MisterSlanky's page

TwilightKnight wrote:

There have been a number of scenarios where Aklo would have been a great addition, but how many PC's take that? Or Ancient Osirion? How about Hallot, Polyglot, Shoanti, or Vudrani as a second, non-regional language?

I know a certain little know who has most of those... ;-)

My wizard has most of those. He "refused" to learn the tongues of the lesser creatures like gnolls, orcs, giants, and goblins and instead spent his linguistics points on most of those ones mentioned.

Ryan Bolduan wrote:

If the critter has an analogue in the Bestiary, I use that. If not, I run the stats as-written in the module. Yes, that does mean that clerics don't get channel energy and the like, and sometimes undead has a lot more hit points than expected.

Ryan,

Be extremely careful with that, some of the changes between 3.5 & PFRPG for monster stats changed the CR upward for some of the monsters, and can make the actual PFRPG monster an inappropriate challenge for even a PFS party.

That's why I said "critter analogue". A CR 2 croc turning into a CR 4 animal isn't a very good analogue. ;-) I own all the old MMs too, so worst-case, I've been known to rely on them too.

They are an observant little bunch. I wasn't about to pipe up though until it became "official". Since that's out of the way.

I look forward to driving Minneapolis/St. Paul into the gr...I mean up to new heights for PFS.

Mark - You'll have me helping out for sure at Scotty's. Let's hope it's not ten-billion degrees out again. Condensation from the water glasses got over everything.

You should be able to find everything you need on the Additional Resources page.

The link is also present on the store page for every product. It is near the bottom labeled as:

Cult of the Ebon Destroyers is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Its Chronicle Sheet and additional rules for running this module are a free download (240 KB zip/PDF).

So if you're like me and constantly lose the link to the additional resources page, this is a quick way to determine if your module is PFS legal.

Do you always 'as written' people change the stats from some of the earlier seasons to account for the difference between 3.5 and PF, or do you just run with whats printed in the mod?

If the critter has an analogue in the Bestiary, I use that. If not, I run the stats as-written in the module. Yes, that does mean that clerics don't get channel energy and the like, and sometimes undead has a lot more hit points than expected.

Adventure Paths are not yet Society legal. Two modules, Cult of the Ebon Destroyers and The Godsmouth Heresy do have rules to play as Pathfinder Society adventures.

I'm sure somebody will do the right thing and post up the threads where this is discussed (I would, but I don't have time unfortunately).

Ninjaed by the man from Texas!

+2.

We even turn a blind eye here if someone wants to rebuild a second level character after they've had time to understand the differences between a home game and organized play. There's just no sense in driving away possibly good players over frustrations with minor rules like this.

I don't know if I can get behind allowing rebuilds at second. That's a good home game rule, but just a little too much, even in an OP environment (especially when the powers-that-be have really shown a dislike of rebuild rules).

That being said, letting somebody walk up to a table that's just starting and letting them get involved quickly with a pregen is a different story. I think the existing "file off the serial numbers" rule actually hurts more than it helps.

Demoyn wrote:

Red-Assassin wrote:

I am not sure if it has been brought up, but I hope that with season 3 we have some sort of updated rules where people can gain additional languages. Several times PC's may end up going somewhere and not being able to communicate with NPC's. So perhaps a simple liguistics skill modification.

Cheers

I don't understand. My wizard has so many languages I can't even fit them all on his character sheet. Maybe your area just needs more people to invest skill points in linguistics. :(

I agree with Demoyn. Especially with the available Favoured Class skill point, there is no reason you cannot pick up a language through Linguistics every level or 2.

+25 quadrillion. If you want to speak a language, spend a skill point on it. Oh no! Your perception has to be one lower than max or you're only going to earn 10 gp on a day job instead of 20 gp because you spent that point on linguistics - big deal. If languages are important for your character, invest in them.

The trait can be more than a bonus it can add to the history of the game world. Which could be worth some sweet RP XP.

I run a fair number of Pathfinder Society Games, and to me the telling feature of something that's overpowered is when roughly 1/3 to 2/5 of the players at the table have this feat. In a home game it's one thing - the GM has fiat power to create interesting encounters and set-up potential conflicts which can involve the loss of the weapon, it being broken, or otherwise. In an organize play environment though, the GM loses all ability to make the feat interesting, which is why I'm really not the fan. The vast, vast majority of the time I see a player take this feat there is virtually no story behind its origin - it is used solely as a free feat (weapon proficiency and weapon focus combined in one).

