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In the interest of trying to pitch in my 2pp (rather than 2cp), I would take this a bit further. 0. The first time a character plays a season mission, that character receives a Faction Boon Chronicle with a checklist. This checklist provides slots for the GM to check off each mission, slots for the GM to check off whether or not the character fulfilled the requirements for completion and slots to check off whether or not the character fulfilled the requirements for the faction mission. The Faction Boon Chronicle also provides a certain amount of background on the season's faction subplot, thus providing an opportunity for further immersion. This is essentially flavor text, but represents the faction's "campaign" this season. This campaign text will help tie the faction missions to an overall goal or theme, but can still be just barely cryptic enough so that the faction missions themselves don't have to be obviously connected to it. How does the Andoran PC collecting an artifact called the "Chalice of the Bloodright" relate to throwing off the shackles of oppression and freeing the citystate of Someplace? How does the Cheliax character conscripting the NPC Generico help slip the deus ex machina NPC Agnate into a position to undermine the Decemvirate? Well... I can't wait to find out! 1. The faction war does not need to be a race, but rather a bar to be reached. The boon requirement is then this: Every character of this faction receives the reward if
E.G., if Lantern Lodge gets x PA worldwide, and my Lantern Lodge character meets a certain number-of-missions-completed requirement for the season, she should get the faction's season campaign boon. This, what I will call the "faction campaign boon" can only be obtained within half a year after the season ends for an important reason: The additional half year gives Mark Moreland et al a bit of space to incorporate changes in the overall positioning of the different factions. The faction game is subtle, remember, and such changes necessarily won't become immediately apparent. They should be revealed either in the second season after the season that caused the changes or in the capstone scenarios of the season directly after the season that caused the changes. 2. To make Faction missions more valuable within this framework, each season's Faction Boon Chronicle will have a second boon that can only be acquired through obtaining at least a certain percentage of Faction PA. This second boon can be obtained at any time during or after the season, as soon as a predetermined Faction Fame requirement is met with only that season's scenarios, regardless of whether the faction itself met the requirement for the campaign boon. 3. Make sure the boons are actually worth something and permanent. Even if they don't apply all the time, they should apply under certain conditions and should apply every time those conditions are met. Such as giving a Chelaxian character the ability to purchase one item at a discount whenever in a Chelaxian city, giving a Silver Crusader a +2 to Intimidate checks against Sczarni NPCs, or giving a Taldan character a +2 to Diplomacy checks when dealing with Taldan NPCs. This variety also needs to be stressed, and should be very appropriate to the faction to which it is given, as I think that it will go a long way to help differentiate the different factions.
I will bring this to my players this Friday.
James Jacobs doesn't like dwarves, as I recall, and this position is not a secret. And if I recall correctly from the one post I read he's not alone in that feeling among Paizo staff (though I couldn't tell you what thread that was in). (And to be fair, it's not dwarf hate simply for the purposes of dwarf hate... he just doesn't like how they're most often portrayed; stereotypical dwarves, etc.) This may be part of the reason why Dwarves aren't as well-represented a race among the citizens of Golarion. Way, way back when, around the time the Bestiary was released, there was a post that may still be in the archives pertaining to monstrous races, wherein it was explained, if I recall correctly, that at least a few Paizo staffers (at the time) didn't like the idea of playable monstrous races. I, at the time, was looking for rules on how to apply the Half-Dragon template to my character and what penalties I would have to take. There wasn't any big push from within the organization to get playable monstrous races into the game just then, and of us fans, the vocal minority was very small. Maybe that's why it's taken so long thus far. And maybe because there's a bigger vocal group interested in this, that's why Paizo has responded. None of this, however, addresses the present topic of discussion. Relevant, but not directly. As much as I'm in the group that will probably never be able to play a Tengu character because I may never get the appropriate boon, I'm actually torn as to whether or not relegating the non-core races to Boon Chronicles is a good idea. Sure it gets people to attend conventions, but what of the majority of players who simply can't? The only reason I'm attending GenCon this year is because my FLGS is sponsoring my food and travel, and Paizo's putting me up as a Tier 1 GM. And this is my very first gaming convention at all. For all that I'm not working, it may well be my last. Ultimately, I need more players and at least another GM before I could even benefit from it anyway. I have no chance to play because all I ever do is run. But that's another issue altogether.
