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Greetings! I've played a lot of Pathfinder and PFS, but I'm new to Starfinder, and I'll be playing SFS for the first time at Origins next week. I'm putting together my SFS character: a Mystic, with the Healer connection. As I've not played Starfinder nor SFS, I'm not certain of what would be good / useful choices for my spells. I get Mystic Cure from my connection (and I would have chosen it anyway), but any advice from SFS vets on which spells are particularly useful (or useless) in Society play would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Congratulations, Ron, on the publication of this one! It's the big time! :D
Thanks for the info! We're doing 20-point builds, but of our 8 players, I'd peg one or two, at most, as being anything approaching character optimizers, so I'm not too worried about individual characters being nutty.
I'm about to begin running Shattered Star for one of my home groups -- we're blessed with a large group, and we will have 8 PCs for the campaign. My search-fu is failing me -- I haven't been able to find any definitive information on the party size (number of PCs) to which the AP is written. I strongly suspect that it's fewer than 8, and I know that PFS scenarios are written for a base assumption of 5 PCs. I plan on trying to scale rewards (and number of opponents) as appropriate for the larger party, but I need to know what the baseline assumption is before I start that. Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Will there be a dragon with a laser in it's head? Only if it's a frickin' laser.
Lundeen's writing an AP adventure? Yousa all gonna die. ;) Evidence: in 13 years of playing Pathfinder Society and a myriad of other Organized Play campaigns, I've only had my character die three times. All three of these incidents were in adventures written or co-written by Mr. Ron Lundeen. All kidding aside, Ron is a fabulous writer, and a great guy. Congrats to him, and very much looking forward to seeing this AP!
Oh, I know. :-D I love playing the character, from a personality and skill set standpoint, but at 9th level, she's become an utter glass cannon in combat. Not sure how often I'll be playing her anymore.
I don't think I've seen a pure rogue build past L3 except when the pregen rogue is selected by someone. If archetypes count, you've seen at least one, my friend. :D
There is at least one ability, dont remember what its called offhand, that gives you a bonus on social checks with characters who would be sexually attracted to you. It's the "Charming" social trait: You gain a +1 trait bonus when you use Bluff or Diplomacy on a character that is (or could be) sexually attracted to you, and a +1 trait bonus to the save DC of any language-dependent spell you cast on such characters or creatures.
My group just finished "Wormwood Mutiny" last night, and moved on to "Raiders of the Fever Sea". While at Rickety's Squibs, the players had a good discussion of possible names for the former Man's Promise. They finally settled on Bonewrack's Revenge, after the island where they staged their mutiny.
When I first started playing PFS a couple of years ago, I picked up this form-fillable PDF from the Paizo store: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8occ?Deluxe-Character-Sheet It's $2. It doesn't do any math, but it's all fillable. It has some space on the front page for notes, which is where I put the PFS numbers for my PCs.
He tried the "you can not stop me from coming to a public event" This is a commonly-held belief (probably especially among the "problem children" of our community), but it's nearly never actually true. "Public event" =/= "you absolutely must admit everyone, without exception". Even if you, personally, are only the GM, you should be able to escalate the issue to the event organizer, or the owner / manager of the location where your event is being held. If you have a disruptive or abusive player who can't (or won't) control himself / herself, the organizer or the location owner are well within their rights to ban said player from further participation. (Probably the only exception to this would be if that player is buddies with the organizer or owner, and that person is willing to let their buddy's behavior slide.) It's no different from running a business. At least in the U.S., as long as you aren't turning someone away from your business because of their membership in a "protected class" (such as age, sex, or race), you have the right to choose to not do business with someone. At least the last time I looked, "abusive jerk" is not a protected class.
