Rewards system for PFS


Pathfinder Society

Silver Crusade 2/5

So let's get off the AC thing and think about something more universal. In general, I like the rewards system for PFS. I have even completely gotten over the lack of access to item creation.

Of the three methods of loot dispersion, though, I feel like the whole "on the chronicle sheet" method needs a little examining.

In general, I find cash money on hand to be a much larger obstacle than the maximum price of item I can buy. This is true even for my Osirion PC, with only about a 60% success rate for faction quests. Does anyone seriously run lower than 60%? Just curious.

Anyway, I was thinking it might be a cool thing to make the item on the chronicle sheets maybe 15% less than the going rate just as a perk from actually buying it off the sheet instead of the universal fame store.

An alternative idea would be to include more unique items, but that seems like a lot more paperwork.

Thoughts?


I brought up the idea but got yelled at. :(

-j

Silver Crusade 2/5

*Yelled* at? For 15 lousy percent? Even 10% would at least make me look at what is actually on the sheet. I don't even bother most of the time now. I look out for partially charged wands, and that's about it.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Any discount of those items would bend the Wealth by Level curve more than it already is.

Silver Crusade 2/5

So? There's already a tremendous amount of variation depending on how many times someone was able to play up. Since tier 4-5 gives triple the money of 1-2, I'd say that wealth by level is a relatively meaningless concept in PFS.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

So your answer is to make it worse?

That makes sense./sarcasm

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

I concur, David and Jason.

In particular, it would be flavorful to have a discount on certain items, insofar as it would encourage players to buy "sale" items. It might even extend down to some "always available" items. After a scenario featuring ancient tomb-guardian undead, we could get access to discounted +1 scimitars with distinctly Osirioni inscriptions.

1/5

As Jason alludes to, this isn't a novel discussion; the topic has come up repeatedly in the past few months.

One issue is that the rules for PFS adventure design state that any item which is "found" in the adventure (typically, being carried or worn by an NPC) which isn't an "always available" item has to be detailed on the Chronicle sheet, even if it's an item which 99.9% of the PCs playing at that tier would have the Fame to be able to purchase anyway. In other words, items on Chronicle sheets aren't only meant to be there to be "oooh, shiny things I can't buy otherwise".

Mike and / or Mark have indicated, in earlier discussions on the topic, that they recognize that there needs to be more interesting items listed on Chronicle sheets, and (IIRC) they're planning on doing more of the unique items / items you can't normally buy otherwise.

5/5 *

While I in essence agree with you in the general feel that chronicle sheets "should matter" for characters, I wanted to let you know that in that regard the campaign leadership has done great strides in this regard in Season 4.

Unlike Seasons 0-3, Season 4 chronicle sheets without any custom items or boons are the exception, and not the norm. I would invite you to play more season 4 if you haven't already, because there are lots of cool custom items, unlockable character features, discounted items and more. I hope the trend continues in Season 5.

Now on the other side of the coin, and this is probably a separate discussion altogether, they tried to reserve a few things like items and prestige classes and sadly the consensus was against them and they were shot down. For example, the Hellknight Signifer and Winter Witch PrCs from Paths of Prestige were originally not going to be legal for play, but would have needed to be unlocked via chronicle sheet boon. I would have been perfectly fine with that, but the idea was shot down as the majority thought it would have been a bad idea.

So they are trying things, seeing what works and what doesn't. Like I said above, great strides have been done already.

Also, don't forget a myriad of chronicle sheets DO give you access to higher CL potions, scrolls and wands (also some with partial charges, which is awesome)

Sovereign Court 4/5

Problem is that early in the campaign Joshua Frost (and others?) gave access to everything. You give a kid all the candy and when the new shipment arrives you can't say "let's save these for later" without the kid protesting loudly. You either give in or stick to your principles.

If I could go back in time I'd loudly yell "keep always available items core-only", and frequent boons would allow purchasing items from non-core sources...

3/5

I frequently am disapointed by the items to be purchased. Almost always the items you should have enough prestige for that you recieve. The best item I think I ever saw was a CL 5 magic missile wand.

I would like to see more items people would consider buying ahead of time.

I think this would also people to DM more as they may want that item for a character they have.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Andrew Christian wrote:

So your answer is to make it worse?

That makes sense./sarcasm

If everyone buys a few things at a 15% discount, I don't see how that begins to become a problem. Especially when you already have some level 3's making *triple* the money of other level 3 characters in a relatively arbitrary fashion.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

The thing is, unless the item on a chronicle sheet says otherwise, it is always available off that chronicle sheet, no matter how many of them you buy.

