Introducing the Concordance Faction!

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

In Season 8 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, the Pathfinder Society set its sights far from Golarion. Pathfinders soared through the skies of the Plane of Air, swam through the endless oceans of the Plane of Water, embroiled themselves in genie politics on the Plane of Fire, and brought lost and forgotten secrets to light on the Plane of Earth. And while they were hopping through the planes, the Pathfinders ran headfirst into the plans of a group called the Concordance of Elements. The Concordance first came onstage as a fierce opponent to the Pathfinder Society, but ultimately became an ally. In the interests of keeping this blog low on spoilers, I'll just say: nothing like an angry demigod to help two groups set aside their differences. But what began as an alliance of desperation evolved into a genuine partnership.

So what is the Concordance? It is an ancient and diverse organization whose membership spans multiple planes, with a particular focus on the elemental planes. Its members take great interest in the interplay among the primal forces of air, earth, fire, and water. They believe that the stability of the multiverse ultimately depends upon these forces—and many others—remaining in balance.

Each member has her own ideas about how to maintain this equilibrium. Some of them set upon a perilous quest for understanding in places where elemental forces are at their strongest, from howling blizzards to ferocious thunderstorms to active volcanoes. Others seek to refine the balance within, mastering magical forces or fighting styles that evoke multiple elements. Still others search for yawning planar rifts and other massive disturbances to study or seal away.

As an organization, the Concordance believes that each individual member's personal journey of discovery is important. Its leaders, collectively known as the Cycle of Five, spend much of their time in meditation and reflection, leaving its agents free to act with relative autonomy. Of course, agents who contribute more to the Concordance's collective knowledge and overarching goals gain deeper access to its ancient reservoirs of elemental knowledge and power. Such ambitious agents would do well to seek out opportunities to make a name for themselves. Fortunately for Pathfinders interested in gaining influence, the Society's contact in the Concordance is a direct emissary to the Cycle of Five. He is our new faction leader: Ashasar, Liaison to the Seat of Balance, a Suli druid with an airship-shaped air elemental companion, as well as three other elemental companions who will be showing up in future scenarios.

Illustration by Sebastian Rodriguez

So what does the Concordance bring to the Pathfinder Society? It brings a fresh perspective on Golarion combined with a rich reservoir of planar and elemental knowledge. The Pathfinder Society has shown the Concordance that Golarion is a world worth exploring in much more detail. From the erratic magic of the Mana Wastes to the Abendego-battered Sodden Lands, the Concordance has just begun to scratch the surface. The Concordance is a nature faction, but it's not a typical nature faction. Its members respect nature, and typical nature-themed characters like druids and rangers are quite welcome in its ranks. Still, you're more likely to find someone in the Concordance trying to channel the essence of a hurricane than you are to find them attempting to befriend every plant and animal they meet.

If you're interested in learning more about the Concordance, check out the scenarios that have already featured their story:

• Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-99: Through Maelstrom Rift (6th-level Pregenerated Characters)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-08—Tyranny of Winds, Part 1: The Sandstorm Prophecy (Tier 1-5)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-10—Tyranny of Winds, Part 2: Secrets of the Endless Sky (Tier 1-5)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-12—Tyranny of Winds, Part 3: Caught in the Eclipse (Tier 3-7)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-17: Refugees of the Weary Sky (Tier 7-11)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-24: Raid on the Cloudborne Keep (Tier 5-9)

Since this is the Year of Faction's Favor, we would be remiss not to give our newest faction a chance to shine. We've got opportunities coming up in February for both Pathfinder Society campaigns. In Pathfinder Society Scenario #9-14, the Society will call upon the Concordance's expertise to investigate bizarre phenomena in the Verduran Forest. Meanwhile, in Season 4 of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild's, Ashasar will help the PCs quell an unnatural storm. The Concordance will also appear in the upcoming Player Companion Disciple's Doctrine.

Interested in joining the Concordance? Ashasar is about to start an active recruitment drive, traveling from lodge to lodge across the Inner Sea and beyond. If your character would like to become a part of this new initiative, keep an eye out for the faction's formal launch in early 2018. As with other faction changes, you'll be able to switch your character over to the Concordance freely without spending Prestige Points. As a part of this launch, we'll be updating the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide to include the Concordance and giving the faction a shiny new Faction Journal card.

Linda Zayas-Palmer
Developer

Mid-Season Faction Updates

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Despite their intended role as a secondary feature, there's no doubt that factions have become a central component of Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild—so much so that we made them a key fixture of the overarching narrative in Season 9, the Year of Factions' Favor. This season's a time for us to explore these factions' ongoing stories, and as is true for any story, the characters grow, change, and sometimes disappear entirely. In the past, we've handled most of these changes at the beginning of a new season. Not so in Season 9. We've been working toward a mid-season update in our storyline for some time, and I'd like to share three major developments with you.

Liberty's Edge

Back in July 2017 we launched the Leaders in Liberty contest, inviting you to send us a backstory for a rising star in the Liberty's Edge faction. We were blown away by the submissions and posted our top five for you to vote for your favorite. With your help and that of the winning contestant Sam Sampson, we formally introduced Karisa Starsight into the campaign. Most recently we shared that Liberty's Edge was in need of an interim leader, with the two leading candidates being Karisa Starsight and the halfling Tamrin Credence. Once again, you the public cast your votes and selected Tamrin Credence!

Three things in particular struck me over the course of these contests. First, these are a lot of fun, and I'm interested in exploring ways to include more contests in the future. Second, the voting between Karisa and Tamrin was quite close, showing that both of these figures really gained traction with sizeable portions of the audience. Third, the commentary (in-character and out) in the discussion threads provided a great insight into why each of the candidates resonated and what you hoped to see in the future. What was one of the most common suggestions? Co-leadership. Although I anticipate Tamrin will be the leader of the Liberty's Edge faction, it's clear that Karisa should play an active role going forward (much as Aaqir al'Hakam and Guaril Karela share management despite the former being the final arbiter).

Illustration by Kenneth Camaro

Either way, expect to see the next installation of the Liberty's Edge story in May at PaizoCon 2018!

