RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I think the biggest issue with using other people's PCs as pregens is the variability. If you hand a player your PC who played down a lot, died a few times, and spent 10k gold on used consumables, he's going to be way behind on the wealth curve, and it might screw over the party. On the other hand, if that PC has played up a lot and the character was highly optimized, they'll have an advantage.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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First off, thank you Nosig, for keeping this on target. I think Chris touched on what I see as the biggest problem with his first post - the person who created the PC telling the player how to run it. There would have to be understanding the the player plays it as he sits fit - if you are very attached to the PC being run a certain way, don't volunteer it.
I think it runs into some problems.
1) You get the credit at the level of the pregen you played, so it could cause people to get credit at odd points.
2) pregens past level 7, What if a guy plays a level 10 pregen in 10-11 they don't exist for a reason.
3) consistency of an organized play campaign. There is enough table variation without the pregens available changing between GMs.
I'm already a little guilty of this. I made a bunch of first level characters, because I don't think the first level pregens are done very well, and most people are going to come into it wanting to play a specific class.
However I think it would be nice for a GM-Run pre-gen if I could have it be my own dude :)
Hmm... Good points. For the first, I suppose the credit would drop to the closest pregen, regardless of the level played. That'd be the simplist way to handle it, though maybe not the fairest.
To the second point, please elaborate. You say pregen 10's don't exist for a reason - what is it? I'll admit my highest is only level 7. In any case, I think it would be the same solution as it is now - they play the level 7 pregen, or take another's PC of 7 or above and apply it as a level 7 pregen on the chronicle. They may be out of subtier, but the level 7 pregens can play all the way up to 11.
Third point. I don't have an easy answer to this one. But is it any more variation than there would be if they brought their own character of the right tier?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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@jiggy No, who cares, no, no, no, there.
So if I followed you correctly , then your belief is that any more than a nominal level of outside input makes it no longer my PC?
If I got that wrong, please clarify. Otherwise, my next question is this: On what are you basing that position? Is that in the rules somewhere? You're telling people what is and isn't legal based largely on your definition of character ownership, so said definition needs to be based on something pretty solid.
"Hey GM, what does this do?"
"No sorry, that guy over gave it to me because he said Ezren sucks. Something about a universalism wizard or something. But he did say this one could do like 3d6 damage at first level. How do I do that?"
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To the OP: pregens are there so someone can play a game quickly, without having a super-complicated mutli-feat-chain character that they probably don't understand or own the legal resources for. The official pregens use Core rules, and as official pre-gens, someone can play a game with one and still assign credit to their "real" character.
If you change them, you may still have a legal PFS character, but you no longer have a *pregen* - and so you can't assign credit to a "real" character anymore. The pregen has become your "real" character.
Using someone else's PC requires the player to have all those resources with them, and to know how the character works. Too complicated for the role of pregnes - to allow enw folks to play a game NOW, and figure out the details later.
To Chalk Microbe: There is no rule requiring a player to make a character themselves, there shouldn't be, and likely there never will be. Jiggy outlined many scenarios which show why, but the real reason is this: IT'S A GROUP GAME. PFS players help each other, just like their characters do. It sounds like you don't want to be involved in this community aspect of the game, which is your choice. Don't expect anyone else to make the same choice, though.
To everyone: more decorum, please; sounds like there are some Hatfields and McCoys out there, and I'd rather you took your feud outside.
Scott, of course you can help someone else make their character.
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First off, thank you Nosig, for keeping this on target. I think Chris touched on what I see as the biggest problem with his first post - the person who created the PC telling the player how to run it. There would have to be understanding the the player plays it as he sits fit - if you are very attached to the PC being run a certain way, don't volunteer it.
I think it runs into some problems.
1) You get the credit at the level of the pregen you played, so it could cause people to get credit at odd points.
2) pregens past level 7, What if a guy plays a level 10 pregen in 10-11 they don't exist for a reason.
3) consistency of an organized play campaign. There is enough table variation without the pregens available changing between GMs.
