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First off, I may be overreacting (or I've just missed some critical rule and feel really embarrassed once someone points it out) and this might never come up in play, but I made an interesting observation in the Guide to Pathfinder Society organized play.
Experience is granted for every character who participates in an adventure. However, the party has to find gold. This means, that if a character (or party, for that matter) has to run away from battles they will not get gold from that battle. If this happens often, a character gets less powerful in comparison to the party he adventures with (unless they're poor as well), and in comparison to the monsters the character must face.
Then again, a character might lose their gear and be just as poor as the guy with bad luck in combat. For example, if a 4th level wizard loses his gear, he will be no better than a 4th level commoner until he can at least get a new spellbook. That's at least one, possibly a few adventures of tagging along the party, running away at the first sign of trouble and generally feeling useless.
If this happens, I can think of only one way the character has of getting back where he's supposed to be in the gold/experience ratio, and that might not work depending on how campaign grants gold. That way is to die, get raised and lose a level in the process. This works only if characters get more than 950 gold per level.
Another way would be to discard the character and make a new one, but that shouldn't be necessary.
The fact I'm even considering getting a character killed (repeatedly, I might add) in case of a huge monetary loss suggests that this system could use a bit of work.
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PS. I find it amusing that under "Death, Dying and Dismemberment" section of GtPFSOP, regenerate is not on the list of spells a character can purchase, nor is there any other spell that can regrow dismembered limbs.
I'm not going to flat out say that this is completely out in left field that something like this could happen, because we haven't even started playing yet.
I'll just say that Paizo understands people are putting their good money down by taking time off of work, travelling, buying a badge, and paying for their timeslot. A Living World is the ideal way to advertise and grow your game (especially with the decision to steer away from 4E), and you should expect that it would be INCREDIBLY unlikely for you to ever lose any of your persistent equipment (+1 dagger, ioun stone, armor, etc). Obviously you are going to burn through perishibles like Potions, Scrolls, and Wands. Investing heavily in perishibles has its own rewards due to the flexibility allowed and ability to recover quickly.
From how I have read this I do expect there to be some differences between the loot a party of thugs without skills hauls in compared to a balanced group including people with very high knowledge and spot skill rankings. At the same time the skilled party is going to run the risk of death a lot more than a group of thugs are.
I've read a couple of APs, and am currently playing in one as well, and my assessment is that the loot is sparse, and the combats are ferocious. Whether or not this will be different in the Living World I cannot say (I don't expect it will).
I suspect there will be a baseline that everyone will have access to regardless of skills and that you'll never stray to far from that baseline either way. Giving them the benefit of the doubt would probably be the wisest course of action at this early stage.
Here's a tangental question. If someone dies in the adventure, can the rest of the group of Pathfinders scavenge their equipment? If so, do they have to give it back at the end of the scenario? If so to that, even in cases when the dead PC isn't going to be raised?
Personally, I'd say that it would be best if no other player can keep a dead PC's gear past the adventure they died in, since otherwise it can lead to massive wealth inbalances (and often does in home campaigns.)
Here's a tangental question. If someone dies in the adventure, can the rest of the group of Pathfinders scavenge their equipment? If so, do they have to give it back at the end of the scenario? If so to that, even in cases when the dead PC isn't going to be raised?
My interpretation of this (and the one I would use when I'm DMing this weekend) is that you can't loot a dead player because 1) they might get resurrected, somehow, 2) You couldn't keep what you looted (you can't really keep anything you loot in PFS - you just get the gold value) and 3) the gold you get for looting might put your gold reward for the adventure out of whack.
Here's a tangental question. If someone dies in the adventure, can the rest of the group of Pathfinders scavenge their equipment? If so, do they have to give it back at the end of the scenario? If so to that, even in cases when the dead PC isn't going to be raised?
Personally, I'd say that it would be best if no other player can keep a dead PC's gear past the adventure they died in, since otherwise it can lead to massive wealth inbalances (and often does in home campaigns.)
If this were to happen I imagine two possible outcomes. One that characters items are unobtainable (just think about how you would feel if you got killed a couple of hours into a four hour convention slot, and now people are asking you to distribute your "hard-earned" gear to them for their benefit.) or they would rule that if you were willing to allow people to use your stuff that they could use it to the completion of the scenario just like any other "found" loot.
I have never participated in a Living World where anyone has perished, so I have no genuine frame of reference, and I know I tread upon dangerous ground when I use what I think of as common sense, but I don't anticipate a GM wanting to grind salt into the wounds of someone who just died.
I played in several Living City events, and while characters occasionally lost equipment (I can think of one magic shiled that my paladin of Lathander lost to an acid bath in particular), in general they found much more. That said, some people do manage to play more othan thers, and know more people who play (making swapping easier), so I would expect some imbalance. It's the nature of the game and it's life.
Chad
Here's a tangental question. If someone dies in the adventure, can the rest of the group of Pathfinders scavenge their equipment? If so, do they have to give it back at the end of the scenario? If so to that, even in cases when the dead PC isn't going to be raised?
Personally, I'd say that it would be best if no other player can keep a dead PC's gear past the adventure they died in, since otherwise it can lead to massive wealth inbalances (and often does in home campaigns.)
PCs cannot keep gear from a dead party member. It's treated just like loot found: you can use it until the end of the scenario, but can only gain new gear you're allowed to purchase either from chronicles, equipments lists, or from your PA rewards.