Actually It is me and not customer service that has to make those corrections. I have to correct each one manually. I would request you just use the system as it currently is and not work around it so as to not create a ton of work for me in the future when the tracking system is fixed. To be fair, I'm reporting older sessions that I'd completely brain-faulted on reporting. I'll fess up, shameful as it is: I have two sessions yet to report from '09 and I'm contacting the players involved to get their information and to make sure I don't screw things up by overwriting more recent runs. Among those players, there is one who, sadly, has moved away from fantasy gaming and I'll be reporting him with a dummy PFS ID Number. He doesn't want his Chronicle Sheets. I'm being accurate with those and not taking any GM credit for them. I'm trying to get my reporting up to date, and my most recent sessions are all, at least, being partially reported within 24h. When I started out here in Albuquerque, I forgot a couple of times to gather player information. There's only one scenario that's currently missing player information and I haven't been able to get into contact with the two players from that table that I haven't completely reported.
Well, you can only get positive credit once, so you should only be penalized once for all the times you run it. Though this would give GMs a free pass to kill off as many characters as they want once they have taken the one negative hit. That would be up to Paizo to balance, but its all kind of moot because they obviously side with RAW, GMS, and huge penalties for dying. I feel that you have some strong issues with GMs in general, wolflord. You've repeatedly ignored the assertion—one that has been presented on numerous occasions within this thread—Player Character death is most often caused by inadvisable decisions made by players or by the random results of dice rolls. Again, I must assert that neither of these are things that are within the scope of a GM's arsenal to adjust. ; a GM cannot change them. Where the die falls, it stays, with certain exceptions which are well within the rules and documented in the T-Shirt Reroll rule, class features, feats and traits. If I wanted to edit my players' decisions so that they were "safer," I'd be playing Pathfinder Society at home, by myself. It is cheating for a GM to specifically suggest the safest course of action for a character, although he may suggest that there are alternatives and let the players puzzle out what those alternatives are. It's definitely cheating if the GM specifically outlines the traps before they're sprung, or the tactics of the baddies, or anything else that the character should not be able to act on because she isn't meant to know about them before encountering them. First time scenarios differing from successive playthroughs depends on how you as the Gm play the NPCS. The first time you aren't playing to win or using the most deadly tactics, you are trying to figure out the tactics. The second time around you know how to play the npcs in the deadliest way and most gms do. (Open with the firestorm that hits the entire party, then follow it up with flame strikes, or other nasty things.) GMS are not playing to "win." As I've mentioned above, the GM's job is to tell the story. Remember that the GM also has to play the parts of any NPCs allied with the party and the parts of any NPCs who are indifferent to the party, whether they are allied with or at odds with the NPCs who are antagonistic to the party. And a GM who is using the most deadly tactics is probably playing well outside the Rules-As-Written. What I was sort of hinting at above is that gms don't HAVE to always have the npcs employ the most devastating tactics. Players often don't, because they want to have fun, have gained a new level and don't understand their abilities, are casual players, or might be newbies. While it is within the rights of a Gm to play the npcs in the most deadly way possible, personally I don't feel they always need to for the group to have fun. They can choose to make it a little easier if it means not killing a character and having him sit there with nothing to do for 4 hours. Further, you're using as example your personal experience with a scenario you played up, which you announced that you yourself opted into even though it was two levels above your character's abilities. As it has been stated above, you made this choice, knowing that Pathfinder, like D&D before it, involves some risk. The risk to your character was great, and in spite of this great risk, you opted to play. This is an example of a player making a poor choice. You also, at great inconvenience to yourself, chose to sit at that table for the remaining five hours rather than find something more productive and interesting to do. Remember, this thread asked what I would like to see and this is my perfect pfs world. I know many of you would probably hate it. I do find it interesting that AFAIK only (or mostly) gms have responded. I wonder what experienced non-gm players, or newbie players (with chars under lvl 5) would think of these ideas. How do they feel about all these issues? Did these things (and not just the death thing) make them want to come back for more or did it deter them? I do not see anywhere in the original post where it asks you what would make PFS a perfect world for you, and while, despite that, I still appreciate your candor, I honestly believe that your suggestions would cripple