Scarab Sages

The Scarab Sages came into being almost four years ago, formally replacing the old Osirion faction in mid-2014. The premise was pretty simple: recover a host of gemstone artifacts that store the memories of long-dead sages, recruit strong minds to host these memories, and revive the ancient order of Jeweled Sages. Ever since the Destiny of the Sands series in Season 5, PCs have exceled at doing just that, and I have no doubt that we could continue doing so for another four years. While some of our narratives benefit from such extended arcs, we decided that the Scarab Sages' story would be strongest with a decisive end. How it ends—whether the Jeweled Sages thrive as an ally of the Society or whether they fade into obscurity—depends on you. Matt Duval played such an instrumental role in writing earlier Scarab Sages scenarios that I invited him back to bring things to a close in Pathfinder Society Scenario #9-07: Salvation of the Sages. Be sure to check those reporting checkboxes—our hope is to have a canonical outcome by the end of Season 9.

So what does this mean for the future? At the end of Season 9, the Scarab Sages faction retires, and current members will need to change to a different faction. As noted on page 28 of the current Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide, "any characters affected by faction retirement can retain any faction-based benefits but can't purchase new items specific to the retired faction. Such characters must choose a new faction at no cost prior to receiving credit for any further scenarios." In addition, members of the Scarab Sages faction will keep any benefits earned on Scarab Sages Faction Journal Cards, but once the faction's retired, they won't be able to fulfill further goals.

In the meantime, I encourage you to experience the Scarab Sages storyline in full in case you've missed a few adventures. Keep in mind that the Scarab Sages was also the first faction whose storyline we incorporated directly into the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild, specifically in Season 3, the Season of Plundered Tombs. In chronological order, these are:

• Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-12: Destiny of the Sands, Part 1: A Bitter Bargain (Tier 1-5)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-15: Destiny of the Sands, Part 2: Race to Seeker's Folly (Tier 1-5)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-16: Destiny of the Sands, Part 3: Sanctum of the Sages (Tier 3-7)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-04: Beacon Below (Tier 7-11)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-19: Test of Tar Kuata (Tier 3-7)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-04: The Ironbound Schism (Tier 7-11)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-11: Ancients' Anguish (Tier 7-11)
• Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild, Season 3 (Especially #3-3: In Search of a Sage and #3-4: Tomb of the Godless Host)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-17: Refugees of the Weary Sky (Tier 7-11)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #9-04: The Unseen Inclusion (Tier 1-5)
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #9-07: Salvation of the Sages (Tier 7-11)

So that might leave a few of your characters in need of a new faction. Sounds like you'd appreciate a new option, right?

The Concordance of Elements

Pathfinder Society's factions cover a huge range of character concepts quite nicely, particularly for PCs who are interested in history, knowledge, and exploration. That said, the campaign's always struggled to accommodate one particular class: druids. I've struggled with this issue, as on most days the Pathfinder Society's interest in nature boils down to "that thing full of brambles and mud that we cross to reach the abandoned temple." Sure, the Society has its share of botanists, zoologists, and ecologically minded adventurers, yet that's not something that lends itself to sustainable storytelling. On top of that, there are already enough druid circles in the setting that we didn't want to add just one more to the multitude. No, we wanted something that we could make our own and have it stand out.

As we were planning out Season 8, we realized we had an excellent opportunity to introduce just such a group, an extraplanar operation known as the Concordance of Elements (or just the Concordance for short). The Concordance isn't your typical "nature for nature's sake" druid faction. Instead, it seeks out elemental imbalances, planar breaches, and extraordinary natural phenomena to close breaches, reestablish natural order, and study the multiverse in all its splendor. To fail in this is to allow rampant growth to choke out all life, stand by as one plane's power snuffs out the life of another, or watch as the cosmos spins out of alignment. While there are plenty of ways in which this fulfills the classic Nature Character's desires, I think you'll find that the Concordance tends to slap druids and fey on the wrist with some regularity. We're excited to announce the Concordance faction, and a blog by Linda Zayas-Palmer should appear on paizo.com a little later talking about the Concordance in more detail.

In the meantime, know that we'll be making the faction a playable option early in 2018, complete with new faction traits, a new Faction Journal Card, and a faction-related scenario due out in February. As has been the case with the introduction of other factions, characters will have the option to switch to the Concordance without spending any Prestige Points.

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

The Improvements So Far

Monday, June 8, 2015

Back in November 2014, you may recall the Pathfinder Society team held a marathon meeting to address a long list of feedback and devise numerous concrete objectives for how to improve the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign. In the spirit of the main announcement for today, let's take a look at what Mike and I shared back then and see where things are now.

Factions

Factions were getting a bit unwieldy as promoting faction goals relied on playing the right scenario with the right character. Updating faction documentation on the website was also behind schedule. We proposed getting new art for each of the revised factions, getting the website text updated, and producing the faction journal cards. As you can see by the links, we've hit all of these goals, albeit a little later than projected.

Scenario Length

As scenarios developed deeper stories and greater complexity, the adventure gradually ran longer and longer—even extending beyond the 5-hour soft limit. What's more, numerous locations couldn't manage to complete some of the average-length scenarios because the venue or weeknight schedule only allowed for 4 4.5-hour games.

Beginning back in January, I began trimming the number of encounters in higher-level scenarios while also watching for exceptionally time-consuming encounters in lower-level adventures and adjusting as necessary. Based on the feedback I've read, the first month or two after the change was a bit hit-or-miss in meeting this goal, but what I've read since suggests that it's getting easier to run the new scenarios in a 4-hour slot (not including set-up and paperwork).

Scenario [Preparation] Difficulty

With the Pathfinder Reference Document so easy to reference from home, scenario authors and I felt more comfortable including increasingly complex and diverse options from the Pathfinder RPG hardcover line. The trouble was that this made scenarios harder to prepare and run—especially in the unenviable but occasionally necessary circumstance of running an adventure cold.

Beginning in December 2014, we began including full Bestiary pages in the back of scenarios, reducing the books that a GM might need to juggle to the “character option” books such as Advanced Player's Guide for a feat or a spell. We also returned to the practice of including full stat blocks for creatures with simple templates that substantially modify their statistics (e.g. the advanced simple template, but not the fiendish one). It's a little harder to measure how well we've limited the number of subsystems and complicated mechanics, but it's certainly been on my mind while writing outlines, working with the author, and developing adventures.

Season Plotline

By 2014, Pathfinder Society had developed a reputation for basing its season-long plotlines off a recently released Adventure Path, and it was increasingly apparent how much this tied our hands regarding what kinds of stories we could tell and pushing the Society toward year-long goals that did not always support its main agenda of exploration, documentation, and scholarship.