Since the beginning of season zero, we established several guidelines for distribution of encounter CR difficulties, and also set a maximum CR for each subtier.

Part of the conversion process is bringing scenarios from the early days in line with these new design parameters. The goal is, of course, to do so without significantly altering the feel of a given adventure, but a party of level 1 PCs shouldn't be facing a CR 5 encounter.

That said, when you run the adventure, you can alter the flavor of any of the encounters to better emulate the thematic elements that changed as a result of the mechanical changes if you think it'll make a better play experience for your players.

I understand Mark. One of the concerns that I and other GMs I've talked to have is that there seems to be this ongoing theme that the "climax" encounter is never as dramatic as the lead-in encounter. I know this has been mentioned in other threads (I'm specifically thinking about some of the issues GMs have had with memorable bad-guys in the climax). I think the biggest surprise was how much the climax was taken down. I know of other season 1/2 climaxes (we've discussed one before) that were outright nasty to the point of near unfairness. The original encounter in this module was nowhere near as tough as those. Sure it was longer than average due to the creature hardness but it certainly wasn't a hard fight. Now, I'm worried that it will just be a complete blowout, which is a bit of a disappointment when the other fights are as memorable as they are.

Again, it's still a superb module, the flavor is still all there, which is part of the reason I like the module as much as I do, I'm just a hair worried about it being one of those three strikes, bad guys are dead climaxes.

There are a couple of reasons why the Warlock is not permitted for use in Ptahfinder Society.

Unfortunately the Warlock is not part of the OGL, it is closed content created by Wizards of the Coast. Paizo cannot "reproduce" the class in any manner which would make it recognizable as the original class lest they set off WoTC's lawyer's copyright infringement radar and get sued.

Secondly, while Pathfinder is officially backwards compatible with 3.5, PFS only permits certain Pathfinder products produced by Paizo (how's that for alliteration?). The complete list of permitted options can be found here. You will note that the list includes absolutely no third party products or old 3.5 products from WoTC.

Your best option, as has already been stated, is to play an Alchemist or perhaps try out the Magus playtest (yes I realize it's not exactly the same, but neither is the Alchemist).

I just finished reading the update to prep for my session tomorrow and my feelings are a tad mixed. The module still has the same great general feel, but some of the changes are a tad disappointing.

Since this thread is in the GM section and has the spoiler tag I'm not spoilerizing my post. You've been warned.

The changes to the Tiki Taan make them much easier. Their hardness in the original was their equalizer; it made wizards fear them and fighters have to work to kill them. Now they're just easy fodder to whomever hits their little wooden faces first. At first I was excited to see they had regeneration, as it would have made them as fearsome as the originals, until I realize that they couldn't even regenerate since there is no open ground. Even a diorama in the area with real dirt they could retreat to would have been a nice addition. Worst off, they really decreased the difficulty even more when they not only cut the ape HP by nearly half, but they dropped the number of idols from three to one at sub-tier 1-2. For the climactic battle, it's a little disappointing now (was EL 5, now CR 3).

I did like changes to the Vargouile's tactics. They were fearsome to begin with, but it's not often you see a low-level fight that really focuses on ranged tactics. I can't complain at all about the update to this encounter.

I guess I'm a little confused over the reasoning for the changes of the medium constrictor into a tiny viper. The tiny viper incurs an AOO whenever it attacks, making it a far less fearsome opponent, and the flavor of the snake eating the guard was far more entertaining than him being crammed in the toilet. Sure the change still will get a few snickers and statements of "eew", but I admit a certain like of the original encounter.

The module is still fun and written like one of the best out there, but at sub-tier 1-2 all but two of the fights has been made significantly easier (one was made a hair harder, and another was kept the same). I know Mists was a favorite first module due to its fun environment and not-terribly-difficult play, so I guess out of nostalgia more than anything I wish it hadn't changed so significantly.

Is an Oracle who follows more than one god (let's say one of Battle who pays particular homage to Gorum, Iomedae, and Cayden) considered a priest of all of the gods, one of the gods, or no gods? What if it's a dwarf? Do they get access to all the ancestral spells?

What does "ban on 7 players" mean? What happens if

(1) there is seven players
(2) no one wants to GM a second table
Would you turn a player away?

I have experienced a few instances of this type and we ran with a 7-player table. Of course it is not the preferred, but inclusiveness should win out.

