Cottonseed PFS PbP (2E)

Game Master Redelia

As a player, for outgoing rolls, I usually just double, out of sheer laziness.

As a player, for incoming rolls, I don't care what the GM does - but that's because I'm experienced enough so that a sudden character death is only annoying (and not infuriating). If the GM wants to cheat me, I'd probably just shrug and bring it up after the game.

As a GM, for incoming rolls, I allow people to choose which method they want to do, but don't allow them to change that choice once they've made it.

As a GM, for outgoing rolls, what I do is best left un-spelled-out in a public forum. Basically, I am a strongly good-aligned GM, and only weakly lawful-aligned; I think the massive damage rule is lawful evil. If a player can't explain the massive damage rule to me, I'm looking for every possible loophole to avoid applying it to them.

I think that's a fair point. I like the existence of the massive damage rule for realism's sake, but frankly it really does target the most vulnerable players and vanishes after a few levels (outside of ridiculous spell damage rolls and a crit fail on the Basic Save, etc). I think the boon idea is good, but it kind of targets the symptom and not the disease. I feel like MD should have had a minimum number, say 40 or 50 damage, just to keep new players from the truly disheartening experience of watching your brand new character just turn into meat confetti from an errant crit.

MD should be a very uncommon occurrence, something that happens once in a rare while and is truly memorable rather than frustrating. It seems like (particularly with these bounties everyone is talking about) that level 1 PC's dying to MD crits is--well, maybe not a regular occurrence, but often enough that it's a cause for concern to some. Definitely something that should probably be addressed, maybe in a future errata or something. And while I'm a proponent of it existing in some form or other, if they straight up errata'd it out of the rules I wouldn't be upset. Sometimes the most viable solution is the simplest.

I don’t mind mixing options, as long as they are clearly stated before the roll.

1st levels have always been squishy and vulnerable to crits (see victims of Ledford on the wall of names)

There are some tactics you can use to offset the risk but I prefer sticking to boosting the con a little higher and generally sticking close to the concept I wish to play rather than barbarian to second level then retrain option. I just like to find the kinks in a build before second level if I can

I've been slowly working on my own pre-written adventuring gear loadouts for initial purposes (to avoid doing it from scratch over and over). I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a routine starting set of equipment, but for those who don't...

GM Blake's Starting Loadouts (draft)

I've been slowly working on my own pre-written adventuring gear loadouts for initial purposes (to avoid doing it from scratch over and over). I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a routine starting set of equipment, but for those who don't...

GM Blake's Starting Loadouts (draft)

Honestly you're just doing double work in my opinion as the Core rulebook already has these loadouts done for the core classes. I don't know if the APG and other books will offer the same thing, but it wouldn't be to difficult to review the loadouts and select one of the appropriate class (summoner getting the sorcerer's loadout etc.) Player's will always review these and select more appropriate gear if necessary in order to individualize their character, but it gives a good starting base. I really like what they did in Ultimate Equipment for 1E, and made different kits, I was able to modify the ones by one for one swaps where I needed, but I knew I would have exactly what I needed for a basic adventure.

Honestly you're just doing double work in my opinion as the Core rulebook already has these loadouts done for the core classes.

I’m doing it for myself—so I’m not typing out the same initial purchases on my PbP profiles over and over—and simply sharing. However, I find those class kits inadequate.

Did you see the System Traveler Boons?

If you go to 'My Organized Play' and you look at the boons tab, there are System Traveler boons that allow you to use ACP from one system to purchase a race in another.

You can use PF2 ACP to purchase access to kobolds, kitsune and grippli in Starfinder.

You can use Starfinder ACP (once you earn it) to purchase access to ratfolk (ysoki) and androids in Pathfinder 2nd edition.

I think that I am totally going to purchase a kobold for Starfinder with my PF2 ACP. I love the idea of this boon!

Interesting. But shouldn't it be time traveler? ;)

Golarian has other planets you can travel to, and these races exist on them, so I think it works even in PF2. Which reminds me that I really need to build an astrologer character in PF2 at some point!

Interesting that buying a PF2 android boon using Starfinder AcP is half the price of buying a PF2 android boon using PF2 AcP. Makes sense, but still interesting.

That'd be a good exchange rate.

Parts are more available for androids in the future :)

Not the Soong-type androids, they're still rare. And half the time, they're evil-aligned and not playable as PCs.

