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pathar's page

Organized Play Member. 454 posts (2,902 including aliases). 102 reviews. 1 list. 1 wishlist. 35 Organized Play characters. 6 aliases.


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5/5

Erik Mona wrote:
Patrick Harris @ MU wrote:


Honest to God, Thea, I don't think I am. I have not in any way condemned this move, I have simply expressed concerns about it. Everything I have said has been pointing out that there are both ups and downs, and explaining why I feel that way. The only thing that's gotten me at all irate is the assertion that I shouldn't be voicing my opinion at all.

Patrick,

Your concerns have been well noted by the PFS team, by the other participants in this thread, and by Paizo's publisher. The latter is working very hard to devote more resources to Pathfinder Society as soon as possible, so that we have more capacity to do things like this. This year, internal scheduling concerns make it so that drafting a brand new scenario for the Exclusive slot was not in the cards.

I respectfully ask you to roll with this particular blow. The deed is done. We understand that it is not universally popular, and the best we can do is take that into consideration when we are planning out our offerings for 2015 and beyond.

If my attempts to deliberately be non-offensive in my analysis of announcements is to be interpreted as an overreaction requiring the intercession of the CCO, then I have clearly jumped the shark. So, screw it. Thanks for your time.

5/5

Michael Brock wrote:
I have added modules to the reward. Enjoy!

Cool. Thanks.

5/5

When I was organizing a game day in San Diego, there were two other game days locally and one way up north. Instead of trying to track who played what, I just tracked what had been run when and where. So I had a scenario list, and every few weeks I'd go through the Warhorns of the other game days, and when I saw a scenario, I'd update it to that date and flag that game day. Then, whenever I was picking new scenarios for my game day, I'd just sort by date and pick the stuff that had been run least recently. I left it up to my players to keep track of whether or not they wanted to play any given thing.

(Which isn't to say that I didn't respond to requests; as long as there was interest I was good with it. But using stuff that hadn't happened locally in a while seemed a good plan.)

5/5

David_Bross wrote:

John Compton's response

** spoiler omitted **

Aww, weaksauce. :(

5/5

David_Bross wrote:
Joseph Caubo wrote:
If a player has a character they bring to both physical gamedays and online games, they need to be prepared to have both paper copies and / or digital copies, depending on their gameplay environment. Once again, this is to make sure they are in compliance with the stated rules in the Guide. If the player is unprepared in either game space, the GM is well within their right to ask the player to leave.

Joseph,

Does this mean that in a LGS I'd be required to have paper copies of my chronicles? It seems odd that if I could email my chronicles to a GM to audit me, I couldn't show a GM at the LGS my chronicles on my laptop, tablet, etc.

This actually does kind of open that door. And I'd really enjoy walking through it--I have everything on my tablet now except Chronicles. I think I'll start a thread after GenCon to see what people think ...

5/5

Nefreet wrote:
I'm GMing this at an upcoming Con. Can I apply the Chronicle to a brand new character, and still have him get the Sihedron Brand for free?

As a GM, you can select any boon on the Chronicle sheet. But GM credit holds for the appropriate subtier; a brand new character therefore wouldn't get this boon until 7th level. So it doesn't matter which character you put it on.

Now, if you played this with a pregen, and the pregen got the brand, and then you started a new character with the pregen Chronicle first, then it gets iffy. I think ... technically ... yes? Because it's been clarified that when you do that, you do have access to the boons on the sheet that you earned. Hm.

... that's kind of tempting, actually. ;p

5/5

Krail Stromquism wrote:
They were a player at the time they did this, but they do DM on occasion. I'm new to this group so I'm still getting my bearings with who is who and how involved in PFS this individual actually is. Most disappointing is this person has a really solid grasp of the rules and tactics, just not the spirit of the game.

Bring this to the attention of the event coordinator. If it was the event coordinator, bring it to the attention of a local VO. If it was the local VO, bring it to the attention of Mike Brock.

5/5

Undone wrote:
As a named intelligent item it doesn't appear Gamin can be upgraded is this intentional?

I agree with Matthew's answers but I don't think he addressed this sub-question, so I wanted to note that yes, this is all very intentional. If you take Gamin, you take him broken and un-upgradable. It's deliberate.