Here's a hypothetical. Lets say you have six registered players and a seventh shows up. How is that any different than if you have six registered players and two show up? In one case you're pretty much required to turn away one of the players (unless somebody is willing to step up), and in the other case you could turn the player away, let them play at less fun had for everybody, or attempt to get somebody to GM. None are really positive options. Sure, it's all about getting people to play, but really, having them crammed in at a seven person table in my experience does not provide an opportunity for the new player to really want to play the game. In some cases it may even do more harm than good.

What I do is have one player come prepared with something and basically say, "you're on call, if five more show, you play, if six more show, I'll need your help." Hopefully you've got players who are willing to lend a hand when needed. If you don't, then I'd say you have a larger problem on your hands.

The book-in-the-envelope-in-the-box trick gives that book some additional protection.

Aaah...still doesn't explain why those warehouse Scrooges take away my zip-tab opening pleasure.

Aelryinth wrote:

1) Does Fast Healing stop bleed damage? By a strict reading of the rules, it's not a magical HP cure (its EX) and it's not a heal check...but it makes no sense for it NOT to stop it.

Yes. Fast healing stops bleed damage (provided it's!$# point bleed, and not ability score bleed).

Were you deliberately trying to break the new profanity filter?

If you were to personally able to visit and adventure as a Pathfinder in any of the region(s) outlined in the Inner Sea Guide, where would you go?

EDIT: I should say, other than the Mwangi Expanse so you can see a T-Rex.

I love 3 person + 1 iconic tables both as a judge and a player. Everyone get a chance to shine, you get the iconic to fill whatever role you need, and things move really quickly.

I have instituted a personal ban on 7 person tables. I refuse to judge a 7 person table and if I somehow get seated at a 7 person table I'll bow out and do something else with my time.

I'll be honest. At the local game I coordinate I have a ban on 7 player tables too. They're terrible to run, and they're even less fun to play at. I try very hard to make sure that table sizes cap out at five players, but even then six happens on occasion. I'll also be honest that if at all possible I'll split six players into two tables with an iconic NPC at each. The more personal attention a player can have, usually the more fun the game winds up being.

/Out of the 16 scenarios I've GM'ed, I have yet to kill a player.

I've killed one player to date and it was a case of "I get to kill this character, or if I go for the logical choice - the game will result in a TPK." I went for the former. Was it bad tactics? Probably, but I wonder how many people who want to have the capability of making things tougher on the fly would have done that. In fact, without pointing fingers at any of you (because I've seen you all post enough that I'm pretty confident most of you are not like this), how many people want the ability to change things up because they think things are too easy because they're used to seeing deaths in their home environment, but rarely see any in OP.

Just a thought though.

I have an Alchemist 4/Rogue 2 myself that's based off a mutagen fighty build. I went for the strength build (with sneak attack damage)simply because of the claw/claw/bite attack you can pull off from a feral mutagen. Enlarged, feral mutagened, with a base strength of 16 means you'll be pulling off a +6 damage modifier on two 1d8 and one 2d6 attack with a high enough dexterity that you're still able to get around the battlefield pretty well. I still use bombs, but dedicate them to the first round or two of battle while I close the distance (think the now-standard switch-hitter build for rangers). I personally think this is a more viable build than the rapier build you outlined earlier.

That being said, I'm really not feeling the character. Sure I deal massive amounts of damage in combat and I'm beefy enough to stand next to the fighter, but the class feels empty. I have enough skills to feel useful out of combat and I certainly can hold my own in combat, so I'm thinking it's a style thing of the mad dwarf, but I could be wrong.

When I get home if I remember, I'll post up my stats.

By the way, I would also like to see a Blakros Museum flip-mat.

Main floor and basement level on the two sides. Yeah, a "museum" map pack would be cool.

Hello Thorn,

I don't typically list our sessions out beyond the current 2-3. We meet the first and third Sunday of every month. Memorial Day is not currently on our list and it's out a bit further than the group typically plans. Since we're meeting this weekend, I will be asking what the group wants to do for May.

Until then, John runs a game over at The Source (the area's largest game shop) that would be a good alternative.

We do hope to hear from you again though if you're in the area!

Why do you guys tape up the UPS boxes that have my monthly subscriptions in them? I never get the pleasure of pulling the box tab and feeling it make that pleasant "zrrrrrp" sound.

Better yet, is there a reason I'll find my UPS boxes with a UPS pouch inside?