Pathfinder Society Organized Play by further deterring people from becoming GMs and causing existing ones to walk, not to mention by completely throwing off balance mechanics that are meant to keep Pathfinder Society Scenarios fair for all players. Your qualm, as has also been mentioned before, is with specific GMs and the tactics and attitudes of those GMs—tactics and attitudes it has been suggested again and again that you should report. But the rules you're suggesting are across-the-board changes that would apply to all GMs. It is not a GM's duty, nor should it be, nor would it benefit Pathfinder Society Organized Play as a whole, to soft-ball encounters, and it has already been indicated in other topics that GMs may not employ tactics that go beyond the scope of RAW to outright maliciously kill characters. Your character has died. I'm empathetic on the subject. But characters die and penalizing GMs for it or mandating that GMs are to "go easy" on players when the dice roll in favor of the baddies or the environment or when the players make inadvisable decisions for their characters is not the answer. Let me turn this around, however. You spent so many hours getting your character up to level 6. The only way this can be a waste of time is if you toss aside Pathfinder Society Organized Play and never play again. And if it also causes your friends to avoid playing the game, all theirs will, too. Instead, as the GM I told you I am, and as your best friend as I told you I am, I challenge you to do better. A dead character is not a dead stop. It's just a dip in the road or a speed bump. So I challenge you to make a more resilient character, to choose better tactics, and to realize when it's just a bad idea to play up. I challenge you to not let those hours of learning the nuances and rules go to waste. And I challenge you to fairly report when you feel GMs are outright bending or breaking the rules to march PCs to their deaths. And to fairly report when you see GMs bragging about their kill counts when—and only when—they are doing it at the expense of their players' feelings. And not when it's meant in honest, good-hearted fun. Moreover, I challenge you to GM for Pathfinder Society, , following as closely to the tactics delineated within the Scenarios you run as you can and deviate only as far from those tactics as would befit the NPC's or monster's outlook. Not only so that you can learn that it is indeed possible for a player to have a good time even when his or her character dies fairly, even when it is his or her own decisions that led to that death. Please don't let your bad experiences turn into a hate fest. Turn your negative emotions into dedicated, devoted, caring determination so that all of Pathfinder Society benefits.
I strongly disagree with this. I'm a GM who's already afraid that I'm going to kill a character. And yet, I force myself to play by RAW. Luckily for me, none of my players' characters have died (yet), but I know that it's going to happen sometime. Setting aside for the moment that I'm worried about how the player will feel (probably more than justified and because I know what it's like to lose a character I've put a lot of effort into making and building up)... And setting aside for the moment the point made ad nauseum above (death is part of tabletop RPGs)... What you've said here strikes me as contrary to the spirit of gaming in general. The whole point of sitting down at a table to play a game like Pathfinder RPG, Pathfinder Society, GURPS, Alternity, or what have you, is to have fun. And in my (somewhat limited, compared to folks like Kyle or Mike or Bob) experience with Pathfinder Society, that's what happens. I've had players near death, useless in combats because they're bleeding out at 1hp a round. Two at one of my most recent, in the same combat, too. And at the end of the night, they all agreed that they had a fun time. I suggest that if you're not having fun in Pathfinder Society, whether it be because you feel the GMs are too unfair when sticking with the RAW or because you feel that it's too easy and you're not being challenged well enough to hold your interest, that Pathfinder Society is not your cup of tea. Not that it's not for you—never that, because (let's be fair about this) the phrase, "not for you," carries an unfortunate, oft-unintended and, moreover, an oft-overlooked strong connotation that implies exclusivity—but rather that you'd prefer something else. While we love having players, yourself included, it's not as fun for us as GMs if we know our players aren't having fun playing the game they're playing. If I have to ask why you're playing the game, I feel like there's something wrong, and that perhaps you'd be much happier being elsewhere and doing elsewhat. I don't agree with celebrating over a character death. And I will never condone it in the GMs that I will eventually recruit. Certainly, if a player is going to be a good sport about it, or even can see the fun in his character's death I won't stop them from joshing with that player and others at the table and even other GMs. My point here is that I want to see caring GMs who recognize that a player is feeling down about what may honestly feel like a lot of lost time and effort. And if you feel that GMs running the tables at your local venue are going out of their way to TPK so they can brag about it, then you should seriously contact your local VC or Mike Brock about it. However... However, I will never agree to penalizing GMs for