I'd like to point everyone to a great thread put together by Doug Hahn:

What to Expect at a PFS 2E Table

It's a level-by-level guide to building and equipping characters and thinking about what they can do at a PFS PF2 table.

And as a good companion:

What NOT to Expect at a PFS 2E Table

And as a good companion:

What NOT to Expect at a PFS 2E Table

That’s what I get for clicking a link on mobile. ;)

Here is the link to a tool to hopefully make your GM lives a bit easier:

RPG Chronicles Generator

This is a tool that can automatically fill in the majority of your chronicle sheets for GM's. All you have to do is enter the pertinent information, provide proof-of-ownership of the scenario, and then it should fill out nearly everything else out except for a signature. To save even more time, you can have your players enter their information into this tool so that you don’t have to. There is a “How To” page on its webpage that explains how best to make use of it.

Currently this is only able to do SFS, PFS2E, and PACG. It is a great tool, I have tested it out a little now and it is amazing.

The link appears corrupted. Or maybe it's just me and my own gremlins. :)

Just fixed it try again.

As someone who has used that RPG Chronicles tool from its very alpha state, I can say that it has probably saved me several hours over the course of the last few months of GMing, and the author is adding new features on a weekly basis.

OK, just looked at RPG Chronicles and it looks like it's gonna save a load of time. It's spurring me on to run another scenario.

I know people have linked Humble Bundles here before, so I was wondering if anyone could answer questions I have (some about the philosophy, some about the mechanics).

1. Is Humble Bundle for-profit or non-profit? How did they choose the charities they list? How do they make their money?

2. Does Paizo encourage / discourage / marginally tolerate sales through the venue?

3. Mechanically, does $5 unlock everything at the $5 level, or is it $5 for each item at that level?

4. Are they unlocking PDFs or physical copies of books?

1. I don't know how they choose, but some amount of the sale goes to Humble Bundle (I think you can set what %, maybe within some parameters)
2. Paizo frequently promotes the Humble Bundles on their social media; safe to say the encourage it
3. Each tier unlocks the whole tier (and those above). $5 gets you everything in that tier.
4. PDFs (except for the extra $35 option at the bottom).

1a. Humble Bundle is a commercial (for-profit) business.

1b. The company setting up the humble bundle chooses the charity AFAIK. In this case, that is Paizo chooses the charity.

1c. Humble Bundle makes money by taking a % of sales from the humble bundle. They also have a store-front for video games that they can make money from. When you buy a humble bundle there is a "choose where your money goes" option and you can allot how you want the funds to go to paizo/charity/humble bundle. Specifically for the current humble bundle, the default % is 55% paizo, 5% charity and 40% humble bundle. Change that to your preference if you wish.

2. Paizo semi-regularly does humble bundles and I'm fairly certain they encourage it.

3. You pay money per level. So the Current humble bundle at $5 you get everything listed at the price. If you spend $15 or more you get everything at that price and the lower price. And so on.

4. Each humble bundle is different. Paizo bundles are typically digital only, and sometimes have a physical book as the last product. You can tell by looking at the little key icons next to each product of the current humble bundle. That means digital product. Only the $35 tier lists the Pathfinder 2e Bestiary 1 as a physical book.

This humble bundle blog post gives a bit more info as well

Cool. I must have just missed the blog post earlier; its absence was one of the reasons I wondered what Paizo thought of it.

Sounds good, I'm probably going to use it to pick up a bunch of PDFs that I have books of.

As the above have been talking about there is currently a Humble Bundle going for Pathfinder 2E products. If you are looking to pick up some missing books or someone is just getting ito Pathfinder this is a great way to pick up a lot of the digital products for a fantastic price.

Pathfinder 2E Humble Bundle

If you were interested in trying out Herolab Online it is running a completely free through May 31st for PaizoCon Online!

HeroLab Online Free Promo Period.

Submitting events to origins or any convention topic:
First of all, I have never played a face to face Pathfinder or Starfinder. I've played D&D 5e face to face and those modules take as long as they say they do. Second of all, I did play Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder on Roll20, but I don't know if Roll20 would be faster or slower than in real life. Mainly because of Macros, dice rolling is a bit faster. And moving tokens electronically rather than physically can be faster. But you also can run into technology problems with Roll20. I don't see it in the faqs anywhere on Origins, but how long should I submit each thing when playing in person? Is each thing as long as it suggests, or should I submit for more or less hours to be sure?

