mystic iconic as well? What can you tell us about them at this time?

When will we see the Mechanic iconic? What can you tell us about them at this time?

Can you tell us anything new about the Mechanic, Mystic, or Technomancer classes?

Is there anything new about feats or skills you can tell us at this time?

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Starfinder Superscriber

(I actually don't like putting puns in names of characters either. But I do like puns in general....)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ***

Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Bob the Brewer

Why does everyone keep making me into a PC?!?

Janira Gavix !!!!!
You know where to find my account for those gift certificate credits ;-)

5/5 5/55/55/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

The perfect amount of pun in a name goes unnoticed until halfway through the session and then someone groans and hits their head on the table.

Paizo Employee 4/5 Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Richard Redmane wrote:

Like some of the above, I must abstain from the contest. However, in regards to the Know Direction podcast:

When will we see a full reveal of the last race and presumably the Mystic iconic as well? What can you tell us about them at this time?

When will we see the Mechanic iconic? What can you tell us about them at this time?

Can you tell us anything new about the Mechanic, Mystic, or Technomancer classes?

Is there anything new about feats or skills you can tell us at this time?

Unveiling iconic characters and final player character species is much more the domain of the Starfinder development team, so I would not expect us to make announcements on that front. We are, after all, focusing much of our attention on the organized play side of this exciting new system. That might bring with it some incidental spoilers about the rules system.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

I am definitely interested in the challenge, and plan submit a character (or two). By level progression, do you mean do a version of all five levels, or just the character at fifth? Or something in between?

Just wondering!

Oh, will the ideas come to me fast enough?

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I love your critera for character creation, Tonya. I wish more players designed like this. Especially these two parts.

Quote:

Stats: Balanced (nothing lower than an 8)

Play Style: I like to participate in all aspects of an adventure, so a mix of skills and combat, don't mind being a "face" but prefer not to be the front line fighter, and prefer cool concepts to min-maxed abilities

But what else would one expect from the OPC? :P

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Starfinder Superscriber

I agree with Walter. Cool concepts aren't incompatible with highly optimized characters, but I've been known to make sacrifices for the concept. (E.g. my 2nd level oread warpriest doesn't have Power Attack yet because he needed that Dwarf Blooded feat to fit the concept and background!)

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

To clarify, do you want it written up as if it had the equipment of a fifth level character as well, and if so, can you confirm what gold piece value that would be?

5/5

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

All of this is just an elaborate plot to make me miss The Expanse.

I'm lucky I can DVR it.

The character idea sounds interesting. I always have more ideas just gathering dust than I know what to do with? Is that normal?

Lone Shark Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.

We <3 Dan Tharp.


John Compton wrote:
Richard Redmane wrote:

Like some of the above, I must abstain from the contest. However, in regards to the Know Direction podcast:

When will we see a full reveal of the last race and presumably the Mystic iconic as well? What can you tell us about them at this time?

When will we see the Mechanic iconic? What can you tell us about them at this time?

Can you tell us anything new about the Mechanic, Mystic, or Technomancer classes?

Is there anything new about feats or skills you can tell us at this time?

Unveiling iconic characters and final player character species is much more the domain of the Starfinder development team, so I would not expect us to make announcements on that front. We are, after all, focusing much of our attention on the organized play side of this exciting new system. That might bring with it some incidental spoilers about the rules system.

Ahhhhh, I somehow missed that. Sounds like it still might be interesting.

4/5

My assumption when submitting was built at 1, but a list of build decisions for 2-5.

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Coordinator

Serisan wrote:
My assumption when submitting was built at 1, but a list of build decisions for 2-5.

Exactly. So I can see where your going with the build. I just need to know the key pieces that you choose, like feats, class features, and spells. For skills, just note if something new is added or an old selection ommitted at a certain level.

As for equipment. If there is one piece that is necessary to the build, please call it out. But I don't need a list of all the equipment a standard adventure should have at their disposal.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

So you don't want a statblock for each level 1-5? goes back and deletes a lot of work... :(

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

John Compton wrote:
rknop wrote:

No... PUNS????

*sniff*

This is for everyone's benefit.

** spoiler omitted **

I feel like one of my three submission choices should be the Wit Bard just so you could sneak in the Puns through other channels. Also, that archetype is disturbingly good even though it kind of seems like it was designed with the puns first.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Stat block like those found in Season 8 scenarios. I will pull one and post tomorrow.

Just wondering if you've done this already, and I haven't noticed it yet.

Interested in seeing what kind of "progression" you'd like to see.