character death when the GM was following Rules-As-Written. I have trouble getting players already, and that's starting to pan out better since I have both the stores in my town advertising for me. But I'm sure that the majority of VCs and VLs will tell you they know just how difficult it can be to recruit a GM, because that's probably a hundred times harder to do. Not just anybody will step up for the position, and quite frankly not just anybody has the right combination of attributes to perform the job even passably. Giving someone a minefield, telling them, "now this might kill some people even if they're good at avoiding mines," followed by, "if anyone dies, you don't get paid," and then, "usher these people who claim to be good at avoiding mines across the minefield," is ALWAYS going to result in a resounding "HELL NO!" That is to say, giving them yet another reason to not do it will turn them off to the idea even more. What this illustrates, obviously, is that I'm really bad with analogies. While on this path, it's important to note that it is important the GM has fun. If GMing is not fun, it's work, and if it's work, I don't want to do it and nobody else will, either. Especially if there's no benefit in following the rules, because there's definitely no benefit to be had from bending or even breaking them. Even worse would be to give GMs the edict to let all their players' characters live, even if those players make poor choices or if the dice do what they're supposed to do and roll badly sometimes. The dice are one of the things that are most decidedly not a guideline, and if a player makes a choice, there are definitely either positive or negative consequences of the actions she chooses for her character. If there's no real risk, there's no game. Pathfinder, like D&D before it, is about that risk. It's about delving into secret dungeons and sifting through the ruins of ancient, collapsed fortresses, and exploring a strange and wondrous world filled with traps, treasure and things that would like nothing better than to destroy you. And if you take the danger out of that, you may as well be frolicking through gardens of butterflies, in a world where it never rains and yet a rainbow hanging perpetually in the sky. (PROTIP: If you ever, while playing Pathfinder or D&D, end up in a place like the one described above, be very scared.) But, after all that, let's return to the original topic: If you were in my region, at my table, and your character died in a scenario, I would not laugh unless you were laughing, too, and then I would be laughing with you. And then I would ask you if you'd like help creating a new character for next time. For my players, I'll do anything within my power as a GM—power that's limited by the RAW. If you ask me about something I will tell you what I know of it and go home and research if I don't. If you email me or call me and tell me you are sick or that you have another engagement and won't be able to make it this week, I will tell you I look forward to seeing you next week. If you want to argue that the rules are unfair I will either agree with your or disagree, but I'll be honest about it and I will continue to follow those rules. As a GM, I am your best friend and I will be honest with you Every. Single. Time. And as your best friend, I won't change the rules for you or lower the hurdles because however hard the world your character lives in wants him to fail, I want him to succeed all the way, just like everyone else who's gotten over those hurdles all over the world. As a GM, I don't try to kill characters. I let the NPCs and monsters do that for themselves, and it's definitely not my job to stop them from doing it. My job, as a Pathfinder Society GM, is to tell the story. My job as a promoter of Pathfinder Society is to interest players who are willing to give their time to the game, to their character, in exchange for having fun and trying to keep their character alive throughout that story. And I do all of that and more, every week.
Those are cool mini's but a touch pricey. Not to mention the packaging is very environmentally unfriendly. I hope in the future companies will lean towards a more eco-friendly package for stuff like this. I noticed this myself when I got my Beginner Box minis on Friday at the FLGS (fifty days waiting after I ordered). The plastic clamshell package was too bulky, flimsy and held shut with tape. For all the work that went into a decent presentation, it felt cheap and wasteful, especially since all I did with the packaging was open it up and discard it. I'd love to see Paizo distribute these in more simple recycled-paper boxes with just a little bit of glue (a la D&D Minis) even when the boxes didn't contain random figures. I understand display packaging is useful for showing off a product on a store shelf, but I'd be happier to buy them if the packaging was mostly paper. Erik: I'll look forward to seeing what the RotR set looks like in its new packaging. I already have this one on order from my FLGS so I can have it ready to run on Free RPG Day. And I'm a little sad that I still can't afford to pick up the first set and the new one is coming out already. Though I recognize that business needs to move while I've been largely sitting on my duff. I guess when I get paid by my new client, I'll fork some money over to get a case of Set 1 if Paizo still has some available (if not, then at $anotherOnlineRetailer), and buy the dragon from my FLGS (which luckily has it on the shelf).