Maybe give him a final warning: make it clear that you've not seen any real change since your last warning, and that he needs to adjust his behaviour in the areas mentioned, or be uninvited from the PFS tables at the venue. I understand that if he has a diagnosed medical condition this makes things more difficult, but it sounds like it's seriously impacting the long-term health of your sessions. Agreed. It sounds like the player is either hard of learning, or lacks the ability to restrain himself (based on the apology which Dresden10589 describes, I lean towards the latter). In either case, it does seem like it's time to let him know that he has to change, or he will no longer be welcome.
and I think I would have a valid complaint if someone like jiggy decided he spoke for "most normal people" and tossed me from his table over something so trivial. He's the GM, and ultimately, it *is* his call to make, especially if he sensed that one or more of the other players at his table were being made uncomfortable by your character's description and behavior. If I were your GM, I'd ask you to tone it down. If you were unwilling to do so (or proved that you weren't capable of doing so), *then* I'd be asking you to leave the table.
it's not about right or wrong. the morality doesn't concern me. are these characters legal to play? As far as I can tell, the PFSGTOP doesn't have a black-and-white answer to this, but I'd suggest that some GMs and players may point to this section (on page 19 of the current version):
(emphasis mine, in bold) You may feel that the above does not describe this situation in the slightest. Others might disagree with you. You need to be prepared to accept that they have as valid a viewpoint as you do.
And some character concepts just don't work well in an organized play environment, where you don't know the sensibilities or senses of humor of the people with whom you'll be playing. And, yes, IMO, that also includes "slutty Ezren", and the other "much worse" examples you say you've seen.
I guess my question is, why does my game need to be sanitized to the satisfaction of the most conservative player at the table? if someone complained about my play style, I would do my best to accommodate them and make them comfortable. but I don't think I should have to scrap an entire character (or three) because someone is uptight. You have a right to enjoy crude humor. The guy sitting next to you has a right to not think it's funny, or to feel uncomfortable. What makes his right less valid than yours?
If you're at a table with other players whom you know well, and you are certain that they're cool with that style of humor (as well as characters that pretty seriously break any verisimilitude of the game), then there's no problem. If you're at a table with a random group of adults, then yeah, you probably should tone it down several notches, IMO. I hate to be one who comes across as an old fart, but based on what you describe, I'm not sure I'd want to share a table with either of those characters.
Does 13 tables at a convention really pick up more players than 13 tables spread out in game stores? That might be an imponderable question; it probably depends on the nature of the convention. Is the convention in question a larger gaming convention, that offers more than just PFS? If so, it seems possible that you might gain new PFS players from people who are initially drawn to the con by other games, and decide (for whatever reason) to also try PFS. Is the convention primarily (or solely) offering PFS? If so, I imagine that they don't do very much to attract new PFS players, as the attendees are largely going to be self-selecting for already being interested in (and, very likely, already players of) PFS. (Parenthetically, the "small-to-mid-sized" gaming conventions that the old LG players here are remembering with fondness in this thread were often the latter type, IME. If they offered anything other than LG, it was likely other organized-play campaigns.)
Not entirely true, though more-or-less effectively so, especially in the first couple of years of the LFR campaign. A couple of years in, LFR began doing Battle Interactives (which used the "ADCP" code, that had been originally devised for "Adventuring Company" adventures); they've generally done one or two BIs per year since around 2010, with one premiering at DDXP/Winter Fantasy, and one premiering at Origins. Most (if not all) of their BIs have been made available for play at other conventions, but cons do need to be able to have a minimum number of tables to support running them. In any case, they're not available for home play, or retail play (unless the retail location can swing a big enough turnout). However, that makes a grand total of perhaps 6 or 7 LFR adventures that don't fit the "can play it anywhere" descriptor, and all of those are two-round, combat-intensive BIs. When LFR started, WotC decided that all LFR adventures were going to be "canon" for the Realms, which meant that every adventure was going to have to be vetted by WotC's own editors. That set-up made doing "regional-only" adventures essentially impossible, as the old regional set-up that LG had allowed the regional adventures to be developed and edited in-region -- as I understand it, LG regionals weren't edited by RPGA/WotC employees. WotC realized that the regional structure of LG was labor-intensive, database-intensive, and relied on a very large volunteer network. When they set up LFR, they made a very conscious decision (for good or for ill) to *not* do things that way. I'd been involved in the RPGA for a number of years at that point, and it seemed to me that, by the time of LFR and 4E, WotC's heart was not really in supporting a large-scale OP campaign any longer. It seemed to me that they did an OP campaign for 4E because it was expected by a certain segment of players, but they weren't going to put more effort into it than was absolutely needed. Finally, the organization that was the RPGA, during LG's days (and before) really doesn't exist anymore. LFR is now technically part of WotC's Organized Play group, which has a definite focus on retail support for D&D these days, and very little direct focus on conventions.
