Are NPC classes legal for play?


Pathfinder Society

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Sczarni 4/5

deusvult wrote:


Actually, it makes all the difference. Forum thread posts are specifically called out as NOT being PFS-approved.

*shrug*

Not trying to say that experts SHOULD be played, just that saying someone can't play one is no different than saying the player can't play, say, a paladin. It's on the list of approved classes. You can argue that Mike Brock is the PFS organizer and his intention is that they can't be played.. whether you and Mike are both right is irrelevant to the player, especially one who doesn't read every post in every thread.

actually, when posts were called out as not PFS approved, I believe it was 'from this day out, posts will be guidelines and not hard rules." which means that posts made before that time (like the one that was posted earlier in the thread made by Josh Frost) are still hard rules.


Cpt_kirstov wrote:


actually, when posts were called out as not PFS approved, I believe it was 'from this day out, posts will be guidelines and not hard rules." which means that posts made before that time (like the one that was posted earlier in the thread made by Josh Frost) are still hard rules.

I don't believe so, as the whole point of this was that you wouldn't have to:

Search all the posts to find one from Josh saying X.

Miss a later post from Josh saying not X, but Y.

Not sure if the board post is overruled by the campaign document.

Etc.

Then of course you have, like your post, the 'I think I read this' which naturally happens which adds to the confusion.

It makes it nigh impossible for a person, even those from the start, to keep with the rules. Meanwhile they have a FAQ that they can update on demand, a single source document for the campaign rules, etc.

It's a good rule for a good reason.

-James


Sniggevert wrote:
deusvult wrote:


Just because a class is categorized as 'non-player', where does it say that a player may not play it?
Pretty much right there deusvult...I bolded the relevant portion for you.

I assume you don't allow NPCs to take levels in PC classes either, then? :p

The Exchange 4/5

This is semantics, but there are non-player classes and classes. NPCs can choose from both, PCs can only choose classes.

Can we please let this thread die now? There is no further useful discussion to be gleaned in regards to PFS. There is an FAQ on the matter now, making it perfectly clear what the campaign stance is.

The Exchange 5/5

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I'd still like to suggest that a boon is created to give access to the NPC classes - then anyone mashocis...errr... wishing to run one would have the chance.

And they could complain that they didn't get a chance to go to the convention they were given out at and it was unfair that they ... err... never mind. Going away now....

Grand Lodge 4/5

james maissen wrote:


Not sure if the board post is overruled by the campaign document.

The Organized Play Guide, Additional Resources, and FAQ override board posts.

Scarab Sages

Joseph Caubo wrote:


Can we please let this thread die now?

Wait, can we get in a discussion of T10 rules, how the Perception Skill works, and masterwork tools before letting this thread die?

Grand Lodge 4/5

Coriat wrote:
Sniggevert wrote:
deusvult wrote:


Just because a class is categorized as 'non-player', where does it say that a player may not play it?
Pretty much right there deusvult...I bolded the relevant portion for you.
I assume you don't allow NPCs to take levels in PC classes either, then? :p

NPC do take both PC and NPC levels, just like NPCs can be either good or evil alignments.


Michael Brock wrote:
NPC do take both PC and NPC levels, just like NPCs can be either good or evil alignments.

Huh? Either good or evil? No neutral NPCs for PFS?

*ducks for cover*

Grand Lodge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Midnight_Angel wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
NPC do take both PC and NPC levels, just like NPCs can be either good or evil alignments.

Huh? Either good or evil? No neutral NPCs for PFS?

*ducks for cover*

Nope, no neutral NPCs from this point forward in PFS. They are just to wishy washy.

*since this is only a message post and not in the guide, FAQ or additional resources, it is not official ;-)

Paizo Employee 5/5 Canadian Maplecakes

Oh, I see what you did there Mike! ;)

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Michael Brock wrote:
*since this is only a message post and not in the guide, FAQ or additional resources, it is not official ;-)

Then again, the statement that it's not official isn't official either!


So it's unofficially unofficial? Does this work like a double-negative, making the statement that it's unofficial, official? Gah! My head...

;)


Deussu wrote:


As I further think about this, I'd imagine some players new to the whole system would likely prefer to play a character with the least special abilities. I certainly wouldn't place a new player in the boots of a dwarven ranger/wizard...

This, probably why I like them, less stuff to keep track of...

5/5

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deusvult wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
Ok. All taken care of. It is now in the PFS FAQ and "officially" not a legal choice. End of argument. Let's please move on to more productive discussions. Did I mention, I hate rules lawyers?

Wasn't so hard, was it?