8 player tables are not currently allowed and never have been. I see a case being made for 8-player tables. I'm now in a position where interest in Pathfinder Society where I live is growing faster than I can honestly run tables. And I, the only Pathfinder Society GM. This past weekend I ran a table of six and, if he'd had his sheet, another player was present and interested in playing. Rather than draw up a new character, he opted to play board games with other friends. This weekend, only the fifth week in, it will be entirely possible for me to have eight interested players. Being the only GM in the group isn't a simple problem when you have EXACTLY 8 interested players. In order to split the group you would need one of them to be familiar with the rules and willing to GM, and IF you can pull this off this leaves exactly four at one table and three at another, meaning the more experienced GM would have to run a pregen GMPC, too. All that aside, I don't really think it's a good idea. However helpful allowing 8-player tables could be, even providing for it only under the strictest conditions—a rare, emergency occasion when there isn't a player willing and able to become a second GM—I'm worried that it may tempt less scrupulous GMs to flaunt the rules in yet another way.
Day made. Thanks for this. Excellent idea.
How is it that I can possibly recruit a new Pathfinder Society player half the planet away, but I have trouble garnering interest from players who live within 50 miles of me? By the way, Callum? You should be receiving an email from a friend of mine soon. Edit begin: Okay, that's not completely true. I had nearly a full table last night and it was really fun. Last night being the fourth week, the second scenario and the third table I've run here in Albuquerque. This beats the largest table I've run by 50%, and the largest number of potential players by 75%. I didn't turn down that other player... he didn't have his character and opted to play a board game with some other friends rather than create a new one. Interestingly enough, I might have too many players for one table at the next session, this coming Friday. The dreaded 8 player situation scares me. If that ever happens I might need to call James Kirk for advice, 'cause what I see has Kobayahsi Maru written all over it. Honestly, it's a pretty awesome feeling to start building a new region atop the charred remains of previous attempts, but I honestly think Greater Albuquerque is going to work out with me behind it. :Edit end.
I have yet to weigh in here. It's been implied by—I can't recall if it was Michael Brock or Mark Moreland—that it's perfectly okay to fudge BBEG hit points so he stays alive long enough allow him to at least go out in a blaze of glory. Let him pull off, or at least attempt, one cool spell or one cool attack. So long as he goes down on the next hit... or let him be staggered at 0 hit points and he goes down immediately after said attack, whether it succeeds or fails. This would probably extend to fudging his AC so that he does go down within the next round. Just make sure that his cool spell or attack is just what he would have done according to the Tactics or Development section. And make sure when he goes down, it's not when someone rolls a total of 6 for an attack. Charts and tables are great, but honestly I think what Mark's looking for is something short and sweet. Something simple, easy to understand and implement, and that works in every case. What I suspect is that this exercise has two purposes: 1) Two heads are better than one and many are better than two. Maybe crowd-sourcing the solution will come up with something workable. Failing that: 2) It at least makes a good demonstration of how difficult it is to come up with a blanket set of boundaries that won't take a buttload of extra effort to fit into the GtPFSOP. This is a tough one. I know Mike and Mark have been thinking about it a lot. I've thought about it a lot myself, recently. I'm not ready to give up and it doesn't look like any of you are, either. But from all I've read, table size has two factors: With a larger table, difficulty tends to drop while play time tends to increase. That extra Action Economy (let's standardize the name for it now and stuff it into a book on GMing later, if it hasn't been already) leads to more player actions in what's already a limited time at most venues, but at the same time can make fights so much easier. The problem comes from balancing challenge and play time, while maintaining the overall equality between instances of the same scenario AND making it easy for anyone to apply under any circumstances. It seems (for all I've read) that the majority of players who don't feel a certain level of challenge get less enjoyment from scenarios. However, a larger table with scenarios built to suit larger groups extends combats. I don't know how a perfectly-balanced six-player scenario would run, but it seems like combats would take at least half-again as long as four-player scenarios, give or take some. Convention slots are typically limited to four or five hours. How will beefing up the combat encounters—whether it means throwing in additional "mooks," or just stacking a few extra hit points on top, or adding the Advanced template—affect a table's ability to complete within the slot timeframe? In order to keep play time down, hand-waving scenes with no affect on the overall plot, gold rewards and faction prestige award—in addition to the one already designated as "may be skipped if time is short"—may become necessary. But that itself presents another problem. What if no such scenes exist? Or what if they do, and it doesn't matter because the table has six players, all of whom represent a different faction, each with its own unique agenda? Meet your new friends, Rock and Hard Place. As a side note, I wonder about the thought that adding hit points to the non-solo combat encounters or adding more "mooks" to non-solo encounters would result in six players using more expendables per player than a vanilla variant for four players results in. The quick Advanced template might, and the full Advanced template is variably more likely to do so than the quick one. Stacking levels requires too much effort as far as preparation is concerned. Honestly, I know just how difficult it can be to run for the wrong number of players, even with simplified rules. Try running the Beginner Box adventure for one. I had pared down the monsters and by the end I still had my lone player running two characters while I tried to balance GMing and a GMPC.
