Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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So I sit down at a table of Veteran's Vault at our local gameday. We have a Detective 1, Thug 2, Enchanter 3, Theologian 3, Fighter 4. APL comes out as 2.6 which rounds to the nearest whole number, so 3. According to the Guide, playing a Year 4 adventure with 5 players and an APL of 3 we are supposed to play Sub-tier 4-5 with the monsters reduced for 4 players...
Really? Only one out of 5 players in tier and we are supposed to play 4-5? In a Year 4 mod? Well, then, good thing we brought that Detective 1 along to help us defeat those higher tier monsters.
The good news is we all survived and succeeded in the adventure. But we were sweating it for a bit. It was just rather surprising that the numbers worked out that way.
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It's actually worse in the opposite direction. Funny and just a coincidence that it's also Veteran's Vault, but I sat down at a table of Veteran's Vault at our local gameday. We had an Evoker1, Barbarian3, Inquisitor4, Diviner5. APL comes out as 3.25. This would leave us playing the rampantly unfun 6 player version of 1-2. I try to find a new player--any player! Even adding a level character will allow us to play the 4 player version of 4-5, which would be much more fun. To no avail. The Barbarian's player saves the day and pulls out his Sorcerer4. Bang, we're 3.5, and Mike says you can round whichever way works for your group. We round up and have a blast! But the upshot is, if the Barbarian's player hadn't had that Sorcerer4 in his pocket, we wouldn't have been able to do that, and it would have been a pretty lame challenge.
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Hey, that Barbarian to Sorcerer player was me!
We were able to manage the switch because the Inquisitor was a melee type.
I had fun playing my Varisian Tattooed Sorcerer with a Shaitan bloodline. I just kept lobbing Flaming Spheres when we couldn't talk our way out of a nasty situation.
It was an historic table too. The first table with our new VC David Montgomery GMing and our two new VLs Mark and Linda playing.
EDIT: Not that it matters, but I've never heard of x.5 rounding down.
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So, conclusion: The system worked, and you were effectively challenged?
Not sure where you would conclude that from. Did that level 1 have fun or was s/he cowering in the back and not doing anything for 4 hours? Not sure I could say a system that makes players unable to do anything and so not have fun would be considered a system that worked...or effectively challenging. So did the level 1 get to do stuff and have fun, participate and be challenged? If no...then then the system failed. If yes...then the system worked.
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So I sit down at a table of Veteran's Vault at our local gameday. We have a Detective 1, Thug 2, Enchanter 3, Theologian 3, Fighter 4. APL comes out as 2.6 which rounds to the nearest whole number, so 3. According to the Guide, playing a Year 4 adventure with 5 players and an APL of 3 we are supposed to play Sub-tier 4-5 with the monsters reduced for 4 players...
The 4-player reduction can make a big difference though; it does in 'the Glass River Rescue' anyway.
If the 1st-level PC hadn't been there, you would've had a 4332 table; what would you have played then?
Did the player of the 4th-level PC not opt to play a 1st-level PC instead?
Did the player of the 1st-level PC not opt to play a 4th-level pregen instead?
Either would've have made for a narrower level range.
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I really like the current way the system works. I had a table on Thursday night that had an apl out of subtier and they played up. They had a blast playing the module because it wasn't a walk through. Each fight was a nail biter and they came out with some stories.
It is best though that if your level is almost double if not double the majority...play a different character. Seriously. Don't be that guy to make the new guy feel like the odd man out.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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When we sat down at the table we fully expected to be playing down and where surprised to find out we weren't. If we had had a choice we would have played down, not because of difficulty but because of the high possibility of death on the parts of the Lvl1 & 2 characters. Traps, collateral spell damage and even non-crits from some monsters can 1-shot a level 1 or 2 easily in a Year 4 4-5 subtier. This is especially true when the mod has a high level spell caster as the 4 player reduction usually just gets rid of minions rather than lower the caster level.
Nobody had brought alternate characters except for me (and everyone wanted to play their own characters) and I debated playing my Monk 5 or Ninja 5 instead of the Theologian 3 but my Theologian can do descent damage, had a good AC and I felt having a healer would increase the survival chances of the low levels.