It's a little hard to share a lot on this front without giving away too much, but as you probably picked up from the recent blog announcing the Year of the Serpent, we're cooking up a fun new season that tips its hat to the upcoming Hell's Rebels Adventure Path but focuses on its own story near and dear to the Pathfinder Society's interests. All of that includes traveling to a large number of destinations—many familiar and many new—in the name of exploring, reporting, and cooperating.

The Story So Far

If you're following along with that first blog I linked to back in November, you may notice one big entry that I haven't talked about yet: the Story So Far project. As the organized play campaign gets older, the accumulated wealth of stories, NPCs, and other developments can make it tough to know what has happened already, how the current season might tie in, and what the underlying assumptions are when playing an older adventure.

The project really picked up steam when Linda Zaya-Palmer joined the team, and I am happy to announce that the first wave of Story So Far handouts is now complete and available for download. These five cover the first five unified season plot arcs in a very low-spoiler sort of way, providing enough information to give a newer player helpful context without identifying who a mysterious benefactor or a hidden traitor might be—all in a few hundred words. Pass them out before an adventure tied to that season's metaplot, and let us know how they work. Based on feedback, we're looking into addressing major plot arcs and unifying threads (like the Blakros family and Grandmaster Torch) in a similar fashion.

John Compton
Developer

Faction Journal Cards

Monday, April 13, 2015

You may recall that back in November we first announced the idea of Faction Journal Cards, a new way to contribute to your faction's goals while also being able to experience the fun of factions in any adventure—even sanctioned Modules and Adventure Paths. Mike and I have both released some spoilers since then, showing off bits and pieces of the Silver Crusade's card to illustrate how the cards work.

I'm pleased to announce that the Faction Journal Cards are now available for download and use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play! The download includes an introduction explaining how to use the cards, but I'll also break the main concepts into a quick Q&A here.

Do I have to do anything special to get a Faction Journal Card?
Nope, you get one for free so long as you are a member of the faction. These cards are 100% voluntary, so you can ignore them if you want.

How do they work?
Let me summarize this quickly. Each card has three boons that your character can earn by completing certain goals on the back of the card. If you fulfill one of the goals during an adventure, you get to check one of the goal's checkboxes when you're receiving your Chronicle sheet. You unlock the boons based on how many goal's you have completed.

I am the GM more often than I play. Do these cards offer me anything?
Yes, there is a special faction goal that appears on each card and rewards a participant when she is the GM and applies the Chronicle sheet to that character. To get the full benefits of the card, you'll still need to play, but at least you're not missing important opportunities by applying GM credit to a character.

Some of these goals are really open-ended. Is that on purpose?
Yes. As noted, some are open-ended and others are very precise, and that's by design. It broadens the opportunities that PCs have to pursue these objectives, rather than forcing them to cherry-pick the one or two scenarios that would work—even tougher if you've already played that adventure. What this means is that there is a little GM interpretation involved in whether or not a PC actually fulfilled an objective. The Faction Journal Cards' introductory page advises GMs to err on the side of leniency when making that call.

One Liberty's Edge goal requires me to free slaves. Can I just find a random slaver, beat him up, and profit?
No, those conditions need to be part of the adventure you're playing. If the scenario involves slaves or other captives already, get ready to check off a box. If a scenario doesn't involve them, save it for another day. Remember that these goals (and cards) are supposed to be minimally disruptive to the game, and starting a fight that's not part of the adventure puts a burden on the GM and steals the spotlight from the other players.

I changed my faction after earning a few boons. What happens?
When you change your faction, you lose all benefits of any other faction's card.

I completely filled out my Faction Journal Card. Now what?
The good news is that we're hoping to release updated card sets for future seasons, each with some familiar goals and some new ones.

I would also like to thank both our new assistant developer Linda Zayas-Palmer for her valuable assistance in finishing this project and a local group of venture-officers and Pathfinder Society enthusiasts who have provided important feedback and playtesting as we have played through The Emerald Spire Superdungeon.

Get going and download the Faction Journal Cards! I'm excited to hear what you think of these!

John Compton
Developer

Represent Your Cause!

Monday, April 6, 2015

At the beginning of the Year of the Sky Key (Season 6), most of the factions underwent significant changes as their philosophies evolved and those with national ties distanced themselves from their homelands. New faction symbols followed, and in anticipation of the upcoming Faction Journal Cards, the Pathfinder Society team commissioned new symbols for each of the seven current factions. It is my pleasure to share the new art with you today.

To give you a sense of the changes, I first want to show you the two "unchanged" faction symbols, tied to the Grand Lodge and Silver Crusade. I call these symbols "unchanged" largely because their symbols' shape, concept, and coloration stayed largely the same; however, if we were going to update the five other factions' art, why not make them all even better?

Both the original Grand Lodge and Silver Crusade symbols were simple but elegant, and the updated art has taken two great designs and made them a little bolder. The other five symbols are equally exciting, with colors, interior details, and other elements that make each an icon worth rallying around.

We've also updated your Pathfinder Society ID cards with the new faction artwork, the faction pages and updated the Community Use Package so you can use these new images right away!

John Compton
Developer

Faction Symbols Illustrated by Taylor Fischer.

Writing a New Entry for Factions

Monday, January 19, 2015

There are many central features of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign that have changed little if at all over the better part of a decade since it began. The amount earned by a Day Job and the item value threshold unlocked by having a certain amount of Fame remain the same, and I don't believe a single word has changed in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play's entries about alignment and how to calculate one's hit point total (with the exception of adding new classes to the list). Perhaps the most dramatic change over the years beyond the extraordinary growth in the list of venture-captains and venture-lieutenants is how the campaign has treated factions.

For a long time, five factions vied for control of Absalom and sent their respective agents one or two tasks to accomplish during each scenario. It was certainly nice to hear from one's faction leader regularly, and many found it reassuring that they could try to contribute in some small way to the faction's fortunes no matter where adventure took them. Things started getting pretty tricky when another five factions joined the scene at the start of Season 3. Not only was it unrealistic to provide a faction goal for every scenario for every faction (e.g. Does the Lantern Lodge really have an interest in this Azlanti observatory or Qadiran shipwreck?), but faction missions were becoming more of a burden at the table as GMs printed and distributed ten handouts. It became increasingly apparent that one could just complete his faction mission(s), fail the main task the Society had assigned, and get away with most of the rewards, which did not sit well with many. Were there some great faction missions? Absolutely. Without a doubt, though, many faction missions proved forgettable and inconsequential but for the reward they gave. I think many who participated in the campaign a few years ago remember the all-too-common chorus of "I search this room for a [minor MacGuffin]. Is there one in here? I take 20."

