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Hi All,
I have been a long-time fan of ...
This sheet contains more than 85 pregenerated 1st level characters - one for every race/class combination, and then some - ready to be used at your Pathfinder Society table. These sheets are contained entirely on one page and formatted along the lines Paizo uses for their NPC statblocks. This version, 1.1, corrects some math errors from the first version and updates the pregens to the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play, version 2.1.
... very handy for players arriving at a convention without a Pathfinder Society character.
So I was wondering if anyone had gone to the trouble of creating a sharable PDF of their 1st level Alchemist, Cavalier, Inquisitor, Oracle, Summoner, Witch characters, legal for Pathfinder Society play?
I know a lot of discussion has occurred over on the playtest boards, there's a whole thread dedicated to Eidolon builds, but a PDF of nicely formatted character sheets that have had a few eyes run over them to ensure they're PFS 2.1 legal and ready to print would be a god-send!
Thanks,
DarkWhite
I thought when the playtests started, that James or Joshua, or one of the others running things, had said they would put out official pregens of the 6 classes, yet I cannot find them anywhere on Paizo's site, but maybe I am just not searching well tonight.
They're on the to-do list.
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As of now, only the pregens released by Paizo (which do not include the 6 playtest classes) are legal for play.
I've heard this before, but regardless of whether it states this in the Guide to Organised Play, it's actually an unenforcable myth.
Kyra, Valeros, Merisiel and Ezren are Paizo's "official" pre-gens, but *ANY* 1st level character which adheres to the Pathfinder Society RPG Core Rules and Guide to Pathfinder Society Organised Play 2.1 are legal for Society play, regardless of who created the character sheet.
If I download and print a 1st level character that someone else has kindly statted up for Society play, that's no different than asking a friend to help me allocate my ability scores or select my feats, regardless of whether you call it a "pre-gen" or not.
As much as I like Kyra, Valeros, Merisiel and Ezren, it does become a little tiring when a flood of new players at each Pathfinder convention I've run play the same four characters. Fan-created pre-gens such as Adam Thomas-Brashier's 85+ provide a welcome range of first-level characters from which a new player may choose, swap out a weapon or feat, and then call it their own. Pefectly legal.
What the Organised Play clause really refers to is the practice of playing a higher level version pre-gen, either to make up table numbers for a higher Tier game, or for someone interested in playing just one scenario at a higher level say a walk-in player at a convention - in either case, you may only use Paizo's "official" pre-gens for this purpose, the pre-gen "expires" at the end of the scenario, so you do not gain character credit (experience, gold etc) for playing the pre-gen.
Cheers,
DarkWhite
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I've been waiting to add the playtest classes until I a) have a bit more free time and b) see whether Jason is going to actually do another round of updates before the book comes out. I'm hoping if he does that we'll see a couple more cavalier orders and oracle foci, because they help a lot in coming up with different versions of the same character class for each race.
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Thanks Shisumo.
You're the guy who created the 85+ 1st level pregens?
I can understand your reasons for wanting to hold off. Even when Jason releases updates, these will still be in playtest and will need updating once again when the APG is published in August. But it was to encourage more playtesting that it would have been nice to have seen some pregens available.
May I ask what you used to generate the character sheet and PDFs? I've often considered turning my first level characters into PDFs for others to benefit from, but no idea how to go about it. Is it a relatively straightforward, or labourious process?
Cheers,
DarkWhite
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Thanks Shisumo.
You're the guy who created the 85+ 1st level pregens?
Yeah, that's me.
I can understand your reasons for wanting to hold off. Even when Jason releases updates, these will still be in playtest and will need updating once again when the APG is published in August. But it was to encourage more playtesting that it would have been nice to have seen some pregens available.
I had initially hoped to get some out the door right after the third playtest document released, but it takes time to write up 42 different characters, and I work retail, so heading into December is a bad time to be doing much of anything time-consuming. Now that the holiday insanity is passing, though, I'm hoping to get something done soon, but I will probably sit on it until we either get an update or find out there isn't going to be one.
