Daji the Fox

JohnF's page

Goblin Squad Member. Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber. **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West 3,306 posts (4,205 including aliases). 5 reviews. 6 lists. 4 wishlists. 51 Organized Play characters. 13 aliases.


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

The following text is found on Lorespire:

All agents who have gone on at least 2 missions are awarded a free wayfinder, available by downloading the Wayfinder boon in the Achievement Points Boon store (Boons tab of My Organized Play).

This might lead a player to look in the section entitled "Boons Purchasable with Achievement Points".

Unfortunately there are no Wayfinders to be found there - they are instead to be found in the section entitled "Boons Purchasable with Game Rewards".

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

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm pretty sure they *could* all be played with one character, but not without playing a lot of other stuff as well.
(Note, too, that this would almost certainly require playing the scenarios in something other than the order of their release)

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

They wouldn't fit too well in a regular subscription line, because many (most?) of the comics come with a choice of covers (not necessarily all at the same price, IIRC).

I generally bought two copies of each comic, and buying them individually let me pick just which two cover variants I wanted. It would be a significant effort to offer that level of flexibility on a subscription.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber
BadEye wrote:

... no negative feedback is displayed anywhere. It is more like "achievements" in something like Overwatch.

Simply clearing up the misinformation, because safety is very important to us.

Thanks for the clarification! That addresses my major concern.

Shadow Lodge

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Well, at least I've got until early 2022 to think about this.

But my first impression is that a lot of our players have already paid multiple times for the same content (physical products and/or PDFs from Paizo, integration with HeroLab, Roll20, etc., etc.), and have become used to a particular style of play for their online gaming.

Expecting them to pay yet again for yet another product format is going to be a hard sell.

And, quite honestly, I really dislike one of the concepts that demiplane seem to push as a feature - the ability for players to rate (and even reward) GMs and other players.

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

Blake's Tiger wrote:
The number of Organized Play players in the San Francisco area is probably adequate to run several tables across several days of the week. They can probably absorb a few random people teleporting in from across the country or globe--and if they can't, I wouldn't blame them.

More than adequate. We have several venues that can fill multiple tables on a single night, and at least one venue offering games most days of the week.

But despite that we can't always provide everything our players would like to see. If almost everybody who is interested has played a non-repeatable scenario it's very hard to put together a good table for the two players who have expressed interest in filling that gap in their play record.

Online play has provided us with a way to address that problem. If we put together a table with a GM and those two players, and open up the extra seats to a wider community, we could expect to see those seats get filled.

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

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We'll address any issues as they arrive - it's far too early to know exactly what problems we will face, let alone decide what will be the best course of action to deal with any issue with the least disruption.

We do anticipate continuing to offer online games for some time. Until we're back to most venues offering regular face-to-face gaming we won't know what player base we are serving - not everyone participates in online games. One thing we do know is we won't be going back to the situation as before - not all of our venues are returning, and some of those that are have either moved to a different location or changed their policies (charging for tables that were previously free-to-play, for example). We know from past experience that even a small table fee (even if returned as store credit) does constitute a significant barrier for some players.

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

Watery Soup wrote:
Tommi Ketonen wrote:
Why would you think there is something wrong with GM's deciding how and who can sign up for their game?
Because, if it's not common in Finland, it's certainly the case here in the San Francisco Bay Area that GMs neither decide what game they're running nor do they have the means to control who signs up - the VOs put games on the schedule and control the lodge recruiting.

Our VOs put games on the schedule based on the information they have as to what their player community wants to play, and what GMs want to run.

If you have additional information, then give it to the relevant VO.

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

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Just because a game is public doesn't mean we have to let anybody sit at the table with no other conditions.

Back in the days of (almost) everything being face-to-face gaming we still had requirements. In our area we expected players to sign up for the games rather than just showing up at the store and demanding a seat. And when a player did sign up, we expected them to show up. If they had to pull out less than a day before the game we asked that they inform the coordinator and/or the GM directly as well as signing out.

We also required players to be respectful of the other people at the table. Players exhibiting abusive or threatening behaviour, cheating, and suchlike would be asked to stop it. That was almost always enough, but if it wasn't then there was the option of refusing to seat that player.

And, finally (and possibly most germane to this topic) there was the problem of what to do with stores where there were regularly more players signed up than there were GMs for. The first step to solving this problem is to point out to the players that they have a way to solve this for themselves - one of them could always sign up to GM.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Once again I'm not getting the Paizo Advantage discount applied to my order.

The same thing happened last month (order 36459815), and Raychael took care of it.

Am I going to have to go through this routine every month?

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I don't find it plausible that Paizo would give official approval to third-party products except under the terms of the Community Use Policy. Unfortunately the most recent revision of the CUP contains a liability clause that has already driven some content providers away.

