The Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Game Master Redelia

On Buckbeak's character page, copy this bit:

Fighter (Weapon Master) 1 | AC 16 | Touch 12 | Flat Foot 14 | CMB 5 | CMD 17 | HP 11 | Fort +3 | Will +0 | Ref +2 | Spd 30' | Init+2 | Acrobatics +7 | Climb +5 | Kn. Dungeoneering +4 | Perception +0 |

And paste it over the text you have in the space called "Classes/Levels". And then you'll want to put your character sheet (with feats, and BAB, and Gear, and Special Qualities, and Racial Modifiers, and Description, and everything else) somewhere on the page itself, like this.

Odd little question about pregens.

Let's say one wants to catch a PC up to a group that is about 3 levels ahead (and for the sake of this question the rest of the group doesn't want to all go slow). Can they play an appropriate pregen in the group's game and save those chronicles for the PC WHILE also playing the PC in a different game to get it caught up? Essentially doing it the same way as with GM chronicles by just holding the pregen chronicles until the PC qualifies for them and is in between games?

I couldn't find anything in the roleplaying guild guide about such a circumstance, but other's may have better success than I finding an answer.

I think that you aren't allowed to apply pregen credit to a PC that was effectively earned at the same time. I think GMing was given explicit exception to this as you aren't playing but running the game. I have no sources tbh, but I recall it being an issue that was quickly nixed a year or two or three ago when PbP started to become rapidly popular.

Yeah, it seems that it should be that way. I'll go do some digging into the rules forums and see if anything similar has been answered.

My understanding is that you are unable to play the character that is designated to receive the chronicle for a pregen while you are playing that pregen. If this is correct, you would not be able to "speed up" in the way you are suggesting.

The collective instinctual response is correct: you can't. It falls under "Multi-session adventures and extended play" on page 13 of the guide, which says that you can only play a character in one scenario at a time. Using a pregen credited toward a character counts as playing it (the guide explicitly says you have to choose at the start of the adventure which character will get the credit, as opposed to GM credit which you assign when filling out the table tracking info).

There was a clarification for pbp in particular that you can't play a character and a pregen for credit at the same time. I don't have a source to link but maybe someone else has that if you want the official word.

About the only way to speed up is with GM credit, which can be applied the moment your character finishes a game. (The other exception: If you're doing an AP in Campaign Mode, those chronicles get applied like GM chronicles to one of your active characters.)

Hmm

Okay awesome! That section of the guide (bottom right page 12) does clearly state that this is not a thing that can be done.

But now, after doing some digging I found a 2nd question (yay...). Here is a FAQ that seems to contradict the roleplaying guild guide.

The FAQ essentially says if the pregen dies you can assign it to a new PC instead of the one you wanted to apply it to. The guide sortove contradicts this by saying at the beginning of the game, "you must choose to which of your characters the credit will be applied at the beginning of the adventure." (page 6)

But that FAQ hasn't been updated in a while so now I have 1 question that remains!

I want to assume that the FAQ is 100% legit, as that does allow a bit of nice leeway with pregens, especially when playing some of the more uh... brutal scenarios. But I also don't want to get called out for being cheap or whatever so I'd rather get some confirmation before that kind of thing might even happens.

(The other exception: If you're doing an AP in Campaign Mode, those chronicles get applied like GM chronicles to one of your active characters.)

Wait; does that mean that APs don't tie up a PFS character during the run?

Do APs tie up PFS characters?

If it is in standard mode, yes.

If it is in campaign mode, my understanding is no. Campaign mode does not involve your PFS characters (though it can involve 'copies' of those characters.) It is its own weird beast. The hitch is that Campaign mode requires agreeing to do the entire AP, or putting in an earnest attempt to do so.

Campaign mode Dead Suns fast-tracked my Magical Mu so much that I have barely had a chance to play her.

Hmm

Okay awesome! That section of the guide (bottom right page 12) does clearly state that this is not a thing that can be done.

But now, after doing some digging I found a 2nd question (yay...). Here is a FAQ that seems to contradict the roleplaying guild guide.

The FAQ essentially says if the pregen dies you can assign it to a new PC instead of the one you wanted to apply it to. The guide sortove contradicts this by saying at the beginning of the game, "you must choose to which of your characters the credit will be applied at the beginning of the adventure." (page 6)

But that FAQ hasn't been updated in a while so now I have 1 question that remains!

I want to assume that the FAQ is 100% legit, as that does allow a bit of nice leeway with pregens, especially when playing some of the more uh... brutal scenarios. But I also don't want to get called out for being cheap or whatever so I'd rather get some confirmation before that kind of thing might even happens.

Pete, alas that FAQ is from 2012. The current writing of the guide supercedes it. It's an old law that needs to be struck from the books, but Paizo's web team is pretty behind in site maintenance.

Hmm

Well, good to know!

More updates on Campaign Mode. Redelia pointed out to me a slight change in Roleplaying Guild Guide language. Apparently, the most recent version of the guide managed to make the application of campaign mode even murkier than it was before:

After running a game in Campaign Mode, the GM should report sessions on paizo.com as usual and distribute Chronicle sheets to her players. A player may apply the earned Chronicle sheets to an appropriate Roleplaying Guild character in-tier for the Chronicle Sheet. Alternatively, they may use the sheet to create a new character. This is similar to applying credit to a pregenerated character (see Applying Credit on page 7), except that players can apply Campaign mode credit to characters of the same level or lower and they do not need to expend resources on their earned Chronicle sheets to resolve conditions. GMs receive full credit for the adventure as normal (see page 17).

The challenging thing here is the language that states that applying a campaign mode chronicle is 'similar to' applying credit to a pregenerated character.

However, I hold to my previous interpretation that Campaign Mode does not tie up a PFS character for the following reasons:

You do not need to expend resources on the chronicle of a Campaign Mode character to resolve conditions.

You don't need to worry about your main character dying or getting cursed by events that befall your Campaign Mode character while your Campaign Mode character is adventuring.

Campaign Mode characters are not PFS characters.

The Campaign Mode character could be built as a non-PFS paizo, or as a GURPS character, or heck, even an ACG character if your GM decides that is how they are running the game.

You can decide after the game who you are applying the character to.

This is different than applying credit from a pregen in a regular scenario, which is done at the beginning.

Granted, all this is all one GM's interpretation of a somewhat murky set of rules. It should not be taken as canon, as I am not campaign leadership. It's just how I'm interpreting the intersection of campaign mode and PFS.

Hmm

It should not be taken as canon, as I am not campaign leadership. It's just how I'm interpreting the intersection of campaign mode and PFS.

But you are a five star GM and VC for online. And even more importantly, what you say makes perfect sense. I think for me the kicker is that you choose later on who gets the credit for the scenario. So there is no "risk" that you are avoiding by doing this.

Normal rules however apply in that (for PBP) you could only apply the credit between scenarios, so no mid-adventure upgrades.

Aerondor, the lack of risk to your main character is why I see Campaign Mode chronicles being like the ones for GMing a scenario. And you are right that they are applied between scenarios!

Now... Back to Pete's original question. I do recommend GMing as your best method of catching up, because you can control it better. Campaign mode APs are hard to find and get into, and they frequently fall apart in PBP.

Besides, we always need GMs!

:)

hmm

Oh, I already GM, I was asking hoping for a way to help my wife catch up in a group. No worries! I’m looking into other options for the group, there are plenty of ways to catch one up.

This is awesome that we had the campaign mode discussion as that was a question I was planning to bring up this week. I started a Dead Suns PBP with a group of real life friends and out of the group, I was the only one playing in any society play stuff. I talked to them all and they agreed that they would be okay making it a starfinder society campaign to give me GM credit. While we were playing, I convinced one of my players to join me in starfinder society stuff on here and he was hoping to apply the credit to the character he has been playing. I was hoping it would work out for him that way, but glad to see we have some clarification.

I know that your answer is not official campaign leadership answer, but it is the best we have until we get one.

Just a PSA. I just found out that two of the games I had dotted in had already started, but I wasn't getting notifications on my campaign page that there were new posts. Not sure if this had affected anyone else but you might want to check the gameplay threads of your games which seemed to be silent.

Hi, everyone. I'm very sorry to have bad news to share. A member of our community for years, Justin Warren/GM Harker, died recently.

obituary notice

That's a bummer. My condolences to any and all who knew him here, and of course his family.

So very sad to hear this news. I have gamed with Justin for years here.

You never ‘know’ someone online but I felt like I knew enough of him to say he was a wonderful person. Thoughts to his family, friends, and others who were lucky enough to know him. He will be missed terribly.

Redelia, with the end of my Bronze House table I can take over his Storval Stairs table if you need me to. I'll be botting his character through the end of our module already.

Hi, everyone. I'm very sorry to have bad news to share. A member of our community for years, Justin Warren/GM Harker, died recently.

obituary notice

Thanks for sharing this sad news, Redelia. He was a wonderful member of our community and will be missed. And only 42, so very young.