Agreed. I think that the reference to "these symptoms" in point 1 is the "nausea, indigestion, and diarrhea" in the previous sentence -- those aren't game conditions with mechanical effects. Points 2 and 3 refer to what the item can do for you if your PC is suffering from the game conditions with mechanical effects.
One other thing I just remembered about conventions during the LG era... In LG, once you GMed an adventure, you could never play it. There was even a term for GMing one before you ever had a chance to play it -- "eating the adventure". There was no such thing as "GM credit" in LG, so you weren't able to apply the XP/GP to one of your characters, either. You were just being a good citizen, and "taking one for the team". So, what frequently would happen is that conventions would offer the "premiere" of a new regional adventure, and the GMs for that adventure at that convention would be either the adventure author, or the regional staff (who weren't allowed to play their region's adventures). Attendees at the con would have the chance to play the adventure, and then come back to their home areas to GM it for their local groups -- attending the con had the incentive of giving these GMs a chance to play the adventure first.
I joined LG in Year 6. PFS is in Season 5, which including Season 0 puts the campaigns at a similar maturity level. In 2006 in my region there were 4 local cons and 2 more within a 2 hour drive. In 2013 there is only 1 local con, and it doesn't come close to the numbers we saw in LG. I think it is because of the exclusivity that cons had with new releases. Perhaps I am wrong. I started playing Organized Play campaigns in 2001, and was pretty heavily involved in the Chicago-area LG scene (as well as other campaigns, like Living Force and Living Death). Among our local crowd who was involved in LG, there was a subgroup who were *very* dedicated to going to conventions -- I'd guess they attended 2-3 conventions a month, all over the Midwest. A big reason for that, as has already been touched on, was the Regional and Meta-Regional adventures in LG -- if you wanted to play an adventure set in Highfolk, well, you needed to go up to Wisconsin to play it. And, similarly, we got a lot of attendees at our local conventions from Wisconsin and Michigan, because they had to come to Illinois (or Indiana) to play Verbobonc adventures. When LG wound down, and was "replaced" by LFR, the regional structure that was so integral to the LG experience was removed. LFR still had "regional" adventures, but you could play them anywhere. This had the effect of removing much of the incentive that a lot of gamers had to travel to other areas to attend cons -- those out-of-state cons would be offering the same LFR adventures that you could play locally (either at a local convention, or at home). As a result, more than a few of the smaller, regional gaming cons which had sprung up around LG (and had been primarily, if not exclusively, focused on LG play) withered away in the LFR era. I also concur with what has been noted earlier, that while the regional system in LG worked very well in some places, it worked very poorly in others. Some regions had great volunteers / administrators, and excellent writers...but others didn't. At least one LG region essentially ceased to exist, because the volunteers in that region just couldn't deliver the level of support needed. While some regional adventures were very good, others were, well, not so good. And, in some areas, you could easily travel to different regions (here in Chicago, it was only an hour's drive to "Highfolk", and you could also get to "Dyvers", "Furyondy", "the Shield Lands", and "Veluna" pretty easily), but in other areas, it was difficult, if not impossible, for many gamers to experience other regions (see the comment upthread from Matthew Pittard about Australia). Paizo has definitely set a high bar for adventure quality for PFS (professional editing, typography, maps), and it would be very difficult to maintain that level of quality on a regional basis, since I would imagine that "regional PFS" adventures would not receive the same level of editorial or development support from Paizo.
As per the PFS Additional Resources listing for Halflings of Golarion, indicating which rules items are legal for PFS play: Alternate Racial Trait: Halfling Jinx; Equipment: halfling hooch on page 10, all equipment in the table on page 22; Feats: all feats on pages 23, and 26–27; Prestige Class: Halfling Opportunist; Traits: all traits on pages 30–31. I don't own the book; are the brooches in the table on page 22? If not, I strongly suspect that the answer is that they aren't legal.
