Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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Reading another thread, a comment was made that an audit is not a public document. Since I work for state government, the concept of public document is certainly known to me.
I know PFS is not a government entity so the concepts of public and non-public documents does not apply, but is there a prescribed document to use when a character is audited? Is there a procedure to follow? Is there a set of rules to ensure that the player with the character being audited can be assured that they are being treated "fairly". Maybe something like Miranda Rights being given to player?
I assume none of this stuff exists, but the concept of a "public document" in PFS was interesting.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I guess the base idea is "please have your stuff in order so we don't have to find out what actions to take".
I think it's relatively reasonable for players to check the additional resources page to see if their character/purchases are legal. When in doubt ask, but you really should know how your character works.
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I've been playing since the dawn of Pathfinder Society.
I've done a few "spot audits" on the occasional weird gray area rule, a couple brand new players to help them understand the rules, and one full-blown one.
They're not common enough to warrant any kind of formality though, nor should they be.
Most informal audits are just that, informal. If you feel the need to do something more formal and documented, do so. But, if everybody followed the simple rule: "don't cheat", then GMs wouldn't have a reason to do an in-depth audit on any character, and nobody needs to do anything but play and have fun.
So when I said it wasn't public and likely won't be - I was referring to the fact that I don't think anybody needs to see the specifics. There's nothing to be gained in doing so due their rarity. On the other hand, I'll gladly use generalized outcomes from a disastrously failed audit as a lesson learned to both players and GMs of what to expect should you outright violate the rules. I believe transparency in these cases provides a) players with a sense that the GMs and other "leadership" are there to help those that honestly want to be part of the community enjoy the game, and b) to show that there is a penalty for pushing too far and what that penalty is.
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There are actually some positives to doing audits. Sometimes you will even find a bonus the character was missing. I audited the characters who I ran eyes of the ten for and found one player who had applied his armor check penalty to his initiative despite gaining proficiency in that armor. He had been playing with 2 less than he should have.
I think more players should come forward for auditing now and then just to be sure everything is how it should be and have another set of eyes to check your work. It can be a pain auditing at the table when the game is supposed to be happening so much so that it probably is done much less than it should be.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I agree that there are two very different categories of audits. There is the very casual and usually focused audit that is basically a check of a bonus for something. This usually happens when a GM notices that someone has a bonus that is too high or low. As an example, if a sixth level full BAB character is having trouble hitting something with an AC 12 or never missing something with an AC 32.
The other is a more time consuming process where you look through the whole character, their equipment, etc and check that everything is as expected. You may even check their chronicles and ITS. My understanding is that this is pretty normal around here if your character is about to go through Eyes of the Ten, and uncommon otherwise. Again, it can be for either reason -- the character appearing too competent or not as competent as expected. It can also happen if the player doesn't seem sure of how the character gets some of their bonuses.
I don't know of any formal process detailing this. As for making sure a player gets treated fairly, my understanding is that the player who feels they are treated unfairly can take it up the chain of leadership -- starting at the GM and going up through the Venture Agent, Venture Lt, Venture Captain, and Regional Venture Captain. My apologies if I missed someone in the chain.
TLDR: Getting audited isn't always because you did something bad.
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The worst sort of 'spot-audit' is when you're playing a character you haven't played in six months and it takes five minutes to remember how you have all the AC bonuses... and then the GM has the enemy opponents avoid you entirely because they can't hit except on a '20'...
Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane
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I have done audits on characters from a quick spot check to a full character audit (even on non-game days). There really is no clear cut procedure but I make sure that players know that it is not because they are doing something wrong (unless they are) but to insure that the character has all they are allowed. It is easy to miss a point on attack bonus, come up short on their point buy, or even short themselves on hit points. If I find anything wrong, I explain my findings and show the player how to resolve the error.
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One of the common "audits" I need to do is find out what kinds of bonuses people have up.
It's somewhat common for people to forget that bless is a morale bonus and wont stack with heroism. Barkskin doesn't stack with their amulet. Bardsong doesn't stack with competence bonuses from ioun stones. Etc.
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The worst sort of 'spot-audit' is when you're playing a character you haven't played in six months and it takes five minutes to remember how you have all the AC bonuses... and then the GM has the enemy opponents avoid you entirely because they can't hit except on a '20'...
Yes, that one happens a lot to my Viking. Also when the GM decides that even though you are riding a large wolf, it makes more sense to attack the rider because they know you have Mounted Combat.
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"Audits" are nothing more than a GM looking over a character for any rules errors. Because Pathfinder is so complex there simply can't be a standardized form for it, though there are some common slipups.
I've got a lot of experience under my belt nowadays, and I almost always do a quick audit of every character before I begin GMing a game. It only takes one or two minutes to check if:
- The HP total looks "about right" for that level/class/Con
- Point-buy was done correctly
- Speed looks right for that strength/armor/amount of gear
- Attack bonuses look "about right."
