1st level rebuild after 3xp module?


Pathfinder Society

3/5

Just played Crypt of the Everflame (brutal, that one, at least with just a useless Bard, a ditsy teenage Inquisitor who also had control of Kyra, and my Evoker, all lvl 1), and I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is PFS legal.

My Evoker had never been played before, and this module awards 3XP, taking me to 2nd lvl. Can I or can I not rebuild my character before leveling up? Upon consideration, I want to go conjurer over evoker, which requires some major changes.


Yes, you can retrain any character with 3 xp or less.

Guide to Organized Play pg 10:
1st-Level Character Retraining
Pathfinder Society is all about player choices and living with those choices once you’ve made them. However, at the start of a Pathfinder’s career, you are allowed to adjust your character before settling in for the long haul. Before you level up a character for the first time, you may change any aspect of it except its Pathfinder Society Number. Changes may only be made between adventures and before beginning play as a 2nd-level character. Any exceptions will be noted in the Pathfinder Society FAQ. You are able to keep all treasure, Prestige Points, special boons, and XP that you have earned and apply them to a character once you retrain as long as it meets the criteria above.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

You'd even be able to rebuild if your evoker had already been through two scenarios before playing Crypt of the Everflame, taking him to 5 XP, as he still wouldn't have been played as a 2nd-level character.

Scarab Sages 5/5

Yes, you can change him as many times as you want. Just as long as all of the adjustments are made before then next time you play him. Whenever you play him next, any adjustments made are now permanent.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

Paz wrote:
You'd even be able to rebuild if your evoker had already been through two scenarios before playing Crypt of the Everflame, taking him to 5 XP, as he still wouldn't have been played as a 2nd-level character.

Actually Paz, I asked a question very similar to this a while back and Mike said you couldn't. I'll see if I can dig out the link.

Quote:
I have a character I had applied a GM credit to, then a year or so ago we had played Cult of the Ebon Destroyers and I made a copy and played him at 8th lvl. I didn't care for how he played, so haven't played him since. He's got 4 xp, but I've never actually played him, just a high level copy. Is that legal for rebuild? I know characters that are just GM credit can be changed until actually played, but the 8th lvl version was only one possibility of how he could be built too. Just curious. I played him as a pacifist, and could easily change that if no rebuild allowed.
Michael Brock wrote:
If a fourth xp has been applied to the character, it can not be rebuilt.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

That's an odd statement for Mike to make, as it directly contradicts the Guide (specifically the part quoted by 'Some Random Dood' above). It is also at odds with comments made by VCs since, e.g. here.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

Yeah, I thought the same thing. In Don's case, he obviously missed it, and was giving his opinion, which is not binding.

Grand Lodge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Mike's response is regarding a PC that has 4 XP AND was played above level 1. Even if it was a high level version under the old module rules. Technically, that PC is beyond retraining under the rules set forth in the Guide.

I am still of the opinion that you may "retrain" a character that has not actually been played at second level or higher yet. So a character with 2 XP that plays a 3 XP module as a level 1 character and ends up with 5 XP has still not been played above level 1. And following the wording in the Guide that character would be allowed to retrain before playing it's next adventure.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

True, my question was a corner case, however his response was pretty specific. Just one more thing that needs to be reworded in the guide I guess.

Michael Brock wrote:
If a fourth xp has been applied to the character, it can not be rebuilt.

Grand Lodge 4/5

rangerjeff wrote:
Just played Crypt of the Everflame (brutal, that one, at least with just a useless Bard, a ditsy teenage Inquisitor who also had control of Kyra, and my Evoker, all lvl 1), and I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is PFS legal.

One player controlling two PCs at the table isn't legal. Kyra should have been controlled by the GM.

As far as rebuilding when you have 4 XP, personally I'd say no but its a grey area to be sure. One that seems to have been answered by campaign staff.

Silver Crusade 4/5

sveden wrote:
rangerjeff wrote:
Just played Crypt of the Everflame (brutal, that one, at least with just a useless Bard, a ditsy teenage Inquisitor who also had control of Kyra, and my Evoker, all lvl 1), and I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is PFS legal.

One player controlling two PCs at the table isn't legal. Kyra should have been controlled by the GM.

GMs have enough to worry about. It's not that uncommon for them to hand off some responsibilities to the players, such as initiative tracking as a common one, so that they can focus on the adventure. Why not control of the pregen used to fill out the table? I've seen this done a few times.

3/5

sveden wrote:
One player controlling two PCs at the table isn't legal. Kyra should have been controlled by the GM.

I WISH the GM had been controlling Kyra. The girl playing the inquisitor was badly shaken when her character took a critical hit and went from full hp to almost permanently dead, and after that her tactics were "get as far away from everything that can hurt me as possible." And neglecting to use Kyra effectively at all. Leaving the frail evoker and the useless bard to take the front lines.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Fromper wrote:
sveden wrote:
rangerjeff wrote:
Just played Crypt of the Everflame (brutal, that one, at least with just a useless Bard, a ditsy teenage Inquisitor who also had control of Kyra, and my Evoker, all lvl 1), and I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is PFS legal.

One player controlling two PCs at the table isn't legal. Kyra should have been controlled by the GM.