Saving throws generally come into play when your character has to defend against an attack against which your armor doesn't really help you (typically, these are spells, but some other effects or attacks may require a saving throw). The description of the attack or effect will indicate which type of saving throw applies, and what the effects will be on your character, depending on whether you succeeded or failed on the saving throw. As a general rule, if your character fails at a saving throw, he suffers the full impact of the spell or effect; if your character succeeds at a saving throw, he only suffers a lessened impact (or, possibly, no impact at all). The combat section of the rules (this is a link to the section in Paizo's online reference document) has a lot of the info you want on attacking and defending. This is all also in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, of course. From that section: Attack Bonus Your attack bonus with a melee weapon is the following:
With a ranged weapon, your attack bonus is the following:
Combat Maneuver Bonus (CMB) = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier Combat Maneuver Defense (CMD) = 10 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Dexterity modifier + special size modifier Your Base Attack Bonus (which all of the above use) is a function of your character class and level; the description of each character class in the rulebooks contains a table which shows how the BAB progresses as a character gains levels in a class.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone actually polled the community to see if there are any CSM/survey people around? I'm a market researcher -- I've been writing surveys for 25 years. However, that's primarily been in product testing and concept testing, not in customer satisfaction, so while it's not exactly what you're thinking of / looking for, I do have a lot of experience with taking clients' lists of "what we want to learn", and translating that into survey questions which can get at that.
"I thought we were playing Skull & Shackles. I'm a pirate."Isn't S&S approved for society play? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. And, in fact, my primary PFS character, Captain Xan Stormblade, is a pirate, with the Sczarni faction (amusingly, Chris Mortika was the GM for the very first adventure in which I played her). As these things go, Xan is probably not an ideal Pathfinder (she's too mercenary and self-centered, and tends to whine about having to go underground), but she also has never had a problem with cooperating with the other Pathfinders, even if she delights in needling the goody-two-shoes types. I hope that I've never played her at a table where one of the other players found her (or me) to be difficult or anything less than a team player.
It's easy enough to tease out when you run it yourself later and realize all the stuff that the GM changed either truly accidentally or "accidentally". Certainly, but that doesn't help the players at the table who just had a rotten play experience, and now are being asked to rate the person who just GMed that game.
Back in the days of the RPGA organized play (which included Living Greyhawk among other titles) there was a judge rating system. I'm another RPGA grognard; excellent summary of the issues with that system. A few more observations I'd made on the rating system, back in the day: - If you had a GM who frequently ran tables for a group of his or her friends, that GM would wind up with a very high rating, because his friends would very likely always give him or her a very high score. - At least IME, it was pretty rare to see GMs get poor ratings. Part of the idea behind the rating system was to give GMs feedback (in the hopes of making them better GMs), but unless the players gave written feedback as well, the rating system didn't give the GM a lot to work with. - It could be diffcult to tease out the performance of the GM from the adventure itself. Even a good GM can be hard-pressed to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, particularly in a campaign which stresses GMs run the adventure as-written. One could easily picture a GM who is assigned to run the same adventure throughout a big convention like GenCon, only to discover that the adventure is poorly-written -- and it could then result in the GM receiving a bunch of poor scores for things that are beyond his control.
From what I see (and know) about PFS in the Chicago area, the key factors seem to be: - A backbone of players and volunteers who've been involved in Organized Play for a long time. Many of the "regulars" in PFS play in our area (myself included) were previously heavily involved in the RPGA (Living Forgotten Realms, Living Greyhawk, even Living City), and PFS is a continuation of this aspect of the RPG hobby for them. - Paizo's clear, consistent support for Pathfinder in general, and PFS in particular. A number of those "hardcore" players I mention above were primarily playing LFR a couple of years ago, and they've transitioned to PFS, for at least part (if not most or all) of their gaming, due to the sporadic releases of LFR adventures, and now, the impending end of 4E and the LFR campaign. - A good base of dedicated, reliable volunteers, who both organize events and make sure that GMs are to be had. - Regularly-scheduled game nights at several area stores, which seem to do a lot to bring in new players. - Several local conventions over the course of the year (and a number more within reasonable driving distance), giving players an opportunity to play their guts out all weekend.
