New Options

Monday, July 14, 2014

The Year of the Sky Key, Season 6 of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign, is approaching, and that means the new Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play is on its way. It's still a few weeks before we preview the new guide, but we can share a few new options available at the start of Season 6. In fact, there's something for players and something for GMs and organizers.

I imagine you've already spotted the art and guessed that expanded race access is one announcement—spot on. Just as non-standard race access is a hot topic on the messageboards, it's a common talking point during our meetings. It's tough to balance the lure of race boons for conventions against letting as many people as possible play the types of characters they want. Add to that the heated discussions about whether or not some non-standard races are overpowered and the concerns about the so-called "cantina effect." That's a lot to juggle when making a decision, but we decided that introducing a few new options would be best for the campaign. Beginning August 14th 2014 at Gen Con, three new races will be available for play without requiring a special Chronicle sheet: kitsune, nagaji, and wayang. These races have been in circulation through extra Chronicle sheets for nearly three years now, and even though some players have had an opportunity to create these characters, we want newer players to have new options to enjoy. Like other race options, it is still necessary that a player have a book or watermarked pdf reference for the race, such as from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dragon Empires Gazetteer, Pathfinder Player Companion: Dragon Empires Primer, Pathfinder RPG: Advanced Race Guide, or Pathfinder RPG Bestiary: Bestiary 4.


Illustration by Eva Widermann

So let's see... seven core races plus three Bestiary races plus three Dragon Empires races. That equals 13, right? Well, there's one piece missing from that equation. We're also removing two races.

For several years, aasimar and tieflings have enjoyed a prominent role in the Pathfinder Society, but as the organization concludes its work in Mendev—where numerous pit-born fight for recognition and heaven-blooded warriors wage holy war—it's time for them to step back. Beginning on August 14th, creating an aasimar or tiefling character will require a special Chronicle sheet, as was the case years ago. The exception is any aasimar or tielfing character with at least 1 XP; these characters are grandfathered into the campaign.

Does this mean you can create several new characters, play a scenario with each, and have several native outsiders waiting for when you need them? Well, we debated long and hard whether to require 4 XP per character, as at that point one is past the free rebuilding stage. However, we also recognized this as unnecessarily punitive to casual players who may only be able to play once or twice in the next month. To answer your question, yes, you can make 10 aasimars and play The Confirmation an equal number of times, but we're trusting you'll exercise some good taste and respect a decision made with the larger community in mind.

Now that we've covered the more controversial news, let's wrap things up with something outright awesome.

We (both Mike and John) both have experience as venture-officers and event coordinators, and we understand that sometimes it's tough to convince a new player to commit to a full 4-5 hour experience. Some events just are not conducive to running a full game, whether that's because it's a weeknight with lots of folks who need to get to bed early or because the location is only open for a few hours. What do you do when a scenario just isn't short enough?

For years the answer has been quests, one-hour mini-adventures intended to last an hour or less. They're great little adventures, but they're a little difficult to schedule for a few reasons. First, there's no easy way to tell a bigger story by connecting a few quests together. Second, the quests—though replayable—offer no gold, XP, or Prestige Points, giving them a reputation of risk for little reward. The most difficult hurdle is that there are only two of them in print (not counting the Goblin Attack demos or Beginner's Box Bash demos).

This year at Gen Con, we're debuting six new 1st-level Pathfinder Quests that take place in and around the River Kingdoms. Each one is a standalone adventure, but they are all loosely tied into a common plot thread, allowing a GM to combine anywhere from two to all six to make a larger adventure as suits the needs of the group and event location. Play them in any order—one can even play the finale quest early—and earn a Chronicle sheet with rewards that scale based on the number of adventures you played.

John Compton and Mike Brock
Developer and Global Organized Play Coordinator

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3/5

it's called fox shape, and it's out of the dragon empire gazetteer (or primer, I can never keep those books straight in my mind).

Silver Crusade 4/5

Jiggy wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Vrog Skyreaver wrote:
I think I might actually make a kitsune that hangs around in fox form all the time. might be neat to do as a character duo with another character like a monk who he follows around and pretends to be his familiar.
You make it sound like "fox form" is actually a small (tiny?) four-legged fox instead of a medium anthropomorphic one. Is that what you mean? Because I don't think kitsune can actually do that.
There's a feat for that.
Seriously? What/where is it?