I'm already a little guilty of this. I made a bunch of first level characters, because I don't think the first level pregens are done very well, and most people are going to come into it wanting to play a specific class.
However I think it would be nice for a GM-Run pre-gen if I could have it be my own dude :)
Hmm... Good points. For the first, I suppose the credit would drop to the closest pregen, regardless of the level played. That'd be the simplist way to handle it, though maybe not the fairest.
To the second point, please elaborate. You say pregen 10's don't exist for a reason - what is it? I'll admit my highest is only level 7. In any case, I think it would be the same solution as it is now - they play the level 7 pregen, or take another's PC of 7 or above and apply it as a level 7 pregen on the chronicle. They may be out of subtier, but the level 7 pregens can play all the way up to 11.
Third point. I don't have an easy answer to this one. But is it any more variation than there would be if they brought their own character of the right tier?
As for the reasoning behind no pregens over level 7.
Pre-gens are designed for newer players, They are also designed that people can play all the scenario's and get all the stories of said scenario's. The higher the level of a pregen the more complex it is, and the more likely to slow down play.
It also makes the game more dangerous for the PCs, as the Pregen player is doing to be less familiar and therefore less proficient with their pregen (most of the time).
As for your counter to my 3rd point. probably not, with the exception of what I said about the pregens, the player's familiarity with what a character can handle/do certainly does affect that characters powerlevel.
Point 1 is the biggest problem though, Having a bunch of "wonky" pre-gen credits makes it harder to audit if needed.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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"Hey GM, what does this do?"
"No sorry, that guy over gave it to me because he said Ezren sucks. Something about a universalism wizard or something. But he did say this one could do like 3d6 damage at first level. How do I do that?"
I don't think anyone would contest this.
But I just gave you a list of situations, and you told me that all except the last one do not count as being one's own PC.
Which of those are going to produce the issue you describe? I'm especially curious about the very first of my examples: someone plays an official pregen once, likes it, and uses those exact stats as their "real" PC going forward (so their second game is the pregen's stats +500gp and a new name). It is as far from your hypothetical as it's possible to be; further, in fact, than if they instead went home and built a PC themselves instead.
Yet you say it's not legit.
Why?
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"Hey GM, what does this do?"
"No sorry, that guy over gave it to me because he said Ezren sucks. Something about a universalism wizard or something. But he did say this one could do like 3d6 damage at first level. How do I do that?"
You're saying this based on an assumption, that the coordinator (or person making the character) is too inept to be able to make core based characters. I would think anyone who would think to do this and also take the time, would be congnizant of the fact that there are going to be people playing for the first time and make the characters basic for the new player.
The fact that someone can step into the game, and have someone hand them a character on a sheet and say here ya go .. you're number blah now .. to me is a good thing. I don't think it's an abuse of the re-training rule as I could ask someone to make a character for me, not like it and re-train it into something I wanted. Someone that gets a character this way has no more advantage than I do if I create my own character.
I see the validity of offering something as an alternative to the core pregens. They do the same thing, get someone interested in the game. Personally, my favorite pregen was the oracle pregen, and since that set of pregens has been taken out of circulation, I've gotten to where I won't touch them. If I were a new person just stepping into the game and wanted to play a caster; I'm not sure if I'd still be interested after playing Ezren. Wizards are somewhat clunky to begin with and probably not the best class to be used to introduce someone to the game.
The solution, of course, is that if you are going to provide prebuilt PCs or help someone to build a PC, that you need to take responsibility for their being built with resources the player will have available, either by loaning them your resources, or by using mainly-core materials.
Which is exactly why Pregens are created by campaign staff, not us.
You're saying this based on an assumption, that the coordinator (or person making the character) is too inept to be able to make core based characters. I would think anyone who would think to do this and also take the time, would be congnizant of the fact that there are going to be people playing for the first time and make the characters basic for the new player.
Some random player making "pregens" <> Campaign Staff making pregens
Which I'm glad of. I'm glad people don't like the official pregens. They'll use them a lot less.
