What would happen if total rebuilds were allowed for all FAQs and errata?


Pathfinder Society

1 to 50 of 51 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Silver Crusade 3/5

I've been in PFS only since Jan 2012. So please forgive me for not having proper historical context in which to frame this question.

In the time I've been here, I've seen several rules changes through either FAQs or errata. The ones that stand out are: (1) the Ultimate Combat errata, Crane Wing in particular; (2) spell-like abilities and spellcasting requirements for prestige classes; and (3) the current ACG and ARG errata. Those three rules changes were all handled very differently—I think Paizo is actually getting better in their handling of these issues, but I digress.

What would happen if players were allowed to totally rebuild their character (minus spent prestige) following a rules change?

Is there some reason that allowing full rebuilds after the rules change would be bad for the campaign?

Please share your most dire predictions. :)

2/5

That character I've been partying up with for 10 levels suddenly disappeared and instead here's this level 10 stranger to the Society I've never seen before whose chronicles sheets say have been in on all the same missions I've been on at the same time?

Whatever happened to that first guy? I liked him. We shared jokes and blood-curdling terror surviving from one near-TPK scrape to the next. I don't know this new guy.

But in all seriousness, I'm assuming it's the same reason why they don't allow rebuilds after level 2. It's an ongoing campaign and expect some continuity in characters, even if lots of builds got boned in the errata.

5/5 5/55/55/5

People would take the munchkiny thing just for the eventual rebuild.

Cats singing with dogs.

Fire. Brimstone.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Maybe get 10 star worth of DMs to sign off on the change?


Protoman wrote:

That character I've been partying up with for 10 levels suddenly disappeared and instead here's this level 10 stranger to the Society I've never seen before whose chronicles sheets say have been in on all the same missions I've been on at the same time?

Whatever happened to that first guy? I liked him. We shared jokes and blood-curdling terror surviving from one near-TPK scrape to the next. I don't know this new guy.

But in all seriousness, I'm assuming it's the same reason why they don't allow rebuilds after level 2. It's an ongoing campaign and expect some continuity in characters, even if lots of builds got boned in the errata.

It's not like you don't see similar things without rebuilds, especially if you're playing public games without a regular group. You see one character for awhile, then play with someone else for awhile without any real explanation. And that new guy may well have played many of the same missions you've been on.

I wouldn't object to more liberal rebuilds when things in your actual build change, but rebuilding anything after any change would leave things too open. Too easy to just sit back and wait for the next FAQ and then change up your characters. Free retraining of anything you wanted, essentially.

The Exchange 3/5

As long as they still had to maintain their gear, I could be convinced to be on board. Its a hard topic to discuss and I understand why Protoman would feel that way, there are some characters I genuinely enjoy playing with for the shared story experience they've had. To have that character disappeared would be a bummer.

However, if that character was so nerfed or the player had lost the will to play them due to a rules change, I'd advocate letting them rebuild. No reason a player should play a character they don't enjoy. Not really a game at that point.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

I definitely echo The Fox's question. I just don't see the issue. If a caveat was put in place something like "Only take the full rebuild if you honestly and truly believe that simply making minor adjustments would end up in a character that you'd not enjoy playing" then that would eliminate many of the abuses, at least for the vast majority of the players who I believe WOULD follow the intent if the intent is clearly spelled out.

Before somebody points out the Aasimar Grandfathering as a counter point, I do NOT believe that the developers intent was made clear in that case. I know that I went and saved some Aasimar characters but I honestly did NOT think that was considered abusive by Mike et. al.

So, Hyperbole aside, what is the issue?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

1 person marked this as a favorite.

There would be an incentive to find even the most trivial way in which your character was "materially affected" by the rules change.

There are certain things which are useful early game, but delay access to things that are bonuses late game. One of the trade offs in the game is do you suffer through the early levels to save up for things in later levels? or do you power through buying everything you want and then store up that character for a rebuild to get the late breaking character you really wanted.

There would be an increase in burden on GMs, who are supposed to sign off on the changes and now have to inspect a much wider variety of changes.

