In the Shadowed Depths of the Earth

Friday, November 30, 2018

Illustration by Sally Gottschalk

It's no secret I love adventures first and foremost, and the upcoming Pathfinder Module: Cradle of Night is one of the highlights of my first year at Paizo. This adventure was crafted by several of Paizo's veteran contributors: James Jacobs, Wes Schneider, Neil Spicer, and Greg Vaughan. Don't let the multiple authors fool you into thinking this is a collection of stories—it's a single super-adventure with a stunning beginning and a desperate urgency all the way to the end. Cradle of Night was a long time coming, but it's all the better for it, and now it's here!

In this deluxe adventure for 8th-level characters, the heroes receive a plea from a desperate caligni refugee. Her cosmopolitan subterranean city of Lyrudrada has fallen into the grip of a fanatical cult called the Reborn. This wicked cult seeks an artifact called the Cradle of Night, an important piece of caligni history and lore. The heroes must keep the artifact out of the cult's hands and fight to bring light to the shadows that threaten to consume them.

One of the reasons I was glad to jump in on this project—apart from it being an exciting adventure into new lands and themes—is the opportunity to address the name and history of the caligni. There's an unfortunate trend in fantasy fiction to equate "dark" with "evil," and the "dark folk" monsters have been carrying this baggage for years. Of course, these subterranean people don't call themselves "dark folk;" they call themselves "caligni," and since they're at the center of this adventure, it's a great time to pull back the shadows around their naming, history, and secret lore.

Venture into the depths of the earth and claim the Cradle of Night!

Ron Lundeen
Developer

Courts Are for Kings, and Kingdoms Are for Your PCs!

Thursday, November 29, 2018

I'm a huge fan of the Kingmaker Adventure Path. I have been ever since the first session of the Kingmaker campaign I GMed, which ran for almost four years. My players made good use of the sandbox nature of the AP to explore every nook and cranny of the adventure, as well as many areas outside of its original scope. Writing additional content for them was my first foray into designing my own adventures, and I learned so much about being a good GM from that experience. So of course, when the opportunity came up to write sanctioning documents for Kingmaker, I was excited to take on the project. And then other tasks cropped up that had to be done right away. The project got trapped in an endless cycle "nice to have, but not nearly as urgent as these ten other things." And in the end, the notes remained at the front of my to-do folder for two whole years, waiting for something to shake loose so I could work on them without neglecting my other responsibilities. Then the Pathfinder Kingmaker computer RPG launched, and everyone was excited about the Adventure Path once again. I knew that it was time to pick up my old notes and finally finish this project. If you're a fan of the adventure path who hasn't checked out the computer game, or a fan of the computer game who hasn't tried the tabletop version of the adventure path, I highly recommend them both.

As those of you reading this blog may already know, there are two ways to run an Adventure Path for Pathfinder Society credit: Campaign Mode and Event Mode. Campaign Mode allows the GM freedom to run the entire Adventure Path with whatever rules she chooses. It's worth pointing out that while you can't use the Pathfinder Kingmaker computer RPG to earn credit for your Pathfinder Society character, you can earn credit while playing your favorite class from one of Pathfinder's many talented third-party publishers, or when playing in any other tabletop RPG system of your choice (see the latest update to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Guild Guide for more information). Meanwhile Event Mode, originally designed for events like conventions and scheduled tables at gaming stores, uses standard Pathfinder Society rules and characters. It's more approachable for GMs who aren't looking to run a full campaign, who have limited time, or who only want to run a portion of the Adventure Path. In Event Mode, GMs only run some of the encounters in the Adventure Path, in a package that is more comparable to the number of encounters that PCs would typically need to complete to gain one level. Subsystems and other mechanics that cover an entire adventure volume are generally represented only on Chronicle sheets.

Kingmaker presents some unique challenges for Event Mode. It has quite a few load-bearing subsystems, and it's a sandbox. To address the subsystems, I created two bonus Chronicle sheets. The first bonus Chronicle sheet represents internal factors, like Economy, Loyalty, and Stability, and Military strength. It lets you choose a kingdom role for your character, shape your character's priorities, and benefit from your kingdom's successes. Meanwhile, the second bonus Chronicle sheet features a territorial expansion minigame. The sandbox feel is harder to capture that the subsystems. Since the sense of wandering and discovery is so central to the first volume of the Adventure Path, Stolen Lands, the sanctioned portions of that are more flexible. GMs can choose several encounters from a long list to throw at PCs while they explore.

But what if you've already started your Kingmaker campaign? In keeping with our policy for the last several Adventure Paths, including Serpent's Skull, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Giantslayer, and Iron Gods, if you are still in the middle of playing one of these Adventure Paths but have not yet concluded it, you can receive retroactive credit for all of that Adventure Path's earlier volumes the next time you earn a Chronicle sheet for that campaign. For example, let's say you were partway through Kingmaker's Adventure Path's fifth volume, War of the River Kings. Once you complete it, you'll receive retroactive Chronicle sheets for the first four volumes of the Adventure Path.

I hope you all have as much fun with Kingmaker as I have!

Kingmaker Sanctioning Document

Linda Zayas-Palmer

Developer

Pathfinder Society 2: Factions and Fame

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

This is our fourth installment discussing our original sticky forum threads regarding the transition of the Pathfinder Society between version 1 and 2 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In past blogs, we discussed Tiers, Level Gain, and the Roleplaying Guild Guide; Boons and Chronicle Sheets; and GM stars, Replay, and Boon Conversion. We also put up a blog about Pregenerated Characters. We're seeking your feedback on each of these topics. If you're interested in sharing your thoughts and haven't done so already, please follow the links above.

Today, I'll be talking about the final thread, Factions and Fame. Who are your allies, and how can you leverage your reputation into meaningful benefits for your character? I'll talk about fame first, since it's a bit more straightforward.

Fame

There wasn't much discussion in the sticky thread about fame, so our work on this topic is mostly based off of the lessons we've learned from Starfinder Society. By a large margin, we've heard that people prefer just about every aspect of the way Reputation and Fame work in Starfinder Society to the way Fame and Prestige work in Pathfinder Society. I'll say more on the inconsistent definition of Fame across campaigns in a moment. But for now, I'd like to break down which changes we're looking to make for Pathfinder Society as we transition to the future..

Item Access: In the current version of Pathfinder Society, character's Fame determines their access to magic items. In theory, this system could be used as a way to reward PCs who excel at their missions with better item access. In practice, the chart is irrelevant to the vast majority of PCs, who are limited only by the amount of money they have. This system requires us to print magic items on Chronicle sheets that nearly all PCs would have access to anyway. We've heard a fair amount of negative feedback about this chart, and we're not planning to use it going forward. Instead, we are looking to tie magic item access to character level. This would not necessarily use the same rules as Starfinder Society. Once the new rules are finished, we'll explore the details of this method further. Factors like the rarity system and expected item access by level need to be finalized before we can realistically make progress on this topic.

What is my Prestige good for?: Other than removing the Fame chart for item access, the other common request we've received about the fame/prestige system is to make sure there are plenty of options for spending Prestige Points, with a focus on options that are broadly available to characters without being gated behind purchasing certain books or playing certain scenarios. For this, we're looking toward a model similar to Starfinder Society, including plenty of faction-specific boons as well as some general use boons. This would also come with a loosening of the faction system so PCs could earn benefits for multiple factions, but I'll get back to that in just a minute.

Infamy: Starfinder Society has an Infamy system, in which characters who choose particularly shady solutions to the challenges in the adventure or otherwise act in less-than-upstanding ways become known for their misdeeds. In Starfinder Society, infamous characters have a harder time finding people to sell them items. If they become infamous enough and don't take steps to fix their reputation, they could even lose their position in the Starfinder Society. The Infamy system has been particularly well-received, so we are planning to implement an Infamy system. We may tie Infamy to item access in the next iteration of the Pathfinder Society as well, but like I said above, decisions on that will need to wait until all of the changes from the Playtest are in place.

Fame and Prestige, or Reputation and Fame?: One point of confusion that arises between the Pathfinder Society campaign and the Starfinder Society campaign is the meaning of Fame. In Pathfinder Society, Fame is a number that represents your character's overall standing and influence, while Prestige Points are a spendable resource. In Starfinder Society, on the other hand, Reputation represents your character's standing and influence, while Fame is a spendable resource. We've received a fair amount of feedback that this is confusing. To make it easier for players to engage with both campaigns, we're inclined to use the terms Reputation and Fame in Pathfinder Society version two, in a matter consistent with the way they are used in Starfinder Society.

Factions

Factions have gone through quite a bit of transformation since the Season 0 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, when five rival factions based around the interests of specific nations vied for influence within the Society. In Season 3, the number of factions doubled, adding five more factions based more on ideology than national origin. In Season 4, in an attempt to bring the number of factions to a more manageable level, the two factions with the lowest reported popularity, the Lantern Lodge and the Shadow Lodge, were retired from play. In Season 6, the national factions themselves transformed into ideological ones. While these new ideological factions were better suited to storytelling and appealed to a broader range of characters, we received feedback that the mid-campaign switch was jarring. Faction transformations can be tough, and retirements more so, particularly if you've built a character around being part of a group and suddenly find yourself needing to switch to a different cause. With that in mind, we're working to build a system from the get-go that includes enough factions to give choice without being overwhelming, and to create factions that appeal to a broad range of characters without being generic.