I got two Jay Cutler boons at a recent convention. I didn't want them, so I left them on a table in the con room, with a note saying, "free to a good home", before I left to get dinner. When I got back from dinner, there were eight Jay Cutler boons sitting on the table. :-D
I have just had a couple of conversations with players that specifically mentioned that they liked the GM running the summons and one of the reasons they stated was that no one *player* turn dominated the initiative sequence. Evidently there were okay with the GM taking a bit longer. And, as I said, I'm far from the only GM doing this in my area. Well, as long as it's the social norm in your area, and the players of the affected summoners are honestly cool with it, more power to you.
Just curious: what about other players that might find it not fun that your PC gets 3-4 turns versus their one turn? I could extend your logic somewhat to say that if I show up to play PFS, I fully expect to get to play, not watch the druid move four figures a turn and roll 12 dice a turn. The bottom line is that fun is subjective and a very slippery slope as a justification for a position. This is the reason they banned the master summoner, but yet the druid can still do the exact same thing. If you (as GM) take over the control of the druid player's critters, the same number of dice are getting rolled, and it's taking (more or less) the same amount of time that it would if the druid player were doing it himself. I wouldn't be surprised if it took you more time, if the druid player is well-prepared and knows his spells and summoned critters well. You started with, "I prefer running summoned creatures myself", and it's now apparently morphed into "I don't like summoned creatures, period", which still isn't much of a justification for your first position.
You are likely going to want to make that masterwork greatsword +1 sooner rather than later, if for no other reason than being able to damage incorporeal creatures, and bypassing DR x/magic. Upgrading your AC (via making your masterwork full plate +1, the Amulet of Natural Armor, as well as a Ring of Protection) is a path you could choose to start down. However, as you don't use a shield, you may not be able to keep your AC high enough to matter once you get up a few more levels (monster attack bonuses tend to quickly outstrip AC gains, unless you really focus your attention and resources on it). Bracers of Armor would be of very limited usefulness, as they don't stack with actual armor (though they would help you on the occasional incorporeal touch attacks). Cloak of Resistance is a pretty good item, though, as a paladin, you get to add your Charisma bonus to your saving throws. Given that, it might make more sense to save up for a headband of alluring charisma +2 (4000gp)...by increasing your Charisma score, it'll not only give you an incremental +1 to saving throws, but it'll also give you an extra use of Lay On Hands, pump up your Smite Evil power, add to your Diplomacy and Use Magic Device, etc. You can buy the headband once you have 18 Fame, even if you don't find one on a Chronicle.
Really, I mean who cares. I pay Paizo to play their game. I invest in them. It isn't my job to make sure others are. If someone so desperately needs to be an authority in something that they're demanding to see all resources before anyone uses them in the game, maybe therapy would be a better use of their gaming time. As a GM, I don't ask to see resources pre-emptively. Generally speaking, I have other things with which I want to spend my time while GMing. But, if a player at my table pulls out a feat, a spell, a class ability, or (most problematically) some trick which uses the interaction of a couple of rules items with which I'm unfamiliar, and which seems to be "too good to be true", I'd really like to be able to see the actual documentation of that, so I can make a fair adjudication of how it works. Paraphrased (or possibly inaccurate) documentation from a third-party source doesn't cut it. Having to count on a good internet connection (so the player can access the official PRD) doesn't cut it. As a GM, that's the purpose that this rule serves for me. If this rule is going to be changed (and, please trust me, I absolutely do understand, and sympathize with, the very real complaints and concerns that are being aired here), I really hope that the change still ensures that the player will still have to be able to provide that documentation, if the GM needs it, in order to understand what the player's character is doing.
Why not just registered your purchases to an online data base using book specific ID codes (like PC game CD keys)? When a GM questions whether or not you own the rules they can pull up your data and see if you purchased the rules. Or they can print out player data before coming to the table. I imagine that it could be done (at least, the unique codes idea), but it'd require developing and implementing such a system, which Paizo doesn't have today. They'd need to assign unique ID codes to each copy going forward (again, seems to possible, but would require a new system)...but, what do you do with the thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of Pathfinder books which were sold before that system was implemented? Every book that you, I, and everyone else in this thread currently owns wouldn't have one of those unique codes, but they should be just as "legal" as new books which have those codes. Also, I'm going to hazard a guess (based on my experience with many other OP campaigns) that most Pathfinder players don't play PFS (and, a lot of them may not even realize that PFS exists). You're instituting a system (which is not free to implement) which has to be applied to every single Pathfinder publication, for the use of a minority (possibly a small minority) of the people who are buying those books.