One of the incentives to GM is the ability to build up GM credit blobs that can be exploded into whatever late breaking character you want. that GM incentive would be weakened.

Those are the reasonable things I can see players doing off the top of my head.

As far as the abuses:

A very small segment of the player base would seize on this to extract the most extravagant interpretation of the most niggling ambiguity, to build hilariously broken characters. Then, if they got called on it, they would yell "rules change, rebuild!" and switch to the next broken illegal build. All those rules forum / advice forum threads where you have one person asserting that it is totally reasonable for his character to do 6d6 untyped energy damage with every melee attack at level 3 while the entire rest of the forum tries to point out to him that he missed three clauses in the rules that prevents it could get daisy chained, back to back at the table by a player who saw this as a consequence free way to break the rules, and if he got called, just shift to a new exploit till he found one the GM didn't have the system mastery to refute.

Even if it didn't work, it would completely derail the table unless the GM was willing to take a firm hand.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

pauljathome wrote:

I definitely echo The Fox's question. I just don't see the issue. If a caveat was put in place something like "Only take the full rebuild if you honestly and truly believe that simply making minor adjustments would end up in a character that you'd not enjoy playing" then that would eliminate many of the abuses, at least for the vast majority of the players who I believe WOULD follow the intent if the intent is clearly spelled out.

Before somebody points out the Aasimar Grandfathering as a counter point, I do NOT believe that the developers intent was made clear in that case. I know that I went and saved some Aasimar characters but I honestly did NOT think that was considered abusive by Mike et. al.

So, Hyperbole aside, what is the issue?

Actually, you (I am assuming) were not the problem. Intent was made *very* clear. And what you did was fully inside it.

What actually then happened was a very small number of people went and held weekend "aasimar cons" where they ran through fallen fortress 20 or more times, at less than 30 minutes a pop to bank up enough of aasimars and teiflings for the rest of their career and the came on the forum and told everyone that was what they were doing and told leadership that because leadership was making this change they were going to refuse to play anything but teiflings or aasimars ever again in PFS, etc... and generally engaged in disruptive and divisive behavior, and continued even when told that that was not the intent.

Among other things this provoked resentment among people who did not have the local resources to get even a couple (if any!) aasimar before the deadline. It also raised serious concerns about metagaming, as 20 successive speed runs on MoFF is clearly not playing the scenario as intended, and almost certainly at some point devolved into a very metagamy "you go here, I go there, when we open the door and the <redacted> comes out, I cast this and you do that."

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

FLite wrote:


There are certain things which are useful early game, but delay access to things that are bonuses late game. One of the trade offs in the game is do you suffer through the early levels to save up for things in later levels? or do you power through buying everything you want and then store up that character for a rebuild to get the late breaking character you really wanted.

There would be an increase in burden on GMs, who are supposed to sign off on the changes and now have to inspect a much wider variety of changes.

One of the incentives to GM is the ability to build up GM credit blobs that can be exploded into whatever late breaking character you want. that GM incentive would be weakened.

Those are all valid concerns. Thank you.

Lantern Lodge 3/5

Let me preface my thoughts on the rebuild issue with this knowledge about me: I participate in PFS for fun, good memories, good times, and to indulge one of my favorite hobbies. In my opinion, adhering to a philosophy of paraphrased "sucks to be you, re-roll" does not serve anyone. (Not pointing to anyone specific there, but we do absolutely have community members with that mentality.)

I am not in favor of full rebuilds every time we have errata or FAQ. This is for a number of reasons. First, it is potentially ripe for a somewhat constant abuse, as the game will always be evolving. Second, continued rebuilds can really make things hard for GMs to track if they wish to audit a PC.

With that said, I do believe we have had enough high impact changes over the last few years to warrant giving people a one time full or semi-full rebuild. Race, class(es), archetypes, ability scores, feats, skills, and spells. Items only when they are invalidated by new choices or errata / FAQ.