So if a Potion of Invisibility is on a chronicle sheet, you could buy 1, 20, 100... and you could buy those quantities at different times.

So if you are a rogue, you likely aren't going to ever buy a potion of invisibility for less than 255gp. Which if you use 1 or 2 every scenario (lets say 1.5 for argument sake) by level 12 (that's 33 scenarios, or 49.5 potions, for a savings of 2,227gp and 5 sp). And you can do that for every 2nd level potion you typically carry around with you. Lesser Restoration, Fly (3rd level for a savings of 5,568gp, 7sp, 5cp), Gaseous Form (3rd level), et al.

You could literally save an entire suit of +5 armor with that savings.

This would not be just a small one-off type savings. This would be a huge change to the system that would essentially skew the WBL curve so drastically, that playing up would no longer be necessary.

Sovereign Court 5/5

David Bowles wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:

So your answer is to make it worse?

That makes sense./sarcasm

If everyone buys a few things at a 15% discount, I don't see how that begins to become a problem. Especially when you already have some level 3's making *triple* the money of other level 3 characters in a relatively arbitrary fashion.

The difficulty is that that monsters aren't getting that 15% boost to their buying power so the adventures which are already easily defeated will now be a walk. Not what I look for when I sit down to a table.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I wasn't thinking about consumables. Well, maybe apply it to non-consumables. But that becomes complicated. I can see the problem here. Well, they really kinda messed up on the chronicle sheet method then, didn't they?

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Have you played any season 4 scenarios?

Grand Lodge 5/5

David Bowles wrote:

I wasn't thinking about consumables. Well, maybe apply it to non-consumables. But that becomes complicated. I can see the problem here. Well, they really kinda messed up on the chronicle sheet method then, didn't they?

If you had experienced Living City and Living Greyhawk you probably wouldn't be saying that about the Chronicle sheet method.

That method has evolved over decades of organized play into a very user-friendly, fair and comprehensive system of treasure distribution with a little flair of its own.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Perhaps, but I've bought maybe two things off the sheets. Everything else has been from the universal list or the magic fame table. I'm not arguing its merits vs Living Greyhawk. I'm just observing that chronicle sheets' loot is weak vs the fame table, as the money is almost always the limiting factor, not availability.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Have you played any season 4 scenarios?

Sigh, yes. They're still very underwhelming in terms of chronicle sheet loot. And for being allegedly rebalanced, they still seem to suffer from weak sauce-itis in the encounters. That might not be totally fair, because I played most of them with super munchkins, though.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
David Bowles wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
Have you played any season 4 scenarios?
Sigh, yes. They're still very underwhelming in terms of chronicle sheet loot. And for being allegedly rebalanced, they still seem to suffer from weak sauce-itis in the encounters. That might not be totally fair, because I played most of them with super munchkins, though.

Trust me, there are many (most) season 4 scenarios that are incredibly tough.

And if you consider the swanky boons and special items "weak loot" then my friend, I fear nothing will appease you.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Well I haven't seen anything I'd consider spending my limited funds on. Too much stuff from the CRB to purchase that comes from the magic fame table. It's pretty easy to appease me: put something on a chronicle sheet that is actually better than stuff from the CRB.

As far as I could tell, there was not a huge difference in difficulty. Of course, I spend two scenarios in deeper darkness every fight. And for another, we had a grab monk that nothing in the scenario could hit that squeezed everything to death in one or two rounds. I stopped paying attention to what the encounters even were, because I knew it didn't matter in the latter case, and in the former, I couldn't see anything anyway.

The boss of In Wrath's Shadow was pretty brutal, but we were playing up when we really shouldn't have been, because the group was terrible. If I had understood the game better, I would have never agreed to play up. Actually, hats off to whomever wrote that scenario, because the boss actually beat our AC down into the negatives. Most PFS BBEG get eaten by ACs.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

David Bowles wrote:

Well I haven't seen anything I'd consider spending my limited funds on. Too much stuff from the CRB to purchase that comes from the magic fame table. It's pretty easy to appease me: put something on a chronicle sheet that is actually better than stuff from the CRB.

As far as I could tell, there was not a huge difference in difficulty. Of course, I spend two scenarios in deeper darkness every fight. And for another, we had a grab monk that nothing in the scenario could hit that squeezed everything to death in one or two rounds. I stopped paying attention to what the encounters even were, because I knew it didn't matter in the latter case, and in the former, I couldn't see anything anyway.

You can't complain about them not putting cool unique stuff on the chronicle sheets, just because you don't want to purchase it. Not every chronicle is going to have something cool and unique for every character all the time.