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

Brother Tyler wrote:
Note that I've flagged this discussion as being in the wrong forum. This isn't an issue that is solely of interest to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society: it's of general interest to the entire Pathfinder Adventure Card Game community. In my opinion, it belongs in the General Discussion forum.

I would much rather see a discussion on any future of the ACG being held somewhere other than on the Paizo forums, so it immediately apparent that it isn't in any way an "Official Paizo" channel. The OPF Discord server has made it clear that any discussion there should be limited to PACS play, so that venue isn't an option. Maybe Board Game Geek?

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

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Add another one who has been on subscription for everything PACG-related since day one. That means I've got my own copies of every base set and associated adventure decks, every class deck, etc. I've also got all the accessories (playmats, etc.), all the Free RPG Day promo characters (plus all the other promo cards as well - they came with the subscription).

In addition I've been running PACS in stores since season 0, so I've got an additional copy of all of the old base sets courtesy of Paizo. For the new Core+Curse sets I did even better - I've got two complete sets of those that Paizo provided before the product actually released; I had official permission from Paizo to run demonstration games at my local convention on the weekend the new version made its debut at PaizoCon!

It doesn't stop there, either. I've got the Drive-Thru cards for errata (and multiple sets of the We Be Heroes! characters), Broken Token inserts for all my own base sets (and for some of the Paizo-provided ones), enough sleeves for all the box sets (plus more than 20 packs of the PACG sleeves which my wife and I use to sleeve characters), a total of about about 100 class decks or expansion decks - I generally used to have around 20 decks with me to lend to walk-up players who wanted to try out the game, or to regular players who wanted to try out a new character build - five Adventure Chests, and a whole stack of Really Useful boxes, Ultra-Pro clear deck boxes, etc. to keep everything vaguely organized.

I haven't actually added up how much I've spent on the game over the years, but it's probably close to $4000. Not that I regret it for one minute - looked at as cost-per-hour for enjoyment it's been well worth it! I'd happily buy more product if it were available ...

Edit: I forgot to mention the Iconic Heroes promo cards - I've got two or more of each of of those, too.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Thanks!

One piece of information that might be of use to you in tracking down the bug - last month I cancelled my Adventure Path subscription. It's possible (and, in fact, quite probable) that this subscription was being counted as one of the four subscriptions that qualified me for Pathfinder Advantage, and that the system failed to recalculate the number of active subscriptions correctly.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I just received advance notice that order 36459815 is about to be ship.
It shows that I am being charged full price for all products in the order.

I am currently a subscriber to four product lines:
Pathfinder Rulebook, Pathfinder Lost Omens, Pathfinder Maps, & Pathfinder Pawns.

Shouldn't this qualify me for the 15% Pathfinder Advantage discount?

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I expect to be restarting it after the current (3-month) product.

Thanks!

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Quinn chooses to encounter Foes on All Sides.

Summon and encounter the danger (Dragon) with the difficulty increased by #.
BA: Fail check, so suffer 1d4 ⇒ 2 damage. Banish/Bury Writhing Armor to reduce damage to zero.
Quinn still suffers the scourge "Wounded", however.

Reveal Meteor Hammer; reload Blackjack's Gear to fight using Knowledge+4; discard Blessing of Kofusachi to bless; reload Ring of Splendid Security to add 7.
Combat 16+###=37: 1d10 + 6 + 4 + 1d10 + 3 + 1d10 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 6 + 4 + (5) + 3 + (8) + 7 = 42 Dragon defeated.

The other two cards (Burning Tar, Infernal Warhounds) can be reloaded in whatever order we choose.

Shadow Lodge

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

And, of course, we wouldn't be reading this blog if it wasn't for Auntie Lisa ...

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

That's particularly a problem for the new Core/Curse promos - the sanctioning document for the Free RPG Day PACG scenario "We Be Heroes!" grants access to two of the promo cards (Embiggen & The Real Rabbit Prince), which is a bit of a hollow reward if you can't actually get a copy of the card.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

You can get some half-way decent California offerings, too.
It's not a wine I particularly go for, but I know there's at least one vineyard in the Santa Lucia highlands offering it.
A little further north in the Anderson Valley there is more choice, with one bottler (Navarro Vineyards) able to get $50 for a bottle.

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

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Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
Time to break out the old boxes one more time.

Oh, more than just one more time, I hope.

I've just started two new games - Mummy's Mask (the in-box storyline), and one of the third-party adventure paths.

We play hybrid - my wife and I play using a physical box, but the other players play over Discord (audio, with optional video). Much of the game state (locations, displayed cards, etc.) is tracked in TTS by one player, so everybody else can see it. Characters are hybrid, too - either the in-box characters or PACS-style with class decks.