Man... I really like these cards, but $120 for two complete sets is a little steep, even if it does include a full set of foils. If you do the math, consider that the Essentials set and the Dragon's Trove set are $20 a set (110 cards each). So that means the other 110 cards are $100. Or just short of $0.91 for each foil card.
I'd like to announce a new (resurrected?) Pathfinder Society Venue in Albuquerque. This is our third week, and we will be playing roughly every Friday. I GM at Active Imagination on Juan Tabo. Google Maps This week we I will be running #3-11: The Quest for Perfection—Part II: On Hostile Waters. The past two weeks I've run #3-09: The Quest for Perfection—Part I: The Edge of Heaven, and Master of the Fallen Fortress. All new and veteran Pathfinder players are welcome to join us. My contact information is in the Event listing, which can be found here. If you are a GM and would be willing to forgo playing to run if we get a larger turnout, please let me know!
"Hey, if you're interested in the book, I can get you the PDF for free. How? I give you $10 off the copy you buy from me, then you go get the PDF from Paizo using that $10. When you're on their site, make sure to register for Pathfinder Society. Which, by the way, we run 4 times a month. Want a schedule?" You, sir, are my hero today.
I bet Quad/Graphics, a Wisconsin-based company, would be interested to hear an offer. I met Quadracci in 1994 on a field trip for my graphic arts class in high school. We toured their Sussex facility, visiting the premedia ("pre-press" back then), the web offset and web flexographic press areas and their magazine distribution area. A quick scan of their website shows that they can saddle-stitch bind hard-bound and perfect bind softcover books, and that they have facilities in the US, Latin America and Europe. I really wish I was getting some sort of kickback for mentioning them, too... :/
Getting the info is not really the problem. I know a lot of conversions have been done for Season 0 scenarios because I've seen them. The problem is getting that info inputed into our inCopy files on our internal database after a developer (read only Mark) has a chance to make sure everything is good, getting editing to go through every scenario again, having art go through and relayout the scenario including updating every Chronicle sheet, having editing go back though once it is layed out to make sure everything is in place as it should be, and finally having digital assets get them put into PDFs. There will be more than 100 scenarios at that point and we only have 24 hours in a day. It is a monumental undertaking that would have to be added to the schedule of what we currently keep up with and we just don't have the ability currently to get all of that done. That's a lot of work. I guess I should not ask you to consider identifying baddie starting locations on the maps, then... xD
We play on weekday nights starting at 6 or 6:30. On...I will also be one to add that I almost always push to have 3-4 person tables, even if we need to strong-arm some of our players into GMing; that's simply because we typically have 3 1/2 to 4 hours per slot, and a 6-7 person table means not enough time for anyone.Mergy, are your tables running in sequence or concurrent? If you're running three three- to four-player tables in a row, two six-player tables in a row would provide an extra two hours to play at each table. Granted this only applies well to a twelve-hour span. Fair enough. I'm in a similar situation. Plus, the past two sessions here I've been in a state of waiting for players as late as 8pm. We run five hours with four players. Could be less if I was better prepared, but that still means we'd run until midnight at best. We've been lucky that the Magic Tourney running the same night (in a different area of the store) has also run late both weeks.