While this may lead to character improvements in some cases, that is not something I consider to be "abuse". I consider that to be "fun". It may also lead to some fairly significant changes, such as a Fighter PC becoming a Swashbuckler, or a Wizard becoming and Arcanist. But is that really a major problem?

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It would be an encouragement to make characters out of the most corner intpretations of rules mechanics that you can do, knowing that there would be no penalty for when they eventually get found out an shutdown.

It would be an enabler for the worse kind of munchkin character making possible.

Scarab Sages 4/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16

Unfortunately I think it would ultimately encourage abuse of abilities/combos that take advantage of shaky or unclear rules. Because, why not? If they issue a FAQ/Errata you can just change to something else with no consequences.

Scarab Sages 4/5 **

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber
LazarX wrote:

It would be an encouragement to make characters out of the most corner intpretations of rules mechanics that you can do, knowing that there would be no penalty for when they eventually get found out an shutdown.

It would be an enabler for the worse kind of munchkin character making possible.

I feel that attitude is a bit hyperbolic. While I agree that some people will do this, I believe the number of cases would be small and have minimal impact (except on the boards, where those players might brag disproportionately about their exploits).

My concern on rebuilds is based on a more baseline part of the population. PFS has a culture of organically playing your character from level 1 to 11 (with the rare exception of Campaign Mode APGs and GM credit-babies). Being able to use a rebuild to switch from a Fighter to a Swashbuckler (or from Aasimar Bard to Half-Orc Warpriest) breaks that play style.

In addition, creating more of these opportunities can create more headaches for GMs and players. Each of these rebuilds is another opportunity for less experienced or less skilled players to build themselves into a corner (at high level) - resulting in GM headaches and audits, or slowing down games significantly as they learn (on the fly) how to play a high level character of an entirely new build.

I may be wrong (and I hope I am), but my experience with organized play is that giving players opportunities to rebuild characters creates lots of confusion and mistakes (and some smaller amount of abuse).

4/5 *

grandpoobah wrote:
I feel that attitude is a bit hyperbolic. While I agree that some people will do this, I believe the number of cases would be small and have minimal impact (except on the boards, where those players might brag disproportionately about their exploits).

One thing being part of a world-wide organized play campaign has taught me: regional differences abound. I know people I've met at cons who have completely opposite impressions about "the way it is" than I do. Lots of people don't see certain things as a problem, and so they assume that the rules therefore aren't needed because everyone is reasonable. That is not my experience.

The Exchange 3/5

On a personal level I would appreciate full rebuilds. Only my very first character who I only got 4-5 exp on has never been altered by rules changes. The other 10 have all been affected, some more drastically than others, in ways that I consider making them unplayable.

The first time it happened to a character who was approaching retirement and I was upset about it enough to stop playing for an extended period of time. I now have several characters in that level range who have been affected in different ways. Currently my hopes are riding on a character who luckily was grandfathered rather than ruined to actually make it to Eyes of the Ten for once.

It's very difficult to come up with something cool and creative and to see all the work you put into the characters ruined so many times. If you want to errata my character at least be more reasonable with rebuilds because Pathfinder is a very high mechanical game; when you rip out a piece the whole doesn't work anymore.


It would be nifty if there was a way to earn "tokens" each good for one rebuild.

Figuring out a fair way of distributing token might take a bit of work though.

-j

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

One issue with making rebuilds cheaper is that right now rebuild boons are one of pfs's most valuable rewards, used to incentivize things like being a tier one GM at GenCon.

So any mechanic for earning rebuilds would require a contribution on the same order, or would risk devaluing that reward, which would reduce the incentive for people to gm gem con. (this would possibly be a trivial reduction, possibly not)

Dark Archive 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

People would abuse the more liberal policy. Liberal policies in the past have had to be re-structured due to abuse in the short amount of time they were open. When a small amount of people abuse the system it ends up hurting everyone.