What went in our favor was a good party balance, the high level being the front ranker, intelligent play
As to the Detective 1, though, I do not think he had fun. He was very nervous the entire time, was not able to participate effectively in most combats, and even the things he did well, like Diplomacy, weren't good enough for the higher tier.
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Nobody had brought alternate characters except for me (and everyone wanted to play their own characters)
As to the Detective 1, though, I do not think he had fun. He was very nervous the entire time, was not able to participate effectively in most combats, and even the things he did well, like Diplomacy, weren't good enough for the higher tier.
Hopefully the next time he's in a similar situation, he'll see the wisdom of playing a 4th-level pregen instead.
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Nobody had brought alternate characters except for me (and everyone wanted to play their own characters)This is not the fault of the subtier system.
Yes, it is. Not everyone has a pile of dead bards worth of alternate characters. Some people are working on their first character.
The new rules are too restrictive and take away player choice.
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Nobody had brought alternate characters except for me (and everyone wanted to play their own characters)This is not the fault of the subtier system.Yes, it is. Not everyone has a pile of dead bards worth of alternate characters. Some people are working on their first character.
The new rules are too restrictive and take away player choice.
It's a bed that players who chronically play up made. Now everyone gets to lie in it.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Yes, it is. Not everyone has a pile of dead bards worth of alternate characters. Some people are working on their first character.Nobody had brought alternate characters except for me (and everyone wanted to play their own characters)This is not the fault of the subtier system.
The level 4 (and the 3's, for that matter) could have started a new PC right then and there. Grab a level 1 pregen, rebuild it later. Or they could do what they did and try to play with a four-level range of PCs. They made their choice.
The new rules are too restrictive and take away player choice.
They do take away player choice of which subtier to play... which was never supposed to be much of a choice in the first place. You're supposed to be playing the subtier most appropriate for the party's level, and the new rules take away the choice to do otherwise.
"Working as intended" is what it looks like to me.
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They do take away player choice of which subtier to play... which was never supposed to be much of a choice in the first place. You're supposed to be playing the subtier most appropriate for the party's level, and the new rules take away the choice to do otherwise.
"Working as intended" is what it looks like to me.
Just to expand, what the OP and some responders in this thread are saying is, "This is what happened, and I don't like it."
What Jiggy and others are replying is, "That's the way it's supposed to work, and I'm sorry you don't like it."
If you would like to make an argument that it shouldn't work that way, please do so. I encourage you, however, to include in your argument a reason why the mathematical calculation of subtier is less disruptive to the community than a free choice. I wasn't in on the discussions (even as a VO) so I can't speak with any authority, but I strongly suspect there were numerous reasons why that choice was removed. If you want to be convincing, you're going to need more evidence than "Choice is better," regardless of your reasoning for why choice is better.
In addition, I strongly believe that even if it does change back to give more player choice, that won't be until Guide 6.0. The Campaign Leadership does not make choices flippantly, and they reverse those choices with even more serious deliberation. They're not going to revisit a rule less than a month after it's been implemented.
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The level 4 (and the 3's, for that matter) could have started a new PC right then and there.
Could they? I have a black book of character concepts ready to go. We can probably both have a "Ready enough" character made in 15 minutes, but not everyone can.
Was the level 4 trying to get into a higher level game at some point soon? You hear from a lot of players they KEEP hitting level 5-6 and cant get anywhere higher because they have to continually start new characters.
Grab a level 1 pregen, rebuild it later.
People. Hate. The pre gens. Its not your character.
Or they could do what they did and try to play with a four-level range of PCs. They made their choice.
well no. The higher level characters made their choice and the lower levels were stuck with it. You could majority rules or even 1 person says play down then you play down, but no one decides what character you bring to a table except the player.
The new rules are too restrictive and take away player choice.
They do take away player choice of which subtier to play... which was never supposed to be much of a choice in the first place. You're supposed to be playing the subtier most appropriate for the party's level, and the new rules take away the choice to do otherwise.
"Working as intended" is what it looks like to me.
Having only 1 person in the right subtier was probably not the intent.
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Having only 1 person in the right subtier was probably not the intent.
Even if the rules had allowed them to play down, the majority of PCs would've been out-of-subtier; this is a problem with that table, not the rules.
