PFS and Pregens: If I have a level 6 character, could I use a Level 7 pregen in a 5-9 scenario?


Pathfinder Society

Liberty's Edge

I am about to RSVP for a Level 5-9 adventure, but my character is only level six and there is a Level 9 Sorcerer in the party. Would I be allowed to use a Level 7 pregenerated character, or would I have to risk the character that is only one XP from Level 7?

Dark Archive

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You could use the pregen, however, you would not apply the rewards until you acquired your XP to get to 7th level, at which point you would jump from 6/2 to 7/1.

Grand Lodge 3/5

I thought the rule was that you couldn't apply it to any character that was in the appropriate level range when you played.

So you wouldn't be able to play a 7th level pregen and apply the 5-9 sheet to your 6th level character. But you could downgrade it and apply it to a level 1, or apply it towards the future of a current level 3.

Dark Archive

I seem to recall it working off of specific level, rather than level range. I could be remembering wrongly though.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Legio has it right. You can use the pre-gen. You can't apply credit from a game played as a pre-gen to a character of the same level or higher, but as long as you're a lower level character, you can use the pre-gen. Then like Legio mentioned, you don't apply credit immediately (even if you're in the same sub-tier), but save the credit until the character you're applying it to has reached the level the pre-gen was played at.

Liberty's Edge

So, literally just one more game and then I can actually apply it? Sweet.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Also makes a lot of sense if the group is playing the higher tier. You might not want to slow the group down with a 6th level, and a 7th level pre-gen might be a better fit.

That way the whole group is in the 7-9 level range. I've seen lower tier players get killed trying to play up many times.

Liberty's Edge

In my Six Seconds to Midnight game, the whole party was Levels 6-7, except for a Level 3 Investigor whom was crushed under a tree, dying instantly. Our Paladin had to use Raise Dead.

Grand Lodge 5/5 Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic

The rule is worded in a way the above is indeed possible, but the actual intent of this rule was to prevent people using pregens instead of their own character to avoid risk, but still gaining the rewards.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

You cannot apply it to the character that can play in that scenario.

Grand Lodge

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"Man, I left my character sheet at home. Can I run a Pregen?"

"Naw. You want to apply credit? Get your butt back home, and nab it, cuz you ain't gettin' no credit."

I don't really see it working that way.

5/5

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Andrew Christian wrote:
You cannot apply it to the character that can play in that scenario.

Yes, yes you can. The actual rule that's been in the last couple of guides has been explained above. If they wish to remove the possibility of such an option, it would be an easy change of language (as they have (or at least had) such language for module play), but they haven't.

Grand Lodge 5/5 Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic

Sniggevert wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
You cannot apply it to the character that can play in that scenario.
Yes, yes you can. The actual rule that's been in the last couple of guides has been explained above. If they wish to remove the possibility of such an option, it would be an easy change of language (as they have (or at least had) such language for module play), but they haven't.

Could you please make a suggestion for this easy change?

5/5 5/55/55/5

Sniggevert wrote:


Yes, yes you can. The actual rule that's been in the last couple of guides has been explained above. If they wish to remove the possibility of such an option, it would be an easy change of language (as they have (or at least had) such language for module play), but they haven't.

guide says one thing board post says something a little different.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

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Mike Eckrich wrote:
Also makes a lot of sense if the group is playing the higher tier. You might not want to slow the group down with a 6th level, and a 7th level pre-gen might be a better fit.

In my day, when I was a Venture Officer, words of this nature would have never left my lips.

I show up to game days to play my character. Suggesting that somebody not play their character (and I quote here), "to slow the group down with a 6th level" blows my mind. About five years ago, at Gen Con, we forever lost a player, a good friend of mine in fact, because nearly these exact words left the mouth of the players at his very first Pathfinder table at a convention. He showed up with his Level 2 druid, sat down with a table of 4 & 5's, and was promptly told that he would hurt their group too much and he should play Kyra. He got up, left, and never came back to the game.

Now...the original poster asked if he could play the low level pregen because he felt overpowered, which is fine, if a player has made a decision on his or her own, they do whatever you want, but I'd strongly, strongly consider words more carefully in the manner that you may "slow down" a group of higher level players.

Grand Lodge 4/5

I know what your saying Mr Slanky, but seasons are a lot harder now. Players playing up a whole tier should know what they are getting into. Season 5 on has been brutal.