And if you hate rules laywers (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean you hate rules DISCUSSIONS that focus on minutae) then no offence Mike, but you're in the wrong job.

thankfully, i managed to miss this entire thread as it was developing. however, this really cheesed me off, so i had to chime in that in my opinion, this particular post was just really bad form.

my opinion, that's all.

Sovereign Court 5/5

Matthew Starch wrote:

..so i had to chime in that in my opinion, this particular post was just really bad form.

Such saccharine irony.

Sczarni 4/5

james maissen wrote:

I don't believe so, as the whole point of this was that you wouldn't have to:

Found Hyrum's original post, you are correct, I remembered the wording wrong.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Michael Brock wrote:
Did I mention, I hate rules lawyers?

Sorry to hear I made it to your hate list.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Howie23 wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
Did I mention, I hate rules lawyers?
Sorry to hear I made it to your hate list.

I'm not so sure you did.

Scarab Sages 3/5 Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (Newhall)

....aaaaand Fast forward nearly 5 years:

With the release of all these countless books with all these countless variations on the classes. I actually want to play an Expert. I know. NPC classes aren't legal for Pathfinder Society play.

Call me crazy, but I'd really like the opportunity to under-powergame. I'd feel it would make the character roleplay heavy, and way more fun.

Given the time that has passed, and the books that have been released since the last post on here, is there currently any wiggle room on this?

Can I perhaps get a boon or something? Maybe a letter from an official PFS person saying it's kosher?

4/5

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Scott Bianchi wrote:

....aaaaand Fast forward nearly 5 years:

With the release of all these countless books with all these countless variations on the classes. I actually want to play an Expert. I know. NPC classes aren't legal for Pathfinder Society play.

Call me crazy, but I'd really like the opportunity to under-powergame. I'd feel it would make the character roleplay heavy, and way more fun.

Given the time that has passed, and the books that have been released since the last post on here, is there currently any wiggle room on this?

Can I perhaps get a boon or something? Maybe a letter from an official PFS person saying it's kosher?

Just play a core rogue and don't try to sneak attack.

Grand Lodge 4/5 Venture-Agent, Texas—Houston

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or play a phantom thief rogue, which trades out sneak attack

Scarab Sages 3/5 Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (Newhall)

yeah, I thought about a crappy rogue or crappy bard.

But then I thought about the classes out there. With people out there making characters who can fling mountains or oceans and others that can explode monster's brains with a quickened thought, Still others that wander around with ungodly powerful spirits and monsters. I began to wonder what I could do that would let me play a simple traveling cook with no abilities whatsoever.

I'd love to PC an NPC class.

4/5

Scott Bianchi wrote:

yeah, I thought about a crappy rogue or crappy bard.

But then I thought about the classes out there. With people out there making characters who can fling mountains or oceans and others that can explode monster's brains with a quickened thought, Still others that wander around with ungodly powerful spirits and monsters. I began to wonder what I could do that would let me play a simple traveling cook with no abilities whatsoever.

I'd love to PC an NPC class.

I'd love to see what someone could do to powergame as an Adept. We just have to make due with what we have available in this case. Core rogues and experts are not that far removed from each other.

4/5 Designer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Serisan wrote:
Scott Bianchi wrote:

yeah, I thought about a crappy rogue or crappy bard.

But then I thought about the classes out there. With people out there making characters who can fling mountains or oceans and others that can explode monster's brains with a quickened thought, Still others that wander around with ungodly powerful spirits and monsters. I began to wonder what I could do that would let me play a simple traveling cook with no abilities whatsoever.

I'd love to PC an NPC class.

I'd love to see what someone could do to powergame as an Adept. We just have to make due with what we have available in this case. Core rogues and experts are not that far removed from each other.

At one point, four of us in Boston played From Shore to Sea with an Adept (a younger Bokken from Kingmaker), two Experts (Aesop, a shepherd who brought along sheep everywhere and didn't use them in combat, and Captain Jack, a charlatan knight and con artist using a Knights of the Inner Sea trait to be good at pretending to be a knight and a bunch of UMD), and a sorceress with snowball. The NPC class characters were restricted by the GM to not take anything other than feats and traits that boosted skill checks, like Skill Focus and Alertness. The idea was mostly to show that the sorceress (when provided with minimal warm bodies so she isn't the sole target of every attack) could solo a module the GM picked for the cold resistant foes, since he wasn't convinced snowball was that good, but in the end, while that did happen and she also killed the "unkillable thing," Captain Jack and Bokken made a pretty good accounting for themselves; especially Captain Jack, oddly, even though he literally had only skill boosters and no class abilities or spells.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Texas—Austin

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Kelly Youngblood wrote:
or play a phantom thief rogue, which trades out sneak attack

My group calls the phantom thief the PC expert class.