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You're saying this based on an assumption, that the coordinator (or person making the character) is too inept to be able to make core based characters. I would think anyone who would think to do this and also take the time, would be congnizant of the fact that there are going to be people playing for the first time and make the characters basic for the new player.Some random player making "pregens" <> Campaign Staff making pregens
Which I'm glad of. I'm glad people don't like the official pregens. They'll use them a lot less.
I'm not saying it's some random player, I'm saying it's a coordinator that generally (one would hope) would have the brains and the forethought to create characters that were on-par with the pregens, but classes that are not offered.
I doubt that people will stop using pregens .. they are always going to be there. All I'm saying is that it's nice to have options other than just the pregens in-case the classes presented by the pregens aren't what is going to draw you in.
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the level 1 characters I have are built 100% out of the CRB, or the CRB plus the section of the appropriate book containing rules for that class. I also print out a copy of the rules for those classes so player's can familiarize themselves with those rules.
Again, I only recommend those characters if players specifically inquire about a certain class, and that class doesn't have a pre-gen.
Legal 1st level pregens:
cleric
gunslinger
samurai
ninja
rogue
wizard
fighter
barbarian
bard
druid
monk
paladin
ranger
sorcerer
Wow that's like 14 choices! Thanks campaign staff for creating so many choices for Pregens.
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I would say I am against this slightly. The reasoning for this are that you can trust the pregens to be correct. I am sorry I do not trust some people to make correct characters. The allow the DM the power to do that you are trusting they are able to make them correctly. Also one the reasons to have players play pregens and having them bland is to encourage people to make thier own characters. It is not really fair for the people that build theirs and earn their character.
When I do go to games I bring interesting level 1s for people to play. Only a few people have ever opted for them.
My complaint is about keira. WHY DOES SHE HAVE CURE SPELLS PREPARED??? As a DM I try to rememeber to tell the players to pick different spells in place of those, but sometimes I am busy and forget. I would seriously love for someone to fix that.
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As far as the PFS Campaign is concerned, ownership of a character is determined by the character number. The character number is the player's PFS number followed by a dash (-) followed by another number indicating which character in their collection they are using. An example of a character number is: 700-1
Usually the first number is 4 or 5 digits long, but can be as few as 1 and could eventually become more than 5. The second number is usually a 1 digit number between 1 and 9 (inclusive), but may be a 2 digit number up to 99.
This number should appear on the character sheet.
The fact that the character was created by someone other than the owner of the character has no bearing on who owns the character.
The sum entirety of a character is defined by its character sheet(s) and stack of Chronicle sheets. All of which should display the character number on each of them. Since the first part of any character number is the player's PFS number, it is easy to determine who the character belongs to.
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I would say I am against this slightly. The reasoning for this are that you can trust the pregens to be correct. I am sorry I do not trust some people to make correct characters. The allow the DM the power to do that you are trusting they are able to make them correctly. Also one the reasons to have players play pregens and having them bland is to encourage people to make thier own characters. It is not really fair for the people that build theirs and earn their character.
When I do go to games I bring interesting level 1s for people to play. Only a few people have ever opted for them.
My complaint is about keira. WHY DOES SHE HAVE CURE SPELLS PREPARED??? As a DM I try to rememeber to tell the players to pick different spells in place of those, but sometimes I am busy and forget. I would seriously love for someone to fix that.
I believe she has Cure spells prepared because pregens are primarily designed for new players. New players may not understand the class feature you refer to. And if the player doesn't ask and no one at the table suggests otherwise, the new player will not know they may switch a spell for a Cure spell.
This is trivial, since as you suggest, the player may always adjust the pregen's prepared spells before play begins. So if they know the rules, they are good. And if they don't ... oh, look, I have Cure spells. I wonder what they do?
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I have had a guy that never played before read over the sheet and ask me that if she has spontaneous casting why does she have cure spells?