And there is a huge difference in difficulty. I've played and or run every late season 3 and all season 4 to date (with the exception of KIng of the Storval Stairs). They are tough.

They are built for 6 players vs. just 4 now.

Additionally, more tough critters are being used.

So you not having a tough time is either an anomaly, you have a group of super munchkins to which it is unfair to judge the scenarios toughness against as the game will never be geared to those who build to win instead of roleplay, your GM is not the most savvy in making sure he gets the optimal challenge out of the various encounters, or some combination thereof.

If it is the munchkin reason, I have no sympathy.

Silver Crusade 2/5

"If it is the munchkin reason, I have no sympathy."

Thanks for your lack of concern. I can't always bail off munchkin tables. Especially without a priori knowledge. Although for Origins, I might walk off after the first encounter if I'm with munchkins and go do something interesting for that time block.

"You can't complain about them not putting cool unique stuff on the chronicle sheets, just because you don't want to purchase it. Not every chronicle is going to have something cool and unique for every character all the time."

Really? That sounds like the definition of weak loot to me. Especially if the stuff can't even compete with CRB stuff.

I'll consider a scenario tough when it has an answer for a monk with +30 grapple checks and double non-lethal squeeze damage. Or an answer for captain "all deeper darkness all the time".

You can't blame the GMs when the tactics are spelled out in the scenario. I could have gotten some mileage out of the season 1 and 2 stuff I've run if I wasn't robo-DM.

3/5

Andrew Christian wrote:


So you not having a tough time is either an anomaly, you have a group of super munchkins to which it is unfair to judge the scenarios toughness against as the game will never be geared to those who build to win instead of roleplay, your GM is not the most savvy in making sure he gets the optimal challenge out of the various encounters, or some combination thereof.

If it is the munchkin reason, I have no sympathy.

I build to win and to roleplay.

Liberty's Edge

I believe that more unique items should be available via the chronicle sheets. These don't have to be major munchkin improvements-they might simply be flavorful. For example, the Andoran Freedom Medal- awarded for freeing x number of slaves (this might raise your diplomacy in Andoran controlled areas, but lower it in areas where slaveholding is legal).

3/5

Martin Kauffman 530 wrote:
I believe that more unique items should be available via the chronicle sheets. These don't have to be major munchkin improvements-they might simply be flavorful. For example, the Andoran Freedom Medal- awarded for freeing x number of slaves (this might raise your diplomacy in Andoran controlled areas, but lower it in areas where slaveholding is legal).

I agree with this.

Although I am very fond of the Boons and such in season 4. I honestly think the developement team has a great handle on these benefits? Espcially the the cultist kiss and the feats of sigils. I am very excited to play refuge of time since i heard it follows the same path.

Grand Lodge 4/5

David Bowles wrote:


I'll consider a scenario tough when it has an answer for a monk with +30 grapple checks and double non-lethal squeeze damage. Or an answer for captain "all deeper darkness all the time".

Hrmn.

Finlander, you should definitely take everything you can get from Kiss, Feast and Refuge. You're going to need them.

3/5

I tried to eat the cookie right when I saw them.

As my character says

spoiler:
Prostitute soul cookies are good for the colourspray.

Grand Lodge 1/5

I like some of the boon items in S4 but not all. Unfortunately after I played 2 adventures I realized most of the stuff offered on the sheets was crap, from S1-S3, except for potions and stuff.

Why would my Cleric want anything but a BP. Mithral sure, Agile version sure, but you give me a medium armor (5) or (4) item and I'll just buy an Agile BP, which is armor 6 and you can sleep in it.

So a Mithral BP is always the best for anyone using a Med Armor character and Mithral Chain Shirt is always best for a light armor PC.

Show me one item on the Chronicle Sheets that matches either of these items and we'll talk. Otherwise, I wouldn't buy a Med Armor (5) +1 unless its going to be cheaper than a BP.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

You give me a cool-themed Light Armor with +3 AC, or Medium Armor with +5 AC, and I'll grab it, depending on the character. Maybe some wicked-looking, Adamantine Spiked Half-Plate for my tank with 10 Dex. Or Hide Armor made from a Woolly Mammoth that grants me the same benefit as a Cold Weather Outfit. Or a bejeweled Breastplate that gives a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks with nobles. I could go on all day.

Give us some items with flavor text. Maybe even throw in a picture of the item on the chronicle sheet. Something I can proudly show off to other players. Most of the items I give out in my home games are similarly decorated, and my players love them. I gave out a helmet made from the pincers of a Stag Beetle to the druid in the party once, and he never took it off. He thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Not everyone out there thinks only in terms of having *the best* gear. Some characters still operate off a theme and a concept. My min-maxed characters are probably my most boring.