Dark Archive 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Now, if you GM at a convention, I do know that the boon allows a free rebuild. You can easily GM a lot of conventions and have a store of rebuilds to use for future changes.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Todd Morgan wrote:
Now, if you GM at a convention, I do know that the boon allows a free rebuild. You can easily GM a lot of conventions and have a store of rebuilds to use for future changes.

But Todd, changelings/skinwalkers...

Dark Archive 3/5

Are those the gencon boon this year? Man I should have gone. Ah well, always next year.

Dark Archive 3/5

Also, "a lot of conventions?" They only give the seasonal boon at local conventions, even up to origins, my understanding is that unique boons are only for the big conventions like gencon and maybe paizocon. I have personally only ever seen one rebuild boon and that is from somebody who makes it a point to go to gencon.

Silver Crusade 1/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

As a player who got hit in the knee by errata ( i mean HIT) i gotta say that the most wisiest thing already been said.

Codanous wrote:


However, if that character was so nerfed or the player had lost the will to play them due to a rules change, I'd advocate letting them rebuild. No reason a player should play a character they don't enjoy. Not really a game at that point.

So i think that a rebuild may be done only if your dm agree with you that your character need rebuild, you may change all but race and the main idea of character, so at the end of rebuild you will be the same guy, just with other tricks.

4/5 *

"Your DM" is Mike Brock and John Compton, though, and they are at GenCon right now.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
GM Lamplighter wrote:
"Your DM" is Mike Brock and John Compton, though, and they are at GenCon right now.

Only Mr. Compton after GenCon until Brock's successor is crowned.

Dark Archive 3/5 **

Jason Wu wrote:

It would be nifty if there was a way to earn "tokens" each good for one rebuild.

Figuring out a fair way of distributing token might take a bit of work though.

-j

That's easy. GM at a major event (i.e. Gencon). In fact, they already do this.

Grand Lodge 4/5

bdk86 wrote:
Jason Wu wrote:

It would be nifty if there was a way to earn "tokens" each good for one rebuild.

Figuring out a fair way of distributing token might take a bit of work though.

-j

That's easy. GM at a major event (i.e. Gencon). In fact, they already do this.

That's not even remotely easy for most people, not least because of the limited number of Tier 1 slots.

5/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
LazarX wrote:
GM Lamplighter wrote:
"Your DM" is Mike Brock and John Compton, though, and they are at GenCon right now.
Only Mr. Compton after GenCon until Brock's successor is crowned.

and then recovers consciousness.

5/5

Todd Morgan wrote:
People would abuse the more liberal policy. Liberal policies in the past have had to be re-structured due to abuse in the short amount of time they were open. When a small amount of people abuse the system it ends up hurting everyone.

I would disagree. Currently, if a player feels that the rules aren't making the game more fun for him, he will end up either quitting the campaign, or ignoring the rules.

We already tolerate abuse of the rules: look at the broken characters that some players bring from time to time. As GMs, we're Required to allow them on our tables, even if they trounce encounters.

Yet we're punishing a player who is now stuck with a character that now does not do what it was envisaged to do due to an oversight by Paizo.

I understand that we are not supposed to promote cheating, but we also should try and avoid creating punitive rules that allow players to self-justify it.

Dark Archive 4/5

I'm pretty sure the gm boons for conventions now carry a rebuild option as an alternate to the race on it

Dark Archive 4/5

And it's not limited to major conventions. You could run for an online convention and get it

4/5

LazarX wrote:

It would be an encouragement to make characters out of the most corner intpretations of rules mechanics that you can do, knowing that there would be no penalty for when they eventually get found out an shutdown.

It would be an enabler for the worse kind of munchkin character making possible.

And trust me, you don't want to give me a reason to be a more of a munchkin.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

grandpoobah wrote:
LazarX wrote:

It would be an encouragement to make characters out of the most corner intpretations of rules mechanics that you can do, knowing that there would be no penalty for when they eventually get found out an shutdown.

It would be an enabler for the worse kind of munchkin character making possible.

I feel that attitude is a bit hyperbolic. While I agree that some people will do this, I believe the number of cases would be small and have minimal impact (except on the boards, where those players might brag disproportionately about their exploits).