Pathfinder 2e quest=2 hours?
Pathfinder 2e bounty=2 hours?
Pathfinder 1e or 2e module=4 hours?
Pathfinder 1e module like crypt of the everflame=4 hours?
Pathfinder 1e module that isn't dungeon crawl=8 hours?
Pathfinder 2e module like Fall of Plaguestone=8 hours?
One AP book, Starfinder or Pathfinder, one part, not all 6 books=12 hours?
A third party module that is Starfinder or Pathfinder=4 hours? Yes, I know this ain't PFS legal, but people will play for fun.
The other question I have is what if I get done early? I over submit something thinking it will be 8 hours and really it is 6.5 to 7? I want to be fair when getting to 16 or even 24 hours in Origins over the course of 3 or 4 days.

I don't know what Origins is or if there is a penalty from the organization if you run over or end early, but here's my experience:

PFS1 scenario, Season 0: 3-3.5 hours
PFS1 scenario, other: 3.5-4.5 hours
PFS2 scenario, levels 1-4: 3.5-4 hours
PFS2 scenario, other: 3.5-6.5 hours
PFS2 quest: 1-1.5 hours

Origins It occurs every year in Columbus Ohio.

You would typically block an extra hour over what the adventure type is supposed to take.

Quests are 1-hour adventures, so you would block 2 hours.
Scenarios are 4-hour adventures, so you would block 5 hours.

For some high-tier or complex scenarios, you might even need more than 5 hours. I remember sitting around waiting to pack up a local con a couple years ago as Salvation of the Sages stretched on past the 6-hour mark....

GMs should be aware of when scenarios are long and make adjustments. F2F, FLGSs have closing times; VTT, people have family schedules; at conventions, running over may force players to skip meals and all of that is sometimes tolerable but often not cool. Long-term, Society will get a bad reputation if they're consistently getting yelled at by FLGS employees or family members.

If a scenario will have trouble fitting into the time slot (whether the slot is 4 hours or 5 hours), the least important bits should be targeted, even if that means rushing through the first encounter or just handwaving some early roleplay.

I've played at least two scenarios (both VTT) where the GM warned us up front that time may be a factor and encouraged us to hurry from the very start, so that we wouldn't be crunched too badly at the end.

PFS1 Scenario: 4-6 hours
PFS2 Scenario: 4-6 hours
SFS Scenario: 4-6 hours

PFS2 quest: 1-2 hours

I consider it inadvisable to do modules or APs.

GMs should be aware of when scenarios are long and make adjustments. F2F, FLGSs have closing times; VTT, people have family schedules; at conventions, running over may force players to skip meals and all of that is sometimes tolerable but often not cool. Long-term, Society will get a bad reputation if they're consistently getting yelled at by FLGS employees or family members.

If a scenario will have trouble fitting into the time slot (whether the slot is 4 hours or 5 hours), the least important bits should be targeted, even if that means rushing through the first encounter or just handwaving some early roleplay.

I've played at least two scenarios (both VTT) where the GM warned us up front that time may be a factor and encouraged us to hurry from the very start, so that we wouldn't be crunched too badly at the end.

While it's important to respect store closing time, for the purposes of scheduling (how this discussion started), I don't think that's the optimal approach. Better would be to schedule the scenario across two sessions (consecutive weeks at a store, or consecutive slots at a con), so that players get to experience the whole thing. Those big long scenarios are often full of great detail or important metaplot, so skipping or rushing through bits is not ideal.

PFS1 Scenario: 4-6 hours

PFS2 Scenario: 4-6 hours
SFS Scenario: 4-6 hours

PFS2 quest: 1-2 hours

I consider it inadvisable to do modules or APs.

YMMV. Our region frequently schedules modules/adventures/APs at cons, and they are always quite popular. I ran Starfinder AP #1 at a virtual con last November (scheduled across all three slots in one day) and it was great.

While it's important to respect store closing time, for the purposes of scheduling (how this discussion started), I don't think that's the optimal approach. Better would be to schedule the scenario across two sessions (consecutive weeks at a store, or consecutive slots at a con), so that players get to experience the whole thing. Those big long scenarios are often full of great detail or important metaplot, so skipping or rushing through bits is not ideal.

Absolutely. If the GM has control of the schedule, there are tons of options.

There's also the option of PbP, which doesn't face the same types of time constraints as F2F. There are some scenarios that I as a GM specifically want to run on PbP, and some that I specifically want to run F2F/VTT. For example, I just played in a PbP scenario where there was a big codebreaking part, I can't imagine having to do that F2F, but on PbP, I punched it all into Excel and spent an hour and a half just playing around with it.

I've been waiting to run #1-13 on PbP because that was an awesome scenario, but it's long. #1-07 is another awesome scenario that I'm very glad I got to run F2F because it's just more fun in person.

Announcement

We have some GREAT news! The Online Region has just accepted a new Discord Lodge. Please welcome Find the Path into the Online family. Deneve Callois has agreed to come on as the new VA for the Find the Path Lodge! Please give Deneve a warm welcome!

Deneve Callois Paizo Link: Deneve Profile
Deneve Callois Discord ID: Deneve Callois#5851

If you you would like to find more online games then please visit their Server link below.

Find the Path Discord Server

BB Code Pregens for the new One-Shot Dinner at Lion Lodge have been added into the GM Folder found here

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

If you enjoyed it, I'd love an honest review!

Will do, but sometime when I'm on my computer.

I didn't actually realize you were the author. :S

Indeed, we have ALOT of the authors that play their games via PbP here in the Lodges. :)

Just wanted to reach out to the PBP boards and say it was nice to reconnect with some of you during PaizoCon online. Happy Gaming.

Announcement

We have some GREAT news! The Online Region has just accepted a new Discord Lodge. Please welcome Find the Path into the Online family. Deneve Callois has agreed to come on as the new VA for the Find the Path Lodge! Please give Deneve a warm welcome!

Deneve Callois Paizo Link: Deneve Profile
Deneve Callois Discord ID: Deneve Callois#5851

If you you would like to find more online games then please visit their Server link below.

Find the Path Discord Server

Find the Path is my favorite lodge (not to take away from the excellence of Flaxseed, Castamir, etc.) Really happy to see this. They've been working towards being recognized as a lodge for a long time.

I definitely recommend checking it out.

Good news, everyone! Tech has just finished the major coderoll you’ve been waiting on for a bit to fix some of our outstanding issues with AcP and the reporting system. It contains the following updates:

...

Material that awards more than 8 Reputation should actually award it, instead of capping at 8
...

Has anyone noticed if this has been fixed retroactively?

Not sure if this is kosher to be asking about, but are there any 2e scenarios that involve flying yet? I made Ogren here with an intent to get him flying at some point (late) into his career, but I thought I would make him obsessed with the idea in the mean time. He's luckily been able to fight two things that could pick him up and fling him (though one time the enemy died before he could fling Ogren, but I was wondering if there should be any scenarios I should keep an eye out for him.

Some time ago, someone in a game I either played or GMed posted a link to a really nifty "circle icon" site, where you uploaded a picture and it would automatically make it a circle, and there were options of borders and stuff.

Not long after, someone showed me how to do the same thing in Google Slides, and I lost the site.

I'm trying to make circle icons for a VTT game, and they're not copying over from Google Slides. Can someone point me to a good circle icon site?

Some time ago, someone in a game I either played or GMed posted a link to a really nifty "circle icon" site, where you uploaded a picture and it would automatically make it a circle, and there were options of borders and stuff.

Not long after, someone showed me how to do the same thing in Google Slides, and I lost the site.

I'm trying to make circle icons for a VTT game, and they're not copying over from Google Slides. Can someone point me to a good circle icon site?

I usually use RollAdvantage’s token generator.

Some time ago, someone in a game I either played or GMed posted a link to a really nifty "circle icon" site, where you uploaded a picture and it would automatically make it a circle, and there were options of borders and stuff.

Not long after, someone showed me how to do the same thing in Google Slides, and I lost the site.

I'm trying to make circle icons for a VTT game, and they're not copying over from Google Slides. Can someone point me to a good circle icon site?

There is also this : https://thefatefulforce.com/battle-resources/token-creator/

I too usually use RollAdvantage Token Stamp. Very easy with some versatility.

I like to have different colour borders for each token plus I put numbers on them.

Those both look great! Thanks!