Cottonseed Lodge (PFS2)

Game Master Redelia

And there's no way to buy anything with Fame anymore, right?

Yes. As normal until October 20th (date subject to change).

Wait, which is it? And, if you can still buy stuff with Fame, how do you do it? It's not in the guide any more?

Wait, which is it? And, if you can still buy stuff with Fame, how do you do it? It's not in the guide any more?

Fame is listed in the retired rewards. And to buy to with fame, just mark it off on your character sheet. Some boons aren't buyable unless you are in the middle of a scenario, for example, death resurrection, you can't buy that ahead of time, you have to wait until you die. Now if you are buying a hireling to help with all your nature and medicine skills in the future, you can just mark that on your character sheet, inventory sheet or last chronicle.

Eh, now that I look at them, there's very little that interests me. A shame the mentor stuff is going away. Maybe the Preserve, but that's about it.

Regarding the changes to Pathfinder Schools, do we just port over our current existing schools? Or are we allowed to make a one-time change (assuming past level 1) since the changes are quite substantial? And Generalist being a new school which looks quite viable.

A bit bummed out that soothe is no a longer available under the Scroll school just when I create an Occult spellcaster. :P

Regarding the changes to Pathfinder Schools, do we just port over our current existing schools? Or are we allowed to make a one-time change (assuming past level 1) since the changes are quite substantial? And Generalist being a new school which looks quite viable.

No word yet.

I gotta say, I looked over the kobold and I'm surprise the kobold breath doesn't require you to have the Dragon heritage or even have it match it as well as Draconmancer. In other words, you have be red Dragon heritage to have fire resistance, White Dragon breath for cold resistance and have the black dragon for the Draconmancer feat.

I gotta say, I looked over the kobold and I'm surprise the kobold breath doesn't require you to have the Dragon heritage or even have it match it as well as Draconmancer. In other words, you have be red Dragon heritage to have fire resistance, White Dragon breath for cold resistance and have the black dragon for the Draconmancer feat.

No, I think any exemplar can take Dracomancer.

A bit bummed out that soothe is no a longer available under the Scroll school just when I create an Occult spellcaster. :P

My bard is quite bummed about that too.

Announcement

A new blog post has been dropped with a bit of new information concerning chronicle boons and future sanctioning. Please give it a read.

Blog post on new boons and guide

Also there is a clarification coming out sometime today concerning Bounties and how they are listed in the new PFS2E Org Play Guide. While sanctioned for PFS adventures, are not Campaign Mode.

Bounties need to be played with PFS legal characters, to include AcP limited items IF they are being used in Society play. They can be used outside of Society for no credit.

As promised. Here is the remainder of the information on Bounties as well as how to adjust your new schools and boons.

Blog post on updating PFS2E characters to season 2

Trying to figure out the Liked, Admired, Revered business. What's that about?

Trying to figure out the Liked, Admired, Revered business. What's that about?

It’s an optional rules system from the Gamemastery Guide that they’re adopting.

It's also in the Guide somewhere.

Reputation is from the GMG as people stated. It is part of the standard PF2 rules and Org Play is switching to that system for tracking how well liked you are by each faction.

That bit about how clerics and druids now have to spend money and downtime in order to use Common spells from outside the CRB is quite a grenade to throw in under "Other Clarifications"

That bit about how clerics and druids now have to spend money and downtime in order to use Common spells from outside the CRB is quite a grenade to throw in under "Other Clarifications"

Plus, you're not guaranteed to get it. You have to make a skill check.

Reputation is from the GMG as people stated. It is part of the standard PF2 rules and Org Play is switching to that system for tracking how well liked you are by each faction.

Not seeing any reputation boons anywhere.

GM Bret wrote:

Reputation is from the GMG as people stated. It is part of the standard PF2 rules and Org Play is switching to that system for tracking how well liked you are by each faction.

Not seeing any reputation boons anywhere.

Under My Account when you click the boons tab you can find them listed with the rest of the boons. They're worded like this:

Gain access to the Leshy Familiar feat as a 2nd level class feat, retraining your class feat selected at 2nd level if desired. Must be Liked by Verdant Wheel to purchase.

I will say the Boons page could use a better interface to be a little less overwhelming but for now that's what we've got.

That bit about how clerics and druids now have to spend money and downtime in order to use Common spells from outside the CRB is quite a grenade to throw in under "Other Clarifications"

Here is a response from Tonya on the subject as well as a thread created concerning 'common' spells outside of the CRB as there are certainly still a few unanswered questions.

Tonya Response

"Access" to non-core common spells thread

Losonti wrote:

That bit about how clerics and druids now have to spend money and downtime in order to use Common spells from outside the CRB is quite a grenade to throw in under "Other Clarifications"

Plus, you're not guaranteed to get it. You have to make a skill check.

PFS 2e just seems to be getting more complicated as time goes on. Maybe I'm too used to how 1e worked. *shrug*

As an aside, I keep losing count of my XP, even. In 1e it was 3 scenario chronicles equals 1 level. Easy peasy. Now, when I count my quest chronicles, I keep thinking I only need three quests to equal one normal scenario chronicle -not four.