I disagree. Out of the CRB the only abilities that would require a bestiary are summon spells, and animal companions. Agreed. I've played 6 PFS characters (wizard, paladin, rogue, fighter, cleric, and bard), with a total of 24 levels across them, and have never had call to use the Bestiary for any of them. Honestly, I didn't even own a copy of the Bestiary until I started GMing PFS games. Granted, in the cases of the wizard and the paladin, I chose options which did not require using the Bestiary (Arcane Bond on a staff, and Divine Bond on a sword, instead of a familiar and a mount, respectively), and I chose to not take / use summon monster spells with the wizard and the cleric, but I don't feel that those were suboptimal choices in the slightest. For a small number of classes (druid, probably summoner and cavalier), the Bestiary is pretty much a must-have. For a few more (paladin, wizard, etc.), it's needed if you take certain class options, or want to cast certain spells. For the rest, it's probably completely irrelevant.
I think that's an accurate representation. However... IME, it's the rare truly-new player who tries to play a complex character type (like a summoning-focused caster) first time out of the box. So, having to provide something like a summoning cheat-sheet to a new player is something I've run into so rarely*, that it's not something I'd spend pre-game time putting together. Now, if I were the player of a summoner PC, I'd absolutely be making up my own cheat-sheets, based on the Bestiary info, and I'd be happy to share those with another player, but that's a different situation. Having those on-hand for players, just in case, is above-and-beyond duty for a GM -- it's certainly a cool thing, but it's really not something I'd want to ever put into the set of expectations I have for any GM. * Aside: as long as we're trading bona fides...I, too, have 30+ years of GMing various RPGs, primarily various versions of D&D, and 12 years of experience in GMing for various Organized Play campaigns.
We don't need to know about the "dirty stuff" in your luggage. I'm having a flashback to a business trip I was once on, in which one of my colleagues had forgotten to remove a few "recreational items" from his suitcase after his previous trip, which had been a getaway weekend with his girlfriend. TSA insisted on a thorough (and very embarrassing, for my colleague) hand inspection of the contents of his luggage. ;-)
I still have vivid memories of our session of "Defenders of Nesting Swallow", in which my rogue (pirate archetype) and another melee rogue were the only melee builds in a 6-PC table. That one hurt, a lot. :-D
Actually, I seem to remember there was a thread on here about GMs saying they reserve the right to run summoned monsters if they don't feel the player is running them appropriately, and that allowing players to run summons was a privilege that could be revoked and was only granted if it made it more fun. True, though the OP had the player asking the GM to do two separate things: 1) Provide the stats for his summoned critters2) Run said summoned critters Here is where I run into the problem with the argument. At least the way I prep myself for games, if I have prepped myself to run, and I have given myself the necessary tools to support a new player in this fashion, I have already done the work that will make it trivially easy to support an advanced player in summoning those same simple monsters. I will concede that maybe my experience is unique, I know I run a *lot* more tool heavy than most GMs, and maybe that is the difference, but it doesn't really hurt me to carry someone who is using the basics this way. Fair enough, but PFS does not require or necessarily expect that the GM will have a physical or PDF copy of Bestiary I at the table with them during play (as noted earlier, they at least need access to that book during adventure prep, but that's pre-game). Some GMs bring it along, but it's not, currently, a requirement. Even if it's "trivially easy", for most GMs (i.e., those who don't already have a sheet made up for summoned monsters, as you propose), it's still 2-3 minutes spent doing a lazy player's homework in the middle of combat, as you look the critter up in the Bestiary, do the stat adjustments for the template, and record those stats somewhere for use during the combat. I say "lazy player" because you specifically describe "to support an advanced player", so we're no longer talking about taking the time to help a new player learn the game. We're talking about a player who (a) should know better by now, and (b) should be taking that responsibility on himself. |