May I ask what you used to generate the character sheet and PDFs? I've often considered turning my first level characters into PDFs for others to benefit from, but no idea how to go about it. Is it a relatively straightforward, or labourious process?
The PDF is just a Word document exported into Acrobat, with bookmarks added in afterward. I wrote up a character sheet template in the wake of the initial Pathfinder RPG release that I just type my stuff into and then delete everything I don't need - it's really just a lot of copy/paste. If you don't have Acrobat, I seem to recall that there are a few places around the web that will convert .doc files into PDFs for free.
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Thanks for the tips. I don't have access to MSWord, work is going all open source (eg, Open Office), but I'm sure there'll be another method of achieving the same result. Having a blank character sheet template set up and ready to go would be the first step.
I'll have to look into it and give it a shot when I have some time, which won't be immediately either. Running Pathfinder at a Arcanacon, Melbourne Australia, from tomorrow, and house-hunting after that.
Thanks for all your time and effort put into the first 85+ pregens. They'll be seeing the light of day once again at Arcanacon this weekend. They look great printed on cream-parchment A4 copy paper, with a full-page character portrait printed on the reverse :-)
I need sleep now ...
Thanks for the tips. I don't have access to MSWord, work is going all open source (eg, Open Office), but I'm sure there'll be another method of achieving the same result. Having a blank character sheet template set up and ready to go would be the first step.
I'll have to look into it and give it a shot when I have some time, which won't be immediately either. Running Pathfinder at a Arcanacon, Melbourne Australia, from tomorrow, and house-hunting after that.
From my experience Open Office 3.1.1 import Word documents pretty well, if they do not have to many fancy formating gizmos. You might want to try it ?
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One aspect about pre-generated characters from the playtest: they're going to be long hand-outs. (If a PC --or pre-gen-- includes some mechancal crunch not in the base Pathfinder book, the player has to bring a printed copy to the table for the GM to reference.)
One of several reasons why I don't go outside the core book, even as far as Seekers of Secrets, for my pregens. (If I could bring in scorpion whips, for instance, the cleric of Calistria would look entirely different...).
One possible solution would be to actually add the relevant rules-text to the pregens; for 1st level characters, anyway, it's not an overwhelming amount of typing, and the rules are OGC as far as I can tell. I'm kind of assuming, however, that most people using or being offered the pregens will be doing so in a context that makes the playtest PDFs available.
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One aspect about pre-generated characters from the playtest: they're going to be long hand-outs. (If a PC --or pre-gen-- includes some mechancal crunch not in the base Pathfinder book, the player has to bring a printed copy to the table for the GM to reference.)
Just append the pregens to their relevant playtest class PDF document.
We had one new player come to Arcanacon, Melbourne Australia, today who had been to Paizo website, was familiar with the playtest classes and wanted to play a Witch.
I usually bring my copy of the playtest classes to each game anyway, as they're often the topic of conversation during our games, and I definitely brought it with me this weekend to Arcanacon for players to refer to.
Someone played a Cavalier, a new player built and played a Witch, and another player built an Inquisitor between game sessions.
Players wanting to give a playtest class a run need a copy of the playtest document, whether they us a pre-gen or a character of their own build, there's really no getting around that.
The pre-gen itself wouldn't be any longer than any Core class pre-gen. The Oracle pre-gen Jason Bulmahn revealed at GenConOz fit on one page, and that was before any class details had been released as a PDF download.
The same will be true after the Advanced Players Guide is released. You don't cram extra detail into the pre-gen, as that's what the class description in the book is for. You still require the class write-up to use the pre-gen, regardless of whether that info is in the Core Rules, the playtest PDF, or the Advanced Players Guide.
Having pre-gens available for the playtest classes today would have saved this new player an hour of character gen between games sessions, though he may have preferred to build his own Witch in any case.