My concern on rebuilds is based on a more baseline part of the population. PFS has a culture of organically playing your character from level 1 to 11 (with the rare exception of Campaign Mode APGs and GM credit-babies). Being able to use a rebuild to switch from a Fighter to a Swashbuckler (or from Aasimar Bard to Half-Orc Warpriest) breaks that play style.

In addition, creating more of these opportunities can create more headaches for GMs and players. Each of these rebuilds is another opportunity for less experienced or less skilled players to build themselves into a corner (at high level) - resulting in GM headaches and audits, or slowing down games significantly as they learn (on the fly) how to play a high level character of an entirely new build.

I may be wrong (and I hope I am), but my experience with organized play is that giving players opportunities to rebuild characters creates lots of confusion and mistakes (and some smaller amount of abuse).

Except it really isn't hyperbolic.

I've seen one person, who found it fun to exploit the math if the game to create some pretty gross builds. And that was one out of ~250 active people in our region. That player was actually very nice, fun to be around, and a great GM. But the issue became very devicive. GMs were refusing to run that player, and others were starting to refuse to play with that player. That player got run out of the local scene and now we don't see thier friendly, fun face or thier great GM skills anymore.

The moral to my story, is that when you open the door to potential abuse of the available options, one person can create major negative drama in an entire region. And sometimes, you'll also get other players trying to mimic the builds of that one player, that would never otherwise have thought of it stumbled across that specific exploit. And so now you have more than one drama issue.

I'm not trying to make a false snowball argument. Rather stating a factual anecdote of what has actually happened.

So an extremely small number of people can really hurt an entire region by exploiting the most extreme options.

And the worst part of this story? That fun person and great GM, quit PFS, because of the hate sent thier way. Some of us were working with that person to let others participate and to build more reasonable characters. But the drama was too much for them. That makes me sad.

So I can definitively say, that for the Minnesota region, that even drama like this from one player is excessively bad for our entire region. Is feel comfortable saying that most regions are probably have similar stories.

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Andrew Christian wrote:
I've seen one person, who found it fun to exploit the math if the game to create some pretty gross builds.

So you're saying that it's already happened, even without liberal rebuilding rules. And I agree, losing a good GM and creating negative drama is bad for the community.

Andrew Christian wrote:
The moral to my story, is that when you open the door to potential abuse of the available options, one person can create major negative drama in an entire region.

But, as you stated above, the door is already wide open. The player already did.

The restrictive rebuilding rules don't stop it. If anything, they provide a disincentive for Paizo to close the door.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Mulgar wrote:


And trust me, you don't want to give me a reason to be a more of a munchkin.

And don't pour that bucket of water into the Atlantic. :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5

I have been in a organised play campaign with unlimited rebuilds and I don't miss half the table turning up with cookie cutter builds to see what its like. Then next time turn up with something completely different but the same character name. This also leads to authors having to up the difficulty to increase the challenge. I don't miss it I prefer organised play campaigns with recurring characters among PCs as well as NPCs tailored for characters who make some less than optimal choices

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Mekkis wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
I've seen one person, who found it fun to exploit the math if the game to create some pretty gross builds.

So you're saying that it's already happened, even without liberal rebuilding rules. And I agree, losing a good GM and creating negative drama is bad for the community.

Andrew Christian wrote:
The moral to my story, is that when you open the door to potential abuse of the available options, one person can create major negative drama in an entire region.

But, as you stated above, the door is already wide open. The player already did.

The restrictive rebuilding rules don't stop it. If anything, they provide a disincentive for Paizo to close the door.

"It already happens, so lets make it easier," is not a convincing argument.

1/5 Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover

As is, there already seems to be a minority of people abusing stuff and playing in a non-cooperative way, where constantly the strongest and most absurd builds possible seem to be played and all their abilities used all the time like nukes to concentrate spotlight on single characters.

Perhaps it´s time to think about different solutions there.