The rules help by allowing the 4-player adjustment to be used, even though the table has 5 players, to moderate the difficulty of tier 4-5 slightly.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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Actually, my personal jury is still out regarding whether or not I liked. It is just, as the title of the thread stated, an 'unexpected' result of the new system we were not prepared for. Now that we (and the other readers of this thread) know this sort of thing can happen we can be better prepared for it.
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Read the thing.
It says to round to the nearest whole number.
We don't need something in the guide that defines how to round .5 more than is already there.
That's ridiculous.
A whole number is any integer value 0 and greater. So when you're at 3.5, both 3 and 4 are "whole numbers" and both are equally near. So it's unclear.
In addition, we've already had Mike Brock clarify for us that you get to choose to round up or down when the APL calculation is .5. Is that your understanding as well?
Even if you and I understand this rule completely, I had this issue come up 2 times during Gencon and both GMs did NOT understand that the players had a choice whether to round up or down. (They thought PF always rounds down by default and another guy thought you always round up to even). Having arguments about it is not fun. With less choice involved with APL calculations, I think it matters.
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Read the thing.
It says to round to the nearest whole number.
We don't need something in the guide that defines how to round .5 more than is already there.
That's ridiculous.
A whole number is any integer value 0 and greater. So when you're at 3.5, both 3 and 4 are "whole numbers" and both are equally near. So it's unclear.
In addition, we've already had Mike Brock clarify for us that you get to choose to round up or down when the APL calculation is .5. Is that your understanding as well?
Even if you and I understand this rule completely, I had this issue come up 2 times during Gencon and both GMs did NOT understand that the players had a choice whether to round up or down. (They thought PF always rounds down by default and another guy thought you always round up to even). Having arguments about it is not fun. With less choice involved with APL calculations, I think it matters.
I understand that you think it matters.
I personally think that writing all these piddly little things into a scenario is ridiculous. Seriously, do we need to codify how to round .5? You don't see that as silly?
I personally choose to err on the side of the players in most cases where either 1) the rule is ambiguous or 2) it doesn't matter.
In this case, both 1 and 2 apply, and so, it doesn't matter. And it shouldn't matter to any GM out there. Especially now.
If it matters to you, then it behooves you to bring a printout of Mike's particular message board post indicating that players have the choice. Then the GM can't impose their opinion on it.
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why is 4 closer to 3.5 than 3 ?It is not unclear, rounding 3.5 to the nearest number makes it 4.(…)
A whole number is any integer value 0 and greater. So when you're at 3.5, both 3 and 4 are "whole numbers" and both are equally near. So it's unclear.
(…)
Standard mathematical convention accepted all over the globe.
PF is the oddball in ever saying that a .5 rounds down.
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Standard mathematical convention accepted all over the globe.
PF is the oddball in ever saying that a .5 rounds down.
check out (but the part on tie-breaking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding
to hit all sorts of rounding that is standard mathematical convention and not all of it has 3.5 going to 4
"
A tie-breaking rule that is less biased is round half to even, namely:
If the fraction of y is 0.5, then q is the even integer nearest to y.
Thus, for example, +23.5 becomes +24, as does +24.5; while −23.5 becomes −24, as does −24.5.
"
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why is 4 closer to 3.5 than 3 ?It is not unclear, rounding 3.5 to the nearest number makes it 4.(…)
A whole number is any integer value 0 and greater. So when you're at 3.5, both 3 and 4 are "whole numbers" and both are equally near. So it's unclear.
(…)Standard mathematical convention accepted all over the globe.
PF is the oddball in ever saying that a .5 rounds down.
3.5 should round to 4 would be convention.. and not the only convention at that. 3.5 is closer to 4 is simply incorrect.
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Read the thing.
It says to round to the nearest whole number.
We don't need something in the guide that defines how to round .5 more than is already there.
That's ridiculous.
A whole number is any integer value 0 and greater. So when you're at 3.5, both 3 and 4 are "whole numbers" and both are equally near. So it's unclear.
In addition, we've already had Mike Brock clarify for us that you get to choose to round up or down when the APL calculation is .5. Is that your understanding as well?
Even if you and I understand this rule completely, I had this issue come up 2 times during Gencon and both GMs did NOT understand that the players had a choice whether to round up or down. (They thought PF always rounds down by default and another guy thought you always round up to even). Having arguments about it is not fun. With less choice involved with APL calculations, I think it matters.