It's four .... one scenario grants 4xp, one quest/bounty is 1xp, one level = 12xp so 4x quest = scenario, 3x scenario - level.

It's four .... one scenario grants 4xp, one quest/bounty is 1xp, one level = 12xp so 4x quest = scenario, 3x scenario - level.

That's what I said. (Read my last sentence).

As an aside, I keep losing count of my XP, even.

This happens to me all the time; I assign a GM credit to a character locked in a game, and then by the time the game finishes, I forget how many GM credits they have backed up.

Relatively easy solution - I keep an Excel sheet with just each game on a row. Games in progress are shaded yellow, GM credits assigned are shaded dark grey, and GM credits in progress but not yet assigned are shaded light grey.

I use an Excel formula to auto-calculate the level:

=floor(sum(d$2:d2)/12,1)+1

Which sums all the XP (Column D) up to that row and calculates the level. Because if you think forgetting your XP is bad/embarassing, I'll admit one time I lost count of my XP to the degree that I lost count of my level.

Yeah, that's right. One time I forgot my level, then I had to reassign my GM credit because I excitedly started a new adventure immediately after finishing the previous one, and halfway through didn't want to tell the GM, "Ah, ****, I'm supposed to be level 3."

I've also taken the opportunity to drop little reminders about stuff I intend to buy, e.g., "buy alchemist goggles @ 100 gp" or "buy +1 armor rune @ level 5". This really helps when my characters take big quantum jumps in XP (like getting 4 GM credits and leapfrogging from Level 3 to Level 5) and I find myself with a ton of gold an zero memory of all the cool stuff I had looked up in the past six weeks.

roll4initiative wrote:

As an aside, I keep losing count of my XP, even.

This happens to me all the time; I assign a GM credit to a character locked in a game, and then by the time the game finishes, I forget how many GM credits they have backed up.

I've encountered the same deal. I don't know why it's such an issue for me, but I've yet to completely wrap my head around the 12 xp for a level in 2e. I've created a similar google excel doc to help me track.

My Doc (link) if anyone has an interest in doing something similar.

I have a terrible issue of planning out things far in advance even if I am never going to make it that far. Terrible with Excel/Sheets but made this for my own tracking so I can see what level my guys currently are and what level they will be after any given planned scenario.

My Planning Sheet

I use a spreadsheet that Bret created to track stuff in my ITS. I used it to track fame, reputation and XP. Now I am going to have to retool it to track the whole 'admired and revered' thing, but it's better than me constantly having to do calculations on my own.

Hmm

Admired and revered? Looks like I'm going have to dive back into the Guide.

Faction Reputation describes it and links to the Game Mastery Guide for what the different reputation levels mean.

Gotta be honest, really don't like this new boon system, knew where you were with boons on certs.

Probably end up ignoring my boons entirely.

It's a game, not a career.

Gotta be honest, really don't like this new boon system, knew where you were with boons on certs.

Probably end up ignoring my boons entirely.

It's a game, not a career.

I agree. Ever since they implemented boon slotting, I have been kind of lost with it. I did not use a ton of boons in PF1, but I just kind of ignore them now.

I do wish they would bring back vanities though.

I don't really understand them either.

Instead of having the boon right there on the chronicle sheet, I have to print out the boon to make my stack of papers for each PC even thicker.

Instead of having the boon right there on the chronicle sheet, I have to print out the boon to make my stack of papers for each PC even thicker.

Why do you have to print it?

I tend to just keep all of mine in a Google Drive folder. This way you can pull the information up anywhere you are on your phone or tablet.

I do the same as Tyranius. I have a folder for each of my character. Each character folder has my character sheet, and all their chronicles/boons.

That said, I rarely have found a boon that I've actually used. They're nice to have but never essential. If you feel like you're playing paperwork simulator then don't fret about them imo.

IMO, there are two types of boons that are valuable.

One is the kind where you do something once, and never have to do anything again: "fire and forget" boons. Learn a new language? Coolio, put it on the character sheet, and cross off the boon.

The other is the kind you're looking for when you're in serious trouble and start ransacking your character's item inventory to avoid a TPK. Dragon's breath takes out everyone but me, but I get to Lay on Hands once? Coolio, TPK averted, cross off the boon.

When I play F2F again, I'll probably print out these types of boons and bring them with me. I'm killing a tree, but that tree is dying for a good cause.

On the other hand, all the situational ones are forgettable.

A +1 to Arcana when identifying a blue dragonscale in rural Andoran? Uh, okay, that one's pretty much condemned to obscurity. I'm never remembering that. And I'll make a note of it online or somewhere I can access if needed (or more likely, if someone reminds me), but I'm not wasting paper printing that out.

I enjoy slotting boons because it lets you think about what you want to pull out of the toybox but the whole moving boons off the chronicle doesn't register as useful for me.

roll4initiative wrote:

Instead of having the boon right there on the chronicle sheet, I have to print out the boon to make my stack of papers for each PC even thicker.

Why do you have to print it?