Hmm

So sad to hear about Justin's passing, I had the pleasure of having him play at a few of my tables and played in a couple of adventures with him. I always enjoyed his play. As Hmm said a wonderful member of our community. I'll pray for his family during this difficult time.

I was fortunate enough to GM for him, and nab a seat in his season 4 campaign for a scenario when a player was missing. He was a pleasure to play with on both sides of the table.

Damn.

RIP Justin.

He was one of my first GMs on this site, and those early GMs are so important.

Harker was one of my first GMs (possibly the very first) and certainly my first PFS GM. To date he was my favorite GM and I played at more or less all of his tables for the last 4 years (including the table that was my introduction to PFS and PbP, which was still ongoing). I also had the pleasure of playing alongside him at multiple tables. Although we did not know each other personally, after all this time it still feels like losing a friend. I guess it is a good thing that I had cut back to only playing at his tables, because I think this has taken the wind out of my sails for the time being.

I had the privilege of playing is Harker's most recent game and I can say without question my favorite board to date. So sad to lose such a great member of this community at such a young age. I really looked forward to posting every day and this is really juts a terribly sad turn of events. RIP Harker, you will be missed.

Justin was a player in my run through of Plunder and Perill, which we started with book 1 of Skulls and Shackles. We will miss him at the table, although we will take his character Tori with us to the end of the module, botted by TOZ.

Is there a way to get ooc text in my character profiles?

Bold seems to work but not OOC.

ooc works for me in character profile. Did you put small letters?

ooc used to work in profiles for me but for some reason it doesn't anymore. I'm not sure what happened.

I used to be able to Bold and OOC at the same time, Like this. but on profile pages, OOC is no longer applies, So it's like I bolded the text. One of the site updates broke it. Which is a shame, as it helped me subdivide my character sheet and increase readability.

The issue was reported in this thread a while ago and added to the list of things to be fixed. You could bump the thread if that's an important feature for you.

*extends spidery, borderline-claw-like, motley-gloved hand from out of Your Closet, gives friendly wave*

Makes note to self: 'mince pie in closet on Christmas Eve.'

It looks like we have 4 waitlist players for Core Cosmic Captive as part of Retrocon at levels 6-8. Do we have someone who might be willing to run? I have played a lot of PbP so far but haven't yet run anything. I might be willing to dip my toe in and run something in exchange.

It looks like we have 4 waitlist players for Core Cosmic Captive as part of Retrocon at levels 6-8. Do we have someone who might be willing to run? I have played a lot of PbP so far but haven't yet run anything. I might be willing to dip my toe in and run something in exchange.

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple for specials. We actually have several reserve GMs ready to run a table if we decide to make another, but with the way specials are written, certain numbers of tables are just not workable because of the way the calculations of successes are set up.

Fair enough, how many extra tables are needed to make it worthwile?

Fair enough, how many extra tables are needed to make it worthwile?

Cosmic Captive is set up for being divisible by 3. Adding just 1 more table with also increase the successes so that the tables may not be able to keep up with during the timed event.

So if you would like to play The Cosmic Captive, please! sign-up on the waiting list. If there is sufficient interest to make new tables..there is a good chance it will happen...

so sign-up now!!

Two more tables of Cosmic Captive have now been added to the board with GM Chaosorbit and GM ChesterCopperpot leading those tables! (PM's have been sent)

Please take a look at the current sign-up sheet for any changes that may have occurred.

Retrocon Sign-up Sheet.

I'm a little confused; I was signed up in the last slot for Kuey's Cosmic Captive slot, and now I've been moved to the 5-6 Tier under Matt Morris. Katswiri is level 4; can she play in that group?

Yes, you can play at a table where you belong one tier off from the table, although you can't have out of tier people on both sides at the same table. I moved you when I made a new table, since you would be one level out of tier, and the new character I was adding in was a level 3.

If I'm not mistaken, it looks like a couple of slots just opened up for Tier 3-4 of Diamond City (at least one of the characters found another PFS game ahead of time).

If I'm not mistaken, it looks like a couple of slots just opened up for Tier 3-4 of Diamond City (at least one of the characters found another PFS game ahead of time).

Update: reached out to an old friend to see if he can join us.

Are specials like cosmic captive considered evergreens and thus replayable? I played cosmic captive at a convention a few years back and would like to try it in retrocon. Am I able?

Are specials like cosmic captive considered evergreens and thus replayable? I played cosmic captive at a convention a few years back and would like to try it in retrocon. Am I able?

They are not evergreen.

Solstice Scar has multiple versions, which all count as separate scenarios.

You may play the same special in the CORE campaign as well as in the standard campaign.

Other than that, you need a GM star (or boon) replay.