I was hoping to do a run through the in-box Runelords adventure with an all-goblin party, but that group decided to run the third-party scenario instead. But if anyone reading this thinks that sounds like something you would be interested in just PM me ...

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Turn 20
The hour is The Father of Creation - When you would discard a boon to bless a Strength or Constitution check, you may recharge it instead.

There isn't anything really useful Quinn could accomplish at either open location, so he'll head off to the base to try to pick up supporters.

Move to the base and explore, drawing # cards:
Neolandus Kalepopolis, Vencarlo Orisini, Krojun Eats-what-he-kills,
Trinia Sabor, Amin Jalento, Truthspeaker Akram

Keep (and display) Trinia Sabor; return the rest.
Then draw a card (Eagle)

Discard Monkey to explore again.
Base card #7 is Laori Vaus

Keep (and display) Amin Jalento; return the rest.
Then draw a card (Quartermaster)

Discard Quartermaster to explore again.
Base card #8 is Thousand Bones

Keep (and display) Laori Vaus; return the rest.
Then draw a card (Blessing of Yaezhing)

End turn.

Quinn wrote:

Hand: Meteor Hammer +3, Shocking Sawtooth Saber, Blackjack's Rapier, Blackjack's Gear, Cloak of Daggers, Eagle, Blessing of Yaezhing, Blessing of Abadar,

Displayed: Greater Bolstering Armor, Trinia Sabor, Amin Jalento, Laori Vaus,
Deck: 10 Discard: 3 Buried: 1
Current Location: Base
Hero Points: 5
Reroll Used: Y
NOTES:
Available Support: Blessings generally available (not the Blessing of Kofusachi, though). Sages Journal can be buried to add 1d10+6 to a local check against a bane. Eagle can be reloaded to examine the top card of any location. Other cards or support could be made available if requested.
Movement: An examinable location (prefer barriers, not monsters)

Deck, Discard, Buried:

Reloaded:
Middle of Deck (Unknown Order): Pole, Helpful Haversack (Core), Gem of Mental Acuity, Adamantine Sai +2
Recharged: Investigator's Lamp, Blessing of Kofusachi, Shy Ratani, Salvator Scream, Blessing of the Quartermaster, Boots of Alacrity,
Discard Pile: The Theater, Monkey, Quartermaster,
Buried Pile: Ring of Regeneration,

Skills and Powers:
SKILLS
Strength d6 ☐ +1
Dexterity d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Constitution d6 ☐ +1
Intelligence d10 ☑ +1 ☑ +2 ☑ +3 ☑ +4
Disable: Intelligence +1
Knowledge: Intelligence +2
Wisdom d8 ☑ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3 ☐ +4
Perception: Wisdom +2
Charisma d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3
Diplomacy: Charisma +2

Favored Card: Item
Hand Size: 6 ☑ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9
Proficiencies:

POWERS:
For your check that invokes Finesse, you may recharge (☑ or reload) a card to use Knowledge instead of Acrobatics or Stealth, and add the card's level.
On a local check against a barrier, you may bury an item to add your Perception.
At the end (☑ or start) of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location.

Empiricist Role:
☐ On your Diplomacy, Disable, or Perception non-combat check (☐ or your check before acting), add 1d4.
☐ When you defeat a barrier, you may heal a card (☐ or a weapon or an item).
At the end (☑ or start) of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location. (☑ You may recharge a card to ignore powers that would happen when you examine it.)

Blackjack Role:
At the start of your turn, you may exchange a card in your hand with a card in your kit.
☑ When you would recharge, shuffle, discard, or bury a boon for your character or role power, you may reload a Blackjack boon instead.
☑ You may avenge an encounter with a bane at any location by discarding a card. If it is distant, move to that location first.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Another option would be to add one or two class decks to the game box.

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class
Brielle - Shnik wrote:


Before acting, each other character summons and encounters the story bane Gray Maiden Guard.

I thought it was local characters only, but seems like it's everyone!

I misread it as that, too. Still, at least our spreading out to reduce the number of local characters meant more locations could be guarded when we ran into a villain!

Reveal then reload Meteor Hammer to use Knowledge+5 to fight; recharge Salvator Scream to add 1d8
Combat 11+##=23: 1d10 + 6 + 5 + 1d10 + 3 + 1d8 ⇒ (6) + 6 + 5 + (6) + 3 + (3) = 29 Grey Maiden Guard is defeated.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

2 B (or ~ 2 B ?)

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

This turn is using the "Random Barrier" list from the prior update, not the one in the immediately preceding post

The hour is The Fiend - When you suffer a scourge on your turn, each local character suffers it.