I understand that you think it matters.
I personally think that writing all these piddly little things into a scenario is ridiculous. Seriously, do we need to codify how to round .5? You don't see that as silly?
I personally choose to err on the side of the players in most cases where either 1) the rule is ambiguous or 2) it doesn't matter.
In this case, both 1 and 2 apply, and so, it doesn't matter. And it shouldn't matter to any GM out there. Especially now.
If it matters to you, then it behooves you to bring a printout of Mike's particular message board post indicating that players have the choice. Then the GM can't impose their opinion on it.
Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.
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Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.
For the record, 0.4999999999.... = 0.5 </math pedant>
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Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.For the record, 0.4999999999.... = 0.5 </math pedant>
While you're correct, that's not the number he was talking about. You're the one who put .... after the number to imply that the 9s continue forever, but that's not what David wrote. His was an exact number going to exactly 10 decimal places, with nothing stated or implied about the 11th or later decimal places.
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Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.For the record, 0.4999999999.... = 0.5 </math pedant>While you're correct, that's not the number he was talking about. You're the one who put .... after the number to imply that the 9s continue forever, but that's not what David wrote. His was an exact number going to exactly 10 decimal places, with nothing stated or implied about the 11th or later decimal places.
Now I haven't done serious math in a long time.
However I'm pretty sure that a number like that, that doesn't actually have more 9's following indefinitely, is actually impossible mathematically.
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Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.For the record, 0.4999999999.... = 0.5 </math pedant>While you're correct, that's not the number he was talking about. You're the one who put .... after the number to imply that the 9s continue forever, but that's not what David wrote. His was an exact number going to exactly 10 decimal places, with nothing stated or implied about the 11th or later decimal places.
Now I haven't done serious math in a long time.
However I'm pretty sure that a number like that, that doesn't actually have more 9's following indefinitely, is actually impossible mathematically.
Huh? If you're doing math to 10 decimal places, then you can have any digits in those 10 places. For instance, it's the answer to this simple addition problem: .4999999998 + .0000000001
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Mathematical convention is to round 0.5 to 1. Pathfinder chooses to buck this in many places, but if not otherwise specified, 0.5 rounds to 1. 0.4999999999 rounds to 0. That's how nearest integer works. However, Mr. Brock has already clarified that players get to choose in these rare cases.For the record, 0.4999999999.... = 0.5 </math pedant>While you're correct, that's not the number he was talking about. You're the one who put .... after the number to imply that the 9s continue forever, but that's not what David wrote. His was an exact number going to exactly 10 decimal places, with nothing stated or implied about the 11th or later decimal places.
Now I haven't done serious math in a long time.
However I'm pretty sure that a number like that, that doesn't actually have more 9's following indefinitely, is actually impossible mathematically.
It's a single discrete number out of an infinite possible numbers. It's unlikely to come to that number specifically, but no more so than to come to the number 1.00000000.
Regardless, in all this rounding, if folks wish to be pedantic about it, the only significant digit is going to be the tenths place as we're rounding to a whole number. So, .4 should be treated the same as .425 or .475, as you should not be rounding to a beyond the last significant digit and everything else should be truncated.
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Maybe Andrew means impossible for an average party level at a PFS table. In which case, he's right--the decimals at the end of any APL in PFS will also be the decimal representations of 0, 1/4 (.25), 1/2 (.5), 3/4 (.75), 1/5 (.2), 2/5 (.4), 3/5 (.6), 4/5 (.8), 1/6(.1666...), 1/3 (.3333...), 2/3 (.6666...), 5/6 (.8333....), 1/7 (.142857 repeating), 2/7 (.285714 repeating), 3/7 (.428571 repeating), 4/7 (.571428 repeating), 5/7 (.714285 repeating), or 6/7 (.857142 repeating). Those are the only possibilities.
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Okay, yes my example was pretty obscure. In science, we rarely have instrumentation that can measure out to that level of precision.
The point is that 0.5 normally goes up, and anything less normally goes down. But here we can choose, and I see nothing wrong with that. Woe to the 5 man group that comes in at 3.56, however.
To quote the poster above, the chronic "OMGZ, play up at all costs to max my goldz!" crowd made this system a necessity. I usually those people to stick it if I was playing with them, but I guess it was a huge problem.