Part of that is the culture of Living Greyhawk, which sold itself on being a rougher and more difficult campaign than the average. That said, I found "Killer GM"s to be rare even in that campaign. LG was just a much easier campaign to die in due to the scenarios. One scenario was a plague scenario. Basically unless you're a Paladin, if you're the first person to minister aid to the sick in that scenario, you're a dead man walking as you will not get to help in time and ordinary cure disease spells have no effect on it. (The Fortitude roll to avoid catching the disease was some absurdly high number)

The culture also extended itself pretty heavily into the Goodman Games Dungeon Tournaments. In those cases the GMs were actually given TPK ribbons as a "badge of honor" when they killed off a party. I wonder how many GMs come from the tournament world where that kind of attitude is rewarded as part of the standard of play.

I've noticed a couple of cases where modules are built assuming that a certain class is available, but generally I've found them pretty well balanced regardless of what kinds of characters players play.

Hello again!

The regular meeting of the MSP Pathfinders has been scheduled for Sunday March 20th and as-always we're looking for players. We have enough registered that we have three different modules running at three tables with players currently ranging in level from 1 to 3. There's still space available and we enjoy fresh mea...I mean faces, so if you're interested come join us.

When: Sunday March 20th, 12:00 Noon to 5:00
Where: Fantasy Flight Games Event Center in Roseville, Minnesota
What: #41: The Devil You Know Part III: Crypt of Fools (running at sub-tier 3-4), #51: The City of Strangers Part 1 - The Shadow Gambit (running at sub-tier 1-2), and #5: The Mists of Mwangi (running at sub-tier 1-2)

I'd like to play, what should I do?
If you are interested, please let me know at my e-mail address (rbolduan <at> gmail <dot> com), and either myself or one of our other players will get you in the loop to get setup. If you have any friends or family that may be interested, please let me know.

This is a diverse group of all types and ages (we have two families who bring their kids to these games although one group won't be able to make it on Sunday), so we're friendly to players of all kinds.

If you are new to pen & paper or have not played in a while, this is a great bunch to start back up with.

Our group uses both, but the Critical Hit Deck has received far more negative attention at our table. Players (again at my table) seem to be willing to accept a less arbitrary Critical Failure result, but don't like that instead of getting a bonus to damage they get what they consider to be a minor and/or inconsequential critical result.

That's why we implemented the following rules:

1. When you score a critical hit you can choose either to a) take your damage modifier, or b) draw a card from the deck. Drawing a card from the deck expends a x1 modifier, so a x3 weapon could gain a deck draw and still do x2 damage. A couple players use the deck, several don't.

2. Critical fumbles can occur on the first hit only, this minimizes the penalties to the martial classes who should not be fumbling more often (but do due to more attacks than their non-martial counterparts).

3. To confirm a critical fumble, there is a BAB check against the attack, not a dex check as is suggested in the book.

4. Schleps (speds, minions, etc.) automatically fumble on a 1 and incur an automatic AOO opportunity. Big bad guys make their roles like any other player. This REALLY speeds things up.

5. Big bad guys and PCs that fail their confirmation of a critical failure draw from the critical failure deck.

So far this has worked out pretty well.

Congrats on earning the title!

Don't get me wrong, I personally love playing the multi-parters. It's a great chance to feel more connected to what's happening in the world. So as a player, I love them. As a GM and psuedo-coordinator I hate them with a passion.

This was stated perfectly. I love the stories involved in the multi-parters, but man they're a pain in the butt to coordinate. If I were to make one request, it would be that we cap the multi-part modules at two parts. Part 2 is notoriously hard to fill, and in my experience always seems to be played by a bunch of new players who just showed up and got stuck at the table, which then ruins their fun for Part 1. Adding in Parts 3 and 4 make things completely untenable for anything but a home game.

I will freely admit it. I am a rules lawyer. I have turned out this way because I prefer consistency in my games. It frustrates me to high-hell as a player when a GM decides that "X is too powerful" or "I don't like the way Y works" when they do not have a good understanding of why that makes things balanced. I believe some people have the ability to design a game well, but I do not believe all GMs have this ability. As such, I prefer consistent rules I understand and know from game-to-game.