Start of turn: examine top card of location - Sklar-quah Thundercaller - (Ally 4)

Start of turn: Reveal HH to examine top card or deck - Blackjack's Daggers. Reload.

Start of turn: Reveal Ring of Regeneration to recharge Random Discard: 1d2 ⇒ 1 - Wand of Enervation

Explore, encountering Sklar-Quah Thundercaller
For the check to defeat, Quinn will choose to Summon and Defeat a barrier.
As "Summon and Defeat" is defined in the Core rulebook to be "Summon, Encounter, and Defeat", Quinn gets to choose one of two barriers.
Barrier #1 is Red Mantis Ambush, #2 is Vortex of Madness
Quinn chooses #2 - Vortex of Madness. (Seems familiar, somehow ....)

Asking Koren to add 1d6+1
Intelligence 11: 1d10 + 6 + 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 6 + (3) + 1 = 19 Defeated.
Sklar-quah Thundercaller acquired.
As the check succeeded, Gem of Mental Acuity is recharged.

Discard Quartermaster to explore again - Cursed Statue (Barrier 5).
Once again Quinn get to choose between this and a new barrier - Evil Eye
Quin chooses

Evil Eye:
Traits:
Curse
Magic
Trigger
Veteran
To Defeat:
Arcane
Divine 6+#
OR Knowledge
Stealth 8+#
When examined, suffer the scourge Dazed then banish this barrier.
Cannot be evaded.
If undefeated, suffer the scourge Dazed then banish this barrier.

Bury an Item/reload Blackjack's Rapier to add Perception.
Knowledge 8+#=13: 1d10 + 6 + 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 6 + (3) + 2 = 16 Defeated.

Discard Skar-quah Thundercaller to examine the top card of location - Ashwing Gargoyle (closing henchman).

Quinn chooses to encounter the Gargoyle, so suffers the scourge Wounded.
Reveal then reload Adamantine Sai to fight using Knowledge+2.
Resistant to Melee is cancelled by using a magic weapon.
As this is an acrobatics check, the Thundercaller adds 3
Recharge Salvator Scream to add 1d8; ask Koren for 1d6+1
Combat 23+4-4: 1d10 + 8 + 1d4 + 2 + 3 + 1d8 + 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 8 + (2) + 2 + 3 + (2) + (4) + 1 = 24 Defeated.
That's pretty terrible rolling; the expected result is 30. Good enough, though.
Random Discard: 1d2 ⇒ 2 - Sklar-quah Thundercaller recharged

Finally, the closing check. This is Summon and Defeat a Barrier, so again Quinn gets a choice of two.
The last two barriers in the Random Cards list are Crematory Blast & Dispelling Mist

Quinn will choose Crematory Blast.
Discard Blessing of Abadar to bless twice.
Intelligence 10: 3d10 + 4 ⇒ (10, 8, 10) + 4 = 32 Defeated - location closed.

Quinn & Koren need to move - Koren can choose the location.
As usual, Quinn will use his end-of-turn examine to scout the top card, if unknown.

End turn.

Reveal RR to recharge Random Discard: 1d2 ⇒ 1 Blessing of Abadar.
Reset, drawing Adamantine Sai, Blackjack's Rapier, Blackjack's Daggers, Blackjack's Gear & Boots of Alacrity

Quinn wrote:

Hand: Blackjack's Rapier, Blackjack's Daggers, Adamantine Sai +2, Sage's Journal (Core), Ring of Regeneration, Helpful Haversack (Core), Boots of Alacrity, Blackjack's Gear,

Displayed:
Deck: 14 Discard: 1 Buried: 0
Current Location: TBD
Hero Points: 5
Reroll Used: N // Quinn has the following scourges marked:
Wounded:
While Marked:
At the start of your turn, discard the top card of your deck.

When you would heal any number of cards, you may remove this scourge instead.


NOTES:
Available Support: Blessings generally available (not the Blessing of Kofusachi, though). Sages Journal can be buried to add 1d10+6 to a local check against a bane. Other cards or support could be made available if requested.
Movement: An examinable location (prefer barriers, not monsters)

Deck, Discard, Buried:

Reloaded:
Middle of Deck (Unknown Order): Blessing of the Quartermaster, Investigator's Lamp, Blessing of Yaezhing, Cloak of Daggers, Magic Leather Armor (Core), Defending Sansetsukon +1, Monkey, Blessing of Kofusachi
Recharged: The Lost, Wand of Enervation, Gem of Mental Acuity, Salvator Scream, Sklar-quah Thundercaller, Blessing of Abadar,
Discard Pile: Quartermaster,
Buried Pile:

Skills and Powers:
SKILLS
Strength d6 ☐ +1
Dexterity d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Constitution d6 ☐ +1
Intelligence d10 ☑ +1 ☑ +2 ☑ +3 ☑ +4
Disable: Intelligence +1
Knowledge: Intelligence +2
Wisdom d8 ☑ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3 ☐ +4
Perception: Wisdom +2
Charisma d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3
Diplomacy: Charisma +2

Favored Card: Item
Hand Size: 6 ☑ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9
Proficiencies:

POWERS:
For your check that invokes Finesse, you may recharge (☑ or reload) a card to use Knowledge instead of Acrobatics or Stealth, and add the card's level.
On a local check against a barrier, you may bury an item to add your Perception.
At the end (☑ or start) of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location.