One Faction or Many?: As members of the Pathfinder Society chapter one, PCs choose a single faction to represent. They can change to another faction, but doing so often requires paying a significant cost. In Starfinder Society, PCs can support the interests of a single faction, or they can branch out and champion several factions. They can choose each scenario which faction they want to champion, and there is no penalty for switching. The feedback we've received strongly suggests that the Starfinder system is a big improvement, so we're planning to use it in Pathfinder Society as well. This doesn't mean we're going to create Pathfinder analogues of the existing Starfinder factions, but rather that we want to open up more options for ways to play your character.

Scrolls, Spells, and Swords: We saw a few suggestions to include the schools within the Pathfinder Society—the Scrolls, Spells, and Swords—into factions. We aren't planning to make them factions; instead, we'd like them to represent another meaningful decision you can make at character creation. For context, most agents begin their careers by training at the Grand Lodge, receiving instruction from the three deans, adopting their respective virtues, and often favoring one of the three schools by the point of Confirmation. The Scrolls value knowledge, diplomacy, and the pursuit of truth. Meanwhile, the Spells value determination, independence, and magical talent. They focus on magical studies, both those that uncover the lost secrets of the past and those that create new items, spells, and traditions. Finally, the Swords value personal fitness, martial training, and sound judgment under pressure. In the future, we're planning to make this affiliation matter. We've begun to consider several models for giving the PCs access to resources and support based on their school (or what it might mean to be a field-commissioned agent), but this is another factor that will need to wait for the final game rules to consider further.

Factions: If the Scrolls, Spells, and Swords represent how your character joined the society and grew to become a capable agent, factions represent your character's goals, motivations, and allies. The shift from a rigid system of factions that demand exclusive allegiance to a system with many choices also gives us a chance to re-examine what the factions are.

What we aren't looking to do is simply port over factions into Pathfinder Society chapter two. Some factions have largely completed their goals. Others may experience changes over the course of Season 10 or during the campaign's Interactive Finale. Rather than being bound to the list of factions we have now, we'd like to start from the perspective of creating a list of factions that are interesting to many different PCs. To that end, we brainstormed a list of character motivations that lend themselves to group action. Some of these ideas have clear parallels to existing Pathfinder Society factions, while others explore new territory. Once we've chosen which seeds to use, we can build more nuanced factions around them. Let us know what you think in this week's survey, linked at the bottom of this blog.

So this raises a natural question—what about our faction leaders? Will they end up leading some of the new factions, taking supporting roles, fading into the background, or leaving the Society entirely? There's a Season 10 scenario that addresses exactly this question for one faction leader. Beyond that, we'd like to hear what you'd like to see us do with the current leaders. When rating NPCs, be sure to rate them based on your feelings as a player, not your character's feelings. So if there's an NPC that one of your characters has a grudge with, but that you as a player would like to see stick around, rate them accordingly.

We look forward to hearing your feedback in the Pathfinder Society Factions Survey!

Linda Zayas-Palmer

Developer

New Office, New Faces: Coming Home From Distant Places

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Hello! Hello. Hello again, to some of you.

It's been a while since I've done this, written a blog for Paizo. About four years, in fact, which seems at once unbelievably historic but also just yesterday. Four years ago is when I said goodbye to Paizo so I could go out and see the world. Now, I have returned to find a place both strange and familiar, filled with faces I recognize and a few I don't. The cubicles are on the other side of the building now. There is a new Costco next door. The post office across the street seems smaller, though it isn't.

The first thing I noticed upon reentering Paizo's doors is how quiet the office still is. This observation may sound sobering, but it is in fact quite a good thing, no, a great thing. There's a hum of patient discipline within these halls, where the vibration of the air conditioner is punctuated by the clicking of mice and the tapping of keyboards, the shuffling of papers and the murmur of creative consultation. This is a stark contrast to the world outside, which is fast, loud, and impatient, where you can pay at the register and have your soy vanilla no-foam no-milk latte in your hands in ninety seconds, where you must listen to the sounds of the city outside your window, the crash of trash in the garbage bin and strangers yelling into the night and neighbors playing strange, nauseating music. Between the cocoon-like walls of Paizo, though, there is a ward against the everyday annoyances of the outside world. There is a scholarly tranquility here that I have yet to find almost anywhere else.

Where have I been, anyway? Around, mostly. I tried a stint in marketing. I lived on a farm in Hawaii for eight months. Most people ask me about that. The farming, not the marketing.

Many people say they wish to move to Hawaii, but few actually make it past the first step. In September of 2017, my wife and I sold all our belongings, put what little was left in storage, and took a one-way flight to the Big Island. We had no return date, no idea whether we'd even want to return. We were prepared to make a go of living in this strange new world and carving out a home of our own amid palm trees and lava rocks. And we were prepared to face many trials on our quest, an adventure that would have us labor upon rocky soil and live beneath a tarp alongside wild nocturnal pigs.

There are many monsters in Hawaii, a fact which may surprise you. Big beautiful fish and big ugly centipedes alike are found in abundance. Powerful volcanic goddesses and mythical pygmy natives and invisible animal spirits lurk in the verdant hills. An array of amazing birds can be seen only on these remote isles: handsome 'io, brooding pueo, humble nene, and dazzling i'iwi. There are green spotted geckos, of course, but also color-shifting chameleons and draconian anoles and boisterous coqui frogs. Vermin like the Asian tiger mosquito and the cane spider and hundreds of species of semi-slug can give you quite a fright. It is a magical land as rife with beasts as it is steeped in legends.

During my time in Kona, I swam with manta rays and tiger sharks, explored volcanos ancient and active, witnessed flash floods and dry lightning, and sank my hands into literally tons of dirt. The fauna of Hawaii are loud and skittish but the people are quiet and friendly. It is an atmosphere of relaxation, where importance is placed on family, friends, food, and maintaining a healthy balance between mind and body, a phenomenon generally known as the spirit of aloha.

Spending countless days dozing in a hammock slung between two palm trees by the beach does strange things to you, it turns out. I quickly realized that voyages of the mind are just as important as voyages to physical locales, if not more so, for maintaining the aforementioned mind-body balance. A good book can teach you as much about life as an expedition to remote islands and can take you to equally amazing places. It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes using less energy and taking things slowly, rather than continually pushing yourself to the limit, can make you a better, faster learner. This stillness of the heart is mandatory to appreciate the quietest things in life—gazing at the stars, swimming in the ocean, writing. Stillness is a skill that can be picked up quickly but that must be pursued relentlessly and with the understanding that there is no such thing as mastery.

Coming back to the mainland, I have discovered that you do not need to go as far as the middle of the ocean to uncover the wonders that surround us. In Seattle, gunmetal gray condos and shiny Teslas meet you at every turn, but it is still a rare day that you do not stumble upon some natural beauty—bands of cirrus streaking across a green sunset, a red-winged blackbird flitting to and from its nest, a coyote prowling raised gardens in a dusky neighborhood. But go far enough away from the city and you will encounter the stuff that promises to burn most brightly in the tangles of your memory—the reflection of the impossibly blue sky in a glacial lake, a lonely goat trekking a foreboding snowy ridgeline, the galactic core of our galaxy bursting from a layer of forest fire haze.

Based on my limited life experience, I have some basic advice for anyone who wants to take a step back from the grindstone and try to get re-centered: Take walks. Read old novels. Nap daily. Stretch your back. Watch birds. Breathe. Play.

The things I saw and heard and smelled and touched during my sabbatical reminded me why I love games like Pathfinder so much—because roleplaying games can take us to places that make us wonder, make us think, make us still. Sitting at a table with friends, away from the distractions of modernity, rolling lucky dice and maneuvering precious figurines, is a form of mindfulness that I think everyone should have the chance to enjoy. As I said before, you don't need to travel far to discover magic.

As any good adventuring party knows, it is vital to have a good home base from which to launch expeditions and to which to return for resupply. Perhaps that is why I have returned to Paizo's staff as a developer on the Adventure Path line. At Paizo, I can retreat to these sacred hallways, to the welcoming arms of likeminded explorers of fantastic universes, for potions of creativity and psychic salves. The journeys we writers undertake here are those of the human condition, of stories and games and characters and challenges that help players consider their own role in worlds both imaginary and real. Our efforts are of the utmost importance, I believe, because we create worlds that inspire people to look around as well as within.

I return to Paizo after four years of discovery—both self-discovery and discovery of others. Four years may not seem long to those of you who have been running the same campaign for decades, but it is long enough, perhaps, to return to an ancient craft with clear eyes and fresh breath. Enough to reexplore past passions and imbue future works with warm, steady energy. And enough, certainly enough, to once again brave the unknown with friends new and old.