That being said, when I GM I have one very important rule. If rules-lawyering takes more than a couple of minutes (we all have to look up the damn grapple rules so some leeway needs to be made), then I as a GM will make a call with the express understanding that the next time we play, after I've looked up the real rule, we will play with that rule. Frankly, it's been a reasonably good middle-ground. The fast-and-furious players don't feel like the rules are bogging down the game, and the rules-lawyer types feel that the game maintains its consistency overall.

YMMV.

What would be fantastic would be if Season 3 were story-arched out for each Faction in 4 plot points that would be triggered each quarter if the faction reported PA hit some predefined goal. The players would know there are 4 plot points, but not know what they were.

That would be an interesting take on it. Turn it into a game less about winning, and more about meeting goals for the faction. In a way they already use this kind of system in the annual Pathfinder Special (if X number of tables do Y, then Z happens). The difficult part of this system is keeping those faction goals throughout the year's adventures. Perhaps a way to do it would be to run a four part module (I know, not my favorite), where each module has a 3-month lag-time and those plot points are written into those modules, changing them as the factions report in. It wouldn't be the easiest thing to manage, but it might work.

I guess I'll join the dissenting voice on this one. I understand that free-lancing happens, especially when you have a creative group of players that like to run off the rails. When I play though, I do not enjoy it when a GM decides to take liberties with the overall feel of the adventure in order to "bring the challenge more in line with the group." Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I'll give up the times it works to bring some consistency to the GMs I play under. A good GM with a group of familiar players might be able to pull it off, but in my experience, in general GMs overestimate their abilities to adapt the game. Once you open that floodgate, you've opened the field to a lot of GMs that frankly do not have the capabilities of modifying a module appropriately, even if they think they do.

In my experience at the major conventions (Gen Con in particular), I can honestly say that my good GM experience is about equal to that of my bad GM experience. Every one of those bad GMs decided to take liberties with the module; one of those GMs I have had the displeasure of playing with twice and both I and two of my friends will walk away from if we're ever put at his table again. For better or worse, allowing this as a de-facto rule in PFS play I believe will open up the system to more harm than good. Sure good GMs are capable, but in my experiences, those good GMs are not as common as you believe.

I, for one, would love to see more multi-part scenarios. These tend to be the ones my players like the best.

I don't mind multi-part scenarios, but I do dislike those that go on for four modules, especially when they're written in a manner that explicitly states "you must play modules #1 and #2 to play #3, and you must play #3 to play #4. It can cause pretty significant hiccups when a player misses one of the modules, or when a bunch of new players show up to a gameday.

I can't wait to see the return of faction play. I do hope they add in a more traditional "Pathfinder Society" faction instead of the national factions, as there are times I wish that the option were there. I do hope though that the new system is less about "winning" and more about "moving the story ahead" though.

I know that it isn't an easy task

+1

I know we're all getting antsy, but I think Hyrum and Mark are working on this as fast as they can. Since (as they have stated) the "update" OP Guide is in fact a complete rewrite containing multiple guides (quick-start, player, and GM so far announced), we know they're working on it.

As for a specific date. Paizo has done well for itself not committing to specific dates of release to prevent disappointment when inevitably other priorities take hold. I really doubt you'll get a firm response from any of the powers that be.

Without knowing the classes the party wants to play, it's difficult to give specific advice. Pathfinder really does not require a dedicated "healer" in the party to play well. In my last four Pathfinder groups I have had one with a cleric and we always did just fine. The key is having Cure Light Wounds on your list so you can use a wand. If the group can heal between fights with a wand, they're going to be just fine in fights.

If you have three fighters though, you're probably going to have to tweak your campaign a little though.

So here are some ideas of other spells to put it on that are not capped (I looked at levels 1-3 since I think the goal is to get the advantage fairly early).

Level 1:
None

Level 2:

• Burning Gaze - Add 3 rounds to the duration, damage increase from duration increase
  
• Elemental Touch - Add 3 rounds to the duration, damage increase from duration increase
  
• Fire Breath - Add 3 rounds to the duration, no damage increase
  
• Flaming Sphere - Add 3 rounds to the duration, damage increase from duration increase
  
• Scorching Ray - You hit your damage cap at 8 rather than 11
  
• Veil of Ash - Add 3 rounds to the duration of the negative effect
  

Level 3:

• Elemental Aura - Add 3 rounds to the duration, damage increase from duration increase
  
• Fireball - Cap your damage at level 7 rather than level 10
  
• Heatstroke - Add 3 minutes to the duration of the negative effect
  
• Flame Arrow - Add 30 minutes to the duration
  

My groups don't typically run past 12th (and neither does PFS), so yes, it is capped for a lot of players, but if you're thinking PFS at all, it's essentially uncapped.