GMs have enough to worry about. It's not that uncommon for them to hand off some responsibilities to the players, such as initiative tracking as a common one, so that they can focus on the adventure. Why not control of the pregen used to fill out the table? I've seen this done a few times.

Because its specifically prohibited in the Guide to Organized play.

Page 21 wrote:

One Character at a Time

You may only play one character during a specific scenario session. You may have more than one active character in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but playing more than one during a specific session is considered cheating. GMs are allowed to play one pregenerated character during a session, but only to make a legal table.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

I'm with Fromper. When I have three players, they decide what pre-gen they'd like to have along, and then I let them communally decide what Kyra -- er, I mean, "the pregen, who might or might not be a cleric" -- does.

I suppose that theoretically, I have veto power if they declare that Ky-- "the pre-gen" -- strips and dances naked on tabletop as part of an elaborate ruse, just as I would have veto power if a druid's player insists that his animal companion knows to flank with the rogue and not the fighter.

But I've never used that veto power. The players are pretty good about running the pre-gens as independent characters, and are much better at avoiding meta-gaming than I would be, if I were making decisions for the pre-gen while looking at the scenario.

Silver Crusade 4/5

That's pretty much where I was going with that one, Chris. To avoid issues like what rangerjeff apparently had to contend with, when I'm GMing, Kyra always goes to someone I know and trust to control her properly. Giving her to an inexperienced player is just asking for trouble.

This is definitely one of those cases where the letter of the law isn't worth obeying at the expense of the spirit of the law, which is to get enough firepower at the table to survive the adventure. The players controlling Kyra are usually good about just having her take actions once in a while and not trying to do any heavy RP with her. So they're really just helping the GM decide her actions, not really "playing" her in full.

And I'm not even going to pretend I've ever seen a group use a pregen other than Kyra when they need a GM controlled pregen with 3 PCs.

The Exchange 5/5

I've seen both the rogue and the wizard as the 4th character in a group of 3 PCs... In those cases the party already had a Cleric/Healer and figured Kyra was not a good fit. I do agree, Kyra seems to be the most common "filler character".

Edit: I've never seen Valeros used as a "Filler" - when I've seen him used it's with someone running him (newbie or an old hand with no PC ready).

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Fromper -- I've seen small parties with enough healing use Valeros or Merisiel, too.

Silver Crusade 4/5

I've seen all the pregens used for players without their own PC. In fact, I have a friend who loves playing level 7 Valeros, because her own fighter PC isn't that high level yet, and she wants to play those higher level adventures. But for a small group using the pregen as a 4th, it's always been Kyra, I think. Even when I was playing a cleric who channeled positive.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Don Walker wrote:
I am still of the opinion that you may "retrain" a character that has not actually been played at second level or higher yet. So a character with 2 XP that plays a 3 XP module as a level 1 character and ends up with 5 XP has still not been played above level 1. And following the wording in the Guide that character would be allowed to retrain before playing it's next adventure.

I disagree with your assessment. You cant rebuild until after the scenario/module is completed, and as soon as it is completed, you have a chronicle with experience on it, giving you more than 3 exp, meaning you can no longer rebuild.

I also agree this is something that he might want to make a little more clear in the new version of the guide. :/

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Seth Gipson wrote:
I disagree with your assessment. You cant rebuild until after the scenario/module is completed, and as soon as it is completed, you have a chronicle with experience on it, giving you more than 3 exp, meaning you can no longer rebuild.

That's not an issue according to the current Guide:

'Before you level up a character for the first time, you may change any aspect of it except its Pathfinder Society Number. Changes may only be made between adventures and before beginning play as a 2nd-level character.'

There's no mention of 3 XP.

Quote:
I also agree this is something that he might want to make a little more clear in the new version of the guide. :/

I agree that this should be settled one way or the other.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Paz wrote:
Seth Gipson wrote:
I disagree with your assessment. You cant rebuild until after the scenario/module is completed, and as soon as it is completed, you have a chronicle with experience on it, giving you more than 3 exp, meaning you can no longer rebuild.

That's not an issue according to the current Guide:

'Before you level up a character for the first time, you may change any aspect of it except its Pathfinder Society Number. Changes may only be made between adventures and before beginning play as a 2nd-level character.'

There's no mention of 3 XP.

Quote:
I also agree this is something that he might want to make a little more clear in the new version of the guide. :/
I agree that this should be settled one way or the other.

I'll mention it to Mike when I send him some suggested edits for the Guide.

I am still of the opinion that if you haven't played the character above level 1 yet, you are allowed to retrain it. The point of the retrain rule is to allow players who decide their build is not working the way they wanted or for those who used a level 1 pregen to change the PC so they aren't "wasting" several chronicle sheets on a character they are not interested in playing anymore. If you haven't played the character above level 1 yet, you should be able to change it - even if you have applied several levels of GM credit to it as well.

We worded the text in the Guide 4.2 very carefully. Although, I'll admit it only mentions level 2 and should cover level 2+ for completeness.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Paz wrote:
You'd even be able to rebuild if your evoker had already been through two scenarios before playing Crypt of the Everflame, taking him to 5 XP, as he still wouldn't have been played as a 2nd-level character.

Mike has confirmed that I was correct here.

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