Something needed to change, and beginning in Season 5, faction leaders stopped distributing faction missions during every scenario. Faction leaders began sending letters several times over the course of the season to inform their agents what the faction's short-term goals were and if there were any special opportunities coming up. Each faction then had special opportunities—usually more involved than a typical faction mission from past seasons—in a handful of scenarios for that season, and accomplishing one of these earned the PC a special boon. Of course, this encountered its own problems. Distributing the letters in a way that was both reliable and not a burden on GMs was difficult. Introducing faction ties in some scenarios inadvertently pushed some players to play only members of that faction in those adventures, making it harder to muster tables. Not having something to do more often than not made factions feel less important. What's more, juggling which faction appeared how often, in what level ranges, and doing suitably flashy things made outlining and developing scenarios more difficult.

Every campaign change upsets players' expectations and forces participants to adapt to something new, and certainly after the fairly substantial changes that occurred at the beginning of Season 5, the Pathfinder Society team is cognizant of the effects of announcing another revision to operating procedure. On the other hand there are numerous issues that have developed gradually that need our attention, and we first announced those in a blog several months ago. If you have not taken the opportunity to read the Factions part of that blog, I encourage you to take a few minutes to do so.

All caught up? Let's take a look at a few of the Faction Journal card entries in the works, starting with several of the goals for the Silver Crusade. This faction is the iconic good-guy faction, so my aim is to ensure that the faction journal rewards the PC for doing things that make a lot of good-guy sense. Even where there are faction goals that might be a little strange, each card has a paragraph or two describing the faction's aims in more detail to provide the necessary context.

▢▢ Defeat an outsider that has the evil subtype and whose Challenge Rating is at least equal to your character level.
▢▢ Defeat an undead creature whose Challenge Rating is at least equal to your character level.

I think it's safe to say that both of these fit the good-guy trope, and both of these are common enough that many scenarios should give a Silver Crusade faction PC a fair opportunity to fulfill one or both of these. Of course, it's important to be aware that with few exceptions, a PC can only check one box per adventure—our way of stretching out the accomplishments over multiple scenarios and preventing someone from earning the maximum rewards before reaching 2nd-level. So why do these each have two checkboxes? Well, some faction goals are more common or easier to accomplish than others, and your faction is not suitably impressed by or improved by one such achievement. After all, killing your first demon might have been incidental or a fluke; killing a second one in a later adventure proves that you take fiend slaying seriously. Let's look at something without multiple checkboxes.

▢ Spend an amount of gold equal to at least 100 times your character level on spellcasting services used on spells with the healing descriptor for another PC. You may instead purchase and expend material components or a single-use magic item that costs the same amount for that PC.

Ah, now this is a little tougher in part because it requires the faction PC to pay out of pocket—for a good cause, admittedly. You shouldn't have to do that more than once in the name of boons, but giving your friend a potion of cure serious wounds in a time of need is something that makes Ollysta Zadrian smile. Of course there are bound to be occasional goals that don't come up often enough or that you'd rather not complete. For that, we have one special opportunity.

▢▢▢▢▢ When you are the GM for any event that grants 1 or more XP, you may check one of this boon's boxes. If you have multiple faction cards, you may only check a box on one of them each time you are the GM. Once all five boxes are checked, you receive faction rewards on this card as though you had completed two additional faction goals.

Aha, flexibility and a GM reward all rolled into one! So why are we doing this? What's the payoff? There are three tiers of reward, acquired when one completes two, five, and eight goals respectively. As I'm writing these, I'm aiming to have each reward reflect the flavor of the faction and make somebody from that faction feel that she's reaping the benefits of her affiliation—ideally during every scenario. For example, the Exchange faction's rewards make it easier to make money and easier to receive discounts on equipment; honestly, shouldn't the PCs belonging to the "money faction" have felt a little more wealthy all along? What's more, each top-tier reward grants benefits to the whole table, allowing a truly successful faction PC to flaunt her accomplishments and share the wealth. Let's see what the Silver Crusade has to offer.

Soldier of Peace (two goals): You reduce the penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons by 2; if you already suffer no penalty on such an attack, you instead deal 1 additional point of nonlethal damage. Once per adventure before casting a spell, you may choose to replace half of the lethal damage dealt with an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

Anointed (five goals): You gain a +2 sacred bonus on Charisma-based checks made against good creatures and saving throws against spells and effects with the evil descriptor. Once per scenario as a swift action, you may grant a weapon you wield the benefits of bless weapon for one round.

Paragon (eight goals): When you or an ally spends Prestige Points to purchase the spellcasting service raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection, reduce the Prestige Point cost by 25% (rounded up). When you cast any of these spells, you may reduce the cost of the material component by 25%. When activating either the Soldier of Peace or Anointed boon, you may choose to grant the benefit to one ally you can see instead of receiving it yourself.

Looking at these, the more Silver Crusade PCs act like good guys and vanquishers of evil, the better they become at being good guys and vanquishing evil. Most of the benefits are ones a PC might use in a typical adventure, and many of the goals are likely to appear even when randomly selecting which adventure to play next (even a module). Nice! The boons and goals above are still in the works and may have to change to fit on the Faction Journal card, but hopefully this gives you a good sense of where this project is going. We're aiming to have these out in the wild in early February.

Are there themes that you would like to see appear among your favorite faction's goals or rewards? Tell me about it here!

John Compton
Developer

Improvements Are A-Comin'

Monday, November 17, 2014

Illustration by Taylor Fischer

Over the past several months, there have been some growing concerns with Pathfinder Society Organized Play. As we would like to take action to correct the concerns instead of let them grow and fester, we reached out to all 395 Venture-Officers a month ago to receive their feedback on what was wrong with the campaign, what was good about the campaign, and what we could do to improve or correct things to make Pathfinder Society even more awesome. Even though there were some difficult opinions expressed, most were true and it caused us to take a hard look at the organized play program.

After receiving feedback from the Venture-Officers, we formed a team of Paizo employees to work on solutions for the concerns that were expressed. This team included Lisa Stevens and Erik Mona, Mark Seifter and Mark Moreland, John Compton, and me. There were 327 responses from our VOs regarding thoughts and feedback on the current state of PFS. I went through each and every post and listed every one of the concerns expressed on a large white board in our conference room. The meeting took upwards of six hours, and through debate, discussion, and some give and take, we came up with some solutions to most of the concerns that were expressed.

The Venture-Officers are aware of many of the initatives we have set forth to accomplish the goals. There are still other topics we are continuing to discuss on the Venture-Officer message board to make sure they are the best we can make them for the campaign at large. I wanted to write this blog to bring the player base up-to-date on some of the initiatives we have set into motion with the awesome collaboration that took place between the VOs and the Paizo team.

Factions

First, let's talk about factions and their roles. After much discussion here at Paizo, specifically on some problems that were brought up in the long discussion with all of the Venture-Officers, we agree that factions currently don't play as important a role as we would like them to. We want factions to have meaning and substance. We think our factions help to set PFS apart from other organized play campaigns. We have strategized a four-pronged plan of attack which we think will help return factions to a more important role in the campaign.

• The five new factions are receiving a professional makeover for their faction symbols. Grand Lodge and Silver Crusade faction symbols will remain unchanged. If you have suggestions on what they should look like, please start a different thread. The target goal for this to be implemented is by the end of 2014.
• There will be revised and improved write-ups of each faction for both the PFS landing page at paizo.com and the Guide to Organized Play. We plan to implement these write-ups by the end of 2014.
• We will be adding "The Story So Far" type of pages to the PFS landing page at paizo.com. John is assembling a team of writers to help him accomplish this goal for all past seasons. These will be spoiler-lite and help to sum up each season for new and old players alike. The target goal for this is end of February 2015.
• We will be producing Faction Journal cards, similar to the PAXPort or the quests cards we provide at Gen Con. There will be one Faction Journal card for each of the seven factions.
• • The front of the card will list a series of goals (likely 10) to complete for the current season. These goals will be generic enough that they can be accomplished from playing not just the current season, but past season scenarios as well. For example, the Dark Archive Faction Journal may have one of their 10 goals be to find and recover five named manuals to bring back to the archives in Absalom. These could include the Inward-Facing Circle book from Silent Tide, the dozen black vellum scrolls in Voice in the Void, and any other documents or manuals that are found in sanctioned adventures. Each time you accomplish a goal, the GM will check off or initial a box on that particular goal.
  • The back of the card will include three award thresholds for accomplishing a set number of these goals. For example, if a PC completes three of the 10 goals, they will receive a small favor from their faction or a unique, faction-specific item. If they complete six of the ten goals, they could possibly receive a unique title that provides certain benefits or a better unique faction item. If they complete all 10 of the faction goals, their clout with their faction is sufficent to extend benefits to other PCs at tables where the character is present, while making their presence (and that of their faction) important to every character at the table. As a working example, a Silver Crusade PC who has completed all 10 of her faction's goals on her card might be able to use the her renown to call in a favor and reduce the prestige point cost of any PC's raise dead by 4 so long as she's there to flex her faction's muscles. Although this might not be the reward that appears on the Silver Crusade faction card when we finish this project, it gives a good example of the type of reward we're aiming for.
  • To reward GMs, we are considering adding an 11th optional goal that would be applied to the three different thresholds of rewards. For example, we may list 10 check boxes and for each scenario GMed in the current season, one check box could be completed. Once all ten are filled, one goal toward the a reward threshold would be met, leaving only two more to complete through playing the character.
  • The back of the card will also feature a form of the revised write-up of the faction described in bullet number two above, as well as a summation of season-long goals in descriptive text. This descriptive text will explain why the PC is trying to achieve the 10 goals for the faction and how it will aid the faction in the future—likely in the form of the faction head letters.
  • We realize that we are introducing this half way through the current season so everyone may not be able to complete the card for this season. On day one of Gen Con 2015, no more faction goals may be checked off from the Season 6 card. On the same day, a new Season 7 card will become available that may include a bonus reward depending on if the character completed five or more goals from the previous season. We hope this fresh approach will help to build the excitement in factions for future seasons as we plan to introduce updated faction goal cards every season at Gen Con.
  • These Faction Journal Cards will be provided as a free download on paizo.com, so anyone can print one off for a new or existing character at any time.
  • Every character may have one card assigned to him. If the PC changes factions any time in the future, he would lose all benefits from the card.
  • The Faction Journal card would not override the primary and secondary success conditions set forth in the scenario. Those are still in place to continue enforcing the importance of being a Pathfinder. The Faction Journal card will allow for more depth by adding greater meaning to the factions.
  • Use of the Faction Journal card is optional. A PC never has to take one, use one, or try to complete one.
  • The Faction Journal cards should be available by the end of January.

Scenario Length

Over time, scenarios have become longer, both in terms of word count dedicated to the adventure (rather than to faction missions, for example) and in terms of run-time. To an extent, it's also tied to the increased number of lengthy role-playing scenes and tougher combats intended to match the six-player assumption (i.e. more PCs means more enemies means more time spent in combat). In most circumstances, the longer scenarios are, the harder they are to schedule and run.

We are taking the following steps to address this issue and bring the expected run time (time from mission briefing to the resolution of the final encounter, not including set-up and paperwork) to four hours:

• Cut one encounter from Tier 5-9 and Tier 7-11 scenarios. These higher-level scenarios run over most often, and it's mostly a matter of high-level combat taking longer.
• Revise encounter expectations for Tier 3-7 to minimize long, drawn-out encounters resulting from especially high challenge ratings. If necessary, we will cut an encounter from Tier 3-7 scenarios, but preferably these can still work under approximately the same model.
• There are no changes expected on this front for Tier 1-5 scenarios, which generally fit the four-hour model without much trouble.
• You should start seeing these changes implemented in scenarios in December 2014 or January 2015.

Scenario Difficulty

We have heard your feedback that scenarios have become harder to just pick up and run. In part this is due to a large number of scenario-specific subsystems that require the GM—and sometimes the players—to learn a new set of rules during the scenario. In part, it's also a result of the reliance on the Pathfinder Reference Document when providing only short stat blocks for encounters. There's also the matter of the increasingly involved stories that scenarios are telling.