It is redundant. It says on the pregen sheet her abilities but not what the spells do.
My big issue is by the time people realize the problem and what to pick new spells they metagame their spells for the scenario. I even heard a veteran whisper to me "I wait until I need a specific spell before I bring up the idea her spells are not picked well"
On my pregen I had people write prot evil has a x2(and some other spells) and all the cure spells are crossed out.
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While I agree with you Don, but I have played for judges who allow no changes to the spells on the Pregen - unless the adventure spans more than one day. Even then, one judge only allowed me to switch to spells in the CRB (for Kyra) as "the pregens only have access to the CRB".
I met some silly judges as well. One I saw would skip pregens turns to "Let real players play.".
I understand the characters are not made to be uber powerfull, but they should not have their abilities being redundant. For a player that does not know better(if they are playing a pregen there is a much higher chance of this) it makes them worse.
Then of course you get the awesome judges that make silly house rules for PFS limiting them farther.
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You don't have to actually own it, just have one there, like a pdf from a friend or a book they have
I was thinking about doing that. As long as you explain for things like Summoners that they have to purchase the APG to keep playing it, I don't see any reason not to.
In order to utilize content from an Additional Resource, a player must have a physical copy of the Additional Resource in question, a name-watermarked Paizo PDF of it, or a printout of the relevant pages from it, as well as a copy of the current version of the Additional Resources list. (If you're bringing a printout of the pages, it must be from the actual Paizo PDF and not text copied and pasted into a blank word processing document).
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Not replying to anyone specifically, just my thoughts:
- The "have a clone of my PC" rule rubs me the wrong way; the game just isn't as enjoyable like this. Hopefully you're not playing with 2 Kyra's either, though.
- Chalk mentioned spirit of the rules with level 1 retrains, I 100% believe the level 1 pregens should get any customisation you like under the same retrain rule. The rule is a boon for all intents and purposes, and if it were simple enough to change the level 4 and 7 pregens to suit similarly, I'd want to see the same applied there as well. This is not about the reason for the level 1 retraining rule, it's about making the game better, and the level 1 retrain rule fixing a level 1 pregen resolves it within the PFS rules (even if it is a loophole). So I say, do it.
- Yes, the pregens need to be optimised a little better than they are. I don't make great character builds (just because I'm not very good at it, it's not intentional, I assure you), and I think only a newbie would make some of the mistakes on those pregens, and it's worse that newbies can pick up those mistakes during the game when their character is explained to them. It's a slightly sour (albeit sometimes amusing) first impression.
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since nosig asked to see a magus; and I started a pretty huge argument over it, here's the magus as an example of what I give new players for classes we don't have pre-gens for.
Ellie
Female Elf Magus 1
CG Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +5; Senses low-light vision; Perception +3
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Defense
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AC 16, touch 13, flat-footed 13 (+3 armor, +3 Dex)
hp 13 (1d8+5)
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +3; +2 vs. enchantments
Immune magic sleep; Resist elven immunities
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee Longsword +3 (1d8+3/19-20/x2)
Ranged Sling +3 (1d4+3/x2)
Magus Spells Prepared (CL 1):
1 (2/day) Shocking Grasp, Shield
0 (at will) Daze (DC 12), Detect Magic, Light
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Statistics
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Str 16, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 7
Base Atk +0; CMB +3; CMD 16
Feats Toughness +3
Traits Focused Mind, Reactionary
Skills Acrobatics +2, Climb +6, Escape Artist +2, Fly +2, Knowledge (arcana) +6, Perception +3, Ride +2, Spellcraft +6 (+8 to determine the properties of a magic item), Stealth +2, Swim +6
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Elven
SQ arcane pool (+1) (3/day), elven magic, spell combat
Combat Gear Acid (2), Alchemist's fire (2); Other Gear Studded leather armor, Longsword, Sling, Sling bullets (10), Backpack (empty), Bedroll, Crowbar, Manacles, Rope, Spell component pouch, Spellbook (2), Trail rations (4), 7 GP, 8 SP
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TRACKED RESOURCES
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Acid - 0/2
Alchemist's fire - 0/2
Arcane Pool (+1) (3/day) (Su) - 0/3
Sling bullets - 0/10
Trail rations - 0/4
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Special Abilities
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Arcane Pool (+1) (3/day) (Su) Infuse own power into a held weapon, granting enhancement bonus or selected item powers.