5/5

ArmouredMonk13 wrote:
Is an Aasimar a human? if not, no. I think if you have Scion of Humanity Alternate Racial Trait, you are still an Aasimar, so I don't think you can take human only feats. You are a humanoid human, like humans, but Drows are Humanoid Elves and so are Elves. Drows don't qualify for Elf only Feats, so Aasimars don' t qualify for human only feats.

Normally, yes, but not in PFS--feats (etc) in the ARG are restricted by race specifically. ("Alternate racial traits, racial archetypes, racial evolutions, racial feats, and racial spells are only available for characters of the associated race.")

5/5

Michael Brock wrote:
James Risner wrote:


Jack-of-Blades wrote:
they left my corpse there, finished the scenario, and then refused to help me with my raise dead because I "Hadn't contributed meaningfully to the scenario, nor had I pulled my weight at any point."

This is the kind of reprehensible behavior I wish campaign leadership would tackle instead.

Ok I'm all ears on suggestions. Campaign leadership can't be all over the globe for every game and we can't physically stop someone from playing. So, what suggestions do you have for tackling this specific kind of problem? If we could stop the very few players out there from being jerks, we wouldn't have nearly as many complaints on this message board or in my email inbox.

Is there anything in the Guide about disputing GM conduct? I don't recall anything, and I just took a glance through at section titles without seeing anything leap out at me. Maybe a section somewhere in the player-oriented chapters about checking in with higher authorities when one feels wronged by the end result of a game?

5/5

Doctor Kash wrote:
thejeff wrote:

How about just a text tutorial? And does it start with "Buy a scanner."?

Once I've got them in digital format there are any number of ways to get them to an online GM. It's that first step.

You could use a scanner, but I don't see the need for it. Let me see what I can produce just off the top of my head.

As a GM:
Download and install Nitro PDF Reader
Sign up for a dropbox account, and install that
Open the scenario PDF, then go to the chronicle sheet page.
File > Print
Under printer, change the printer option to Nitro PDF Creator (Reader 3) and just print the Current Page.
A Save As dialog should come up, allowing you to save a PDF of just the chronicle sheet.
Next, go to pdfescape.com
Upload the chronicle sheet PDF you've just created
Use PDFEscape's tools to fill out the necessary information
Click the download button when finished (looks like a green box with two white arrows pointing down)
Save the filled out sheet
On your computer you should have a new Dropbox folder (Default is under My Documents). Within this folder is a Public folder. Anything you place in there will be public. Save the completed PDF into this folder (Subfolders are okay).
After that if you navigate to the file in that folder, you should be able to right click on it and within that menu find a Drobpox section. Under the Dropbox section you should find an option to Copy Public Link.
All you need to do at that point is give that link to whoever you're intending to send the sheet to.

As a player you can follow the steps above except that you don't have to create the initial PDF.

Like I said, quick and dirty, and not up to my usual standards of documentation. Eventually I will church this up and put it on the Youtubes.

The point is that a player with paper chronicles doesn't necessarily own a scanner.

5/5

TOZ wrote:
Since when has lack of knowledge ever stopped us from arguing?

Argue away. I'm just saying this thread's getting slightly out of hand.

5/5

Y'all need to calm your respective secondary sexual characteristics. We don't even know what the rule is yet.

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Londar Cleaver wrote:
FanaticRat wrote:

Here's hoping for getting a ratfolk boon. Ratfolk are cool.

Or an android witch with a sheep familiar.

hmmmm so then do Androids really dream of electric sheep?

(that's the joke)

5/5

Deanoth wrote:
But it HAPPENS all the time!!!

It wasn't a stipulated condition of the question to which I was responding.

5/5

thejeff wrote:
pathar wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

Well no, but that's because I consider that a dick move and don't do that in the first place.

5/5

TriOmegaZero wrote:
What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

5/5

The Earl of Gray Park wrote:
pathar wrote:
Derek Weil wrote:
This makes total sense to me. Isn't part of the metaplot that you've just spent three years as a Pathfinder Trainee?

Not anymore. One of the devs--I think it was Mark--said that they were moving away from that, which is why that while Seekers of Secrets talked about it a lot, the Field Guide did not.

(I'm sure someone with more search-fu than I have could dig up the actual link to the actual quote from the actual dev. I'm way too lazy.)