My question wasn't MSWord -> Open Office import, it was Open Office -> PDF export if I want to create sharable PDF documents of my own.
Oops, sorry! Didn't catch that. In any case, that is even easier as Open Office has a built in feature to save your document directly to the PDF format. It is under File/Export to PDF.
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I'm in the process of getting the new versions ready. Look for something to get posted to the Pathfinder DB and the PFS Yahoo group by the end of the week (I hope!).
Yeah, okay, obviously this didn't happen.
Anyway, I'm bumping this because I do have some pregens basically done for the APG classes, which I plan to revise to conform to the final version of the new material and release as soon as I have the book/PDF and the Guide to Organized Play 3.0 (so I know what's actually legal).
Before I do that, though, I'd like to get some input from the GMs who might use them. Specifically, I'm wondering how much additional content, beyond the classes themselves, from the APG you would like to see included. Variant racial abilities? Favored class options? New feats and/or spells? Would including more stuff that needs to be looked up by a new player be a problem, or should I just do my best to showcase the cool new toys where appropriate?
I'm particularly interested in feedback from anyone who's actually used my pregens in the past, but any GM or player who might wind up taking advantage of this would be welcome to offer their insight!
There were pre-gen characters in the introductory scenario that was released on "play an RPG day" (Fathers day).
My understanding is that Josh will also have Pre-gen for ALL the base classes (including the new APG ones) at Gencon in two weeks.
There will be pregens for four of the new base classes from the APG plus the four core class pregens we've had all along.
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There were pre-gen characters in the introductory scenario that was released on "play an RPG day" (Fathers day).
The Free RPG Day pregens were actually based on the Beta materials, so they wouldn't be legal for play once the APG comes out regardless.
My understanding is that Josh will also have Pre-gen for ALL the base classes (including the new APG ones) at Gencon in two weeks.
The point of these pregens isn't to compete with Josh's pregens as such (I'm not even such what 'compete' would mean in this context!), but rather to give more options to GMs and players who want to get into a game quickly. A pregen Valeros is a fine thing, but what about players who want a fighter that's not human, or a two-weapon guy? Let alone any barbarian pregen whatsoever.
Basically, the pregens in the core document I've already posted, as well as the one I'm wrapping up soon, are PFS-legal starting characters, suitable for someone to grab, give a name, some starting traits and a background to, and go; I've basically just taken the beginning math out of the equation for the new player.
Just posting to let anyone who happens to be reading this know that I have posted the APG pregens to the Pathfinder RPG Yahoo group and submitted them to the Pathfidner Database as well. If anyone needs them this weekend, post here and I'll try to email them to you.
Shisumo, outstanding work! I'd love to get a copy of these pregens, if possible for my kids to use at Gen Con this week. I'll drop you a private message with my email address.
Thanks!
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Just posting to let anyone who happens to be reading this know that I have posted the APG pregens to the Pathfinder RPG Yahoo group and submitted them to the Pathfidner Database as well. If anyone needs them this weekend, post here and I'll try to email them to you.
Please email to broc3978@comcast.net
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Thanks so much for these, Shisumo, excellent work!
I'll definitely be printing these out and taking with me to PaizoConOz and other conventions for new players to choose from.
Linkified:
- Pathfinder Society Pregens for Pathfinder RPG
- Pathfinder Society Pregens for the Advanced Player's Guide
Cheers,
DarkWhite
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Thanks so much for these, Shisumo, excellent work!
I'll definitely be printing these out and taking with me to PaizoConOz and other conventions for new players to choose from.
Linkified:
- Pathfinder Society Pregens for Pathfinder RPG
- Pathfinder Society Pregens for the Advanced Player's Guide
Cheers,
DarkWhite
Is there an updated link for these files?? The ones in the thread go to a Nissan page..... I know I had these on my computer but can't find them anywhere. I am trying to update a couple of old D&D adventures to Pathfinder and having these for new players would really simplify things.