I thought that may be the response, and coming to think of it, the idea is more bad than good. The few organized, challenge-loving and hard-working players who would benefit would be overshadowed by those who just want more loot.Could there be possible rewards to 4 person tables who play hard mode for effectively "playing up to 6"? One thing's likely. You'd see a lot more deaths and definitely a rise in TPKs. GMs might be more likely to realize that their players are doing something ill-recommended (at best), but "it seemed like a good/safe/fun idea at the time" is still rather unfun. Players themselves can't know what's in a scenario unless they've played it before—if they have, they get no benefit from playing at the higher difficulty anyway. 8 player tables now get reported as two 4 player tables - sometimes run on different days. I've seen this (not in the last 2 months, but I don't go play there any more, so I have no real idea how they are doing it now). This is something to contact your VC about. Failing that (or if your region doesn't have a VC) it's something Mike should know about.
Could there be possible rewards to 4 person tables who play hard mode for effectively "playing up to 6"? As stated above, there is no higher reward for six-player difficulty. In my opinion, there never should be. This is what playing up was all about, but that's limited only to edge cases.
An eight-player table sounds like it would be a fustercluck, fated to only end in disaster. I will also be one to add that I almost always push to have 3-4 person tables, even if we need to strong-arm some of our players into GMing; that's simply because we typically have 3 1/2 to 4 hours per slot, and a 6-7 person table means not enough time for anyone. Mergy, are your tables running in sequence or concurrent? If you're running three three- to four-player tables in a row, two six-player tables in a row would provide an extra two hours to play at each table. Granted this only applies well to a twelve-hour span. stuff Sadly, there's no pleasing everyone. Mike and Mark (and probably a number of other people) found that six-player tables represent a larger portion of tables reported. And y'know, the existence of four-player tables is why they're going to add rules to scale back encounters for four-player tables.
After all of the stuff I read this past weekend about peoples's qualms with lack of scaling for tables, this is most excellent news. Now you won't have to scale for larger tables. And the second part of this announcement assuages my immediate fears from reading the first part. Right now, I'm running a table of four. Though I've run elsewhere, after only two weeks of running here in Albuquerque, I've only had two sessions of four. I honestly didn't, at all, see this coming. I never saw this exact suggestion (scaling up was mentioned, and mentioned, and mentioned…at length, and debated, but I didn't see scaling down suggested—that doesn't mean it wasn't presented as an idea).
Since some of us are airing dirty laundry, I'll admit that there was one scenario I ran where I changed stuff. It was the first scenario I ran, the first for all players, and honestly, it was one of the first scenarios I thought would be retired because of difficulty and had I not pulled out GM Fiat, it would have been a "party wipe" (TPK). It wasn't the pulling of punches or weakening of NPCs/monsters, either. During Scenario #0-3 Murder on the Silken Caravan:
At the end, the combat is pretty fierce and I ran it by the book. In the end, all the party members were incapacitated and bleeding. Keep in mind that they're all Level 1. So, knowing that the caravan leader is a djanni, I had her call for help. She—essentially—made a wish on her heirloom ring and all the PCs were on their feet again, fully healed. I can no longer remember the full details of what happened (whether she summoned a djinn or just wished to the ring). I felt that it was within her power to do this, and well within her interests.
I would have felt pretty horrible for them to have walked away from the—albeit virtual—table having all their characters die in their first scenario. That said, I haven't done anything like it since. Edit for wording.
I found myself without some of the players from last week, and some new players, and ended up running Masters of the Fallen Fortress tonight. I'm glad I chose that one instead of Crypt of the Everflame. That said, I also had Masters of the Fallen Fortress at the ready, which helped a lot. We started late like I thought we would (about two hours late), and therefore ended up running late, but finished just as we were told the store would be closing soon. I had been prepared to run #3-11, so that didn't help. Hopefully next week we'll have six or so. I'm trying to evangelize, after a fashion, as much as I can, and it helps that people know that they don't need to be present at every session and can just jump in if they find their other plans don't pan out. However, I also have seen this work against PFS in the past, so who knows?