Scarab Sages 3/5 Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (Newhall)

I'm still hoping for an expert, but ...

I'll take a look at this.

Where is this phantom thief rogue class listed?

5/5 5/55/55/5

Scott Bianchi wrote:

I'm still hoping for an expert, but ...

I'll take a look at this.

Where is this phantom thief rogue class listed?

Phantom thief from ultimate intrigue

Dark Archive

Mark Seifter wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Scott Bianchi wrote:

yeah, I thought about a crappy rogue or crappy bard.

But then I thought about the classes out there. With people out there making characters who can fling mountains or oceans and others that can explode monster's brains with a quickened thought, Still others that wander around with ungodly powerful spirits and monsters. I began to wonder what I could do that would let me play a simple traveling cook with no abilities whatsoever.

I'd love to PC an NPC class.

I'd love to see what someone could do to powergame as an Adept. We just have to make due with what we have available in this case. Core rogues and experts are not that far removed from each other.
At one point, four of us in Boston played From Shore to Sea with an Adept (a younger Bokken from Kingmaker), two Experts (Aesop, a shepherd who brought along sheep everywhere and didn't use them in combat, and Captain Jack, a charlatan knight and con artist using a Knights of the Inner Sea trait to be good at pretending to be a knight and a bunch of UMD), and a sorceress with snowball. The NPC class characters were restricted by the GM to not take anything other than feats and traits that boosted skill checks, like Skill Focus and Alertness. The idea was mostly to show that the sorceress (when provided with minimal warm bodies so she isn't the sole target of every attack) could solo a module the GM picked for the cold resistant foes, since he wasn't convinced snowball was that good, but in the end, while that did happen and she also killed the "unkillable thing," Captain Jack and Bokken made a pretty good accounting for themselves; especially Captain Jack, oddly, even though he literally had only skill boosters and no class abilities or spells.

That actually sounds pretty interesting. What about them allowed them to hold their own in your opinion?

4/5 Designer

Roto wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Scott Bianchi wrote:

yeah, I thought about a crappy rogue or crappy bard.

But then I thought about the classes out there. With people out there making characters who can fling mountains or oceans and others that can explode monster's brains with a quickened thought, Still others that wander around with ungodly powerful spirits and monsters. I began to wonder what I could do that would let me play a simple traveling cook with no abilities whatsoever.

I'd love to PC an NPC class.

I'd love to see what someone could do to powergame as an Adept. We just have to make due with what we have available in this case. Core rogues and experts are not that far removed from each other.
At one point, four of us in Boston played From Shore to Sea with an Adept (a younger Bokken from Kingmaker), two Experts (Aesop, a shepherd who brought along sheep everywhere and didn't use them in combat, and Captain Jack, a charlatan knight and con artist using a Knights of the Inner Sea trait to be good at pretending to be a knight and a bunch of UMD), and a sorceress with snowball. The NPC class characters were restricted by the GM to not take anything other than feats and traits that boosted skill checks, like Skill Focus and Alertness. The idea was mostly to show that the sorceress (when provided with minimal warm bodies so she isn't the sole target of every attack) could solo a module the GM picked for the cold resistant foes, since he wasn't convinced snowball was that good, but in the end, while that did happen and she also killed the "unkillable thing," Captain Jack and Bokken made a pretty good accounting for themselves; especially Captain Jack, oddly, even though he literally had only skill boosters and no class abilities or spells.
That actually sounds pretty interesting. What about them allowed them to hold their own in your opinion?

As the GM noticed in some of the reviews, it had been stated to be a hard adventure, and he also knew it had a lot of cold resist. And certainly the snowball sorceress pretty much soloed all the hardest encounters, no question. But the other characters allowed her to not spend spells as much on mook fights (we did the adventure in if I recall two in game days, and there are a non-negligible number of encounters with a large number of really crappy enemies which wouldn't be worth a snowball each). Captain Jack had good enough Strength that his longspear and morningstar attacks weren't worthless in melee, and he used UMD on 1st-level wands when necessary. Aesop was more into the wands, as he didn't have good Strength. And Bokken, as an adept, actually did have spells to throw around, also meaning he could use certain scrolls from the adept list without UMD.

Dark Archive 3/5 5/5

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A Universalist Wizard with 7 Int is a pretty great way to play as a Commoner. Just make sure to dump Wisdom to simulate having a bad base Will save. Putting ranks into Handle Animal and Profession (Farmer) help to really paint a mundane picture.