I don't own a laptop or tablet. All my stuff is on paper. It's easier for me to know I have the boon if it's in the same stack as my PC. I guess I could just jot down all the boons on a single sheet.

I tend to just keep all of mine in a Google Drive folder. This way you can pull the information up anywhere you are on your phone or tablet.

Oh! Could you give me directions how to do that? All I have is a phone. It'd be much appreciated!

Tyranius wrote:

I tend to just keep all of mine in a Google Drive folder. This way you can pull the information up anywhere you are on your phone or tablet.

Oh! Could you give me directions how to do that? All I have is a phone. It'd be much appreciated!

Easiest if you have a smart phone with the Google Drive, Docs and Slides apps installed. Consider getting sheets since that can allow you to track gold/credits, reputation, and XP. Depends on how willing you are to do that sort of thing by phone and how big your phone is.

Create a folder for your chronicles. I used my ID and OPF # as the name of the folder.

Optional if you want to allow others (such as GMs) to see them: set share settings so anyone with the link can view.

Create sub folders for each character. I tend to name them by OPF #, Char #, char name. For example, one of my folders is 141981-701 Neon Ten.

As you get chronicles, place them in the correct folders. I don’t know what sort of device you use, but on mine I have a ‘Share’ button that will allow me to drop a file directly to the Google drive. I tend to rename the chronicles so they are ‘Chronicle ## Name of Adventure’ since that way they sort on the order they were played.

To view you can just select the file and it will show you it. You can even go between files quickly if you look on the left or right.

I do this on a tablet all the time. You would want to experiment, see how comfortable it is for you on your phone.

I have a very small phone by 2020 standards, so I do as much setting up as possible from my computer, and try not to do anything too fancy on my phone (r4i has probably noticed that when I GM, some posts are long and formatted, others are short and unformatted ... guess why).

I don't try uploading or renaming things from my phone. I probably can, but I don't. I basically treat my phone as if it had read-only permissions, because the value is being able to read your Google Drive, not manage it, remotely.

Thanks Bret! If you need further direction Roll4initiative one of us can hop on voice chat and walk you through it quickly.

Cool! Thanks, All! I was able to create a couple folders in my Google Drive. I have a Motorola G-Fast. I have Google Slides, Drive, Docs, etc... I only do PbP with my phone.

Slides must not be as advanced on my phone. One of my GMs mentioned to use the "view history" function to fix when I slide the map out or need to see past movements of PCs. I can't find View History.

I did finally learn how to add images and text! *Proud grin*

As far as I can tell you can only do view history from a computer. There are several slide features like that, and several of them are very helpful when setting up a PbP deck

Excellent! Yup I keep everything up on Google Drive. I scan it in using my phone even if I have to. This is also a great habit for a backup in case those paper copies get lost.

All this is way beyond me. I keep my chronicles on my hard drive and have a spreadsheet for keeping track of my characters gold, XP, etc.

As far as boons, I pretty much ignore them.

Slides must not be as advanced on my phone. One of my GMs mentioned to use the "view history" function to fix when I slide the map out or need to see past movements of PCs. I can't find View History.

There are a few different things you can only do from desktop, but the apps continue to improve. The thing I most miss in the apps is the ability to define or change named ranges in sheets. I tend to use them for data validation, like selecting factions from a list and such. Makes it a lot easier to maintain the spreadsheet if you can use named ranges.

That said, the Apps are convenient!

Glad you got drive to work for you.

Oh my ghod .... I've had to play in places where there isn't any internet connections and frankly, the idea of putting all my data on Google Drives or anywhere on the Cloud gives me the heebies. Have you read some of those ToCs? I don't trust many companies any more.

I suppose I'm going to have to keep PDFs on my laptop (backed up to the desktop) which goes with me and have some sort of index in order to find stuff quickly.

Speaking of boons, once the game has been reported, wouldn't it be easier to have the boon automatically credited against that character number instead of generating a separate boon sheet that has to be printed and added to the character folder for auditing purposes. I agree - it's wasteful on paper and trees which should be absorbing as much CO2 as possible.

FYI: I'm 60+ so if I come over as an 'old fogey' that's why.

PS: This 'You backtracked too far' error is getting REALLY annoying. Happened three times on this post.

Have you read some of those ToCs? I don't trust many companies any more.

Perhaps treading on political territory, but IMO you should never have trusted any companies at any time (especially publicly traded companies after the 1980s).

Create a new Google account* and only use it for PFS. Go through all the Settings and just switch everything off. Use incognito/private mode on your browser**.

You'll need to log in every time, but honestly, that inconvenience barrier is what tech companies prey on ("If you give us all your personal information and allow us to trace every electronic move you make, we'll allow you to access all the crazed rantings of everyone you ever knew without typing a password"). It won't crit-succeed against Google's vampiric touch (they still have ways of connecting your accounts), but it'll succeed for half damage.

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* - Don't put in your real name, obviously. But the TOC may specify that not putting in your real name breaks the TOC. If potentially getting deleted bothers you, put in a real-sounding name rather than an obviously fake name.

** - TOR if you're really concerned and don't mind a slower connection.