Patrick Renie
Developer

November 2018 Starfinder Society Releases

Thursday, November 21, 2018

Illustration by Graey Erb

November's a cold month up here in the wilds of Canada, and as I developed this month's scenarios, I found that I developed a growing obsession with them. While I didn't quite grow a beard or batter down any doors with axes, I certainly came to appreciate this month's scenarios for the important plot elements they introduce into the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. So, let's dive in!

Our first scenario for this month, Starfinder Society Scenario #1-26: Truth of the Seeker is Shahreena Shahrani's debut scenario! Both John and I had the pleasure of meeting Shahreena at Origins Game Fair 2018, and her passion and knowledge about Starfinder Society really caught our attention. With a background in foreign studies, Shahreena took to the challenge of writing a scenario that includes a lot of firsts for the campaign. This is the first scenario that has the campaign explore the Kasatha colony ship known as the Idari. It's also the first scenario to have the Second Seekers (Jadnura) faction tag. For these reasons alone, I'm excited for what people think of this scenario. Of course, the art preview I get to showcase MAY be one of my favorite pieces of art…

Next up…

There's some history—some OLD history—to November's second scenario. Starfinder Society Scenario #1-27: King Xeros of Star Azlant harkens back to a Season 0 Pathfinder Society scenario: Pathfinder Society #20: King Xeros of Old Azlant. The roots of its more futuristic successor come from the Organized Play team monitoring threads about what fans would like to see come back in Pathfinder Society, especially during the ramp up to Pathfinder Second Edition. The King Xeros was one of those things that fans kept bringing back up, and while it didn't find a place in Pathfinder Society's action-packed tenth season, I was eager to scoop it up for use in Starfinder Society. I always enjoy reading our forums and catching up on commentary to get a sense of what things interest our fans.

Illustration by Graey Erb

While I'd originally intended to bring a Season 0 author back out of the cryogenic freezer to write this scenario, events didn't line up. Instead, veteran author Christopher Wasko saved my proverbial bacon by stepping up and putting together a beautiful scenario that maintains the spirit of the King Xeros into a whole new setting. Luckily, for GMs who put together custom terrain of the original King Xeros, you can rest assured that your maps will still work out quite nicely in this scenario. Though, the King Xeros maybe got a few upgrades since you last saw it…

That does it for this month's rather intense scenario offerings. Look forward to next month, when we get to experience a new Tier 1–4 adventure that brings us back into the role of explorers on the frontiers of the universe. Also, if you've been following the ongoing Scoured Stars storyline, our first Tier 7–10 makes its appearance next month, and I have a feeling that we'll need our best and brightest Starfinders to handle the threat that's rising!

Until next time,

Thurston Hillman
Starfinder Society Developer

Demons and Devils and Pathfinders—Oh My!

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Illustration by Michele Giorgi

Back when we announced Season 10, we were really excited about some of the big stories that we hoped to wrap up in a big way. November really kicks off two of these payoffs with a pair of high-level scenarios written by fan favorite authors addressing two our favorite NPCs. We're really stoked!

The first up is Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-08: What Prestige is Worth, a Tier 7–11 scenario that begat as many "approximately 375 gp" jokes when we were naming it as appeared later in the product discussion thread. An uncontrollable portal to Hell has opened in the Grand Lodge's basement, but Zarta Dralneen has ascertained the most likely means of closing the rift in a way that doesn't flood Absalom with devils. The only problem's that this plan involves an elite team traveling with Zarta to Dis: the second level of Hell and Infernal City that embodies tyranny. Easy, right? Well even though the PCs have a bone devil's short-lived protection and Zarta's familiarity with the planar metropolis, expect some tough challenges ahead. After all, your typical PC's spent several scenarios bludgeoning fiends and declaring herself a hero, but now you're in your enemies' backyard.

Creating compelling extraplanar scenarios like this is a tough challenge, so I'm thrilled that Matt Duval was ready to work on it. He's made a really dark and thematic scenario that reminds the PCs just how out of their element they are without pushing into the realm of uncomfortable levels of gratuity. On top of that, I'm really excited about how the NPCs in this adventure turned out, ranging from unfriendly employers to unrepentant contacts to unlikely allies (like the one pictured here by Michele Giorgi). Why is Hell one of my favorite planes for adventures? It's because of scenarios like this. If you want to learn more about Dis, be sure to check out its gazetteer by Amanda Hamon Kunz in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Realms.

Illustration by Josef Kucera

But maybe Hell isn't your thing—I'm not judging. Perhaps instead of dealing with devils you'd rather smash in demon faces? You're in luck, because Linda Zayas-Palmer has been working on our latest seeker-level content.

At the beginning of Season 10, we announced that we'd be including more high-level content, in order to do justice to the finales of several stories and character arcs that have been brewing for multiple years. But Tier 7–11 wasn't quite high level enough to capture this month's heroic charge into the Abyss. The treachery demon Koth'Vaul has been a thorn in the Pathfinder Society's side for years, most notably as one of the masterminds behind last year's siege on Absalom. In Pathfinder Society Scenario #10–09: The Rasping Rebirth, by Cole Kronewitter, Koth'Vaul puts into motion his grandest plot yet, charging into the realm of the dead demon lord Deskari and collecting what power he can to fuel his own schemes. Cole did not pull punches when representing this cunning villain, particularly for those of you who opt to play this scenario's optional hard mode. Whether your character is a righteous and stalwart paladin or someone whose heart could be swayed by Abyssal temptation, they will have a significant choice to make. The Pathfinder Society's past interactions with Koth'Vaul have mostly been in his innocuous mortal disguises (with one notable exception), but he's ready to face them in his new and improved true form, as illustrated by Josef Kucera.

Linda Zayas-Palmer

Developer

We hope you have as much fun playing and running these as we had in developing them. Coming up in the next several months, we'll be looking ahead to resuming the Hao Jin Tapestry storyline!

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Core Principles: Varying the Challenge in the Pathfinder ACG

Wednesday, November 20, 2018

Last week I got to proof the new rulebook for Core and it made me excited to talk more about the design principles for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Core Set. As Mike explained in a previous blog, we really wanted to give players the ability to control the game's challenge level, as well as the ability to speed the game up when desired.

I'm a big fan of giving players control knobs in games. We've all tinkered with house rules to increase the fun for our table. The problem with house rules is that they vary pretty wildly from house to house, which can occasionally be tough. They also tend to have less rigorous testing and development. Official options for changing the game are better, since they provide a common language of well-tested options.

We've all tried to control the difficulty level in our games, too. It's easy and obvious in video games (like picking Legendary difficulty in Obsidian's Pathfinder Adventures), but in the RPG, the adventure you choose, the GM, the characters, and the people playing them all have a pretty profound effect on difficulty, too. When people discuss PACG sets they often talk about difficulty as a primary reason to choose one set over another. It's good to have variety, but it's a shame to rule out a set because it's too easy or hard!

The amount of time available to play can change session to session, as can the number of players, and more players usually means more time required. We really wanted to present options that would let you look at the number of players and the amount of time you have so you can say "let's play one long scenario" or "let's knock out two quick scenarios."

Ideally, you can alter the difficulty on the fly to suit the particular players that night, or to match the scenario. You like a hard game, but you just failed the scenario? Drop the difficulty a notch before replaying it!

Change Things Up... Or Down

The first thing we decided to do was create small, medium, and large locations. Medium locations are what you're used to. Small locations usually have 3 fewer cards, which speeds up the game while making it easier. Large locations usually have 3 more cards, giving you a longer, more challenging scenario.

Bigger locations have more banes, but also more boons. Everyone likes boons!

Next, we gave you some freedom to change the number of cards in the blessings deck—which, since it often contains things that aren't blessings, has been renamed the hourglass. While the hourglass defaults to 30 blessings, we heartily encourage you to play with fewer or more blessings. Fewer cards in the hourglass speeds up the game while making it harder, and more cards gives you more time to win, making the game easier.

Because location size and hourglass size can be changed independently, you can dial in length and challenge level to your liking. If you combine small locations (faster + easier) and fewer cards in the hourglass (faster + harder), you get a faster game that's close to normal difficulty. Some of our testers prefer a version of the game that uses small locations and just 12 blessings + 2 per character because they can play twice as many scenarios in the same amount of time. Some of our testers with larger groups like large locations and extra blessings to give them an epic, satisfying scenario where everyone gets several turns.

(There's another reason for the name hourglass: The top card of the hourglass discards is now called the "hour," and new blessings have powers that happen when they are the hour. This ends the disconnect that new players had after flipping over a blessing at the start of their first turn:

New player: Ok, what do I do with this?

Experienced player: Nothing.

New player: It has all these words, but I don't do anything with it?

Experienced player: No. It's just a timer.

New player: …Oh. Um, okay.