Elven Immunities +2 save bonus vs Enchantments.
Elven Immunities - Sleep You are immune to magic sleep effects.
Elven Magic +2 to spellcraft checks to determine the properties of a magic item.
Focused Mind +2 to Concentration checks
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Spell Combat (Ex) Use a weapon with one hand at -2 and cast a spell with the other.
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Ellie is a lazy but calculating elvish woman, She's prone to be a bit impulsive but tends to shy away from conversation, unless there is something of swords or sorcery she can learn!
Dear Paizo, never ever make an official Pregen for PFSOP of a class as complicated as the Magus.
Never ever.
IF there is time, I'll help them get their character started, if there isn't the time to spare, then they have to settle on starting with a pregen. I do use the book of 81 first level pregens from PathfinderDB as they ARE legally constructed for PFS play. If they can't find a working vehicle for their concept from that, then quite frankly, they should take the time to read the core rules and do it themselves. The rules now allow for first level rebuilds so it's incumbent upon them to either prepare like they should or be flexible in what they are willing to play.
To be fair, those 81 first level CHARACTERS are very old. I've been playing PFS for almost 2 years. Who knows if they ARE legal or not. Certainly not me, I haven't audited all 81 of them. That's something I rely on Pathfinder Campaign staff to do. With the wide variety of actual pregens that they provide for organized play.
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The good thing about the Pathfinder DB packet that I keep handy is that it stops at the Core Rule book and APG, which are books that we don't have to check for player progression. Also, if a player is new to the system, it's asking for trouble to give them a magus right off the bat.since nosig asked to see a magus; and I started a pretty huge argument over it, here's the magus as an example of what I give new players for classes we don't have pre-gens for.
** spoiler omitted **...
If a player is new to pathfinder but has played 3.5 for 10 years, and the magus is what caught their eye?
I'll agree if they are brand new to d20 system in general it's not the best for them to play, but then neither is anything that casts spells.
if a player is brand new to d20, you should hand them a ranger with point blank, and precise shot.
In my experience the most difficult things for new players to learn are.
Full Attacks, Spells, Flanking (movement in general actually).
the 4 CRB Iconics. 1 relies on flanking (but it's a rogue, so that happens), two cast spells, and the 4th relies on TWF for a full attack.
my least favorite thing in GMing for new players is trying to tell them why they can't attack with both of their swords when they move. Stupid Valeros.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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tell me again why Valeros had TWF?
To me, it was simply to show that the Ranger didn't have the exclusive on it. (See other editions / Drizzt)
As for the Pregens, hopfully, the NPC Codex iconics write-ups will have their own write ups available for PFS play at some point.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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The Amnesiac Wizard is the greatest failing of 3.0.
Two classes - Sorcerer and Wizard. Same class, different mechanics. Why not have all spell casting work off the Spontaneous casting mechanic? Wizards cast X time per day, X being how many spells he has, mem known spells. Done.
Nope. Have to have the forgetful Wizard, cast a spell and can't remember noffin' afterward. Like magic was like strong liquor.
So, 3.5 didn't improve much in this regard. Pathfinder at least has some class skills that has the wizard doing more than three spells and I am done at 1st level.
So, yeah, Vancian casting is a bit daunting for the beginner. The Sorcerer looks better anyway.
The valeros illustration... funny!!
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The Amnesiac Wizard is the greatest failing of 3.0.
IIRC, the designers felt that "Vancian Magic" was a mechanic from the earlier editions which they wanted to hang onto (and which many players felt was iconic for the wizard class). They then created the sorcerer for those players who didn't care for that level of complexity.