This post in this thread, maybe?

Nope. It was quite a while ago. (I know, it's pretty vague. ;p)

5/5

Derek Weil wrote:
This makes total sense to me. Isn't part of the metaplot that you've just spent three years as a Pathfinder Trainee?

Not anymore. One of the devs--I think it was Mark--said that they were moving away from that, which is why that while Seekers of Secrets talked about it a lot, the Field Guide did not.

(I'm sure someone with more search-fu than I have could dig up the actual link to the actual quote from the actual dev. I'm way too lazy.)

5/5

Unknown Ediology wrote:

As Season 5 of Society play is nearly upon us, I keep hearing certain rumors and conjecture floating around. The are roughly "Season 5 is going to be the most challenging season yet!", and "season 5 is going to really test your characters and strain them to their max". However, I have never seen any posts alluding to this. And I worry about such hearsay, because it's pushing a lot of players I know to focus upon optimization, optimization, optimization; rather than focusing on other fun ideas they'd enjoy.

So, are these rumors true or not? If they are true, can someone please point me to the direct source from whence these sprang? Thanks in advance!

I'm not aware of any reputable source for this information. MM&J have repeatedly mentioned that nobody except them can speak to the overall difficulty of Season 5.

5/5

FanaticRat wrote:
Hobbun wrote:

Matthew,

From how I understand from Lady Ophelia's report, you won't take a hit playing down, you still get a "Out of Subtier" Gold bonus to make up for the lesser rewards for your level:

Lady Ophelia wrote:

1) If you are a lowbie playing up.. You will recieve a "Out Of Subtier" Gold bonus. It's not going to be the same as playing up for the big tier payout, but if you are the only one playing out of tier, it's a way to compensate you without getting too "grossly" as Master Compton stated paid out in gold.

And it's the same if you are required to play down. It will allow those who do not want to apply credits to another character the option to play down and not get screwed either on a lower payout.

So both get the "Out of Subtier" gold bonus from how I understand it.

I think the concern is more "if you played down a lot, there'll be no way to recoup the gold you lost from playing down", which is what I, personally, am worried about.

If playing down splits the difference--which is what I think we're talking about here--and playing up does the same, then playing up can cover the gap left by playing down ... just like it does right now. It just won't be as important either way.


Liz Courts wrote:
I'm guessing what is being hidden the most is what people don't want to see.

I don't follow.


I doubt that any significant data crunching has been done on this, since you'd need a full on psych/anthro coding system to properly quantify topics. But I'm very curious if anyone's just taken a glance.

Mostly, though, I think you'll find that "most hides" will correlate with "longest-running threads."

5/5

melferburque wrote:
pathar - you mean they devolve into immaturity, or it's just a bad idea?

Kind of a warning, kind of an in-joke. There was a fiasco a while back about someone who wanted to ride a big and the various legalities of it. That said, people actually seem to be reading your post and noting that you just want to come close to the concept, instead of actually executing it, so I might have been premature. ;p

5/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Helpful hint: Threads about riding pigs have not, historically, tended to end well.

5/5

James Risner wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
If you feel it is necessary, then by all means demonstrate.
Is it worth the time to demonstrate? I suspect it would provoke yet another rules change to close the "hole" instead of demonstrate there are always going to be "holes" in the system. No?

C'mon, man. You issued a grandiose statement about your personal capabilities and you were challenged to prove it. If you're not going to follow through at least have the grace to admit that.

And posturing aside, I would actually like for you to do this. Or explain your process to me, and I'll do it. Because I would love to track how it works, and make posts explaining what I did, so that the system can be thoroughly analyzed from an actual numerical perspective, instead of through anecdotal evidence. Or better yet, I'd like to have someone else do it, because I'm lazy but still want to read the results. So we're back to you, since it was your claim that was challenged: C'mon, man, do it.

Quote:
pathar wrote:
James Risner wrote:
like 120 to 130k in practice with people playing up whenever possible.
Where are you getting these numbers?
From me. My first character I played from 1 to 12 straight (no other characters) and when given a choice between tables I picked the table that would have been playing up using the APL calculations.