Also, I can unofficially refer to each turn as "flipping the hourglass," which reminds me to actually flip the card, and feels thematic. And when you've got that one friend who can't make any decisions but still wants to explore five times per turn you can remind them they're not supposed to take a literal hour.)

When the hour can change your turn, especially for the better, you get used to looking at it.
(Oh, and we redesigned all the card faces. Surprise! We'll talk more about that later.)

Let's Get Wild

We've also been playing around with some ideas for changing up scenarios for quite some time. They started out as "templates" similar to ones used in the RPG, but Obsidian's Pathfinder Adventures app helped crystallize the concept into "wildcards." Core and Curse each include a number of different options that increase the difficulty of the game and make it less predictable. You can use any number of them, either chosen or random, depending on the desires of the group.

Hate long turns? Just add Wearisome. Want to die in a fire? Try an Ablaze, Deadly, and Hostile game!
(And did I mention that the card images show work in progress?)

If you're looking to adjust the difficulty in a more straightforward manner, you can treat your adventure as 1 higher or lower in difficulty. This increases or decreases the difficulty of Veteran banes. You can also add banes of a higher adventure number to your box to encounter earlier, which can be an exciting and unexpected change, especially for replay.

Speaking of replay, we've also offered the option to play the scenarios on Heroic and Legendary difficulty, which incorporate a few of the above options. In addition to bragging rights and a more entertaining game for those who seek a challenge, you get a reward for completing adventures on higher difficulties: you get to erase a feat, then take a feat of the same type. It doesn't increase your power level at all, but it does make you more flexible and lets you address any regrets you might have in an officially sanctioned and fun way.

I hope folks are looking forward to customizing their play experience, as well as all of the new cards, characters, and scenarios!

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Collect Your Destiny

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

"Geek" is a word with myriad definitions, but for me, those definitions all have to do with passion. In many cases, this passion manifests in the form of a collection of some sort, and boy, do I have a long list of collections! Just among the few freelancers and members of the staff I polled (and some I didn't but whose collecting proclivities I know), we at Paizo collect nerd stuff that runs the gamut: action figures, agates, detergents, Doctor Who autographs, foreign currency, occult texts, planchettes, port wines, Star Wars memorabilia, stuffed animals, and tarot cards, just to name a few. But not a numismatist among them?! For shame!

Well, if your collecting tendencies include coins—specifically limited-edition silver coins—you're in luck! Our partners at Destiny Coin are running a site-wide sale until November 30, including on the inaugural entry in their six-piece Pathfinder Iconic Characters series: Valeros! This 2-oz. .999 antique silver coin features the fearless fighter on one side and a red dragon on the other, and each of the limited minting comes with a certificate of authenticity. As with any piece of silver, this coin will hold value for generations to come!

So, if you're a coin collector, Pathfinder memorabilia collector, or both, don't miss this opportunity to own one of these amazing works of art at a great discount! By Cayden's cup, what are you waiting for?

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

Thanks

Monday, November 19, 2018

Last week we wrapped up the Actual Play streams of Doomsday Dawn from here at the Paizo offices, but that does not mean that the playtest is over! If you missed the streams you can still catch them on our YouTube channel and over on Twitch. We hope you are having as much fun with these games as we are!

As we go into this holiday week, we here on the design team want to encourage you to continue playing and reporting your results. While we are hard at work making changes to the structures and rules behind the game, you feedback is helping to inform our direction, ensuring that we are making the best version of Pathfinder we can.

So, thank you!

We know that this playtest has been one of the most stressful, challenging tests we have ever put out there. Never before have we tried such a rigorous process, designed to push the system to its limits and while we know it has been difficult, I cannot tell you how much your dedication has meant to the design team and all of us at Paizo. Your dedication in scheduling your group through playtest after playtest, whether it be chapters of Doomsday Dawn, Pathfinder Society scenarios, or homebrew adventures. Your dedication in filling out page after page of surveys to help us collect the richest data we have ever received in a playtest. And your dedication in analyzing and expressing yourselves to help make the game the best it can be. For that, we are truly thankful.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 6

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Closing in on the end of Doomsday Dawn, the guys from the Order of the Amber Die are here with their report on Part 6—"Red Flags"! Keep in mind that there are spoilers in this report, so if you haven't played through the adventure and don't want to know any secrets, come back after you're done.

As you've probably noticed from our blog reports over the years, our members enjoy the sense of competition that comes from pitting themselves against published adventures. With this in mind, one of the ways we've maintained our intensity through so many complete playthroughs and reports of each playtest scenario has been to track our team's win/loss record. Part 1: Win. Part 2: Loss. Part 3: Win. Part 4: Loss. Part 5: Loss. So, at 2–3 it was clear going into Part 6 that we needed a win if we even wanted a chance to finish out with a positive record. Two factors upped the pressure even more, and the first was the author himself. In nearly 150 published adventures completed, and despite being aware of his long involvement in the history of the game, by random chance we had never played an adventure by Stephen Radney-MacFarland. The second factor had to do with a certain name he chose for a sunken ship in this adventure: Blackguard's Revenge. Everyone in OAD fears that name, since we have quite a storied relationship with the 2005 module by the same name (described here); we had no choice but to take it as a sign that Besmara herself had a stake in part six of our playtest.

Since we were headed to what was essentially a pirate party in "Red Flags," we decided to make the session into some revelry of our own—complete with the best laughs of our playtest run. This scenario also had the largest map of the playtest, so we turned to the talents of Black Bard Studios, who brought its 10-foot scale to life by crafting a setup of the entire coastal stronghold: thirty-five square feet! Adding some nice accents were the latest pieces from Bannerless Builds and Blue Table Painting. With our seafaring personas ready, we were on our way!

The Party

This was the scenario in which we were to create a party that was heavily roleplaying focused. We added our own playtest goal of making characters who took advantage of the new archetype system to give us the feel of multiclass characters from previous editions. Each player also had to choose how their particular character served the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. Also listed are the names of each player on the team who committed their time to this detailed playthrough, and the year each became a member of the Order (when a player reaches 100 hours at our table).

Raven Stormclaw human sorcerer (rogue archetype) 14

Bloodline: Imperial

Key Spells: dimension door, see invisibility, spider climb, passwall

Class Feats: Widen Spell, Conceal Spell, Rogue Dedication, Basic Trickery: Trap Finder, Reach Spell, Skill Mastery, Advanced Trickery: Light Step

Role in the Esoteric Order: Spy

Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (2003)

Nezam human wizard (bard & fighter archetypes) 14

School: Universalist

Class Feats: Hand of the Apprentice, Bard Dedication, Basic Muse's Whispers: Lingering Composition, Conceal Spell, Inspirational, Fighter Dedication, Opportunist, Effortless Concentration

Key Spells: illusory disguise, passwall, telepathic bond, true seeing

Role in the Esoteric Order: Archivist

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Ehsan Hashen human alchemist (rogue archetype) 14

Class Feats: Alchemical Savant, Rogue Dedication, Sneak Attacker, Basic Trickery: Nimble Dodge, Enduring Alchemy, Poison Antidote , Evasiveness, Potent Poisoner

Key Formulas: silvertongue mutagen, deathcap poison, quicksilver mutagen, elixir of life

Role in the Esoteric Order: Researcher

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Captain James Adalay human rogue (fighter archetype) 14

Rogue's Technique: Finesse Striker

Background: Sailor

Class Feats: Nimble Dodge, Fighter Dedication, Unbalancing Blow, Fighter Resiliency, Sly Striker, Trap Finder, Basic Maneuver: Sudden Charge, Twist the Knife, Instant Opening

Role in the Esoteric Order: Diplomat

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"Red Flags" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 149 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0
• Number of Hero Points used: 18; 5 (Raven), 5 (Nezam), 4 (Ehsan), 4 (Captain James)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "Red Flags": 10hrs, 5min
• Total time spent preparing "Red Flags": 6hrs, 40min
• Number of sessions spent playing "Red Flags": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 36
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3; Nezam (2), Captain James (1)
• Number of characters killed: 1 (Nezam)
• Amount of gold spent earning influence in Plumetown: 407gp
• Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Raven Stormclaw

• Uses of Deception (impersonate): 3
• Successful Deception (impersonate) attempts: 2

Nezam

• Uses of Read Lips: 2
• Attacks of Opportunity: 2
• Successful Attacks of Opportunity: 1 (40 damage, interrupted spell)

Ehsan Hashen

• Poison attempts: 0
• Total uses of Stealth skill: 1
• Successful Stealth uses: 1

Captain James Adalay

• Uses of Diplomacy skill: 8
• Critical successes (Diplomacy): 4
• Successes (Diplomacy): 2
• Failures (Diplomacy): 1
• Critical Failures (Diplomacy): 1

Highlights From "Red Flags"

Adjusting to a new edition was bound to bring a couple of humorous stumbles, and this scenario had our favorite of any scenario. We were pumped to open the session strong, and after some shouts of encouragement at the table, fired off the teleport spell that would take us to the island known as the Smoker. Though we were expecting an exciting description of the place to follow, we instead saw water. Lots of water, and we were in it. The new rules for teleport meant that because it was more than 100 miles from Caliphas to the Shackles, we would arrive with a 1% margin of error. Good thing we were packing a second teleport!