Grand Lodge 4/5

A new player with his first 5 th character for example sitting down to play a 8-9 tier game should at least be warned that things could get deadly fast. I've seen GM at conventions say " play what you want" with no color and then see the game end 2 hours in due to a near tpk. My thoughts are to guide the group, perhaps with a subtle hint about difficulty and then let the cards fall as they may. As another side note, I want all players to feel engaged , playing up many times means that character takes a minor role and at the end of the night still feels slighted even if the group is sucessful .

5/5

Auke Teeninga wrote:
Sniggevert wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
You cannot apply it to the character that can play in that scenario.
Yes, yes you can. The actual rule that's been in the last couple of guides has been explained above. If they wish to remove the possibility of such an option, it would be an easy change of language (as they have (or at least had) such language for module play), but they haven't.
Could you please make a suggestion for this easy change?
Guide pg. 30 wrote:

For modules and Adventure Path content below 9th level, if you do not have a character in the correct level range,

you may use a Pathfinder Society pregenerated character,
available on paizo.com or the 1st- and 7th-level iconic
characters on pages 275–297 of the Pathfinder RPG NPC
Codex.

Change the first clause to, "For all scenarios levels 1-11, and modules and Adventure Path content below 9th level,...".

1/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

Most player created level 6 pcs are more powerful than level 7 pregens anyhow.

Scarab Sages

After speaking with our new Campaign Mother (Her nickname, not mine, but story about it is hilarious) last night, some clarifications on pregen use are in the works. I don't know when it's supposed to be released, but they are talking about it.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Mike Eckrich wrote:
I know what your saying Mr Slanky, but seasons are a lot harder now. Players playing up a whole tier should know what they are getting into. Season 5 on has been brutal.

Which is completely irrelevant to the argument I made. Educate players, warn them what they are getting into, but never "tell" somebody to play a pregen to make it easier for the other players.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Mister S, that's what I said in my 3rd post above. I think we are on the same page.

1/5

MisterSlanky wrote:
Mike Eckrich wrote:
I know what your saying Mr Slanky, but seasons are a lot harder now. Players playing up a whole tier should know what they are getting into. Season 5 on has been brutal.
Which is completely irrelevant to the argument I made. Educate players, warn them what they are getting into, but never "tell" somebody to play a pregen to make it easier for the other players.

Your lv2 druid will hurt the lv4-5 tier group "a lot" in this session. I think you should play the pregen Kyra.

From what you posted that's what the GM did. Said the player would be over their head and make it harder for everyone. Then recommended that playing a pregen, especially the cleric, would be helpful. Maybe there was a strong haunt, so the cleric would be the only one to do anything against it.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Sniggevert wrote:
Auke Teeninga wrote:
Sniggevert wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:
You cannot apply it to the character that can play in that scenario.
Yes, yes you can. The actual rule that's been in the last couple of guides has been explained above. If they wish to remove the possibility of such an option, it would be an easy change of language (as they have (or at least had) such language for module play), but they haven't.
Could you please make a suggestion for this easy change?
Guide pg. 30 wrote:

For modules and Adventure Path content below 9th level, if you do not have a character in the correct level range,

you may use a Pathfinder Society pregenerated character,
available on paizo.com or the 1st- and 7th-level iconic
characters on pages 275–297 of the Pathfinder RPG NPC
Codex.

Change the first clause to, "For all scenarios levels 1-11, and modules and Adventure Path content below 9th level,...".

As has been mentioned, Mike stated in a message board posts, that you cannot assign a pregen credit to a character that could play that scenario.

I don't have a link as I'm on my phone.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Andrew Christian wrote:


As has been mentioned, Mike stated in a message board posts, that you cannot assign a pregen credit to a character that could play that scenario.

I don't have a link as I'm on my phone.

You're going to have to dig up that link to convince me, because here is a link to a post of Mike saying the opposite:

This is already covered in the Guide on page 6:

If you play a 1st-level pregenerated character, you can apply the credit for her first adventure to a newly created character of your very own. If you play a non-1st-level pregenerated character, you apply the credit to your character as soon as she reaches the level of the pregenerated character played. You may not apply a Chronicle sheet earned with a pregenerated character to a character that was already at the level of the pregenerated character or higher, as you should have used this character for the scenario instead.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would like to add that I think the current rule for scenarios should not be changed. IMO there are no big downsides to the current rule and it has many benefits. Among which are:

