PFS and Upgrading Magic Items (Season 8)


Pathfinder Society

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

The Season 8 Guide is missing text that appeared in the previous season's guide regarding upgrading magical items.

PFS RPG Guide (Season 7), p 23 wrote:
For ease of play, a masterwork item can always be upgraded to a +1 item without paying for the masterwork cost again. Instead, you pay the difference between the cost of the +1 item and that of the masterwork item. This rule also applies to upgrading from a +1 item to a +2 item and so on—you never have to repay the original cost or sell your current item for half to upgrade to the next step. Note that this only applies to items of the same kind—you can’t, for example, turn your masterwork rapier into a +1 greatsword.
PFS RPG Guide (Season 8), p 19 wrote:
For ease of play, items of the same kind can be upgraded from a masterwork item to a magic item by paying the difference in cost of the two items. However, you can’t turn items of one type into another (i.e., you can’t turn a masterwork rapier into a +1 greatsword). ...

In other words, the rules for upgrading magic items numeric-based have been removed from the Guide.

I'm not suggesting the rule has changed. Indeed the FAQ item on upgrading named items was updated to the new season's guide page (although the page now says nothing about upgrading magical items).

Named magic items—including specific armor and specific weapons—are not upgradeable. Non-magic specific armor and specific weapons may be upgraded normally. Magic armor and weapons may be upgraded to named versions if they are the same basic material and shape as, and meet but do not exceed the enhancement bonuses of the named versions. Wondrous items whose names include a +X value (such as bracers of armor, headband of vast intelligence, amulet of might fists, etc.) may also be upgraded following the rules for upgrading magical items on page 19 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

(As an aside, the name of the text being referenced is also incorrect.)

I suspect this change was made for editorial/page-fit reasons, but there is now no RAW text describing the upgrading of magical items. Veterans will understand because "it's always been that way", but those new to PFS (or new to RTFM) won't find the needed rule.

Or, is my interpretation wrong, and the intent was to remove upgrades for already-magic items?

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

There is a Sticky...

... although it could go for an update.

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

I agree. Kyle's comments made it in to later versions of the Guide. It's clear what the rule was. The removal of the text made it less clear.

It's odd that it was so recently removed. It's important, and should remain in the Guide. This is a core feature of organized play, and should not be found solely in the forums.

And I can envision some pedant arguing that the removal was after Kyle's original post, thus the upgrade rule no longer applies.

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

A lot of people have focused on what was removed.

The funny thing is, and I suspect this explains the bruises on the foreheads of Campaign Leadership, that people argued strongly that the Guide's word/page count be drastically reduced, so it wasn't such a daunting document for new players.

Forgetting that was the intention has caused a bit of an uproar, despite those removed items still being in existence somewhere.

Dark Archive 4/5 *

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Nefreet wrote:

A lot of people have focused on what was removed.

The funny thing is, and I suspect this explains the bruises on the foreheads of Campaign Leadership, that people argued strongly that the Guide's word/page count be drastically reduced, so it wasn't such a daunting document for new players.

Forgetting that was the intention has caused a bit of an uproar, despite those removed items still being in existence somewhere.

[SARCASM]Well, the answer is simple, you obviously can't please everyone, so just please me :-) [/SARCASM]

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I believe if there was a post/blog saying that the things they removed are still rules then it's not a big deal. The issue is though is when you question if things were intentionally removed cause they don't want it to be an option anymore now.

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Page 553 of the Core Rule Book already contains the general rule for upgrading magic items.

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

Perhaps a reference "following the rules for upgrading items found in the core rule book."

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Pink Dragon wrote:
Page 553 of the Core Rule Book already contains the general rule for upgrading magic items.

So it does. But it also uses the implicitly adopts the crafting rules that don't exist in PFS, and uses as an example adding invisibility to a ring of protection, which is not possible in PFS, so it's perhaps not the best source for rules on upgrading magic items within the structure of PFS.

Even if the intention is that the CRB be the source for the upgrade rule, the FAQ is still pointing to the Guide for a rule that no longer exists there.

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TomG wrote:


So it does. But it also uses the implicitly adopts the crafting rules that don't exist in PFS, and uses as an example adding invisibility to a ring of protection, which is not possible in PFS, so it's perhaps not the best source for rules on upgrading magic items within the structure of PFS.

Even if the intention is that the CRB be the source for the upgrade rule, the FAQ is still pointing to the Guide for a rule that no longer exists there.

I have seen nothing in the PFS Roleplaying Guide (of any edition) or the Additional Resources that say that the magic item creation part of the CRB is illegal. I only see that PC's cannot take crafting feats, so PC's cannot do their own crafting.

Like you, I understand that stacking different effects on a single magic item is not possible in PFS, but I cannot find the ruling on this. If the ruling is in an FAQ or a post by a PFS administrator, then that will stand alone from the CRB as a clarification/errata, but will not affect the other parts of the CRB that talk about magic item crafting.

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Jared Thaler wrote:
Perhaps a reference "following the rules for upgrading items found in the core rule book."

I think the Guide should only need to modify the rules in the CRB rather than reference them, because the CRB is already a legitimate rules source.

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