The guest list for the gala included a contract devil, an evil sorcerer (the party's nemesis) and his goblin butler, along with the host of the festivities—a tengu Free Captain. Let's just say this gave a certain emphasis to the 'ole "Let's try to blend in." We've got to hand the roleplaying MVP award to Sean, and after you see how his dice aided his words, you'll also understand how he survived a diplomatic dance with the devil.

After our social skills were tested, the scenario took a twist, and we had to make our way past several high-level traps. One such trap was a series of shifting portals that appeared to forcefully thrust anyone with an incorrect guess backwards onto iron spikes. We could try to figure it out, or like high-level characters should be able to do, lean on our abilities. Three castings of passwall later, we were headed deeper into the fortress.

Character Deaths

Going up against a kraken was likely to send someone to the Boneyard. Nezam did everything he could to stay alive, but the beast ground through his hero points and crushed the wizard into data to feed our playtest.

Current Situation

Headed into the final encounter, things couldn't have been stacked any worse against a team desperate for a win. We had to face a kraken with our least combat-oriented party of the entire playtest. As its many tentacles bore down on us with a 60-foot reach, we were moments from accepting that it was all over. Then we remembered the mission goal and realized that we didn't have to beat the kraken—just get past it. Thanks to a combination of the cave's unique layout, several timely castings of dimension door, and three characters with the Quick Unlock skill feat, we pulled off one of the canniest victories in OAD history. We're 3–3 overall now, and headed into the final scenario with a chance to close out with a winning record!

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

From Dusk Till Dusk

Thursday, November 14, 2018

The world of Verces is a tidally locked planet, one hemisphere always facing the sun as it makes its orbit. As such, half of the planet is baked by constant heat, while the other half is a frozen wasteland. However, a strip of habitable terrain circles the planet where the two sides meet, a temperate zone in a state of constant twilight. Most of Verces's sentient life evolved in this area, which eventually became known as the Ring of Nations, a unified coalition of countries.

Illustration by Pixeloid Studios

In Starfinder Adventure Path #11: The Penumbra Protocol, the heroes travel to Cuvacara, the capital of Vimal, one of the larger nations on Verces. Known as the "Dusk Jewel," Cuvacara is a bustling metropolis that is home to the Assembly of Nations, where the Ring of Nations' government council meets to make policies. Thousands of cybernetics and computer corporations own offices and factories in Cuvacara, and the heroes must investigate one of these companies to learn more about the creepy incidents that befell them on the asteroid resort New Elysium in the previous adventure. But, of course, not everything is what it seems to be, especially in a city like Cuvacara, where every shadowy alleyway has the potential to hide a deadly secret.

Both "The Penumbra Protocol" adventure and the accompanying Cuvacara gazetteer were written by Jenny Jarzabski, turning from the warm glow of the sun in the Starfinder Society scenario "The Solar Sortie" to these neon-drenched streets. (Hmmm, I guess we like giving Jenny alliteratively titled adventures…) Jenny introduces us to a wide variety of Cuvacaran citizens, but rather than describe them and spoil all the surprises, I thought we would show off this incredible map of the Dusk Jewel. Those gray lines represent the city's mass transit system: elevated bullet trains that can transport passengers around Cuvacara in a matter of minutes.

Illustration by Damien Mammoliti

The citizens of Verces are known to embrace cybernetic augmentations and Cuvacara is no exception. In fact, the city is on the cutting edge of these enhancements and experimental cybernetics are often available in the Dusk Jewel before they hit the wider marketplaces. A handful of new Vercite augmentations are presented in this volume, including these bionic knees, which I would definitely purchase in real life as I get older.

Bionic Knees System All legs

PRICE 2,750 LEVEL 5

---

Complex actuators and servos are installed in your knees, giving you the power to make impressive leaps. You always count as having a running start when attempting Athletics checks to jump. In addition, you don't fall prone if you fail an Athletics check to jump by 5 or more. Finally, the damage you take from the first 10 feet of a fall is converted into nonlethal damage, even if you aren't falling onto a yielding surface.

Finally, in addition to some creepy new monsters by Jenny Jarzabsi and James L. Sutter and a glimpse of planet ravaged by Hellfire by Owen K.C. Stephens, this volume presents a detailed look at the shadowy fiends known as velstracs by Isabelle Lee. These twisted outsiders have unsurprisingly embraced the modern technology of the Material Plane, some of them integrating such equipment into their own forms as they seek an undefined perfection of body and mind. With some gruesome magitech augmentations and painful weapon fusions, this article certainly isn't for the faint of heart!

That's all I can really reveal without spoiling too much about the Signal of Screams Adventure Path, but hopefully this tantalizing preview will get you exciting to enjoy the scares and thrills of The Penumbra Protocol!

Jason Keeley
Developer

Pathfinder Society 2: GM Stars, Replay, and Boon Carryover

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

This is our third installment discussing our original sticky forum threads regarding the transition of the Pathfinder Society between version 1 and 2 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In past blogs, we discussed Tiers, Level Gain, and the Roleplaying Guild Guide and Boons & Chronicle Sheets. This week, we focus the conversations around converting PFS version 1 items, namely GM stars and boons, and what replay may look like for PFS version 1 after we launch version 2.

As each member of the Organized Play team focused on two issues, this week's blog includes discussion from myself, Lead Developer John Compton, and Developer Michael Sayre. Linda's got the week off from writing blog posts, but she'll be back in two weeks to discuss the final installment of original thread follow-up when we discuss Factions and Fame.

With the final installment of the blog in site and our refocusing of each issue to the most popular or most feasible options, we are closing down the original discussing threads. We wish to thank everyone who provided feedback, as it allowed us the opportunity to make PFS version 2 a community focused organization. While we know we cannot please everyone in all things, creating an organized play program that appeals to our community remains a top goal of the team.

Looking at today's topics. I focused on the GM stars conversion and PFS version 2 GM status indicator. Currently, the community poll regarding what to call GM status markers in PFS version 2 shows glyphs, but the poll doesn't close until December 1, so you still have time to weigh in. Submit your vote by visiting the October 3rd Organized Play blog and scrolling to the poll at the end.

GM star conversion is one area we've mostly made a decision on, as that choice isn't based on the results of the Pathfinder Playtest but entirely on player feedback, our analysis, and the ability of our technical department to support display of GM status markers. At this time, we are not planning converting GM status from PFS version 1 to version 2. We've also decided not to do a weighted model, where your first marker would be subsidized through your earned PFS version 1 GM Stars. Many factors weighed in on this decision, but in the end, we noted that the systems are substantially different, eighteen months into Starfinder we already have 4-nova GMs and carrying over discourages newer members of our community from participating.

We are currently in discussions as to how to process 5-nova GMs for Starfinder. We would like to automate some aspects of the process and are investigating with tech the feasibility of this option. We also are looking at how to make the Venture-Captain assessment more objective and standardized. In moving forward on the nova discussion, we intend that criteria to become the standard for both novas and PFS version 2 GMs achieving their 5th status marker.

Moving on from GM status, developer Michael Sayer weighs in on the matter of replay:

Replay Options

As some number of you all reading this might be aware, we've asked the community what your thoughts are on replay for the current PFS campaign and set up a thread for that discussion. There were a lot of thoughts and opinions expressed, running the gamut from not extending replay at all to opening everything up for unlimited replay.

Taking all of your feedback into account along with the prospective health of both editions of Pathfinder, we've come to the conclusion that the "no additional replay" option is not the correct path forward for the community as a whole. We believe that some additional replay options for the current Pathfinder campaign will be necessary for the health and well-being of those existing communities that rely on these play opportunities. That being said, we will not be implementing any changes to replay until mid-September to early October in 2019, and whatever replay option(s) we introduce will almost certainly be specific to the existing campaign as a means of compensating for the fact that we will no longer be producing new scenarios and will not reflect potential changes for Starfinder or the new edition of Pathfinder.

So, all that information out of the way, allow me to talk about what that really means for our GMs and players! We've come up with three new variations on our plans for expanded replay in the current PFS campaign once the new edition launches. These take elements of some of our earlier suggestions modified through your feedback and some discussions with our tech team to discover what was possible, and we'd like your input here to help us narrow down which of these options you'd most prefer as a community.

• Option 1: A modest, fixed number of replays that would renew on a seasonal basis. These replays would not be level or character locked and would give opportunities to progress new characters through old stories or seat players who have already completed an adventure so that a full table can be formed.
• Option 2: A more generous but fixed number of replays for all players and GMs. This would work much like option 1, except instead of a small pool that would refresh each season, you'd get a larger pool to spend at your discretion. However, with this option once you've used all of your replays, that's it.
• Option 3: A sliding scale, fixed number of replays based on a percentage of total games played. This option would work much like option 2, except instead of everyone getting the same number of replays, the quantity of replays offered would scale up based on the number of games you've completed. This option would likely include a weighting mechanism whereby the number of GM stars you possess add some number of additional replays, rewarding our most devoted players and GMs with additional replays. One distinct benefit we see in this option is that it will help normalize the progress of groups with a mix of new and long-time players; long-time players will have more replays since they have fewer unplayed scenarios available to pick from, and newer players should find that it's easier to get tables for the remaining scenarios they still haven't played.