- Players can use pregens to try out new classes (which is even explicitly mentioned as one of their uses in the Guide).
- Players can use pregens if they don't have their character sheet handy.
- Players can use pregens to even out the level distribution of a party, which can be more fun than a weirdly skewed one.
- Players can use pregens to create a more rounded party; the game can be more fun with a Merisiel instead of a fourth 2H beatstick. Or maybe what this party really needs is Lem's social skills. (It's happened more than once.)
- Perhaps you want the chronicle sheet on PC 3, but he's too low level to play; you don't want it on PC 2 because he's not the right class to make use of it. (Let's assume that you know what's on the chronicle because you GMed the scenario last year and credited it to PC 1.) By using a pregen you can play, instead of having to not play today because then you'd be forced to play the scenario with PC 2.
- The scenario just looks like it'd be more fun with a certain pregen than with your PC.

The only things I'd like to see changed are:
- Clarify if modules use the same rules as scenarios. I think that would be best (respecting that some scenarios have no in-tier pregens of course).
- Clarify the relation between pregen faction and faction-related boons, especially Grand Lodge stuff.

5/5 **

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Ascalaphus wrote:

I would like to add that I think the current rule for scenarios should not be changed. IMO there are no big downsides to the current rule and it has many benefits. Among which are:

- Players can use pregens to try out new classes (which is even explicitly mentioned as one of their uses in the Guide).
- Players can use pregens if they don't have their character sheet handy.
- Players can use pregens to even out the level distribution of a party, which can be more fun than a weirdly skewed one.
- Players can use pregens to create a more rounded party; the game can be more fun with a Merisiel instead of a fourth 2H beatstick. Or maybe what this party really needs is Lem's social skills. (It's happened more than once.)
- Perhaps you want the chronicle sheet on PC 3, but he's too low level to play; you don't want it on PC 2 because he's not the right class to make use of it. (Let's assume that you know what's on the chronicle because you GMed the scenario last year and credited it to PC 1.) By using a pregen you can play, instead of having to not play today because then you'd be forced to play the scenario with PC 2.
- The scenario just looks like it'd be more fun with a certain pregen than with your PC.

The only things I'd like to see changed are:
- Clarify if modules use the same rules as scenarios. I think that would be best (respecting that some scenarios have no in-tier pregens of course).
- Clarify the relation between pregen faction and faction-related boons, especially Grand Lodge stuff.

Another appropriate situation could be if your only range-eligible character is currently running through a multipart scenario or module and would level out of that series and be unable to complete it should you play the character now.

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

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This discussion was just had over a month ago.

If you can't find your point in those 261 posts, then feel free to post it here.

To sum up: Yes, you may always choose to play an in-tier Pregen if you wish.

Silver Crusade 3/5

Walter Helgason wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:

I would like to add that I think the current rule for scenarios should not be changed. IMO there are no big downsides to the current rule and it has many benefits. Among which are:

- Players can use pregens to try out new classes (which is even explicitly mentioned as one of their uses in the Guide).
- Players can use pregens if they don't have their character sheet handy.
- Players can use pregens to even out the level distribution of a party, which can be more fun than a weirdly skewed one.
- Players can use pregens to create a more rounded party; the game can be more fun with a Merisiel instead of a fourth 2H beatstick. Or maybe what this party really needs is Lem's social skills. (It's happened more than once.)
- Perhaps you want the chronicle sheet on PC 3, but he's too low level to play; you don't want it on PC 2 because he's not the right class to make use of it. (Let's assume that you know what's on the chronicle because you GMed the scenario last year and credited it to PC 1.) By using a pregen you can play, instead of having to not play today because then you'd be forced to play the scenario with PC 2.
- The scenario just looks like it'd be more fun with a certain pregen than with your PC.

The only things I'd like to see changed are:
- Clarify if modules use the same rules as scenarios. I think that would be best (respecting that some scenarios have no in-tier pregens of course).
- Clarify the relation between pregen faction and faction-related boons, especially Grand Lodge stuff.

Another appropriate situation could be if your only range-eligible character is currently running through a multipart scenario or module and would level out of that series and be unable to complete it should you play the character now.

Yet another appropriate situation is, "I only have one character who is in tier for that scenario, but I hate that character so much that if I'm forced to play him in a scenario then I will do everything in my power to cause his untimely demise so as to never again be forced to play that terrible sack of..."

I think that was the issue that prodded me to start the thread linked by Nefreet above. A player was told that he had to play a character that he hated so much that the player was thinking of leaving the campaign behind.

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