Grand Lodge 4/5

@Eric:

A few things to think about.

Mithral Kikko armor, at +5, is going to be the best armor a non-Fighter (someone without Armor Training, that is) can use without spending either feats or traits, and still get an ACP of 0. It also counts as light armor for sleeping, although it would need medium armor proficiency not to take that ACP as a penalty.

For the best light armor in the game, you have to consider Celestial armor, although it does have an ACP of -2.

Also, of course, the real second best light armor, discounting ACP reasons, would probably be the +6 Elven Chain armor. An ACP of -2, but counts as Light in all ways, including proficiency, so it would be good for Bards and Maguses, for example, who could ignore the ASF chance.

And, of course, one of the things that you have to bear in mind when looking at armor is the Max Dex cap, and your PC's build. For my PC who is wearing mithral Kikko, he loses a point of Dex AC because of the Dex cap. But, in order to get it back, he would have to switch from the Kikko, +5, all the way down to mithral parade armor, or darkleaf studded leather armor, which are both only +3. Give up 2 to regain 1? Not efficient, sorry.

Oh, and a medium armor PC might want a mithral full plate, and a heavy armor PC probably would want adamantine full plate.

Lantern Lodge 3/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Any discount of those items would bend the Wealth by Level curve more than it already is.

What is everyone's take on the WbL curve?

I have players here playing up so many times, they are totally "bling out" by the time they hit level 3. Like MORE then 3x more wealth then what is "suppose" to be their wealth at a given level. (10k+ vs 3k+)

To the OP, adding more discounts... can tip this overboard...

Trying to balance this can get... messy. Not to mention it may lead to a problem of players playing certain modules over others, cos these give "better" stuff at the discounted prices.

Grand Lodge 1/5

@Secane play them a S4 scenario and let them play UP and don't pull punches. See how they do in a Day of the Demon scenario at lvl. 5 playing UP to lvl. 6-7.

Also, I don't know how you DM but our DMs targeted who ever did the most damage with this beast of a Gargoyle. So, the Monk who had 37AC, didn't really come into question, since the gargoyle went after the Barbarian who was hitting it harder and we almost TPKed because when I went to heal the Barbarian, the Gargoyle went after me.

So if you are using the soft glove approach, I'm sure your players can play up, in every game. If you let your monsters go after the weakest in the party, so that they can't DOT, I doubt anyone is going to want to play UP in most S4 scenarios.

@Kinevon can't answer intelligently right now, since books are at home. I do know that as a cleric who is limited to Med Armor, Mithral Full Plate doesn't work, since you need to have proficiency in wearing it, even if its one weight class lower.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Eric Saxon wrote:

@Kinevon can't answer intelligently right now, since books are at home. I do know that as a cleric who is limited to Med Armor, Mithral Full Plate doesn't work, since you need to have proficiency in wearing it, even if its one weight class lower.

If you aren't proficient in heavy armor, you can still wear mithril full plate. You just take the ACP against your to hit roll. If your cleric doesn't care about hitting stuff, it's a possibility... (I've seen a build of cleric that never plans on using a weapon in full plate and tower shield and just took the penalties to hit).

Shadow Lodge

Katie Sommer wrote:
If you aren't proficient in heavy armor, you can still wear mithril full plate. You just take the ACP against your to hit roll. If your cleric doesn't care about hitting stuff, it's a possibility... (I've seen a build of cleric that never plans on using a weapon in full plate and tower shield and just took the penalties to hit).

Actually, you take the ACP to all skills and ability checks that involve any form of movement, if I recall correctly, making it a wee bit nastier than just making you miss all your attack rolls.

Grand Lodge 4/5

SCPRedMage wrote:
Katie Sommer wrote:
If you aren't proficient in heavy armor, you can still wear mithril full plate. You just take the ACP against your to hit roll. If your cleric doesn't care about hitting stuff, it's a possibility... (I've seen a build of cleric that never plans on using a weapon in full plate and tower shield and just took the penalties to hit).
Actually, you take the ACP to all skills and ability checks that involve any form of movement, if I recall correctly, making it a wee bit nastier than just making you miss all your attack rolls.

The ACP only affects Str- & Dex-based skills, IIRC, and it is only -3, -2 if you take the trait Armor Expert.

Skills affected:
Acrobatics
Climb
Disable Device
Escape Artist
Fly
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
Swim

Give the odds that that same PC is likely to be suffering a medium load, or worse, which is also a -3 ACP penalty, I suspect that it is a moot point.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

Back on topic...