Hmmm, makes me wonder if there's a better choice though.

You'll get CL4, but wouldn't it be more fun to put it on an uncapped early level spell like scorching ray rather than on one that's capped fairly early and at a low-damage total?

Mark has already stated that a print out from a legal copy is good enough. Does no one in your regular group own the book? I do. I can send you a pdf with the pages you need.

There is nothing special about this situation to justify a rebuild of any kind.

I would not suggest offering up copies (or parts of copies) of your Paizo PDFs on the Paizo forums. Regardless to whether or not you're doing this for the right reasons, I'm fairly certain Paizo would still consider it piracy.

It's one thing to share the paper PDF or book amongst your group, it's another thing entirely to send your PDF to a fellow Pathfinder player simply because they're having tough economic times.

I think Misty Slanky mentioned this above, but you can actually spend 2PA to get a wand of CLW for free...no gold required.

Yup. Remember you can spend 2PA on any one item worth up to 750 gp. This covers scrolls and potions up to third level and wands of 1st. You don't need to spend a single coin of gold to pick those up. Also in case there was any confusion, remember the difference between "Current" Prestige and "Total" prestige. The latter is required to be able to buy equipment of a specific value, the former can be spent on all sorts of stuff from healing to equipment.

Wanting to make sure this is correct, if anyone will erify for me. I've done exactly this, but didnt think I could actually use the wands, as the first 3 levels of ranger dont actually provide you with spells.

This is a pretty common misconception. You're mixing up Spell Completion items (common for scrolls) with Spell Trigger items (which include wands). You need the spell on your list and you must be able to cast it in order to use a spell completion item (meaning a Ranger couldn't use a scroll of CLW until levels 4 or 5) but you simply need the spell on your list to use a Spell Trigger item.

Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

and...

Activation: Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.

Also, if this does work, this is the route I suggest. The boost to Ref helps alot, assuming you dont have alot of Dex, and it gives you access to alot of skills you wouldnt otherwise have. Plus, you casting CLW from a wand is just as good of healing as it is from the Cleric level.

Barbarian/Rangers are a fun combo, especially now that Rangers get some nice 2-hander feats.

Thats what i keep coming up with in the end.

Barbarians are good at dealing damage but after battle you seem to need a lot of healing that the party just does not want to give up so easily and buying Cure light wounds over and over is a lot of pencil work. Dont get me wrong the party heals regularly but i would feel more comfortable if i had a little healing myself.

It may be "pencil work" but it is hands down the absolute best way to regain health after a fight. Every single one of my characters has a cure light wounds wand to hand over to the cleric (or use himself) for a little zappity-zap after the fight's over. I suggest the same to every other player in my local group - bring your own wand for your own healing. There is virtually no better way to spend 2 PA.

0gre wrote:

The class he's playing is no longer legal which seems to me reasonable case for a rebuild.

Actually, no. Mark has already stated that the release of Inner Sea does not include any rebuild options.

I think that although close, the official ruling didn't really think through the outside cases. There will be a number of people that are in this boat (have characters which require a mandatory rewrite that was entirely unexpected). In most cases I'd agree that had this "been known" for a long time the player should be responsible to upgrade, but this one came way out of left field. I don't think any of us expected that they'd update a PrC that's barely a year old in a guide which never covered the PrC in the first place. The only real fair response is for Paizo to update the requirements and let characters built under the original PrC stay "grandfathered in" as they did the retired Campaign Guide feats, otherwise it is in essence forcing players to buy products that they were not aware even in the slightest were due for a change.

I have no problem with upgrades on products we know are coming (playtest classes, updates which we're given months upon months of notice (e.g. Inner Sea Guide), but forced changes nobody saw coming is another story entirely.

Naah, your response wasn't nearly as exciting as what I'm used to from Dragnmoon.

The general concern about PFS is to get people playing, but there's the not-so-hidden agenda of getting people to buy products. If you let players start playing the game without needing to buy the books, you're hardly using PFS as the marketing tool it's meant to be. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that the whole "you need the book to use the content" thing is pretty hard and fast.

Now back to the original comment. In this case a player obviously went out of his way to buy material that was overwritten by newer material. In the case of the content of the original Guide, that material is grandfathered in, so you don't need to buy the Inner Sea Guide. I would hope that Mark would indicate that players who have the original Hellknight material can use the new material as long as they bring their original AP.