Empiricist Role:
☐ On your Diplomacy, Disable, or Perception non-combat check (☐ or your check before acting), add 1d4.
☐ When you defeat a barrier, you may heal a card (☐ or a weapon or an item).
At the end (☑ or start) of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location. (☑ You may recharge a card to ignore powers that would happen when you examine it.)

Blackjack Role:
At the start of your turn, you may exchange a card in your hand with a card in your kit.
☑ When you would recharge, shuffle, discard, or bury a boon for your character or role power, you may reload a Blackjack boon instead.
☑ You may avenge an encounter with a bane at any location by discarding a card. If it is distant, move to that location first.

Turn Summary:
Rooftops closed - Koren and Quinn must move.
Quinn is Wounded

Koren's power used twice.

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

Kevin Willis wrote:


2nd edition has somewhat exacerbated the problem by codifying that all preparations happen just after an 8-hour rest (CRB page 480) and not allowing you to change or update your preparations mid-day without an ability to do so (CRB page 298).

Nothing there say the spell preparation must be done immediately after the rest. It's perfect reasonable to assume that you could get up, have breakfast, attend the morning mission briefing, and then prepare your daily spells.

Of course that does mean that if you then get rushed off onto the mission immediately, without time to do any preparation, you don't have any spells to use. The alternative would be to prepare a default spell list before the briefing (which is also what you would effectively be doing if you didn't get any advance notice of your mission).

Basically, if you have reasonable advance notice and an hour or so available after the briefing there's no reason why a prepared spellcaster wouldn't have the opportunity to prepare a spell list based on information from the briefing.

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

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
Stephen Meadows Jr wrote:

I knew I had seen it 'officially' somewhere... So, from its inception, 'Campaign' mode was SPECIFICALLY intended for Home Games.

Note... this is not intended to restart the debate...

Thanks for finding that, I know how hard it is to pull up the historical documents after the site upgrade. I sadly do not have a copy of ver4.3 to verify that 'home' made it into any guide. From season 5 onward, it appears to have been omitted, as shown in the PM I sent as requested. I will agree to disagree, based on my experience of watching sanctioned modules play out in campaign mode at my stores.

Here you go:

Guide 4.3 wrote:
Alternatively, if you are participating in a Pathfinder Adventure Path with an ongoing group undertaking the entire, six-book campaign, you may receive credit for playing the sanctioned portions of the adventure as if you had played a pregenerated character. In this case, GMs running the Adventure Path are not bound to the rules of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign (such as 20 point buy, unavailability of hero points, etc...) when running the campaign or the sanctioned portion of the adventure. Pathfinder Society characters and characters from an ongoing Adventure Path campaign may not play in the same adventure.

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

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I have no problem with whoever wants to run the game as a home game doing so in the privacy of their own home. And I have no problem with Paizo publishing the Adventure Path (especially considering the content warnings that come along with the content).

But as a PFS convention organizer I wouldn't want to have this content being offered at a PFS table where anybody could sign up to play; there is subject matter that would definitely not be considered appropriate by the parents of some of our minor children players. Nor would I consider the only tool that might have been made available to me - limiting the GMs allowed to run it by the number of stars/novas/glyphs they have - adequate.

I don't want to be put in the situation of having to ask parents for signed permission for their minor children to play at a PFS game. And even that isn't really sufficient - what goes on at the table is easily heard by people at the next table, or by non-players who happen to be in the room. PFS/SFS organized play has a good reputation for providing a family-friendly, open environment, and IMO that's how it should stay.

If we're going to have to run the game in a private room, with a pre-vetted list of players, than this doesn't meet the criterion of a 'public game' which Paizo (and the convention owners) expect me to provide.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Michael.

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

The chronicle page is also the only page of the scenario that doesn't carry the regular 'watermark' identifying the Paizo account with which the scenario download is associated.

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

9 people marked this as a favorite.

As a regular con organizer, I know how much work our GMs put into preparing for a table.

We schedule games for a 4-hour play time in a 5-hour slot, but as I'm sure everybody knows games can sometimes run long, too.

That one-hour gap isn't for filling out chronicles; it's for the GM to catch up on things like grabbing a bite to eat, visiting the restroom, or just relaxing for few minutes before preparing for the next table (as either a GM or a player).

If players are going to insist that they have their chronicles filled out in time for the next slot then I'll just have to tell my GMs to call the game before four hours are up so they have time to fill out the chronicle during game time, not in that one-hour break they get between tables.

As far as getting games reported before the next slot (or even in the next 24 hours) - that won't happen, either, unless more of the player base are prepared to step up and offer to take care of that job. I'm often the only person doing the reporting, and I just plain don't have time to report 100 tables during the convention as well as all the other organizer duties. I'd love to have a dedicated three-person reporting team, but that's not a realistic expectation - people pay admission fees, and pay for hotel rooms, to play, not to be admin staff.

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

I would love to have a (simple, reliable) form-fillable interface that would report the game.
In fact I see no reason to stop there - why doesn't it auto-generate the chronicles as well?

That would be a real incentive to get GMs/reporters to use it.

But I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.

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

It's not the GMs responsibility to report tables.
The GMs job is to run the game, and make sure the relevant information is recorded and made available to the reporter (typically, but not always, a venture officer).

And the last thing we need is to task a busy and overworked GM with an extra 15-20 minutes of work at the end of the game (especially if the store is trying to get everybody out so they can lock the doors).

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

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I have a problem with the underlying assumption that everybody carries around a device capable of logging in to a website.

I know of at least one player who doesn't have any kind of online presence at all, and several who only have online access if they're at home - they carry neither a laptop nor a smart phone.

There's also another problem as none of the hotels that have hosted our local conventions have public internet access, and even the 'hotel guest' access doesn't cover the parts of the hotel where gaming takes place.
Most of the local game stores don't offer internet access, either.

Note that we're not talking about some minor outpost far from a major city - I'm talking about Silicon Valley, and large (100+ tables of PFS/SFS) conventions.

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

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pauljathome wrote:
Jared Thaler wrote:

a major purpose was to reward players and GMs who reported scenarios in a correct and timely fashion.

I'm not seeing how the change counts as a reward in any sense.

As far as I can see, you're punishing the GMs who do NOT report scenarios in a correct and timely fashion. And their players.

That's what I see as the biggest problem with this - it hurts innocent parties (the players).

As a VC, I had some insight in just how common unreported or misreported tables are. I didn't have full information, of course - I don't know how many players never bothered to try and fix reporting errors, or how many problems got fixed before being escalated to VC level. After all, in PFS1 (which is the games system I have most experience with) the players had the paper chronicles and boons; those pieces of paper were the official record. Whether or not the game was correctly reported (or even reported at all) wasn't an issue for any but the most detail-oriented players.

Now, though, everything is being made dependent on the online reporting system, Achievement Point tracking, etc. This is not, in my opinion, in a suitable state for anything to depend on - it seems that almost every time you push the "recalculate" button you get different results. And while most GMs I've encountered are prepared to trust their players, that doesn't help if you're trying to purchase a boon that is gated behind a particular ACP total, or a particular scenario. The online system is *not* prepared to trust players - quite the opposite.

If GMs (who are, in the main, among our most regular players) can't depend on the online reporting system working properly, they aren't likely to be highly motivated to get their information into the system in a timely fashion. Pleading with them is all very well, but it would have been better to provide them with a digital infrastructure that was working reliably.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

AFAIK you can't purchase it new - Paizo has not made any of the new promos available (except for including them with any Core or Curse sets purchased as part of a subscription, and handing them out at PaizoCon 2019).

You might be able to find somebody selling one on eBay, but there don't seem to have been any offered recently.

BoardGameGeek shows 10 people looking for one, but nobody offering one.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber
cartmanbeck wrote:

Ranzak (Kleptomaniac): To a true pirate, there's no such thing as stealing... only procuring.

Ranzak (Wrecker): Sometimes the best way to board a ship is to bust right through the hull.

I think the first one works even better if you leave off the last two words.

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

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I think you're going out of your way to make alchemists pay more to learn a spell or formula than wizards, clerics, etc. for no good reason.

Alchemists are not "bad wrong fun" - don't treat them as if they were.

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Off-turn: Wisdom to avoid being frightened. Ask Koren for assistance,
Wisdom 8: 1d8 + 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (4) + (6) + 1 = 11 Passed.

Recharge Random discard, 1=top: 1d4 ⇒ 2 Blessing of the Quartermaster.

The hour is The Midwife - At the start of your turn, summon and encounter a monster.

Start of turn: Summon and encounter a monster - Quivering Cube

Quivering Cube:
Monster 2
Traits:
Obstacle
Ooze
To Defeat:
Combat 12
OR Craft 9
Immune to Electricity, Mental, and Poison.
If you are at an Underground location, the difficulty to defeat is increased by 4.
Do not suffer damage from this monster as usual. Instead, each local character suffers 1d4 Acid damage and the scourge Entangled.

Reveal Blackjack's Rapier, reload Blackjack's Gear.
Combat 12: 1d10 + 9 + 1d6 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 9 + (4) + 2 = 24 - defeated.

Start of turn: Examine top card of location - Flanking Attack
I guess Quinn is probably the best person to handle this, so ...

But first: Start of turn: Exchange Sansetsukon (hand) with Chime of Unlocking (kit)

Explore, encountering Flanking Attack.

BA: a Random other character, Koren/Brielle/Raheli/Enora: 1d4 ⇒ 4 - Enora - summons and encounters the Danger, with the difficulty increased by #.
Everybody takes one point of Fire Damage - Quinn discards his Chime of Unlocking

Next, Quinn gets to encounter the Danger (Inferno), with the difficulty increased by #.
Everybody takes another point of fire damage - Quinn discards his Armor

Discard Blessing of Abadar to bless twice.
Bury/reload Blackjack's Gear to add 1d8+2.
Ask Koren for yet another 1d6+1
Dex/Con 5+##=13: 3d6 + 1d8 + 2 + 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (1, 1, 2) + (8) + 2 + (6) + 1 = 21 Defeated.

Recharge Random discard, 1=top: 1d6 ⇒ 6 Masterwork Tools

Recharge Investigator's Lamp to examine top 3 cards of location. They are:
Card #1: Traitor - Monster 1.
Card #2: Cindermaw - Monster 4 - the Villain !!!!
Card #3: Lyrune-quah Truthspeaker - Ally 4

There are no barriers, so Quinn does not have to encounter anything.
Quinn can replace the cards in any order; we should discuss this

End Turn.
Reset, drawing Blackjack's Gear, Eagle, Pole, Monkey, & Sai

Quinn wrote:

Hand: Blackjack's Rapier, Sai, Blackjack's Gear, Pole, Eagle, Monkey, Blessing of Kofusachi,

Displayed:
Deck: 6 Discard: 5 Buried: 1
Current Location: Cinderlands
Hero Points: 4
Reroll Used: N
NOTES:
Available Support: Blessings generally available (not the Blessing of Kofusachi, though). Sages Journal can be buried to add 1d10+5 to a local check against a bane. Other cards or support could be made available if requested.
Movement: An examinable location (prefer barriers, not monsters)

Deck, Discard, Buried:

Reloaded:
Middle of Deck (Unknown Order): Helpful Haversack (Core)
Recharged: Salvator Scream, Quartermaster, Blessing of the Quartermaster, Masterwork Tools, Investigator's Lamp,
Discard Pile: Shy Ratani, The Big Sky, Chime of Unlocking, Magic Leather Armor (Core), Blessing of Abadar,
Buried Pile: Sage's Journal (Core),

Skills and Powers:
SKILLS
Strength d6 ☐ +1
Dexterity d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Constitution d6 ☐ +1
Intelligence d10 ☑ +1 ☑ +2 ☑ +3 ☐ +4
Disable: Intelligence +1
Knowledge: Intelligence +2
Wisdom d8 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3 ☐ +4
Perception: Wisdom +2
Charisma d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3
Diplomacy: Charisma +2

Favored Card: Item
Hand Size: 6 ☑ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9
Proficiencies:

POWERS:
For your check that invokes Finesse, you may recharge (☑ or reload) a card to use Knowledge instead of Acrobatics or Stealth, and add the card's level.
On a local check against a barrier, you may bury an item to add your Perception.
At the end (☑ or start) of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location. (☑ You may recharge a card to ignore powers that would happen when you examine it.)

Empiricist Role:
☐ On your Diplomacy, Disable, or Perception non-combat check (☐ or your check before acting), add 1d4.
☑ When you defeat a barrier, you may heal a card (☐ or a weapon or an item).

Blackjack Role:
At the start of your turn, you may exchange a card in your hand with a card in your kit.
☑ When you would recharge, shuffle, discard, or bury a boon for your character or role power, you may reload a Blackjack boon instead.
☑ You may avenge an encounter with a bane at any location by discarding a card. If it is distant, move to that location first.

Turn Summary:
An eventful turn. Quin has disposed of the top card from the location (Flanking Attack), but this means everybody hasd to take a point of Fire damage twice, and Enora has to summon and encounter the Danger with the difficulty increased by #
On a more positive note, Quinn has identrified the top three cards of the location - a Monster, the Villain, and a rather useful-looking Ally 4. Quinn can replace these three cards on top of the location in any order he chooses. This is probably something we should discuss.
Quinn also now has less cards in his deck than his hand size, so is considering heading off to the Base as soon as he can.

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

I'm a little puzzled as to exactly what

Boon wrote:
You can only earn additional Fame and Reputation with this boon for one character per adventure you run, even if you have multiple characters who could benefit from this boon.

is trying to say; the qualifications for the boon make no mention of running adventures.

I also agree this is probably intended to be limited to conventions; while that should probably be clarified, I think it is a good idea in the current circumstances to have an incentive for more people to offer opportunities to play.

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

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Rule #1 of copy editing; it should be done by somebody who is new to the document in question, not by somebody who has been working on it for weeks. It's all too easy to read what you subconsciously know is there, rather than looking at what actually is there.

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Quinn's going to take a hand size feat on his character/role card, and "You may avenge an encounter with a bane ..." on Blackjack.

He's not really excited about the Ally 4; his best choice there - the Eagle - means having to give up his Majordomo for the moment.
If Enora has a good choice, she should take it.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber
Xathos of Varisia wrote:
Can BoB publish and sell the conversion to 2e?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Not without jumping through more legal hoops than would be practical.

The "Rise of the Runelords" adventure path is Paizo's intellectual property; BoB can't just go ahead and sell copies of it, any more than you could sell copies of a book that you had bought (even if you'd translated it into a different language).

Bob could publish copies of their conversion material. So they could explain what they changed (skill checks, monsters, etc.). But there are limitations. A major one concerns artwork. In general, you can't use any of the artwork, be it from the adventure path, a bestiary, or anywhere. An exception is artwork that has been published in a Paizo blog. That can be used, but only under the conditions imposed by the Community Use policy. In particular, it says you can't charge for it.

Obviously this isn't a 100% "No" - Paizo obviously came to some agreement vis a vis "Kingmaker", where the hardback adventure path is available for both 1e and 2e variants of Pathfinder, and even for another rules system. But I wouldn't consider it likely that anything similar would happen here.

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Supporter feat: Laori Vaus

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I've put a spreadsheet I made here

(I used this to print myself out reminder sheets when I built 5 2-pack characters for when I was running demos at conventions last year.)

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Quinn is taking Blackjack for this scenario, and will also be taking Salvator Scream (replacing Standard Bearer).
He will not be taking Zellara's Harrow Deck this scenario.

He has upgraded his Thieves' Tools to a Pole.

At the moment there's no real need to spread out, so Quinn will hang out with Koren again.

(Still working on my starting hand; I need to set up my deck handler for Blackjack)

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class

Thanks. I'll sort out my deck (and add the Blackjack stuff to my deck handler!).

Is anybody else interested in taking Zellara's Harrow Deck?

Shadow Lodge

Gentleman, Race: Grand Prix of Absalom, Middle Class
Enora - Gimry wrote:
So are you taking Salvator Scream this scenario then Quinn?

I'd certainly like to, if that's OK. Ditto Blackjack.

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

[Donning GM / Convention Organiser's hat, mounting soapbox]

I think letting the GMs have a voice in what games they want to GM is a laudable goal; I have GMed at a convention where I was assigned a scenario, and basically told "this is what you're going to run". The more a GM knows (and likes) a scenario, the more likely he is to run an enjoyable game.

But, equally, you have to provide games that players want to play. Back in the days when we had face-to-face play at conventions we'd typically put out an initial schedule with a guess at what games we'd be running. More than half of the schedule was fairly easy - the most recent few months of scenarios, the current multi-table specials, and the regular bunch of introductory scenarios/quests/whatever for first-time players.
Beyond that was guesswork based on experience (how long is it since we've scheduled this at a local convention; what has proved popular in the past;, etc., etc.).

We'd put a few more games on the schedule than we expected, and keep watch on how signups were going. Games that weren't attracting players would get cut from the schedule; for games that were over-subscribed we'd add a table, and do our best to find another GM. (This was easier in a real-space convention when we could offer incentives for GMs, such as free admission to the convention if you GMed enough tables, GM boons, etc.)

Online conventions are different. But I was not a fan of one thing I saw at PaizoCon this year - only one table of any given scenario in a slot. We really liked it when we were able to offer multiple tables of a scenario in the same slot; that gave us the opportunity to provide well balanced tables (character levels mostly the same, a good spread of classes, etc.).

That's more than enough from me for now ...

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

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I find FCFS recruiting greatly superior to lottery-style seating.

The whole reason I'm involved in PFS is because I was tired of going to conventions, signing up for a whole bunch of games, and maybe getting into one of them. At least with FCFS seating you know right away if you're going to get into a game, and can plan your time appropriately.

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