Whichever of these options you help us choose will be implemented about 1-2 months after the new edition releases, and will comprise the basis for continued play in the current campaign going forward, so let us know which option you think will be best for you and your local gamers!

Speaking to people at conventions, one of the most frequent conversations revolves around PFS convention boons and what will happen to them in PFS version 2. Organized play lead developer John Compton answers that:

Any discussion of how we're handling First Edition benefits going into the Second Edition campaign has always juggled at least three common considerations: established player loyalty, new player accessibility, and ease of implementation. I explore these ideas in one of our earliest Pathfinder Society blogs about the new edition, and these have been key in our examination of how to handle First Edition boons—and when I discuss boons here, I'm primarily referring to stand-alone boons commonly referred to as "convention boons" or "race boons," acquired through special events, the regional support program, and more.

So how do boons play out when examining these three considerations? From an established player loyalty perspective, having First Edition boons grant some benefit in Second Edition is typically good because it means that up to 11 years of play (and as much as 8 years of earning these boons) translates in some way to the new campaign. That's generally a nice feeling. The several counterpoints are discouragement of new players, design load, bookkeeping, and volume.

The more advantage a long-time player has, the more it can disincentivize someone joining the campaign. We hope that Second Edition's campaign can serve as a good jumping-on point for organized play, and starting people on a largely even playing field is important to us. From a design perspective, we have to balance how much time is involved in facilitating boons from one campaign to affect the other; this is one of the reasons that creating a conversion guide for all of the boons out there isn't feasible. Creating a whole bunch of conversions for boons would also be tricky because they'd require a lot of on-the-ground bookkeeping with trade-ins or validation, likely falling on the shoulders of venture-officers. In terms of volume, we have to consider not only that some very active players might have many dozens of boons, yet other campaign veterans may only have a couple. Anything we implement would need to ensure that somebody sitting on a boon trove wouldn't completely dominate the system while also ensuring that someone who has only a few boons still feels there's some benefit to using those boons for something in Second Edition.

When we considered the intersection of modest cross-campaign boon interaction, a realistic design footprint, ease of implementation for local organizers, and managing volume, we found ourselves repurposing a somewhat familiar tool: the "prize table" mechanic. This mechanic presents each player with their own set of potential prizes, which the player can purchase with some campaign currency (such as with the Playtest Points from our Pathfinder Society playtest). With few exceptions, there's only one of each prize, so a player can't just buy the same thing over and over.

What would this look like for boons? We're currently considering a Chronicle sheet similar to the Master of Spells/Scroll/Swords sheets issued for Pathfinder Society a few years ago. We intend one Chronicle for Pathfinder Society version 2 and one for Starfinder Society. A player may use one sheet in each campaign. Each Chronicle would include 5–8 benefits—most (or all) of them limited in scope to a single encounter or scenario, some of them personal boosts, and some of them benefits that could only be used on allies. In addition, we like the idea of having several benefits that would grant a notably bigger benefit if the player spent more than one boon when activating it. To use one of the benefits, you would take an unassigned boon, mark it to show it's been expended, and check off the benefit you used on this prize table Chronicle sheet.

For example, the Second Edition benefits sheet might have one option that says "Check the box that precedes this benefit and expend a boon to gain 2 Hero Points that last until the end of the adventure. If you expend two boons when activating this benefit, grant two other players 1 Hero Point. If you expend three boons when activating this benefit, grant every other player at the table 1 Hero Point." You expend your First Edition "Share the Wealth," "Celestial Traveler," and "Expedition Manager" boons, granting everyone at your table Hero Points that could avert death or turn the tide in a tough encounter. Once you use it, this benefit would be gone.

So how does the prize table approach to boon conversion aim to tackle the issue?

• It presents the means to expend boons from one campaign on another to a limited degree—particularly in ways that provide a short-term benefit, not a permanent advantage.
• By presenting a strong initial benefit, players who have only a few boons can still get a substantial benefit. By providing some options to expend additional boons when activating a benefit, those with many boons still have an outlet that doesn't substantially increase the frequency with which they can activate these benefits.
• By including numerous options (and in some cases requirements) for these benefits to assist others at the table, these benefits can represent an experienced player's sharing their wealth with others, not excluding other players who don't have the same number of boons.
• It places tracking in the hands of the players by means of a downloadable sheet.
• Creating several such benefits sheets is a realistic project for the organized play team, in addition to the other projects we're currently handling.

We're interested to hear feedback on this plan, which we believe is a solid solution in handling the limited transfer of First Edition boons into Second Edition's campaign.

Next week, join organized play lead developer John Compton and developers Linda Zayas-Palmer, Michael Sayre, and Thurston Hillman as they preview the November Society scenario releases.

As a heads up, the Paizo offices are closed November 22nd and 23rd due to the celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge

Organized Play Manager

Catching Our Breath

Monday, November 12, 2018

The past three months have gone by in a blur, with new surveys, updates, and playtest releases almost every week! We know that this has been a challenging process for many groups, so we wanted to take the moment to once again offer up our thanks. You've really worked incredibly hard to give us the feedback we need to make this version of Pathfinder be the best it can be.

This week we're taking a brief pause to catch our breath. There's no new survey, no new update, and no new part of Doomsday Dawn to talk about. In fact, we're getting close to the end of the organized portion of the playtest, but that doesn't mean we're done. Far from it! Keep working on your scenarios and turning in feedback. The more data we have, the more certain we can be about the course we're taking.

As for us here in the office, we've been hard at work these past months collecting that data and using it to create a massive list of changes that we're in the process of making to the game. It's an ongoing process, with everyone's comments and feedback adding to the list nearly every day. Just the other day, we completed a huge examination of the math behind much of the game and discovered a number of issues, based on your feedback. This has been going on for a while and the results are something that we're sure that you're going to like.

Well, we don't want to tease you with spoilers too much just yet, but we can't wait to share more of the final game with all of you!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

October Update—Know Direction, Spotlights and Conventions!!

Thursday, November 8, 2018

I'm amazed how quickly this year's flown by. It seems only yesterday I booked my tickets for MarsCon and now we are rapidly approaching my final convention of the year. The events this year provided many opportunities to meet and interact with members of our community. I look forward to U-Con this weekend and visiting more Society members. Hanging out with our players and GMs is one of my favorite parts of being the Organized Play Manger.

Besides conventions, another favorite part of my job is the program planning aspect. Over the past few weeks, the team's done quite a bit of brainstorming on the wrap-up to Pathfinder Society version 1 and the launch of Pathfinder Society version 2. On the Starfinder front, we're well into Season 2 program planning and have even glanced at Season 3. So many storylines! For those of you looking to plan convention schedules, it is our intention to launch the new season of Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild at PaizoCon, Starfinder Society at Origins, and Pathfinder Society version 2 at Gen Con.

If you want an update to our thoughts on the future of Pathfinder Society, Organized Play Lead Developer John Compton and I were on Know Direction yesterday. We discussed many of the topics posted on the Paizo.com blogs over the past few months, as well as answered questions from the community. Visit Know Direction's website to watch the interview!

Campaign Coins

While in Australia at PaizoCon Asia-Pacific, I left two coins in the care of one of the area's Venture Officers and asked him to present the coins on behalf of the organized play team. Until this is done, I'm keeping the recipient's name quiet. Hopefully we can announce the worthy inductees in the first of December blog.

If you know a deserving member of your community, please email me atorganizedplay@paizo.com with their name, location, and the reasons you feel they should be recognized for their service. If you are able, please include what events they may attend in 2018/2019 so that we can either make awards in person (preferred) or make arrangements for deliver.

Stars and Novas

All the conventions over the past months gave lots of opportunities for GMs to achieve the requirements and qualify for their 5^th star. To achieve this milestone, GMs run 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 special scenarios, as well as run a game for a venture-captain. A conservative estimate of time needed to reach 5-stars is 650 hours! To the GMs listed below, thank you very much for the time and energy you spend running Pathfinder Society games! Huge congratulations on your achievement!

• Gregory Ison
• Sam Sampson
• Bruce Legge
• Dennis Muldoon
• Nicholas Ruchlewicz
• Terry Kaden

The organized play team formulated their first draft of the 5-nova qualifications and are soliciting feedback from a variety of sources. We should have an update next month!

Looking forward to Pathfinder Society version 2, I've seen suggestions for using either Glyphs (using the Symbol of the Open Road) or Sigils (using the Sihedrion) for the GM designator. Thanks to those that have voted! I'd like one more month of data gathering before we make a decision. You can find the pollin the following blog. If you haven't voted, you have until 1st Dec to do so.