We are taking the following steps to mitigate these issues:

• Provide an appendix that includes the full Bestiary and NPC Codex pages referenced in the adventure as well as an un-tagged copy of any custom maps that appear in the scenario.
• Cap the number of required GM resources at four books per scenario (including the Core Rulebook). This should be relatively easy if the Bestiary pages are already included in the back of the adventure, as in most cases approximately half of the books referenced are Bestiaries.
• Include full stat blocks for creatures modified by the advanced, giant, or young simple templates. The exception to this would be modifications that appear in the "Scaling Encounter XYZ" sidebars. For example, if the adventure says that there should be an advanced otyugh, the full stats for an advanced otyugh will be there and ready to go. If the scaling notes say that a four-person group should instead face a young otyugh, those stats would not appear. This should at least cover the essential modifications and reduce the amount of on-the-fly adjustment that a GM needs to do.
• Limit the number of rules subsystems in scenarios. Subsystems aren't going away entirely, but we need to avoid relying on subsystems and simply save them for the times that they'll have the greatest impact. Should an especially large subsystem such as mass combat appear in a scenario again for whatever reason, it would be advertised on the product page. Simple point-tracking mechanics that only the GM sees (for example, keeping track of how many clues the PCs uncover) are likely to show up a little less often but are still a useful tool.
• You should start seeing these changes implemented in scenarios in December 2014 or January 2015.

Season Plotline

Over the past four seasons, the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign has based its season-long plotline on the most recent Adventure Path products. In some ways this has worked well due to the new campaign setting content available to players, GMs, and authors, but nearly as often, this decision has caused problems—either by binding the story of the campaign to that of a different product (and the continuity difficulties that can arise), driving the Society to do things that don't necessarily fit its mandate, or subjecting the community to a long storyline when many participants begin losing interest after the first several months. As the list of scenarios grows longer, the list of metaplots grows as well, providing a barrier to newer players getting involved.

To combat these trends, we are taking the following steps:

• Stop tying the campaign's story to those of the Adventure Paths. Player responses suggest that the Destiny of the Sands model of using a current Adventure Path as inspiration for a three-part series is about right, and even then it's not mandatory that every Adventure Path receives this treatment.
• Provide Pathfinder Society its own storyline using its own existing plot threads and creating new ones.
• Expand the number of stand-alone scenarios that explore a wide variety of locations rather than get tied down in one location with an ongoing story that is tough to follow if one misses a few pieces.
• Provide a "The Story Thus Far" handout that provides a low-spoiler summary of each season's storyline so that a player can quickly catch up on the critical plot concepts when sitting down to an adventure that deals with ongoing metaplot elements. The working length for each handout is about four paragraphs or 300-400 words. There would be one such document for each season and perhaps one for a few of the most complex ongoing metaplots (Grandmaster Torch, for example).
• You should start seeing these changes implemented at the beginning of Season 7, though some like "The Story Thus Far" handouts are likely to appear sooner.

Quests

From our feedback about the success of the Silverhex Chronicles quest line, we are aware we need more Quests and Quest-like events. Since we already have nine different Beginner Box quests broken up into parts one and two, this was topic was a no brainer.

We have added two Chronicle sheets to the development schedule for the Beginner Box Demos. One will be for the four demos in part one and the other will be for the five demos in part two. These should allow for you to draw more interest from players wanting to try the system out, as well as give you another two sets of quest-style adventures to run, bringing the immediate total of quests to three sets with the inclusion of the Silverhex Chronicles quests. Look for these two Chronicle sheets by the end of 2014.

We have quite a few more changes and additions in the works, and I can't wait to tell you about them. However, some are more ideas than polished action plans, so we need a bit more time to make sure we get the other exciting changes to PFS in order before we release the rest of this information publicly.

As always, we look forward to trying to create the best Organized Play experience we can for all of you. Please read our collected thoughts above and let us know what you think, how we might improve upon the ideas, and what we could change to make them better. Thanks again for being the best fanbase any game company out there has. Without your input, as well as that of the awesome Venture-Officer corp, we certainly could not make PFS the best organized play campaign available anywhere in the world.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

The Wait is Nearly Over

Monday, September 22, 2014

Illustration by Teresa Guido

There's always a strange lull after Gen Con, whose middle-of-August dates mean the public sees that month's Pathfinder Society scenarios a few weeks early. Those extra weeks mean a longer wait between the August and September releases—more time in which to speculate about how the rest of the season will play out. This Wednesday, we'll see the first of the post-convention adventures.

The first is Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-04: Beacon Below, which returns to the Sanctum of the Sages to explore a previously unexplored branch of that desert fortress. This Tier 7-11 scenario takes the PCs underground on a dungeon crawl with some intriguing twists. As originally advertised in its faction head letter, there's a lot here for members of the Scarab Sages to enjoy. During the writing process, the author Matt Duval pointed out that the outline also had a great opportunity for the Dark Archive, and the scenario now gives members of that faction something extra to consider. We're previewing the art of one of the principle characters as part of this blog.

Our other scenario is Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-05: Slave Ships of Absalom, a Tier 1-5 scenario that sounds suspiciously like The Slave Pits of Absalom, an adventure dating back to the first months of the organized play campaign. Although this is not quite a true sequel, the action and intrigue in author Mark Garringer's work explore familiar scenes in Absalom's Coins district. Of course, no adventure involving intrigue and slave-liberation is complete without opportunities for the Liberty's Edge and Sovereign Court factions to do what they do best.

Happy gaming!

John Compton
Developer

Year of the Sky Key Q&A

Monday, September 15, 2014

The start of the Year of the Sky Key has spawned many questions thanks to the faction changes, the release of the Advanced Class Guide, and the use of Technology Guide. In preparation for today's blog, I compiled my list of known questions, polled venture-officers about unanswered questions still at large on the messageboards, filtered out the ones that weren't specific to the organized play campaign (saved to pass along to their associated designers and developers), and wrote out answers and updates to everything that was left.

Warpriest Retraining

Are playtest warpriests able to adjust their ability scores based on the fervor class ability's new dependence on Wisdom?
Yes, page 28 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play states that "if a class, prestige class or class feature-dependent ability score is altered," the character qualifies for a rebuild, maintaining the same equipment. That means a character's class choices, feats, skill ranks, spells known, et cetera can change.

Are playtest warpriests able to adjust character features tied to these ability scores (e.g. losing ranks in Diplomacy to instead put them in Sense Motive)?
Yes, see above.

Are playtest warpriests able to alter any other character choices/options (e.g. feats) as part of any rebuilding process?
Yes, see above.

Are playtest warpriests able to take archetypes as part of any rebuilding process?
Yes, see above.

What are the warpriest's retraining synergies (as per Ultimate Campaign's retraining rules on page 190)?
In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, determine the retraining synergies for the Advanced Class Guide classes by substituting one class name for an existing class on the table. For example, an arcanist has the same retraining synergies as a wizard, and any class that lists the wizard as a retraining synergy also has the arcanist as a retraining synergy.