A Core Rogue who deliberately takes Talents that will never see use. Only puts ranks into Disable Divice every other level. Now you can be the Expert. Just avoid flanks like the plague.

Warrior? Be a Paladin. Fall. Keep on truckin'.

Adept is actually kind of serviceable. I think its spellcasting elevates it to "Low End PC Class." That said, I find that going into the Mystic Theurge prestige class is a great way to simulate their low zpell progression and lack of class abilities.

(WARNING. PLEASE ASK YOUR TABLE IF IT'S OKAY TO PLAY AN NPC CLASS SIMULATION BEFORE YOU LOCK IN FOR THE SCENARIO.)

Edit: I would love it if Paizo did some kind of April Fools joke where they handed out a a limited number of legitimate Commoner boons.

Silver Crusade 4/5 Venture-Captain, Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh

Or maybe "We Be Commoners!" Might not work for a Free RPG Day but as a special, I bet you could do some interesting things with mid-level commoner pregens... hmmm...

4/5 Designer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Rosc wrote:
A Universalist Wizard with 7 Int is a pretty great way to play as a Commoner. Just make sure to dump Wisdom to simulate having a bad base Will save. Putting ranks into Handle Animal and Profession (Farmer) help to really paint a mundane picture.

With an aside to never actually do this to your fellow players, I think you'll need to racially lower your Int to 5 to make sure you don't get any daily uses of your 3+Int school power.

4/5

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Nagaji Wizard where?

One of our local guys insists that all wayang need to dump to 5 WIS so you can constantly impart ANCIENT WAYANG WISDOM on the party.

4/5 Designer

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Serisan wrote:

Nagaji Wizard where?

One of our local guys insists that all wayang need to dump to 5 WIS so you can constantly impart ANCIENT WAYANG WISDOM on the party.

Silly related aside:
One time in a pregen one-shot, Linda has a character with 5 Wisdom. Every time she rolled a negative result on Sense Motive or Perception, I would tell her these ridiculously unbelievable and obviously false things like "Sense Motive -1 on the mean valkyrie for why she's being mean? That valkyrie is actually your sister, and she's annoyed at you for forsaking her." It turned out that she had repressed memories and all of these statements were true.

On topic, I think it's pretty clear that those classes aren't legal, so I'm guessing this thread has outlived its original purpose.

Grand Lodge 4/5

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Partizanski wrote:
Kelly Youngblood wrote:
or play a phantom thief rogue, which trades out sneak attack
My group calls the phantom thief the PC expert class.

Gotta admit, I kind of want to try that class out.

4/5

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
Partizanski wrote:
Kelly Youngblood wrote:
or play a phantom thief rogue, which trades out sneak attack
My group calls the phantom thief the PC expert class.
Gotta admit, I kind of want to try that class out.

We have one of those locally, as well, and it completely derailed Daughters of Fury by being kitsune.

Dark Archive 1/5

I still have a pc that rolled randomly for all of his classes and only takes feats that have no actual benefit. He only comes out if the party really wants to struggle or if we are playing a notoriously easy scenario. It is not uncommon for my PC to get scared and run off further into the dungeon, aggroing things along the way. Mostly turns a scenario into a comedic escort mission. I would love for him to have only levels in commoner but alas ill just have to continue being a fallen lawful neutral barbarian, paladin, alchemist, with 10's in every stat but con.

Dark Archive 3/5 5/5

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Mark Seifter wrote:
Rosc wrote:
A Universalist Wizard with 7 Int is a pretty great way to play as a Commoner. Just make sure to dump Wisdom to simulate having a bad base Will save. Putting ranks into Handle Animal and Profession (Farmer) help to really paint a mundane picture.
With an aside to never actually do this to your fellow players, I think you'll need to racially lower your Int to 5 to make sure you don't get any daily uses of your 3+Int school power.

Granted, I'm amused by the idea of summoning your TRUE ULTIMATE POWER to throw your melee weapon once per day.

Scarab Sages 3/5 Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (Newhall)

It seems I'll have to go with this Phantom Rogue thingy, and get stats to make all of his abilities null and void. Thanks for all your help guys!

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Scott Bianchi wrote:


It seems I'll have to go with this Phantom Rogue thingy, and get stats to make all of his abilities null and void. Thanks for all your help guys!

Please do not do this to your party...

Scarab Sages 3/5 Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (Newhall)

Kelly Youngblood wrote:
or play a phantom thief rogue, which trades out sneak attack

Trades out Sneak Attack, Trap sense AND Trap finding.

And you can take Skill Focus for Rogue talents.

This is absolutely perfect.

Seriously.
Thanks guys!

I don't even have to nerf anything!

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