Your sample size of n=1 does not trump the feedback that campaign leadership gets through (1) the boards (2) what they see at conventions and (3) what they get through their feedback network (player/GM -> VO -> leadership). Also, the circumstances of your single example--playing up when you have the option--does not refute the original point, which required playing up every time.


DeathQuaker wrote:
Maybe they didn't mean to, but personally I'd like to give the team the benefit of the doubt that they are competent and skilled enough not to remove a board feature by accident.
Gary Teter wrote:
There's no nefarious plan and we're not removing functionality. Looks like we may have broken something recently, we'll take a look. Please remember the flagging system if you have posts you need removed.

I think you just ruined DeathQuaker's image of you.

5/5

James Risner wrote:
While 180k would be impressive, I think you will find in reality it is more like 120 to 130k in practice with people playing up whenever possible.

Where are you getting these numbers?

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Hobbun wrote:
The newer seasons are more difficult

There's no evidence to support this. Season 4 was harder than Seasons 0-3, but MM&J have made it extremely clear that nobody will know how hard Season 5 will be until they are playing it. From their repeated assurances of same, I've gotten the impression that they intend to make it slightly less difficult.

That's strictly conjecture, by the way. I can't point to any specific wording. It's just a hunch.

That said, I think it would be a great move. If playing up isn't quite so deadly--if it goes back to the way it used to be, where maybe you use some more consumables but it's not an instance death sentence--then there's no real reason not to play up to make a table go off, and no real reason to want to play up otherwise. Reducing the possibility of constantly getting extra gold also reduces the power of items in play, which in turn makes characters not as powerful, which in turn regulates the playing field--because for every two or three people I've seen complaining that Season 4 is too hard, I've seen at least one responding that it's still a cakewalk. Maybe if people can't play up, even optimized builds will be slightly more challenged, while still allowing non-optimized builds a fair chance.

Besides, I think they've demonstrated conclusively that haters gonna hate--no matter what they try to do, people complain. So it makes sense to strive for a balanced solution to each problem and just let the outliers complain.

And finally, despite the anecdotal assurances of various posters that they've never seen broken WBL curves, I can vouch for the fact that I have definitely seen them. And clearly, so have the coordinators of the campaign.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Folks, have you considered the possibility that it's just broken?

5/5

Ugh all I can think now is Ei-dolan. "Sumnr plz"

5/5

TheInnsmouthLooker wrote:
Will it be a problem if some of them don't register though?

Nope. As long as you do your due diligence by giving them their cards, you're in the clear. I know regular players who never bother to register--it's not a problem.

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Lord Fyre wrote:
I live in Poway

Then you, my friend, are in luck. Check out the game day at At Ease Games--it's a great crowd and a great store. They can also help with any questions you have about how the organized play system works. :)

5/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Personally, I'm almost certainly going to use this for re-running things. I don't particularly enjoy re-playing things, or even playing once after GMing. (I still do it, because I like chronicle sheets, but hey.)

Maybe I can see jumping on a replay table for crazy fun at the last minute, but that's rewarding all by itself. But I really like the idea of being rewarded for GMing things again.


I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to do this on 8/1 instead. On 7/31 I'm going to be climbing the walls stressing about my 12 hour drive the next day and compulsively hitting refresh. On 8/1 I'm going to be driving for 12 hours and unable to check in anyway.

So, you know. Sorry for the inconvenience. You understand.

.
.
.

;D

5/5

Drogon wrote:
There is a lot here that is really good when you look at it carefully, and the men who put this in place should be commended, not chastised for having not done still more.

Agreed.

But I'm honestly very surprised it took until message #86 for someone to do it anyway.

5/5

Yep! Just give them the card the ID is printed on so they can use the listed URL (assuming they ever actually get around to registering).

5/5

TriOmegaZero wrote:
If I keep running into light-sensitive/deeper darkness using enemies I'm spending 750 a scenario. How often do you run into those?

Not terribly, but I suspect I haven't played as many scenarios as you.

5/5

Andrea Brandt wrote:
Oh, I expected you would, but I'm an optimist and often hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Since I hold my opinions on this matter strongly enough to have an alias for expressing them, a sudden reversal would be surprising indeed.

