Question about Purchasing Magic Items in PFS


Pathfinder Society


I've played PFS for around a year, and I'm still confused about buying magic items. Most of the time I play, we don't always have time to ask the GMs questions in depth, so I thought I would throw this one out there and get a clear answer from the community.

What magic items can I buy? Can I ONLY buy what's on my chronicle sheets plus the always available list or when my fame is high enough, can I buy anything I want, as long as I don't go above the spending limit per item.

I'll give an example: I've got an 8th level character and I still have +1 armor and weapons. Nothing has been better on the chronicle sheets in the games I've played through, so I've been waiting to get through a scenario with better weapons and armor, and have not played through one yet. It was brought to my attention by another player that as long as my fame score is high enough, I can crack open the books I own and start buying. This information was new to me. It's not really clear even in the updated 5th Season Guide to Organized Play. As a relatively new player, I want to be sure I'm doing this right so I don't cheat.

If what I posted above is correct, what is the point of the items on the chronicle sheet?

Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

Yokel

5/5 *****

Read the Guide to Organised Play. You can buy anything that costs equal to or less than the value dictated by your fame score provided it is legal. Chronicle items are generally irrelevant with a few small exceptions, generally partially charged wands or things which might not be in additional resources. There may have been a time when they were relevant but that time is long past and probably mythical.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
andreww wrote:
Read the Guide to Organised Play. You can buy anything that costs equal to or less than the value dictated by your fame score provided it is legal. Chronicle items are generally irrelevant with a few small exceptions, generally partially charged wands or things which might not be in additional resources. There may have been a time when they were relevant but that time is long past and probably mythical.

Andrew,

I HAVE read the Guide to Organized Play, as I pointed out in my original post. I cannot find anywhere where it is clear that you can buy ANYTHING as long as you have the fame. Could you please point me to the paragraph where it talks about this? This may be clear to players who have played a lot of PFS, but to us new guys, it's not clear at all. You have to make certain assumptions that are not clearly spelled out in the text. You would think about 6 seasons, this would be a little more clear.

Thanks for the help though.

Yokel

2/5

Basically calculate your fame (equals total of all prestige earned) and there is a chart that shows the max gold you can spend per item. It is near the day job result chart. The relevant passage is somewhere in those few pages.

5/5 *****

Page 23

Beyond the gear noted above, your character is restricted
to purchasing additional items from his accumulated
Chronicle sheets, or by capitalizing on his fame. Weapons,
armor, equipment, magic items and so on that are outside
of these lists are not available for purchase at any time.

Page 24

Fame is a non-expendable number
that functions similarly to an ability score—the higher
your Fame, the greater your renown. Higher Fame scores
unlock resources that can be purchased from your faction
with Prestige Points and increase the maximum cost of
items you can purchase with gold
.

Page 25

A character’s Fame score determines the
maximum gp value of any items she can purchase from her
faction, as detailed in Table 5–3 below. The character must
still actually spend the gold to receive the desired item

Dark Archive 4/5 *

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Whatever items you do purchase need to be from a legal source as well, and custom magic items are not allowed. You should check the additional resources page, but pretty much everything from the Core Rulebook or Ultimate Equipment except intelligent or cursed items or scrolls of spells over 6th level is available as long as you have sufficient fame.


andreww wrote:

Page 23

Beyond the gear noted above, your character is restricted
to purchasing additional items from his accumulated
Chronicle sheets, or by capitalizing on his fame. Weapons,
armor, equipment, magic items and so on that are outside
of these lists are not available for purchase at any time.

Page 24

Fame is a non-expendable number
that functions similarly to an ability score—the higher
your Fame, the greater your renown. Higher Fame scores
unlock resources that can be purchased from your faction
with Prestige Points and increase the maximum cost of
items you can purchase with gold
.

Page 25

A character’s Fame score determines the
maximum gp value of any items she can purchase from her
faction, as detailed in Table 5–3 below. The character must
still actually spend the gold to receive the desired item

I think these passages help make my case for the confusion. The first paragraph states you cannot purchase anything outside of the chronicle sheets at any time, unless you capitalize on your fame. How do you do that? Well, if you read it, it tells you how MUCH gold you can spend on an item, and that it will increase with level, but it needs to say at some point "Fame allows you to purchase additional magic items from sources such as the Core Rulebook or Ultimate Equipment". It needs to spell that out, and it never does.

It's like a brand new, never played before, player cracking open a Core Rulebook and seeing that he needs to roll 3d6 for Stats. Without any reference, he has no idea what 3d6 is.

Thanks for the help everyone. I do appreciate it. I want it to be clear, that's all.

Yokel

Grand Lodge 4/5

For clarity:

1) You can always buy anything on the Always Available list.

2) If an item is listed on a Chronicle, you can purchase it, even if you don't have enough Fame to unlock that level of gold access.

3) You can buy anything legal from Additional Resources that you own the resource for, that costs equal to or less than your Fame score unlocks.

Ex:
0-4 Fame is only Always Available and what is on your CHronciels for the PC.
5-8 Fame includes the above but adds access to anything that is legal that costs 500 gp or less.
9-12 Fame, as above, gold limit increases to 1500.
.
.
.

The items on the Chronicle are, usually, anything that is not on the Always Available list, and anything that is non-standard, like partially charged wands.

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

Since nobody's linked it yet, THIS is the Additional Resources document everyone's talking about.

After your Fame score unlocks another tier of purchases, they still must be legal according to Additional Resources.

I.E., no Unholy weapons, unless available on a Chronicle sheet you possess.

5/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg

I suppose the main problem here is that the Guide doesn't explicitly state that "capitalizing on your fame" means "buying a legal item not on your chronicles with a maximum cost defined by your fame score (see table XXX)"

I agree that this can be confusing for a new player.

5/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 4

Here is my post about the 4 ways to acquire items in PFS. It has been a few years. Is everything still valid?


Andreas Forster wrote:

I suppose the main problem here is that the Guide doesn't explicitly state that "capitalizing on your fame" means "buying a legal item not on your chronicles with a maximum cost defined by your fame score (see table XXX)"

I agree that this can be confusing for a new player.

Agreed. This had me confused when I first started too, and I hope to see it stated more clearly in a future edition of the OPG.

Community / Forums / Organized Play / Pathfinder Society / Question about Purchasing Magic Items in PFS All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Pathfinder Society