Where is that reference located in the PCRB? I cannot find it. The section I go to for wand questions is the chapter on magic items. There, on page 496, it describes wand activation. Although it doesn't go into specifics about ranges it does specify that casting time for the wand remains the same as the spell being cast from the wand; "if the spell being cast has a longer casting time than 1 action, however, it takes that long to cast the spelll from a wand." So if casting times remain the same as the original spell for using a wand, then I would expect ranges to be the same as well. Bottom of the paragraph regarding Activation, second to last line in the paragraph. "To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area." Copied directly from the PRD, this text also appears exactly the same in the PRCB.
It seems like nobody wants to answer this question. There was a wand thread a month or so ago, and the OP's questions were answered, but mine was the final post in the thread asking questions about wands. It finally slipped into the Archive recently. That said, I'll repeat the question: The question I have is whether or not wands of touch spells (such as a wand of cure light wounds) require melee touch attacks. The PCRB (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook) basically describes wands as point and shoot the only place it mentions them. Ranged touch attack. Am I correct in my deduction that targeted spells (in wand form) that require a melee touch attack as described in the spell list no longer require physical contact?
I share DigitalSabre's question. I sent Josh an email about OwlCon on Feb 19-21, 2010 in Houston, TX and have not heard back yet. I wonder if he ever got the email? That definitely blows, Silverhair. The gaming con you're attending is on the same dates as the furry con in Dallas? I wonder how that's going to affect attendance at FF... :S
The oracle spell learning progression is flawed in that there is a qwuestion on page 9 of the pdf. It says that the oracle gets a bonus number of spells and says check table 1-3. But less than 1 paragraph later it seems to say that it is not a bonus of spells known, just a bonus of spells cast. Would you please check this out and make it a little clearer when you go to the next level, because people will think this is like legal jargon when they read it. I like the new classes after a swift overview. I hope that the other classes are as good. We do need more groups for the Cavalier And more foci for the Oracle. To clarify this for you, when it mentions Table 1-3 in the sentence that spans pages 8 and 9, it refers you to the PCRB (The Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook). In the first full paragraph on page 9, it refers to table 1-3, but it doesn't mention the PRCB. This is supposed to mean Table 1-3 on page 11 of the Advanced Player's Guide Playtest Round 1: Cavalier and Oracle.
*casts raise thread {School conjuration (healing); Level commoner 1; Casting Time 1 minute; Components S, DF (computer); Range touch; Target dead thread touched; Duration instantaneous; Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes; (harmless)}* It's been debated whether or not produce flame actually lets you do the ranged touch as part of the casting. The spell differs from other 'ranged touch attack spells' in that it says you use the spell to summon the flame into your hand, which you can *then* use as a ranged touch attack or melee touch attack weapon. It's not necessarily part of the casting. The question I have is whether or not wands of touch spells (such as a wand of cure light wounds) require melee touch attacks. The PCRB basically describes wands as point and shoot the only place it mentions them. Ranged touch attack. Targeted spells (in wand form) that require a melee touch attack as described in the spell list no longer require physical contact?
I'm currently running a Pathfinder Society game online. We play about three times a week, lately. Actually, we just finished our first scenario (#3, and let me tell you, the reviews don't mislead). I'm actually psyched. The game was fun for all involved. The reason we play so often, however, is that what takes several hours in person took approximately 24 in text. Part of it might be that I wasn't completely prepared (I hadn't read the scenario all the way through, though I did play through it once before at the local game store -- Shout-out to XMax Games in Dallas). So, I have some advice to anyone who's taking this route. 1). MapTool or another online-based mapping tool.
2). Use voice chat if you can.
3). Notepad is your friend.
4). Read the material!
5). All Text: Expect it to take longer than one session.
6). Know your tools.
7). Expect technical difficulties.
8). Keep logs if you can.
If anyone else has any words of wisdom, I'd love to hear it. And Josh and sundry, keep up the excellent work. Pathfinder and the Pathfinder Society is where it's at these days for me.
What bothers me about those links is that they're talking up powers and stats and only mention background and personality as an afterthought. If you read carefully, you'll see that the description almost blatantly says this: ... and... oh yeah, background and personality stuff, too.
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