5/5

TriOmegaZero wrote:
So should the rest of the party have reimbursed me for the 1500 I spent to succeed in Race for the Runecarved Key? Since my oil of daylight and potion of fly ended encounters much earlier than they would have been otherwise and saved the barbarian from taking more Con drain? Should I demand they start carrying such consumables as well? After all, they cost as much as a wand.

Do you almost always use between 1 and 50 of each in any given scenario?

5/5

James Risner wrote:
Millefune wrote:
I hope it's an uproar over there being a check in place to keep people from gaming the system by having a Level 7 or 8 tag along with a group of five or six Level 11s and sit in the back/middle and end up with an obscene WBL imbalance.
Well any diminished of gold for playing up will result in me (and a LOT of people I know) absolutely never playing up ever. Which will result in more games that don't fire. Which I guess the 2 or 5 people in all of PFS that might have slightly higher WBL than others get to make it harder to play the game. Great ;-(

The increased gold amount will cover consumables, which is what most people complained about losing out on if they got low tier gold for playing up. This will discourage people from wanting to play up at any given opportunity, but it won't penalize the ones who are willing to do so to get a table off.

Quote:
This is a problem that didn't need fixing, but because of a lot of complaints about a handful of people.

Do you have numbers on this, or are you just assuming it's only a handful?

5/5

Andrea Brandt wrote:

I'm not sure that's ever really an appropriate alias, unless it means something other than what I think it means. There's no reason to be snarky most of the time, but it is especially out of order when addressing someone that says, "I'm a complete newbie to this".

Basically, if you have a choice between being polite to someone or not, being polite is usually better, even if you think they won't realize that you weren't.

As evidenced, I disagree with your assessment.

5/5

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Drogon wrote:
pathar wrote:

Hmmmmmm.

Interesting. Very interesting.

I like where you're going with this, and I look forward to reading the new guide.

Psst! Hey, Patrick!

** spoiler omitted **

Indeed, good sir. Name your charity and I will be delighted to contribute.

5/5

Kyle Baird wrote:
Seth Gipson wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:

Should help for those high level bottlenecks that seekers run into...

Eyes of the ten x2 becomes possible at what, 3 stars? I better get crackin.

You could replay all of Eyes of the Ten once becoming a 4-star, as it is 4 parts long.
But part 1 is double-length! boo! I'm going to start a petition that Eyes can only be replayed fully by 5-star GMs, not you lowly 4-star peasants.

They've indicated a desire to replace those anyway. So I wouldn't sweat it. :D

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Also, "hissed intake of breath" was my exact reaction, so ... well played. ;p

5/5

Hmmmmmm.

Interesting. Very interesting.

I like where you're going with this, and I look forward to reading the new guide.

5/5

Jiggy wrote:
Posting under that alias is a bit un-called for when addressing a newbie, don't you think?

I wouldn't use it on a newbie who is saying, "I am a newbie please tell me where to start." But I'm comfortable using it when someone is asking for specifics without having read the basics. (The first paragraph of "Step 2: Race and Class" in the "Character Creation" chapter qualifies as pretty basic reading IMO.)

5/5

Earl Gendron wrote:
pathar wrote:

What I am about to say is not an indictment of the artist. That logo is exceptionally well rendered; I have no doubt about the technical and creative skills that went into it and do not wish to malign them.

However, from an aesthetic perspective, I wish to reiterate that I find this iconography atrociously juvenile, and I wish you weren't going with something that looks like the cover of a high school heavy metal band's self-released first album.

I'm not sure, But I think that this icon will be used to denote the year of the demon scenarios, so with a glance you can tell if the scenario fits into the main storyline. there have been some complaints in the past that the icons were not intuitive enough for newer GMs to know which storyline they went to. I think if you know the names, you can easily pick this out as year of the demon storyline.

I get the purpose.

I don't like the execution.

5/5

Paz wrote:
You might want to chat with your regional coordinator for an official comment, but given that it's an honest mistake by someone inexperienced with PFS, and the only person inconvenienced was yourself (by playing a 2nd level PC as 1st level), personally I'd have no issue with you getting your chronicles in order retrospectively, and advancing your PC to 5 XP, making sure your PC was fully levelled up and up to date.

Agreed.

5/5

wellsmv wrote:
I like the idea of unlocking a 1 time racial boon for gm stars ( ranking)... perhaps more folks will give back to the community and gm?

Have you seen this thread?

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