- Spells have been memorized for the day
- Has an Inventory Tracking Sheet
- I know what all the feats/abilities do
- Any interesting distinguishing features I can try to work into the adventure
Really, it's the last two that take the most time. The rest I'm just glancing at unless it looks wrong.
I also offer to sit down with newer players and go over their characters line-by-line. Most of the time I find more errors hurting themselves than in their favor. ("OK, your animal companion doesn't get full HP for the first hit die so you need to take off 4 HP, but I'm looking at YOUR HP and skills and I don't think you have given yourself any favored class bonuses. Also, you wrote down the damage for your sling wrong. You get to add your Strength bonus to the damage done.")
And occasionally the word gets out locally about a build that the GMs don't understand how it could work in the way the player describes. In which case a VO or the GM of the next game may ask the player to make time for a full audit before playing the scenario. Most of the time it turns out the player misunderstands something or has missed a rule somewhere (or that the GM has).
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But, if everybody followed the simple rule: "don't cheat", then GMs wouldn't have a reason to do an in-depth audit on any character
Uh, in my opinion the vast majority of errors caught by audits are NOT cheating but a case where the player made an honest mistake in what can often be a hideously overcomplicated and sometimes quite poorly written game, with a growing set of rules that change over time in ways that most people won't even notice.
Or a place where a player didn't realize that something they thought unambiguous was actually ambiguous.
I play a fair bit online and, as Andrew points out above, that means I've been audited a fair bit (including by him :-)). These audits have several times found issues with my character. None of these issues have been my willfully cheating (I guess you'll have to take my word on that, although some of the issues caught were NOT advantageous to my character).
When I do spot audits a significant amount of the time (less than 50% but way over 25%) I'm doing it because something sounds too low, not too high. Deliberately forgetting your favored class bonus isn't what most people would call "cheating"
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Being an accountant by trade I keep a lot of numbers in my head.
Also I've both played and GMed a lot of PFS so I have a general idea of what the numbers should look like. Sometimes I'll hear a number from a player that seems off to me, maybe it's just a little high for this level or it's just a little low.
If so I'll ask the player to break down their bonus for me. Most of the time the answer is something like they've got the tiefling alternate racial for an extra AC, or have a Con of 9, little things like that that explain why they fall outside of my expected value.
Very occasionally I'll find errors like the player is a different level than they thought they were, or they are adding 2 bonuses of the same type or don't understand how skill ranks work, or didn't add to their HP last time they leveled up or otherwise fail at arithmetic.
In ~200 sessions GMed and ~350 played I can only recall 2 times where I thought a player was actually cheating.
Could be someone wearing heavy armor they're not proficient with and taking a massive penalty to their attack bonus without knowing why?
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"Climb check of... 56..no sorry. 46.
"*blink...* Let me see that...
"18 on the die, + 2 raging, 7 ranks 3 trained 7 dex , +1 vs creatures larger than me, 6 on the daring do die, 2 on the explosion, +8 from spiderclimb...
Character level and abilities are laid out in booklet
*character layout summons cuthulu*
Closes booklet
"yeaaah lets call that a success..."
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Venture-Captain, Isles—Online
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Most of my audits use just a Mk1 Eyeball. The most common error I see at the moment are chronicle sheets incorrectly filled out (or not filled out at all). I'm not going to notice if you have an extra +1 somewhere, but like AndrewW, when you roll a gigantic number, expect me to ask you where it all comes from.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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As a small note in the margin. An ITS is not required precisely, but you have to use a purchase tracking system that is at least as thorough. For an alchemist, the ITS is horrible, you have too many alchemical stock mutations. A "transactions" Excel sheet is less error-prone.
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Most of my audits use just a Mk1 Eyeball.I recommend using a Mk3 Eyeball, at least. Mk1 Eyeballs are notorious for coming out of alignment, requiring the purchase of third-party lenses to correct the optics.
I found that its mostly if you have cracked or flawed eye-on balls you need some kind of spyglass to improve it to the mk2 or 3.... headband of rules logistics is a good addition though if you are going to get stuck in audits...
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I haven't caught out-and-out cheating, but in at least one case, the player really should have known better.
Then there's the player who screws up the rules all the time because he doesn't understand them. He tries to be an edge-case powergamer, but ends up just breaking the rules. I've refused to GM for that player any more.
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Contributor
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How strict are most folks regarding the requirement to have Chronicle sheets present (presumably either the physical sheets or scans/photos of same)? I sometimes play with a person who brings nothing but their laptop and their dice, and who, the one time I got the nerve up to mention my interpretation of that requirement reacted pretty negatively and pointed me to the journal functionality in the program they use for their character sheet (I rush to say I use the same program).
In general, I want to be more flexible than not about these things and know that not everyone is going to be Mr. Trapper Keeper letter-of-the-law like I try to be as a player (you should see the folder for my 3rd level brawler, with its water-marked print outs for every feat he can legally adopt through martial flexibility, or, for that matter, the almost always unread letter I hand over to GMs at the start of every scenario listing every non-core assumption character aspect with one-line summaries of the rules element and page references), but it's been my observation that "violations" are more likely to occur with regard to things like having records present and reviewable AT ALL than with having things on those records be off somehow.