One of the really cool things I miss from playing RPGA was the item sheets that got handed out. I had this cool scrap of paper, I think they came 3 to a page, with a picture of a golden chalice on it. Something like 2/day I could fill it with clean water and the chalice would act as a cure light wounds potion. Nifty little item for a 1st level character to have (this was back in 2nd Edition). But the really cool thing was that I could take that "treasure sheet" to any other game and show it off when I was using it. It wasn't just the words "Golden Chalice" written amongst a bunch of other equipment, it was something that I could touch and hold and felt like more of a part of my character.

I feel that something like that could be added to the Chronicle Sheets today. All too often it seems there is a lot of unused space between tiers anyways. Maybe just scrunch things up a couple few inches and put a picture of a unique item found during that scenario on the bottom. Darkleaf cloth armor, or a red dragonhide breastplate, or a Golden Chalice. You wouldn't necessarily have to cut it off like we did in RPGA, but it would provide a cool visual you could show off at the table.

Thoughts?

Grand Lodge 4/5

Another idea I like is getting access to an item that is special with every session. An item that at least 1/2 the time can be used by most characters.

Its a big let down going trough a great adventure and getting 500 gold and access to a +1 cloak that you can buy anyway....

Perhaps PFS could allow a 5% discount on items on your sheets, it would still make that +1 cloak a little better!

That way gold inflation is kept in check and we still get to go back and look at our old sheets from time to time and go shopping with a small discount.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

The discount (any discount) is likely not going to happen for the reasons stated above.

Sovereign Court 5/5 RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Another 'discount' option might be to do something like Dawn of the Scarlet Sun. Where you treat your fame as X higher for certain items.

Personally, I like having certain items 'sheet only' It makes the scenarios worth something more than just XP (even if it means I need to play X for the hyperboreal robe.) SO if I survive to level 12 by june, I can be sure that Talyn will be one of the very few with a Faerie dragon, because I played <redacted>.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Even that would help. Oh! Maybe the chronicle sheet could grant "funny money" only usable for purchases of certain non-consumables!

Liberty's Edge 5/5

David Bowles wrote:
Even that would help. Oh! Maybe the chronicle sheet could grant "funny money" only usable for purchases of certain non-consumables!

Huh... yeah, that would be interesting...

Spoiler:
Yup, I did remember correctly, there are at least two particular scenarios out there that do exactly this

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Did a bit of research. I don't have enough information to base season 4 on, but from what I found almost half the scenarios on seasons 0-3 have things beyond standard equipment already. Much more than I thought it would be. That ramped up over time - by season 3 it's something like 70% of scenarios have something that you can't find anywhere but that chronicle.

So maybe it's just the perception of getting chronicles that don't have anything combined with chronicles that don't have anything you need, that makes it seem like they never give any nifty things.

Sovereign Court 5/5

thistledown wrote:

Did a bit of research. I don't have enough information to base season 4 on, but from what I found almost half the scenarios on seasons 0-3 have things beyond standard equipment already. Much more than I thought it would be. That ramped up over time - by season 3 it's something like 70% of scenarios have something that you can't find anywhere but that chronicle.

So maybe it's just the perception of getting chronicles that don't have anything combined with chronicles that don't have anything you need, that makes it seem like they never give any nifty things.

Did your research show how many items on the chronicles wouldn't have been available to those with average fame? For me items that I could already buy are not of interest to me on a chronicle.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Todd Lower wrote:
thistledown wrote:

Did a bit of research. I don't have enough information to base season 4 on, but from what I found almost half the scenarios on seasons 0-3 have things beyond standard equipment already. Much more than I thought it would be. That ramped up over time - by season 3 it's something like 70% of scenarios have something that you can't find anywhere but that chronicle.

So maybe it's just the perception of getting chronicles that don't have anything combined with chronicles that don't have anything you need, that makes it seem like they never give any nifty things.

Did your research show how many items on the chronicles wouldn't have been available to those with average fame? For me items that I could already buy are not of interest to me on a chronicle.

(Emphasis mine.)

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Most of the items that are unique to a specific chronicle, prior to season 3, are partially charged wands and wands of higher than minimum caster level, or a combination of the two.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Andrew Christian wrote:
Most of the items that are unique to a specific chronicle, prior to season 3, are partially charged wands and wands of higher than minimum caster level, or a combination of the two.

And I wasn't checking for those. I was just looking at things like "Inward facing wheel - book that give you bonus on summend stuff" or "3 times, get a bonus vs dragon breath"

If you're considering partially charged items, etc, then the percentage goes up even more.

And no, I was not looking at fame at all.

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