5/5

Benjamin Falk, Andrew Christian:

As far as I can tell, you're saying that the potential for punitive measures on the off chance that Paizo FAQs or erratas something is an effective deterrent to creating overpowered characters.

The presence of overpowered characters under these current measures is evident that this is not effective.

I have asked several of the munchkins in my local community if they are concerned about this, and they general response ranges from "It's a good way of getting Paizo to fix their mistakes", to "I'll worry about that if it happens.". (There was also one player who expressed that they "made this character to get back at Paizo for banning the vivisectionist.")

We should also take into account the other people who are inconvenienced by these measures. The policy is not only punishing the powergamers.

Another more insidious measure that the current policy causes is the view that the PFS leadership does not respect the players affected by the changes. This leads to resentment, and a lack of respect for both this policy, and other policy. When a player self-justifies an unsanctioned rebuild, they are more likely to (for instance), self-justify other unwarranted behaviour.

To conclude:

I feel that the use of punitive measures in response to errata is ineffective as a deterrent to powergaming, and does considerably more harm than good.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Mekkis, given that current leadership has bent over backwards to make extra rebuilding options, That they have repeatedly solicited comments on how to make the rebuild process better, that they have used the errata of options that had been banned to open those options up for use, that they have in many ways been far more respectful of the players than some of the player base has been of them, I feel like the assertion that PFS leadership does not respect the players laughable. Just go look at all the the threads requesting specific exceptions, or discussing specific problems, and see what they are doing to help.

Also, "you won't let me play an evil character (vivisectionist) therefore I will ruin other peoples fun (by bringing abusive characters.)" is the sort of attitude that gets no respect from me and would be invited to leave the table. For the record, I don't turn away abusively powerful characters. Sometimes those are even fun, (especially when the nova only ocasionally and then let other people handle other stuff.) Sometimes they are even more fun when they nova the first fight, and then discover that everything else in the adventure is immune. (Great, you throw three fireballs a round, that is cool and all, but we are trying to stop her from burning the evidence, not help her... (slight exaggeration)) But someone who is punishing local players because someone half a continent away said they were not allowed to play evil characters in a game with a no evil characters rule, does not belong in PFS.

4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

While I do like not granting rebuilds to let characters change at will I do wish the restrictions were a bit more open even beyond FAQs and errata. I like the concept of tying this to GM rewards, but the boon that allows this feels rare and overly exclusive.

It is more reasonable for players to run enough games to accrue enough GM chronicles to just build the character anew, but I would ready continue with my character than build a clone.

What about allowing GMs to apply their GM credit towards rebuilding one of their characters rather than leveling any character. Cross out boons, 0 gold, 0 prestige, 0 XP. Once they have some number on a character, maybe one per level on the character, they get their rebuild.

There might be more significant role changes and clarifications that hopefully the existing rules might cover better, but maybe this would allow some option to most players to fix their character when they aren't satisfied with a partial retraining for their character.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Total anarchy and confusion. People are prone to "fudging" as is. I think the rules should be stricter

5/5 5/55/55/5

captnchuck67 wrote:
Total anarchy and confusion. People are prone to "fudging" as is. I think the rules should be stricter

For rebuilds? Why? Its ridiculous to expect people to know what paizo is going to change their mind on.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Mekkis wrote:

Benjamin Falk, Andrew Christian:

As far as I can tell, you're saying that the potential for punitive measures on the off chance that Paizo FAQs or erratas something is an effective deterrent to creating overpowered characters.

The presence of overpowered characters under these current measures is evident that this is not effective.

I have asked several of the munchkins in my local community if they are concerned about this, and they general response ranges from "It's a good way of getting Paizo to fix their mistakes", to "I'll worry about that if it happens.". (There was also one player who expressed that they "made this character to get back at Paizo for banning the vivisectionist.")

We should also take into account the other people who are inconvenienced by these measures. The policy is not only punishing the powergamers.