PAX Unplugged

The organization team is in the process of sending out volunteer schedules, but we still need a few volunteers to run Pathfinder Playtest demos in the Exhibition Hall and some scenarios in the Organized Play room. We have a few hotel spaces left for out-of-town volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, we still have a few spaces available. To sign up, complete the volunteer questionnaire.

For players, there are still a few seats available for pre-registration on warhorn.net . To facilitate both advance signups and onsite attendees, we allocated the first 4 seats at every table to warhorn, with seats 5&6 available for signup onsite daily from 8 am. Visit https://warhorn.net/events/paizo-org-play-pax-unplugged to register for games.

Convention Listing

Want to attend a convention in the next few months? Check out the list below! The list includes all the event support requests received to date. If you see one missing, ping the organizer and have them submit a request for support or have them email me at organizedplay@paizo.comto discuss their event. All of the conventions on the list maintain some type of web presence, be it website, social media page, or Warhorn listing, so if you are interested in attending in either capacity, check out their websites or contact the local venture-officer for more information!

Convention Name	Location	Start Date
Contraflow VIII (2018)	New Orleans, LA	11/16/2018
Game-itoba 2018	Winnipeg, MB, Canada	11/16/2018
Mepacon Fall 2018	Scranton, PA	11/16/2018
SNAFUcon 2018	Reno, NV	11/16/2018
Beacon 2018	Belfast, N.Ireland, United Kingdom	11/17/2018
Dreieichcon 2018	Dreieich, Germany	11/17/2018
Extra Life 0maha 2018	Bellevue, NE	11/17/2018
GobbleCon 2018	Burlingame, CA	11/23/2018
SP "The Hao Jin Cataclysm" DAU'18	Barcelona, Spain	11/23/2018
WinterWolfCon'18	Chicago, IL	11/23/2018
Becario's Tyranny	Madrid, Spain	12/1/2018
Dragonmeet 2018	London, United Kingdom	12/1/2018
Georgia PFS Holiday Party 2018	Winder, GA	12/1/2018
Winterfest 2018	Pullman, Washington	12/2/2018
NerdLouvia 2018	Louisville KY	12/8/2018
SFS Jax Special	Jacksonville, FL	12/8/2018
BDG SFS Christmas Special!	Concord, CA	12/15/2018
Toys For Tots Charity Game Day 18	Fairfax, VA	12/15/2018

2018 Organized Play Staff Travel

Wrapping up the last of 2018's travel, so only a few entries left on the roster. The Org Play travel schedule for 2019 is pending and I hope to have the list ready to post the beginning of December. Looking forward, if you are an event organizer and want to invite us out at your event in 2020, drop an email toorganizedplay@paizo.com before next summer, as we put our schedule together in August.

If you're attending any of the following events, please stop by the booth or organized play room and say hi!

Convention Name	Location	Start Date	OP Staff
Hal-Con	Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada	10/26	Linda & Mark Seifter
U-Con	Ann Arbor, MI	11/9	Tonya
PAX Unplugged	Philadelphia, PA	11/30	Tonya (+Paizo staffers)

Next week brings another discussion regarding Pathfinder Society v2 and what changes we are looking to make in the program to support the new edition of Pathfinder.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge

Organized Play Manager

Boards Don't Hit Back!

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Can I just take a moment to say how excited I am to see Pathfinder Player Companion: Martial Arts Handbook finally hit bookshelves and digital downloads from paizo.com as a PDF? I am quite excited! This is the book that I've been waiting years to see and it's finally here!

Illustration by Alyssa McCarthy

Illustration by Michele Giorgi

Martial Arts Handbook provides new options for all characters that focus on martial forms of combat. While your first thought might be the likes of monks and brawlers, most any kind of character that uses strength, agility, or guile on the battlefield will find useful options in this book. The book features a number of options inspired both by real world fighting styles and previously established lore in Golarion. This includes the likes of the battle dancer, inspired by capoeira, and the Chu Ye enforcer, vigilantes that wearer dreaded oni masks to oppress the humans of Chu Ye.

In addition to providing martial options for several classes, including some unlikely classes like the medium of the master, we also expand on existing techniques already available to character. This means there are several new style feats, weapon tricks, and feats to grant you more options with your combat maneuvers. There are new techniques in this book, too! One of my favorites are the new combination techniques that grant you bonuses for successfully attacking the same target during a round. Throw in some signature moves and new equipment and this book becomes something you don't want to miss!

If you've been looking for a chance to improve your character's fighting style or just want a new way to hit a baddie, make sure to pick up Martial Arts Handbook!

Luis Loza
Developer

Shining Lights and Dark Stars

Monday, November 5, 2018

The final chapter of the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure is here, "When the Stars Go Dark." Your heroes have spent the better part of a decade researching and struggling against the forces of Night Heralds. As the ancient countdown clocks race to their final moments, do your heroes have the courage and skill to save Golarion from a nightmarish fate?

While there's still much to be learned from the playtest, this final segment takes us up through the highest levels of play, wrapping up the "scripted" component. If you haven't completed your run through the previous parts, you still have until the end of the year to play and tell us what you think. Once you've wrapped up "When the Stars Go Dark," make sure to go to the following surveys and give us your feedback on Part 7 of Doomsday Dawn!

Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

Gigantic Update 1.6

The final chapter of Doomsday Dawn brings with it the final planned update for the Pathfinder Playtest, Update 1.6, and it's a big one! Now, this doesn't mean it's the last time we're going to tell you about changes and updates—far from it—it just means that this is the last chance we have to make an official update and ensure that all of you can access and use the updated rules in your playtest games.

Download Rulebook Updates

Stay Classy

Update 1.6 focuses on a variety of classes, in particular addressing some of the systematic class-related topics you've shown us throughout the playtest so far. This isn't the end of the story for any of these classes, but they're the next step along the way, with some useful tweaks and additions we'd like you to test. There's a lot, so I'll give a brief overview class by class.

Alchemist

First off, we've implemented some of the alchemist changes originally seen in the Resonance Test, so the alchemist now can use infused reagents to create alchemical items for free each day. Also, many of you said that you wanted more versatility in building an alchemist who might focus on alchemical items other than bombs, so we've given the alchemist several fields of research specialization, as many players suggested. All the bomb improvement class features have been moved to the new bomber research field, and if you want to be better with mutagens, or healing items, or poisons instead, there are research fields for those, too! Your research field grants you a variety of benefits, including eventually being able to use Quick Alchemy for free on select low-level alchemical items from your specialty!

Barbarian

We've heard you say that the barbarian's rage is weirdly predictable and static, so we're trying out our most experimental change of all: after each round, you roll an increasingly harder flat check to stay in rage (don't worry, it starts at 0, so you always get at least 2 rounds of rage). Let us know whether this helps give rage the feel of a more uncontrollable and emotional event rather than a predictable ebb and flow!

Bard

Thanks to some extremely good dialogue on the forums about confusion with bardic muses and their associated feats, we've revamped the way these are constructed. Now, each muse's feats are limited to that muse, but we've added a new feat to let you keep all the flexibility you had before. Taking the Multifarious Muse feat lets you gain a 1st-level feat from a different muse than the one you started with, and qualifies you to take that muse's feats in the future. In essence, this keeps all the benefits of the old system without any of the confusion of the prerequisites; plus, it's even more flexible if more 1st-level feats come out for any of the muses later.

Cleric

There's only really one feature for one class that you've all told us time and again is too much: clerics get too many uses of channel energy. We've reduced that, but rather than leave clerics hanging, we've instituted a change to somatic components such that you can now perform them even with your hands full. This mainly benefits two-handed clerics and weapon-and-shield clerics (as well as those types of paladins), who now don't need to take feats specifically to avoid this issue.

Druid

We've increased goodberry healing as well as animal companion Armor Class opportunities (especially if you don't want to use a lot of barding). But the biggest change for druid is a major revamp of the wild order. Once again, this took a lot of data from you all; those of you who participated in forum threads about the wild order will see that many of those ideas made it into this revamp.

Fighter

Fighter is one of the classes that you've been saying is in the best shape, but that doesn't mean there aren't changes to be made. As a start of an examination on opens, we've separated stances from opens. While you can still use only one stance per round, stances are no longer opens, which means that you can stance up and follow it with an open. This change also helps monks, though they have fewer opens.

Monk

Speaking of monks, at your suggestion, we've increased the power of ki strike, but we've also opened up other avenues into gaining a ki pool. Want some huge mobility and defense rather than an offensive boost? Try Ki Rush!

