If three of my players wish to play registered PFS characters, who receive Chronicles and all that, and one character wishes to play a kobold who tags along with the group and couldn't give a cranium rat's arse about official Chronicle submission...is that kosher? Is there some legal requirement for any given scenario to be entirely official?
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Everone has to play Society-legal characters for it to be a legal table and for anyone to get a Chronicle for the session.
You see, you wind up with a problem if everyone's not playing Society-legal characters at Society tables. Your player wants to play a kobold -- no big deal, they're not overpowered. What if someone comes along and wants to play a hill giant with barbarian class levels? That's clearly outside the balance of the campaign.
Why does that matter? Because the other three characters are receiving the benefits of having a hill giant along bashing the monsters to paste effortlessly, and that means they're having an easier time of the same scenarios that most players are playing in the same campaign.
For the health of the campaign, everyone has to play by the same rules.
Also, a kobold character would not be welcome in most of the places the PCs in the campaign go (like Absalom) so it would be hard to maintain verisimilitude and consistency with the game world if you have a kobold PC running around with Society characters.
I would encourage your fourth player to go ahead and play by the campaign rules. The other option is to just run the scenarios for your group but not run them as part of the Pathfinder Society campaign. That means your other three players (and the GM) won't be able to use their characters at other events.
EDIT: first sentence should have said "Society-legal characters" not "Society-legal games".
Thanks for the quick reply!
I totally understand the first answer, the reasoning behind it, etc. As for the second, I suppose it's a bit homebrew but I tend to think of Absalom as inspired by Ankh-Morpork. The Patchwork City, and all that, you know? I wouldn't think anyone would be surprised at a kobold wandering the streets, or a goblin, or an orc - despite the more extreme prejudices in some less cosmopolitan areas of the globe.
Still, for Organized Play, the ruling makes sense, or sense enough to be getting on with at least.
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Yeah, but Ankh-Morpork is set on Diskworld which is quite a bit sillier than Golarion :)
Also, keep in mind that while Absalom is very cosmopolitan, it's also a *human* city, first. I don't have any references handy, but I'm pretty sure most of the monstrous humanoid races would be frowned upon at least.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Absalom is more cosmopolitan than that, but the Big 6 races (basic rulebook minus half-orcs) comprise 97% of the population.
64% human, 11% halfling, 8% half-elf, 7% gnome, 5% dwarf, 2% elf, 1% half-orc, 2% other races. Outside the city proper, the island of Kortos is thick with monstrous humanoids.
Another question, but I'll just throw it in here. Can folks join partway through a scenario? It would seem odd, especially at a con or somesuch, to just disallow any latecomers once you're started.
Excellent - thanks!
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On a somewhat related note, what if the fourth player wanted to play by PFS rules but wasn't interested in the Chronicle? Could they play in a PFS game and not participate in the Organized Campaign? I faced this situation in I a home game. Some of the folks that I played with enjoyed PFS, but we didn't have time to play multiple games. So, we were torn between playing without some of our friends., and not getting to play at all.
If this *can* be done, how would it be reported? I think that it would kind of be like playing at a con or something with a pregen,but that player never registered their character or PFS number.
Thoughts?
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That's a fair point, Chris. I hadn't thought of it that way.
The person to which I am referring is one of those people who prefer not to use the interwebs, and doesn't want to be "recorded" in the "system". A bit wonky in this day and age, I know.
I guess they could simply continually play actual pregens, rather than an actual character, maybe?
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That's a fair point, Chris. I hadn't thought of it that way.
The person to which I am referring is one of those people who prefer not to use the interwebs, and doesn't want to be "recorded" in the "system". A bit wonky in this day and age, I know.
I guess they could simply continually play actual pregens, rather than an actual character, maybe?
Give the person a pfs number and chronicles like every other player. If they don't want to go online and activate then no one can force them.
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Give the person a pfs number and chronicles like every other player. If they don't want to go online and activate then no one can force them.
I guess I hadn't thought of that ... they could *get* a Chronicle ... but that doesn't necessitate that they have to register a PFS number? It's always said that the Chronicle sheets are the "official" record, anyway. I guess the player could still play and level with us, but, not register their character with Paizo?
The thought never even occured to me ... I was just equating playing a character with having a registered character. Hm.