• Substitute the term "arcanist" anywhere the term "wizard" appears.
• Substitute the term "bloodrager" anywhere the term "barbarian" appears. Bloodragers have retraining synergy with sorcerers and vice versa.
• Substitute the term "brawler" anywhere the term "fighter" appears.
• Substitute the term "hunter" anywhere the term "ranger" appears.
• Substitute the term "investigator" anywhere the term "alchemist" appears.
• Substitute the term "shaman" anywhere the term "druid" appears.
• Substitute the term "skald" anywhere the term "bard" appears. Skalds have retraining synergy with barbarians and vice versa.
• Substitute the term "slayer" anywhere the term "ranger" appears. Slayers have retraining synergy with rogues and vice versa.
• Substitute the term "swashbuckler" anywhere the term "fighter" appears.
• Substitute the term "warpriest" anywhere the term "paladin" appears.

What is the intended interaction between the Guide's and the Additional Resources' entries about retraining for the warpriest? Should one or both be revised based on any of the above rulings?
The Additional Resources page and Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play principally conflict regarding warpriest retraining, as no other class's associated ability scores changed between the playtest and final versions of the classes. The Additional Resources page's wording in an important reminder that most classes and most characters do not qualify for comprehensive rebuilds based on the final version of the Advanced Class Guide.

During the playtest, the shaman's spell list had access to summon nature's ally. Is there any rebuilding allowed for those who selected character options that modify summoning such as Augment Summoning?
Shaman characters that selected character options that modify summoning abilities they no longer possess may retrain those features and any immediate prerequisites for those features. For example, such a shaman could retrain Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning, and Spell Focus (conjuration), but not Spell Penetration, Combat Casting, or Improved Initiative. A character can sell back any items that specifically modify summoning abilities, use summon nature's ally, or use summon monster (such as scrolls).

Faction Changes

Does one automatically switch to the successor faction, or is that treated as the one faction change per season?
The change to a successor faction is automatic and does not count as the one free faction change. If your character was a member of the Cheliax faction, she is now part of the Dark Archives faction for free. Try out a scenario as part of that faction, then decide if you want to stick with it or use the free change.

When the five nation-based factions (Andoran, Cheliax, Osirion, Qadira, and Taldor) changed into ideological factions, how many faction-specific features and rewards could a PC retain?
As noted on pages 17-18 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, a member of a retiring faction retains "any faction-specific vanities, titles, traits, prestige items, or other purchases made while the character was a member of the retired faction." As a result, a Cheliax faction PC who purchased the Hellknight prestige award would retain it no matter which faction she ended up joining at the start of Season 6.

Do I also keep any of the faction-specific boons earned on Season 5 Chronicle sheets?
Yes, you keep any of these boons that you earned during Season 5. However, remember that you might not qualify for other faction-specific boons from that faction once you have switched allegiances; page 18 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play covers which current factions correspond to earlier nation-based factions for the purposes of earning these rewards.

Is a character benefiting from The Risen faction prestige award required to stay with the Scarab Sages faction as the natural evolution of the Osirion faction?
This is a special case, given the enduring consequences of purchasing that particular prestige award. A character who possessed this prestige award prior to August 14th, 2014 does not qualify for the free faction change. He can, however, pay 3 Prestige Points per character level to change factions, as described on page 17 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play. A member of the Scarab Sages faction who acquires The Risen prestige award [on or after August 14th, 2014] is bound to that faction and cannot change factions.

Technology Guide

Is the Technologist feat in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Technology Guide required to attempt any skill checks regarding technology?
The following text will appear in an updated version of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play:
"The otherworldly technology associated with Numeria is very different from the rest of the technology available on Golarion,and so far advanced that any comprehensive understanding requires the Technologist feat (Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Technology Guide 7). However, scenarios that include Numerian technology are designed in a way that characters with the Technologist feat have an advantage, yet those without are still able to succeed at the mission. Clever Pathfinders might operate a device by trial and error, infer a device's use by its placement (such as a keypad on a door acting as a lock), or draw logical if crude associations between known items and Numerian technology (such as a laser pistol having the same shape and features as a hand crossbow or Alkenstar firearm)."

How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
(This is apparently a question the Design Team has received a few times during the development of Iron Gods, so they were ready to go with an answer!)

Miscellaneous

Investigators have an alchemy class ability similar to that of an alchemist. Are investigators also able to craft alchemical items in Pathfinder Society Organized Play?
Investigators are able to craft alchemical items and poisons as if they were alchemists. This information will appear in an upcoming update to the Pathfinder Society FAQ, both in the poisons section (which will also include the investigator's poison lore class ability) and the alchemist crafting section.

I received a ratfolk or samsaran race boon for volunteering at a recent convention, but the Additional Resources page still says that ratfolk and samsaran options in Advanced Race Guide are not legal for play. Is this ever going to change?
All ratfolk and samsaran alternate racial traits, favored class bonuses, archetypes, equipment, feats, and spells are legal for play. Note that most of these options are limited to ratfolk and samsaran characters respectively following the Advanced Race Guide entry's second paragraph on the Additional Resources page. The next Additional Resources update is set to revise the entry.

What deities can a warpriest worship? The Additional Resources page suggests that only the core 20 deities are legal choices.
This is not the intended interpretation, and the next Additional Resources update is set to revise the entry to read as follows. "To select a blessing, a warpriest must worship a deity that offers the domain of the same name." A warpriest in the organized play campaign is able to select from among any of the legal deity choices.

Can one purchase a ring of eloquence (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide 216) with any combination of languages? Are restricted or banned languages such as Druidic or Androffan options?
At this time, only two configurations of the ring of eloquence exist in the organized play campaign. The first grants the ability to speak and understand Common, Dwarven, Elven, and Gnome. The second grants the ability to speak and understand Giant, Goblin, Orc, and Undercommon. Rings with other configurations may appear as treasure on Chronicle sheets.

John Compton
Developer

Year of the Sky Key Begins!

Monday, July 28, 2014

The expedition to Jormurdun has nearly concluded, and with it ends the Year of the Demon. However, the Pathfinder Society is on the cusp of making an exceptional find, catapulting us into the The Year of the Sky Key. With the season change, many factions are also finalizing their changes from extensions of national interests to independent entities with updated goals. A brief overview of each faction’s goals for Season 6 is included below, along with a link to the full text of each faction head’s letter on the messageboards.

Dark Archive: Establish the Dark Archive’s reputation with the Grand Lodge, and seek out skilled mentors to train the faction’s curators.
The Exchange: Develop trade routes and contacts in western Garund.
Grand Lodge: Follow up on recent developments in the Mwangi Expanse.
Liberty's Edge: Fight corruption and tyranny wherever it appears.
Scarab Sages: Explore the Jeweled Sages’ sanctum and seek lost relics of the order.
Silver Crusade: Serve as soldiers of peace by redeeming criminals, delivering aid to the afflicted, and handling the aftermath of the Mendevian crusade.
Sovereign Court: Build alliances with nobles across the Inner Sea region.

Thanks for your participation (and feedback) in the Year of the Demon. Pathfinder Society Organized Play continues to grow and thrive, and this year will be the best yet. As always, Explore, Report, and Cooperate!

John Compton and Mike Brock
Developer and Global Organized Play Coordinator

The Path Before You

Monday, December 3, 2012

As we enter the dark winter of Pathfinder Society's Year of the Risen Rune, campaign HQ is already thinking ahead to the warming months of spring that still seem so distant. Just last week, I assigned scenarios for April, and we're in the process of outlining and approving the May scenarios to be commissioned in the coming weeks. Since the season's endgame is quickly being decided, I thought it might be a good time to give folks a little preview of where the season is set to go from here, what challenges Pathfinders are bound to face, and what changes look likely based on our reporting data.

What follows includes spoilers for the remainder of the season, so if you don't like knowing anything until your PC busts down the door, the rest of this blog might not be for you. Fair warning and all that.

First, we're now two scenarios into the core Year of the Risen Rune metaplot, and PCs who've been through either The Cultist's Kiss or Feast of Sigils already know that the stage is set for the season to end with a confrontation with a waking runelord, and that's exactly what's going to happen. Over the next few months, the Pathfinder Society will race with the cult of Lissala to uncover the components needed to bring a runelord back from his millennial slumber, and members of all factions are going to need to work together to prevent this terrible evil from returning to the world.

Later this month, a prominent faction head is going to need the entire society's help, and characters from 1st to 9th levels will be able to assist in tracking the missing NPC down and ultimately deciding if he or she is rescued from certain death or written out of the campaign. We'll be looking very closely at the early reporting data from Pathfinder Society Scenario #4–13: Fortress of the Nail as a result, and the sooner you play that scenario, the more likely your actions will be to directly affect the campaign world.

Along similar lines, judging by reported data since Gen Con, it looks like two factions are in serious jeopardy of being written out of the campaign. We've known for some time that several factions were struggling, but looking at play results over the last few months means that some major changes may be coming. We've only got another month or two before any faction-eliminating scenarios would need to be written, so there's not much longer for folks to turn things around for their ailing factions. I recommend playing often and doing your best to accomplish both your primary and secondary missions with characters of your favorite factions in the next two months. Because after we change course to reflect a faction's failures or successes, we won't be able to go back and change things.

Sometime next month, look for another letter from each of the faction heads to report on their respective factions' successes and failures thus far in the season, and to get an idea of whether or not your favorite faction might be in desperate need of help. If you didn't receive the last faction goal email over the summer, make sure to set your privacy settings to accept non-transactional emails from Paizo so you don't miss the next one.

With the holidays coming up, it's likely many people will be traveling to see family or staying home to enjoy some much needed time off from work. In either case, there's a Pathfinder Society game happening close to wherever you'll be, so make sure to check the Pathfinder Society events page to find a game between fruitcakes and egg nog. And hope Santa gives you lots of natural 20s when you're playing.

Mark Moreland
Developer

P.S. Some folks on the messageboards requested we show off some NPC headshot art here so they can make handouts with them and share them under the Community Use Policy. That's what the art is from/for. Merry Christmas!

The Future of Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part IX: With Prestige Comes Fame

Monday, May 16, 2011

One of the unique elements of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign is the presence of factions and each character's growth within her faction using the prestige system. It's undergone some changes over the last three years, most notably the tying of maximum buying power to total prestige at the start of Season One. Well it's changing again, and in a way we think will streamline the system for ease of use for GMs, authors, and most of all, players.

Faction missions aren't going anywhere, but they are going to change a bit. Instead of there being two faction missions for each of the 10 factions, each one will have only a single difficult mission to earn that faction's Prestige Point (PP). A second Prestige Point will be tied to several success conditions of the main Pathfinder Society mission. Thus, an Andoran faction Pathfinder can get his faction Prestige Point by freeing the slaves from the gnoll's camp, while he gets a second Prestige Point by retrieving the ancient Lamashtan relic that Venture-Captain Eliza Petulengro sent him after in the first place. This is a direct response to fan feedback that there needed to be more reward for actually completing the main mission of a Scenario. Also, it means our authors only have to design 10 faction missions instead of 20—the same number they're already doing.

You might notice I capitalized Prestige Point up there. That's because it's a new game term we'll be using from here on out. No longer do you need to track CPA and TPA. Prestige Award—the expendable resource gained and spent in the course of an adventurer's career—is now expressed as Prestige Points, and the total number of Prestige Points gained in the course of a career is now called "Fame." Fame is a constant score like Strength or Charisma, while Prestige Points fluctuate like hit points or wealth.

In addition to eliminating the confusing CPA/TPA wording, this newly codified system means we can offer cool new abilities tied to Fame and costing a set amount of Prestige Points. Check out the following faction resource that will be available to members of the Andoran faction, from the forthcoming Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Pathfinder Society Field Guide:

Liberation (5 PP) In the event that you are captured and forced into slavery, the faction mounts a rescue operation, freeing you from servitude without any material or physical effect. Any cost or penalty normally associated with being enslaved (including magical effects such as dominate person) is negated at no additional cost to you.

That'll cost 5 PP and can be spent anytime, regardless of how much Fame the PC possesses. Other resources, like granting a character a noble title or a military position, will require reaching certain Fame thresholds before Prestige Points can be cashed in to actually gain the benefits. All 10 factions have a number of these in the Pathfinder Society Field Guide, and we have ideas of other places they may appear in the future.

Until next week, take a look at this mysterious faction symbol. It's one of the new ones, and one I would have revealed next week had we gotten enough new followers on our Facebook page. I guess I'll just be talking about how things are shaking up within the Qadira faction in next Monday's blog—same Path time, same Path channel.

Mark Moreland
Developer