Paladin

This is a biggie. The numbers are in, and you've made it clear that we should change the name of this class so that it can handle champions of deities of all alignments, and have said that you want the lawful good version to keep the name "paladin." We haven't changed the class name just yet, but I want to make it very clear to everyone who wants the "paladin" name to remain on lawful good that this is only temporary for the purpose of making the update manageable—we're not going to make you all go through your playtest books and change the name of the class every time it comes up; we'll handle that for you in the final book! The basic deal is that we've left the lawful good option—the defender—and also added the redeemer and the liberator, who swap out the last two edicts from each of their codes for some particularly neutral good and chaotic good edicts (instead of the lawful good edicts to obey authority and act honorably). Each version keeps lay on hands, but the three variants have different reactions, with the lawful good defender retaining Retributive Strike. Speaking of which, we've revamped Retributive Strike, allowing you to protect your ally within 15 feet even if you can't reach them, and we've added a 1st-level class feat to let you use Step or ranged weapons to counterattack on behalf of an ally within that range. There's a bunch more feats supporting the new paladin versions too. Lastly, everyone now gets the lay on hands upgrade that was in Hospice Knight for free, so that feat is no longer with us.

Ranger

Everyone's presented significant analysis on the pros and cons of Hunt Target toward various play styles, so we've made some changes to give you more flexibility, while also making Hunt Target less complicated at its baseline. Essentially, you choose what kind of ranger you want to be, either making a flurry of attacks at your target, making fewer but more damaging attacks against the target, or gaining advantages on a huge number of skills against the target. Also, you can use Hunt Target in exploration mode while tracking the target and have it ready ahead of time!

Rogue

You've responded extremely positively to the three choices for rogue's technique, so much so that we feel comfortable expanding them out. Now each rogue's technique has a few technique-specific feats!

Sorcerer

We've added the diabolic bloodline into the mix for all your infernal needs. Additionally, we're expanding the role of the sorcerer's 10th level feats (which currently include only the 10th-level bloodline power feat) by adding a feat that makes all your bloodline spells spontaneously heightened all the time.

Wizard

Wizard is an enigma, ranked high for power among the classes but the only spellcaster ranked as uninteresting; the other four spellcasters top the chart of most interesting, followed by alchemist, while the wizard is several classes down. We've decided to double down on the wizard's role as the consummate flexible prepared spellcaster, basically, the character who can think ahead and turn their ability to prepare and adjust for the situation into a major strength. How? Well for starters, everyone has been loving the Quick Preparation feat, to such an extent that we decided to just give it to wizards for free! Secondly, at higher levels, we're adding some preparation flexibility across your spell levels, allowing you to pull tricks like using up two of your 5th-level spell slots to prepare a 7th-level spell.

So what do you think? Let us know how these new adjustments have been playing out as you finish off Doomsday Dawn and save Golarion, or as you run any other playtest games. The playtest will still be open through the end of the year, so don't worry if you haven't been keeping pace. See you Thursday for the Twitch stream of "When the Stars Go Dark!"

Mark Seifter
Designer

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 5

Saturday, November 3, 2018

It's time for another report from the Order of the Amber Die! This time they give us a peek at their table as they ran through Part 5 of Doomsday Dawn, "The Heroes of Undarin"! As usual with these blogs, if you haven't played or read this and don't want to see any spoilers, turn away now!

Following our interactions with authors from Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the playtest, the time had come to face Jason Bulmahn once again. Our GM did much to invest us in what was essentially a wave-by-wave grinder, and we learned later that this was also to prevent us from developing the notion that in this scenario our deaths were likely inevitable. We were told our start time had been adjusted to match the time of day during which the adventure began (late afternoon), and that we'd likely be going late into the night. While Adam will often employ Syrinscape, ambient tracks, or his own themed soundtracks, this time he had us rocking out to combat the entire evening with such as one of our ESPN favorites, "300 Violin Orchestra," and NIN's "The Day the World Went Away." Our love of immersion and role-playing is clear from many of our reports over the years, but you don't have to look far in the Order to find players who are also up for a dice-throwing, hand-slapping brawl that will go twelve session hours.

The Party

Going in, we were told that we'd be playing hardy characters accustomed to facing terrible enemies in the Worldwound. We actually had quite a bit of freedom with character creation and wanted to accomplish a couple of things: acquire more data on a paladin and cleric played at higher levels, and spotlight both the highest level single-classed wizard and fighter of our playtest run. Listed with the names of each player on the team is the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Maarlill human wizard 12

School: Universalist

Key Spells:Stoneskin, fly, resistenergy, mirrorimage, electricarc

Class Feats: Eschew Materials, Reach Spell, Widen Spell, Quick Preparation, Cantrip Expansion, Makeshift Wand, Focus Conservation

Yuma Hardgaze dwarf paladin 12

Deity: Torag

Class Feats: Warded Touch, Divine Grace, Aura of Courage, Shield Warden, Fiendsbane, Oath, Shield of Reckoning, Holy Wall

Best Magic Items:+2 corrosive composite longbow, +3 dwarven waraxe, heavy steel sturdy adamantine shield, +3 half-plate, cape of the mountebank, dust of appearance, feather tokens (chest, ladder)

Hofbah half-orc fighter 12

Class Feats: Furious Focus, Power Attack, Double Shot, Triple Shot, Positioning Assault, Combat Reflexes, Brutal Finish

Skill Feats: Quick Repair, Cat Fall, Quick Jump, Steady Balance, Kip Up, Quick Climb, Rapid Mantel

Best Magic Items: +3 full plate, +3 bastard sword (with holy rune), +2 corrosive long bow

Caerwynn Bastille half-elf cleric 12

Deity: Iomedae

Domain: Zeal

Class Feats: Holy Castigation, Emblazon Symbol, Healing Hands, Align Armament, Deadly Simplicity

"The Heroes of Undarin" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 131 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 1 (Yuma)
• Number of Hero Points used: 19; 6 (Maarlill), 5 (Yuma), 3 (Hofba), 5 (Caerwynn)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 11hrs, 50min
• Total time spent preparing "The Heroes of Undarin": 6hrs, 25min
• Number of sessions spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 36
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 10; Maarlill (4), Yuma (2), Hofba (2), Caerwynn (2)
• Number of characters killed: 4
• Wave in which the first player character reduced to 0: 2 (Maarlill)
• Wave and event in which the first player character died: wave 2, event 6 (Yuma)
• Wave and event in which the last player character died: wave 2, event 6
• Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Maarlill

• Uses of Reach Spell: 9
• Total range gained through Reach Spell: 215 feet
• Average range added through Reach Spell: 24 feet
• Uses of Drain Arcane Focus: 4
• Spells returned with Drain Arcane Focus: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th

Yuma Hardgaze

• Uses of lay on hands: 4
• Total number of hit points healed with lay on hands: 121
• Damage prevented by adamantine shield damage reduction: 194

Hofbah

• Total number of melee attacks made: 51
• Number of hits: 34
• Total melee damage dealt: 1540
• Average damage per hit: 45

Caerwynn Bastille

• Number of channel uses: 7
• Total positive energy damage dealt: 1003
• Total hit points healed to party using all source: 1323

Highlights From "The Heroes of Undarin"

With the sun setting across a ruined temple deep in the Worldwound, we prepared to defend sacred ground from an onslaught of demons and undead. We had several situational tools at our disposal, and foremost among these was the ability to use an ancient stained glass window to bring Desna's will upon our enemies. Second was an altar that allowed each of us to use the god's blessing for one well-timed reroll of a d20. Between these and the assortment of terrain and antagonists featured, this was a true test of tactical skill in an edition we weren't very familiar with—thus an exceptional challenge we won't soon forget. What Bulmahn has created with this scenario is now a trial for all Order members to aspire to.

We're having to adjust to the new numerical norms in our favorite game, which is also part of what makes any playtest interesting. When a treachery demon tossed down a 44 initiative to open a combat jaws dropped, and we realized just how far we were from the days of the previous edition of Pathfinder. Go ahead and combine that with 29 TAC attacks against our wizard from a pack of dread wraiths, resulting in 15 misses. How about a single channel from our cleric, ripping 198 damage against four opponents?

Not only were divvying powerful items an important aspect of party construction for this scenario, it was at 12th level that potent items from the new era of Pathfinder truly began to shine. Don't take our word for it though, let the numbers above tell the story of a paladin's unbreakable shield and a fighter's holy sword.

Character Deaths

The end wasn't pretty. When the players on this team joined the Order, we heard stories from the 1980s and 90s about past members who saw their beloved characters devoured by a certain demilich during five different playthroughs of the "Tomb of Horrors." If it gives you an idea of how much our GM reveres demiliches, he chose one for his Paizo messageboards avatar—that same one from the "Tomb of Horrors." Worse yet, Adam can now add four characters from this era of the Order to his gruesome tally. At least we'll have some stories for the fire pit about our wizard's ray of frost being reflected back at him as a critical hit, another character critically failing against a maze spell, and watching our cleric's body turn to dust when the demilich trapped his soul.

Current Situation

We learned afterward that this was the scenario in which we were supposed to die. That's fine, we understand and appreciate the value of providing data from our destruction to help produce a better game. It still stings a bit though, as any TPK would. Dropping to a 2-3 performance thus far in the playtest, we're now left with no choice if we want to finish with a winning record: We'll have to run the table!

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer