Mekkis's page

I know that. That's why I'm suggesting that this should be changed.

At risk of thread necromancy and exposure to flames, as I see it, the issue is that a player might be playing a poorly built, ineffective character for five or six levels. They might realise that they character isn't up to the snuff, and be powerless to stop it.

Meanwhile their friends who they've played their character with for 100 hours or so want to continue playing their characters of the similar level, and a certain amount of pressure is on that player to continue playing his ineffective character. This results in tensions and ultimately an amount of dissatisfaction. Character deaths result in a further skewing of this already weakened character away from the 'appropriate power level'. And with every session the player plays, the harder it is for them to throw their character away and start a new one.

The solution I propose is to be able to approach the player after the session, and discuss with him about fixing his character. To provide a way of doing this legally, Certain People (VCs, VLs, 3-star GMs - exactly who would be determined by Campaign Leadership) would have the authority to allow a player to rebuild their character.

I bring this up because two of my friends have been in this situation. One finally decided to ditch a sixth-level rogue and has only recently brought a new character up to its previous level. The other has showed a large amount of discouragement and does not often play PFS anymore - he only rarely shows up at gamedays.

While a rather extreme example, here is a 13th lvl PFS character with every chronicle sheet listed if you want to see how long auditing it takes you.

Well. In a comfortable environment, with large monitor and most of my resources on-hand, I completed a basic audit in 7 minutes. Issues I found were:

- There's a +2 to charisma that's unaccounted for (I imagine it's from a boon on one of your chronicle sheets)
- Your description of Selective Channeling specifies 3 targets, not 4 targets to exclude, but that's just nitpicking.

I did not go over your entire play and purchase history though.

That being said, you don't get that sort of luxury in a con setting.

Jimbo Juggins wrote:

Every character in my sample was taken from PFS Faction Boards, where presumably the players who are posting "in character" are using characters who are legal for PFS play (20 point build).

Personally I couldn't disagree with the premise more, there is no assumption that any of those people even belong to the FACTION they are posting in, let alone have stats up.

What you could have done is go to a sample of PFS PBP games that are in progress right here on these boards where people ARE playing real live characters with their actual stats all available for public display and scrutiny.

Those stats ARE available, those stats ARE the ones in play, and those ARE real live players playing under a PFS banner.

Why didn't you do that instead?

Because there is no way you'd audit any of those characters in one minute.
No way at all.

Challenge Accepted. I went to [url=http://paizo.com/campaigns/PFS0418VeteransVaultTier12/gameplay] and audited the five characters playing.

Granted, these are level 1 and 2 characters, and their chronicle sheets aren't available (nor is evidence that they own additional resources, but that's another bag of worms).

From my six-minute audit of the five characters:
- All stats added up and are valid
- One character has a feat (Power Attack) for which he probably doesn't qualify.
- One character has an animal companion with suspiciously high HP (which could be explained by a combination of feats, I guess, but animal companion feats weren't listed).

This being said, I can't see this being possible in a convention setting.

I'm sure this has come up before, but it seems that during season 0 and season 1, there was a lot of secrecy as far as factions - and faction missions - are concerned.

In the games I've played and run over the last year or so, all of this has gone away - to the point where players are sharing their faction missions with each other the minute they leave the briefing room, and are asking the other players to "look away" if they need to do their 'secret' faction mission (in the few recent scenarios that have them).

It makes the actual faction you choose feel trivial and cheap, and strains the ability to really identify with the faction.

Should something improve this, I think it will make factions more meaningful, and PFS more enjoyable.

The FAQ entry at http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9ne7 states that "an animal specifically designed to be ridden (such as a horse or dog) could be purchased with Light Armor Proficiency as one of its feats (swapping out Endurance or Skill Focus respectively) for the same cost."

This entry was made in 2010, over two years before the Animal Archive was released.

Two questions:
- Would this extend to other animals in the "Riding Animals" section of the Animal Archive (p14)
- Would this extend to other animal feats on page 18-19 of the Animal Archive.

An official ruling would be appreciated, as this has come up in PFS in the past.

This reminds me of the whole "reach weapons threaten on the second diagonal" issue that I was completely unaware that it had been ruled on until it came up in a game with Mike Brock running.

Several months ago, I wrote a rant about The difficulty of obtaining an [O]fficial ruling...

Any suggestion based on capping equipment-by-level is nigh unenforceable. Anyone who's audited character's sheets would know how hard it is at the moment to audit a 10th level character's sheet.

Trying to trace back and work out if the player violated wealth-by-level back when he was playing tier 8-9s while level 6 is impossible.

I am of the firm belief that if a rule is unenforceable, it probably shouldn't be in place. How many of you can accurately tell me your own character's worth, three levels ago?

As I see it, the "2XP for playing up" system seems the most elegant - it has discouragement (lower fame), doesn't break WBL (the GP/XP ratio goes down), and intrinsically allows a lower-level player to catch up (much better than "force the other players to slow-track for you"). It also doesn't make the end of scenario procedure any more difficult.

A lot of the examples here are with tier 1-5. This seems like it's the tier that can most be aided by creating a new character, and playing at 1-2.

Locally, it seems that the policy on choosing to play up is "if one player doesn't want to, we don't". Given the reports in this topic of bullying to play up, this is obviously not the case elsewhere.

Conjecture 1: A scenario is more enjoyable for the players and GMs the second and subsequent time its run by that GM.
Conjecture 2: There exists a number of GMs who refuse to (or are at least resistant to) GMing a scenario multiple times.
Conjecture 3: If the GMs referred to above would receive credit for running a scenario a second time, they would be willing to run it again.

It seems that we can conclude that the current system discourages some GMs from running a scenario that would be more enjoyable for the players.

Perhaps allowing an additional credit for the second (or maybe just the third) time a GM runs a scenario would help with this situation.

Well this is bad... Why the Lantern Lodge?

The forums for the Singapore PFS, is called the Lantern Lodge.

:(

Well.. the PFS held in New South Wales, Australia is branded as the "Shadow Lodge"....

Let's see what Venture Captain Al Rigg will do about that...

(my bet's on it retaining its name.)

I really thing it's refreshing to see the BBEG have the ability to cast /Create Pit/ at higher levels.

However, the sorcerer does not have the required 10gp miniature shovel focus. I have been adding this to her equipment when I run it.

Is this correct?

Other than just making the rogue an NPC class, something I've been toying with is:

- Sneak attack starts at 3d6 and increases by 1d6 each level.
- There is a limit of one sneak attack per round

- (optional) Add a rogue talent (or maybe advanced talent) that allows an additional sneak attack per round.

Congratulations Steven!

When I was introduced to PFS in GenConOz in 2009, it was clear how much work and effort you have been putting into the game and the community.

It's pretty clear how you've lead this continent into where it is today for PFS.

The state (possibly the church as well, depending on the social structure of a given state), however, is empowered to judge and sentence criminals, possibly including capital punishment.

If you were walking down the street, and saw a man attempting to murder someone else and tried to stop it, you would be well protected under the law if that man died in the process. However, if you had incapacitated him, then killed him out of spite, you are just as much a murderer as he was attempting to be.

Shouldn't what you do with an incapacitated prisoner be a moral question for a good character? Especially if you can't easily turn him over to the guards.

The whole point of a legal system is to determine guilt. Sometimes it lets the guilty go free in the process, but that's not the intention.

In the absence of a trustworthy, noncorrupt and effective criminal justice system (aka, failing the "legitimate authority" test), my paladin would be more likely to pronounce judgment and carry out the execution himself.

The other options would be to try and send him to the revolving door prison, or take the coward's way out and look away while another party member did the deed.

The question of "What do we do with the prisoners" is interesting roleplaying the first time it happens, but after that it's just a timewasting argument.

The scenario is actually

Where it specifically says

I can't see how this could be interpreted any other way...

Anyone have any other data?

I've been guilty of this, actually.

If I'm trying to charge an enemy, and there's an ally in the way, is it possible for me to use Charge Through to overrun the ally, and give them the option to avoid the overrun, or does the fact that Improved Overrun states:

Targets of your overrun attempt may not chose to avoid you.

eschew them the choice to do so?

I am complaining about being complained about. So yeah. But a lot of people didn't like, where I play, in NYC, that I like to make the bad guys roll a 20 in order to hit me, when armor is relevant. Now grapple is a different story. And then they want to take my whole AC from that. Not cool.

Fair enough. I'd complain about that too. I daresay that most of the players would complain about needing to deal with an enemy who can only be hit on a natural 20 too. Sure, the whole thing will eventually be self-correcting, but you are essentially trivialising encounters for the next few levels, assuming you'll be playing at appropriate tier.

It's definitely not cheating, but it does prevent you from having those truly memorable scenarios...

There is one season zero scenario that specifically says to award gold not included in the maximum amount for that scenario.

I believe that that is the only exception (if it actually is an exception).

Wouldn't the obvious way to keep characters of less than 7th level out to simply have no entrances. After all, the *things* living there would have access to /dimension door/ or similar... (which a wizard gets at 7th)

Silbeg wrote:

I do see the benefit of having your character on an iPad (or other tablet, since they can lay flat, like a character sheet), but I'd still prefer a hard copy. In fact, I could easily say requiring a hard copy would not be a bad thing (and am surprised that this isn't a requirement!)

It is not a requirement (and absolutely should not be) because the ship has sailed on electronic records and aids to gaming. You're not going to get the genie back into the bottle on that one, and all that requiring hard copies does is create an extra barrier to players who have moved beyond old-fashioned character records.

It is definitely a requirement for the GM to hand out chronicle sheets. There's no way you can creatively read the policy to state otherwise.

I play, and run PFS online and offline (I've personally run about 30 sessions online), and I do send chronicle sheet PDFs out to my players. This doesn't mean that I'm not required to print scenarios and chronicle sheets when I play or GM offline.

This is the one thing that I feel really strongly about in gaming as I am one of the online players mentioned above. If I were to attend a game in person though I would bring my iPod and my 7' tablet along with my dice.

So instead you'd put the onus on the GM who's trying to audit your character the know-how to use your iPod and whatever type of 7" tablet you're using in order to determine your character's legality? Why create an "extra barrier to GMs who don't know how to use every mobile and desktop operating system?"

Character sheet audits are difficult at the best of times: struggling with unfamiliar electronic devices to try and get them to display the correct information just complicates the issue.

And last I checked, printers are cheap. And over-the-counter printing services are cheaper.

Just taking a Devil's Advocate position here, why is it too much to ask to require players have a paper printout of their additional resources?

In order for characters to be legal, we already require players to bring some kind of folder full of chronicle sheets - it's just a few more sheets of paper.

And we already expect GMs to print out (at the minimum) faction missions and chronicle sheets for the scenarios they're running - it's not that arduous to require players to access a printer from time to time.

To those who do allow character-sheet-on-a-laptop, do you make sure that each character's required chronicle sheets are present?

As an added benefit, requiring the printout makes it a lot more likely that the player actually reads the option he's taking (rather than the brief description of a feat in the table, for example).

I didn't think area-of-effect spells discriminated as to whether you could see the source.

So would Total Cover eschew the reflex save from a fireball? What about a will save from Mind Fog, or a Fortitude save from Cloudkill?

I have a cleric of Erastil, who's just reached level 4, and is entitled to an animal companion. I understand that there's a lot of things about animal companions from additional resources not being available to non-druids.

Anyway, I feel that getting a deer would be most appropriate. What's the closest legal choice for this character, or should I give up and find a different animal to bond with?

I'm pretty sure that "expensive material components" refer to anything you can't find in a spell component pouch. So a 1gp cost would be too much.

I don't see anything in the Guide to PFSOP that says I can't use a laptop.

Actually, there is...

In order to use these additional resources for your character, you must bring a physical copy of the book with you or printouts of the appropriate pages detailing cost (if any) and explanations for each feat, item, spell, prestige class, and so on that you use.

(emphasis added)

Note that "laptop/tablet with PDFs" is not on that list. I understand that many GMs allow this (I personally strongly discourage laptops - they're fine for reference, but your character sheet at least should be on paper, and the laptop should remain closed unless you're actively looking something up), but if you're making that assumption and it turns out to be false, then you're in no position to argue. We have a lovely Kyra pregen for you.

It shouldn't take too long to transcribe a character sheet from a PDF to a piece of paper in a pinch, regardless.

Actually, you don't need to pay for the services:

At 8th level, a sacred servant can call upon her deity for aid, in the form of a powerful servant. This allows the sacred servant to cast lesser planar ally once per week as a spell-like ability without having to pay the material component cost or the servant (for reasonable tasks).

Second level: Saddle Surge is AMAZING - you get +CL to damage on each arrow. Assuming that a horse/pegasus is available.

So if type doesn't change, Wildshape to Earth Elemental followed by Hat of Disguise to Dwarf works?

This came up in a recent PFS game, but it's a simple rule question.

When a creature is under the effect of a Transmutation [Polymorph] effect, (let's use Beast Shape II as an example), does its TYPE change.

Case 1: A human wizard casts Beast Shape II, assuming the form of a leopard. A colleague then casts Enlarge Person on him. Does it work?

Case 2: A human druid wildshapes into an Earth Elemental. He then dons a Hat of Disguise. Does this allow him to disguise himself as a dwarf? What about as a Water Elemental?

Can I get a reference on this sort of thing?

It's pretty simple. You've hit the nail on the head that these are methods of ESTIMATION, guidelines, not to be used off the cuff.

Many factors must be considered when determining the price of new magic items. The easiest way to come up with a price is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced, using that price as a guide. Otherwise, use the guidelines summarized on Table 15–29.

(emphasis added)

Not all items adhere to these formulas. First and foremost, these few formulas aren’t enough to truly gauge the exact differences between items. The price of a magic item may be modified based on its actual worth. The formulas only provide a starting point. The pricing of scrolls assumes that, whenever possible, a wizard or cleric created it. Potions and wands follow the formulas exactly. Staves follow the formulas closely, and other items require at least some judgment calls.

As a GM, you should keep this in mind - a Ring of Force Shield costs 8500gp because that's a decent balance point for it to be at. When creating an item, you should ask "Would I always buy this item at this price", and if the answer's "yes", it's probably underpriced.

Forgive me, but how does one do damage with Major Creation?

The obvious way would be to create "a sphere, total volume 9 cubic feet, of a single rare metal with a density between that of gold and platinum"

Given that there are four elements you'll get (Plutonium, Neptunium, Rhenium, Roentgenium) , three of which will cause a massive nuclear explosion, there'll be a lot of damage output. Naturally, if you end up with Rhenium, simply cast it again, specifying "a sphere, total volume 9 cubic feet, of a single rare metal with a density between that of gold and the previous metal I created".

That's something that an aspiring alchemist, attempting to transmute gold into platinum, might do by accident...

It looks good, but it's very 3.5ish: the Pathfinder slots have changed, as per http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems.html

"Face" is now "Eyes", "Head" has been split between "Headband" and "Head", "Torso" is now "Chest" and several other changes.

The item does not exist in Blood of Angels. There is however a general price for such an item in Ultimate Equipment.

Table 4-2 in Ultimate Equipment includes entries for Metamagic (+2 spell level), minor 9,000 gp.

Would it be legal to spend 9000gp on a Metamagic Consecrate Rod, lesser (Consecrate spell is in Blood of Angels, page 25)?

LazarX: Where does it say this? I haven't found it printed or FAQed anywhere.

This seems to have gone on for a few years.

A heightened spell has a higher spell level than normal (up to a maximum of 9th level). Unlike other metamagic feats, Heighten Spell actually increases the effective level of the spell that it modifies. All effects dependent on spell level (such as saving throw DCs and ability to penetrate a lesser globe of invulnerability) are calculated according to the heightened level. The heightened spell is as difficult to prepare and cast as a spell of its effective level.

Could we please get an official word on this one way or another?

Quick followup question: can the "Spells known" be changed, or are only the ones available in the Bestiary 3 available?

You can get smaller if you're willing to use the Rod of Wonder until you get the "drop two size categories" option.

Could a character use Focused Spell with an Illusion (Figment) spell, for example minor image?

Would the caster be able to choose one of the enemies when casting such a spell to have the heightened save DC?

Focused spell says that the spell "affects or targets more than one creature". It seems that "affects" isn't actually defined. Would the fact that there are multiple creatures who might be required to make a save class as them being "affected"?

I extract them from the PDFs using pdftops -eps then load them into libreoffice draw (or Inkscape if I've got a lot of time), then fill in the required fields and extract as PDF. I upload them to my website, and also offer to sign and mail them.

The end result looks like this

It's interesting to note that mailing two chronicle sheets costs more than a chronicle. But that's what you get when you're mailing things 6000km.

As I see it, the intent of the rules is to encourage players who are using Additional Resources to buy a copy of the required resources and support Paizo, and to ensure that the rules for the ability is available at the table.

I often travel about 1600km to conventions, and I completely sympathize with people who supply the required rules and have some evidence to suggest that they paid for the sources. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I would think that if you can show the rules, and have bought the required books, then you should be able to use it. How you prove this really depends on the GM, but I don't believe that Paizo wishes table GMs to take a hardline stance on this.

Personally, I generally keep photocopies of the required pages from with my characters, and try to bring the hardcovers, but I don't always take all of them out of my car. When traveling to conventions, I occasionally leave a book or two at home.

The original post arose after I had GMed a game where a player brought a character that used seven or eight non-core sources copied from d20pfsrd. When I asked if she owned the books, she told me that she didn't. How should that situation be handled?

I've occasionally had a player turn up to the table with an obscure feat, trait or item that is legal, but that they do not have the requisite printout/book at the table, and that I suspect that they do not own them.

What is the correct procedure to deal with this? If it turns out that they do not own the resource, can I allow them to replace the feat/trait with one from the Core Assumption, or from a resource that they do own?

I believe that a certain retired scenario also has one:

I'd like more chances to visit the factional countries, especially Andoran at high tier and Cheliax at low tier

One of the players I've had the pleasure to DM (in Pathfinder Society), has built this character that has an interesting array of abilities.

Basically, it works with using a bladed weapon (often a scimitar) to do nonlethal damage, combined with the Enforcer feat to allow a free intimidate check.

After succeeding the intimidate check (taking into account skill focus and several other things), then use the Frightening ability of the Thug to turn it into Frightened for one round.

First question (aimed at this forum): Is this kosher?

Second question: Should it be?

He has played a scenario at second level. That is why this might come up. It doesn't really make sense to for the New Faction Leader to force you to work Better with the Old Faction Leader in order to have Permission to switch...

One of my characters is considering a change of faction. He's currently second level, with 4 prestige and 6 fame.

If, hypothetically, he decided to give Ambrus Valsin the middle finger, and apply for Shadow Lodge membership from Grandmaster Torch, what happens?

"So, I've decided that the Ten doesn't care about the lowly members of the Pathfinder Society. I'd like to help expose the Decemvirate's ploys and work for the benefit of the members /of/ the society."

Torch.. "I'm sorry. It seems that the Grand Lodge doesn't owe you enough favours. You'll need to work for them more before I'll allow you to tear up your membership card and join us. Oh, and you should do it quickly, before you get more experienced in your skills: the membership fee is higher, you see... See you around."

Is this really how it plays out?

I hate to inject realism into this conversation, but there are a lot of common misconceptions about the interaction of electricity and water (and electricity in general).

Current flows from an area of high charge to an area of low charge, by the easiest possible path. It can be surmised that a lightning bolt would create an area of low charge at the end of the 120' line, and an area of high charge at the caster's finger. This would cause the lightning to discharge along the shortest line (creating the 120' line). Underwater, the same conditions are true.

I see no reason why lightning would work any differently underwater.