Remember that the Play Play Play rule trumps all. If that little rule is the difference between him playing or not, then it is squashed by the mighty Play Play Play.

*Waits for Dragnmoon to pipe in on that response.*

Alizor, both my friend and I were under the impression that this wasn't legal -- that a player need to bring (a) a physical copy of the product, or (b) a print-out of a legal pdf with the player's name on it. (Or borrow such a thing from someone else at the table.)

Heck, I can tell him what's different: the three tiers of the class have gone, no more merciless power, lwfullness comes later, but several other abilities come sooner. But to play the character, he has to have the World Guide. Or so we've understood. If printouts from d20pfsrd are legal for PFS OP play, that would indeed make things easier.

I think the idea is that home games don't usually follow the "you need the book" rules, and store games are usually close-knit enough that the coordinator will sometimes look the other way. It's conventions where the rule gets enforced most strongly.

Dragnmoon wrote:

seriously though, if $10 is the difference between feeding his daughter or buying a PDF, he should most likely stop playing PFS until he has a Job again, because there are other expenses involved that could be used for better use.

Agreed wholeheartedly. At this point, PFS should be no where near a priority.

Maybe not, but everybody deserves a break for fun. It's been mentioned countless times that role-playing is an extremely inexpensive hobby, especially if you already own the materials or a friend can lend you materials. I'd be willing to bet PFS isn't a "priority", but it probably is something he does to at least relax from time to time. I'm in a lot of agreement with Chris over this one, changing up materials which essentially force another purchase, even if that purchase is "only" $10 is a little unfair to a lot of people who may not have the cash to upgrade. It's one thing when we're talking a playtest, in those situations it's a known quantity that you will need to buy the book and upgrade the character; the changes to the Hellknight kind of came out of left field.

Then you should probably start a new character that does what you're looking for instead of messing with the one you have. I can promise you that you'll regret multiclassing a barbarian without planning it out from level 1.

Agreed. Multi-classing takes a fair amount of prep work to pull off well. I must say though that a two level dip into fighter doesn't require a ton of futzing and man it opens up the options for a Pathfinder Society barbarian.

How about ability to spend PA to join other factions from the faction guide? Then we could spend our PA on those faction rewards.

Maybe next time got -1 on CHA for up my Con

So is it just Oracle CHA based casters or is it all casters because I dont know much About Pathfinder or RPG im new to all this

Clerics and Druids are wisdom based. If you don't have at least an 11 WIS, you can't cast spells.

Ideas are really good and i would like to thank you for replying so quickly. I never thought of a witch or Oracle but the ideas sounds good. I was planing on taken the domain spells for the druid not the animal companion.

looks like i have a hard decision to make.

Would Oracle of flame hype up my Elemental Rage power?

I love the idea of uping his speed to its already 40 but i love me some movement.

I am trying to buy an Advanced Guide but i hear they are backorderd so idk much about the Advanced Classes

You can read about Oracles here.

One thing I didn't ask/mention. If your charisma isn't very high, don't go Oracle (since it's your casting stat). If you were to go Oracle of flame though, I would think about the following.

Take the lame curse. Sure it's a -10 movement penalty, but hey, at level 5 you gain immunity to fatigue which is just too good to pass up for your Barbarian. Now normally I would only go for four levels of the class (since at 5 you lose another BAB), but that fatigue bonus is just too good to pass up. Now, if you take the cinder dance mystery you not only gain an extra feat, but you regain that 10 feet of movement and again go back up to a movement speed of 40'. You would gain Burning Hands (5d4 damage at level 5) and resist energy as bonus spells, both of which nicely tie into your idea of the fire elemental rage power. You would also get one other mystery with 5 levels which could be one of a number of good choices that could easily tie back into your spirit background.

Just a thought. Problem is that most people dump CHA, so there's a good chance that if you're already level 4, you're not going to be able to pull this one off.

Do you think Pathfinder Dwarves could have broken out of the "smelly and dirty" mold had they been redesigned with a -2 dexterity penalty (or other penalty) rather than the charisma penalty? If you could have done it differently for Pathfinder, fans of Dwarves be damned, how would you have liked to see them treated?

Note, I do like Dwarves more than the average person and really appreciate the absolute sinister and conniving way that they are portrayed in Dragon Age. It was a welcome change.