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