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How strict are most folks regarding the requirement to have Chronicle sheets present (presumably either the physical sheets or scans/photos of same)? I sometimes play with a person who brings nothing but their laptop and their dice, and who, the one time I got the nerve up to mention my interpretation of that requirement reacted pretty negatively and pointed me to the journal functionality in the program they use for their character sheet (I rush to say I use the same program).
Ask them to pop open the characters play history from the site and see if there's something reported there? I don't know what the reporting rate is but 50% wouldn't surprise me so if thats there you're probably good.
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Guide 8.0 has a lot to say about Chronicles.
You must bring the character sheet and all accompanying Chronicle sheets of any character you wish to play to Roleplaying Guild events. If you don't, you will be asked to play a pregenerated character for that session.
Look over each player's character sheet and most recent Chronicle sheets for accuracy.
It's written in many other places too. Some players may not like it but stressing accurate record keeping via Chronicle is probably the most repeated point in the Guide.
I usually give someone a pass on the chronicles once if it looks right otherwise, but try to make a note for myself (or the next GM) to say "We warned you last time."
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I'm a pretty big stickler for keeping your chronicle sheets on hand only because in dire situations, many players will start leafing through their chronicles seeing if there is a boon they can use to help them in said dire situation. Not having your chronicles means you don't get to do that, even if you have it recorded, as the GM cannot then mark off the boon.
If a player doesn't have their chronicles with them, they'll need to play a pre-gen.
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It was quite the night.
That is so outside the norm of anything I've ever seen or heard that I have to at least consider the possibility that they were deliberately messing with you that evening.
If I noticed that happening I'd stop the game and ask what the %T%D was happening. I'd tell them to STOP cheating. Explain that it wasn't acceptable behaviour.
If an entire group thinks cheating is ok then 1 of 2 things has to change
1) The group realizes it is unacceptable
2) I find another group.
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I must be somewhere near aboyd as Rob has frequented my store previously, and I have to be honest I have no clue where he could be talking about. I do however acknowledge that I've seen cheating before, and it can be an issue here to an extent. I've even been told by a store official that regardless of how little a certain player knows of his own character, or the correct function of the rules, that since he spends quite a bit at the store I can't really remove him. We have since gotten him a bit better on the rules side but sometimes his numbers are still odd, and not even necessarily in his favor. He'll roll a low number on a skill check he's decently proficient in and just accept his failure, even when he may have succeeded. Truly odd.
On the subject of audits, I find frequently that my numbers on characters are slightly off. I find it happens when you build characters in a hurry, have many, and have large gaps between play dates due to GMing so often. I find that more often cheating is a product of faulty memory, or accidental rather than malicious or trying to cheat the system. To hear of an entire table doing so so blatantly is distressing, particularly so close to home.
Edit: I think that self policing is the ideal way to handle this, but occasionally you need to put in your efforts to correct a player, one way or the other. It's a rules heavy system, even someone as confident in his knowledge of it as I am will make mistakes, particularly with less standard options. I don't think anyone needs to be shamed for getting things wrong.
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I must be somewhere near aboyd as Rob has frequented my store previously, and I have to be honest I have no clue where he could be talking about. I do however acknowledge that I've seen cheating before, and it can be an issue here to an extent. I've even been told by a store official that regardless of how little a certain player knows of his own character, or the correct function of the rules, that since he spends quite a bit at the store I can't really remove him. We have since gotten him a bit better on the rules side but sometimes his numbers are still odd, and not even necessarily in his favor. He'll roll a low number on a skill check he's decently proficient in and just accept his failure, even when he may have succeeded. Truly odd.
If someone rolls a '1', there have been two ways I've seen GMs run it.
Either
A. Automatic Failure, even if the character has +30 in the skill
or
B. Potential Failure, taking into account the bonus.
The distribution has been about 50-50 on that, so if someone did have a good modifier but ran into that enough times, or heard the rough DC for things for a given scenario enough times may start to think that the die roll 4 plus 25 isn't going to amount to anything...
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Contributor
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I guess the areas where I see "cheating" most often, and I hesitate to even use the word, can broadly be described as going too fast.
I frequently surprise players, both locally and at conventions, when as a GM I call for rolls to:
--identify a magic item they've just found (they're used to just being told what it is)
--successfully use any of the potions or scrolls that remove effects like disease or poison or curses, almost all of which require caster level checks (they're used to such things automatically working)
--and, well, the list goes on...
Another one that causes me to scratch my head is attempts to use the Diplomacy skill during combat, which doesn't map onto any reading of the skill as describe in the CRB that I can reasonably entertain.
Broadly speaking, I think many players--in my of course limited experience--are used to cutting corners and having stuff just "work" without reference to the rules behind those things.
Actually dice fudging and intentional "malicious" misapplication of rules elements? I don't see a lot of that.