Another more insidious measure that the current policy causes is the view that the PFS leadership does not respect the players affected by the changes. This leads to resentment, and a lack of respect for both this policy, and other policy. When a player self-justifies an unsanctioned rebuild, they are more likely to (for instance), self-justify other unwarranted behaviour.

To conclude:

I feel that the use of punitive measures in response to errata is ineffective as a deterrent to powergaming, and does considerably more harm than good.

I said nothing of the sort. I'm not about creating a system to try and stop rule abuse.

That and not wanting to allow more opportunities for such are completely different concepts.

And John and the rest of campaign management and Paizo as a whole has done a great job of allowing great options. So I'm not seeing how any actions they have taken are punitive.

5/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Mekkis wrote:


As far as I can tell, you're saying that the potential for punitive measures on the off chance that Paizo FAQs or erratas something is an effective deterrent to creating overpowered characters.

I said nothing of the sort. I'm not about creating a system to try and stop rule abuse.

That and not wanting to allow more opportunities for such are completely different concepts.

And John and the rest of campaign management and Paizo as a whole has done a great job of allowing great options. So I'm not seeing how any actions they have taken are punitive.

Maybe I read your previous comments incorrectly, I apologise.

Could you clarify that you believe that opening up rebuilding in the case of errata would cause a rise in powergaming? Or does your opposition to the idea stem from something else?

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Andrew Christian wrote:


And John and the rest of campaign management and Paizo as a whole has done a great job of allowing great options. So I'm not seeing how any actions they have taken are punitive.

The problem is that, for an individual player, the end result can SEEM punitive. In fact, from the players point of view it IS punitive.

Let's go back to the change in SLAs, both because the final results are known and because it is hopefully less emotional now. When the change occurred John and Mike did what they genuinely believed to be best for the campaign as a whole (that is NOT sarcastic), probably going past where they were comfortable in terms of grandfather ing, rebuilds, etc.

But from my perspective, 2 characters got nerfed. They were both prestige class wannabes who didn't yet qualify. Any vaguely impartial examination of the characters would have concluded they were clearly aimed for the prestige class. Any vaguely reasonable home game GM would have allowed a rebuild. The fact is that I WAS punished.

Now, I accept that. The greater good of the campaign demanded it (or so people I respect concluded). But I WAS punished for changes that happened.

4/5

Todd Morgan wrote:
And it's not limited to major conventions. You could run for an online convention and get it

This isn't accurate Todd. We went from having multiple gamedays and major conventions the last two years online to thus far having one online convention open for anyone interested to GM in this year. We'll have another one in November I believe.

Also, and more to the point of your post, the rebuild boon has never been offered online, as far as I'm aware, as a GM reward or otherwise. This is a tier 1 gencon reward, and I'm not even aware of it being offered outside of that.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Todd Morgan wrote:
I'm pretty sure the gm boons for conventions now carry a rebuild option as an alternate to the race on it

Is this something going into effect after Gencon? Because the current season has the elemental race option and the voltron option and the quasi Hero point boon.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Mekkis wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
Mekkis wrote:


As far as I can tell, you're saying that the potential for punitive measures on the off chance that Paizo FAQs or erratas something is an effective deterrent to creating overpowered characters.

I said nothing of the sort. I'm not about creating a system to try and stop rule abuse.

That and not wanting to allow more opportunities for such are completely different concepts.

And John and the rest of campaign management and Paizo as a whole has done a great job of allowing great options. So I'm not seeing how any actions they have taken are punitive.

Maybe I read your previous comments incorrectly, I apologise.

Could you clarify that you believe that opening up rebuilding in the case of errata would cause a rise in powergaming? Or does your opposition to the idea stem from something else?

Simply put. Paizo's design team has made changes and clarifications to the game we play. And all of Pathfinder Society has to deal with these errata documents in some fashion. I'm affected by this too.

So now the campaign leadership is taking steps, in understanding of folks pain (including my own), to open up new options to rebuild. This is a work in progress, so stay tuned.

1 to 50 of 51 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Organized Play / Pathfinder Society / What would happen if total rebuilds were allowed for all FAQs and errata? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.