4/5

Thank you for clarifying, Tonya. I had jumped to the conclusion that it would easiest if everyone just submitted a 5th level stat block with supporting test, but can appreciate why you would want it given in a step-wise progression.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/5 *

I think it is to start from level 1 in game and a rough path for early life (as adventure plans will shape progression at least a bit). A level 1 block is less interesting than a level 5 but its where every (unless its a GM baby) PC starts

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Coordinator

Michael Eshleman wrote:
So you don't want a statblock for each level 1-5? goes back and deletes a lot of work... :(

I'll gladly take more, but at a minimum I need to see where you are going with the character concept. Level 1 is very amorphous and can do lots of things, level 5 gives me a clearer picture of the character. I'll never turn down detail.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Michael Eshleman wrote:
So you don't want a statblock for each level 1-5? goes back and deletes a lot of work... :(
I'll gladly take more, but at a minimum I need to see where you are going with the character concept. Level 1 is very amorphous and can do lots of things, level 5 gives me a clearer picture of the character. I'll never turn down detail.

Yay!

Liberty's Edge 4/5 *

Anyone know of a scenario or module with an Oracle in it? I am having some difficulties with figuring out formatting for the character I want to submit.

Silver Crusade 4/5

Morten Dreier wrote:
Anyone know of a scenario or module with an Oracle in it? I am having some difficulties with figuring out formatting for the character I want to submit.

You may be able to use the pregen oracle for the formatting.

4/5

the name should work with the character concept and usually that linkage can be direct, amusing, or onomatopoeic (*BAMM!*). Otherwise it's just another platyrhodon.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

BigNorseWolf wrote:
The perfect amount of pun in a name goes unnoticed until halfway through the session and then someone groans and hits their head on the table.

I've prompted that reaction occasionally when I play my ranger, Gil Robinson...

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
John Francis wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
The perfect amount of pun in a name goes unnoticed until halfway through the session and then someone groans and hits their head on the table.
I've prompted that reaction occasionally when I play my ranger, Gil Robinson...

that pun just got Lost in Space...

Liberty's Edge 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville

I made a character that is a one line joke/bit in Blazing Saddles. His name is Randoff Scott.

5/5 5/5

Has the stat block been posted? I am not seeing it and I would like to submit a character concept. Thanks.

*

Morten Dreier wrote:
Anyone know of a scenario or module with an Oracle in it? I am having some difficulties with figuring out formatting for the character I want to submit.

Cindersworn Pact does.

Pete Winz wrote:
Has the stat block been posted? I am not seeing it and I would like to submit a character concept. Thanks.

It might not be 100% official, but Dakcenturi created a template for PBP characters (Thanks again Dakcenturi :). You will have to remove some of the BBC codes to make it work in an email, and double check it against an actual PFS statblock, but I think this will get you 90% of the way there.

5/5 *****

Morten Dreier wrote:
Anyone know of a scenario or module with an Oracle in it? I am having some difficulties with figuring out formatting for the character I want to submit.

Oracles:

What sleeps in stone
All for immortality part 1
Thralls of the shattered god
Tapestry's toil
The green market

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can't wait to see the entries.

*

I have too many character ideas and not enough time to play them all. So this makes an excellent chance to create characters I know I will never have a chance to play. Thank you. :)

Taking a note from the "rare sightings" I decided to try one of the mentioned classes, which is also rare around here. Similarly I tried one of the rarer races. If I get the chance to create a third, I figure I will offer a human, since VentureMama seems to prefer them, but what class?

1. Alchemist Arcanist
3. Barbarian Bard Bloodrager Brawler
7. Cavalier Cleric
9. Druid
10. Fighter
11. Gunslinger
12. Hunter
13. Inquisitor Investigator
15. Kineticist
16. Magus Medium Mesmerist Monk
20. Occultist Oracle
22. Paladin Psychic
24. Ranger Rogue
26. Shaman Skald Slayer Sorcerer Spiritualist Summoner Swashbuckler
33. Warpriest Witch Wizard

Class: 1d35 ⇒ 16 It might be too close too the last listed character, I will sleep on the magus and see what comes up character-wise (or go with my favorite-and everybody else's least favorite-class :)

4/5

well it's the 3rd so we'll have to wait and see what they got *grin* *fingers crossed* I did 2 classes that I've never played... lol...

The Exchange 3/5

Submitted one. Characters are a lot of work! Hope people like the concept.

Grand Lodge 3/5

ah, dangit... i completely missed the contest. :(
I'd like to have tried to build my Umbral Summoner.

Dark Archive 4/5

Selvaxri wrote:

ah, dangit... i completely missed the contest. :(

I'd like to have tried to build my Umbral Summoner.

You have until midnight (PST) tonight, so there's still time!

Grand Lodge 4/5

I ended up not entering. No proper example laid out and most of my concepts are considered too generic by my fellow lodge members.

4/5

I was going to submit two, but after getting the first one converted to statblock form, I think I will have to call it a night.

Grand Lodge 3/5

Okay... hopefully, i did it right. I'm not used to building characters at Lvl X.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Tonya, been sick all weekend. I was not able to finish the character for you. I think that I will just send you the concept as a non-entry, because it made me smile. Hopefully there will be other great things to play in all the submissions you get!

Hmm

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