Fox Shape, from the Dragon Empires Primer

I didn't realize there was a BAB +3 prerequisite until I just looked at it. The real question is what type of PC could be effective walking around like that all the time? Non-druids can't even take Natural Spell to cast spells in that form, and you'd be too small to be effective in melee. It's a cute idea, but doesn't seem practical.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Fromper wrote:
I didn't realize there was a BAB +3 prerequisite until I just looked at it. The real question is what type of PC could be effective walking around like that all the time? Non-druids can't even take Natural Spell to cast spells in that form, and you'd be too small to be effective in melee. It's a cute idea, but doesn't seem practical.

Urban Barbarian with an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. I've seen one wreck games with that.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I guess that's what I get for just having the ARG.

Lantern Lodge 5/5

I've seen a Fox-shaped Tetori running around with Agile Maneuvers...

"...the fox dashes between your ankles and drags you to the ground..."

3/5

I was thinking bard.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

TriOmegaZero wrote:
Fromper wrote:
I didn't realize there was a BAB +3 prerequisite until I just looked at it. The real question is what type of PC could be effective walking around like that all the time? Non-druids can't even take Natural Spell to cast spells in that form, and you'd be too small to be effective in melee. It's a cute idea, but doesn't seem practical.
Urban Barbarian with an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. I've seen one wreck games with that.

Now, if I could do that by being a bunny with sharp pointy teeth I might have to make this character.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Drogon wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Fromper wrote:
I didn't realize there was a BAB +3 prerequisite until I just looked at it. The real question is what type of PC could be effective walking around like that all the time? Non-druids can't even take Natural Spell to cast spells in that form, and you'd be too small to be effective in melee. It's a cute idea, but doesn't seem practical.
Urban Barbarian with an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. I've seen one wreck games with that.
Now, if I could do that by being a bunny with sharp pointy teeth I might have to make this character.

Wildshape, maybe?


Fox shape is also amazing for scouting and such because it effectively gives you a +10 bonus to stealth between the size bonus and the dex bonus.

A fox shaped invisible ninja who is standing still. Good luck finding him without true seeing.

2/5

As we learned in funniest PFS moments 100 chickens are only 1 gold.

Scarab Sages

Jayson MF Kip wrote:

I've seen a Fox-shaped Tetori running around with Agile Maneuvers...

"...the fox dashes between your ankles and drags you to the ground..."

Ha, I love the Anlke-biter image. It doesn't really take off until 4th level, when you are no longer grappled when grappling. For Extra points, use the Body Shield feat to use the guy you are grappling as a shield for his friends attacks.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

Hmmm... I've always wanted to make a tetori... I never considered a kitsune tetori... that has some interesting promise to it...

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

16 people marked this as a favorite.

It's apparent from reading the messageboard and a few messages I've received that it's not clear what qualifies as "grandfathering." Let me clear that up.

The updated Guide will establish that a player cannot retrain a character into an aasimar or tiefling without a corresponding race boon. That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling. None of our pregenerated characters are aasimars or tieflings, so that means that pregen credit is not sufficient for grandfathering in a character.

What about for GMs? For a character built entirely from GM credit, is it possible to determine what race that character is or would become? Let's look at two major possibilities for a GM with a 5th-level, unplayed blob of GM credit.

Really Strict: The player needs to actually play the character as an aasimar, thus locking in the character.
Really Lenient: The player can choose to be an aasimar or tiefling whenever she actually builds and plays the character because she applied XP to the character before August 14th.

Mike and I have discussed better approaches, and we're going with something in-between.

Moderate: If a GM intends to use a character made of GM credit to build an aasimar or tiefling, simply write something to the effect of "This character will be an aasimar when I play it" on the most recent Chronicle sheet that grants XP.

You don't need to get it notarized or anything like that, nor do you need to establish what class, ability scores, or other character options it has. This is just a simple, self-policing step to establish a character as a member of a restricted race in time for that character to be grandfathered in. What we don't want is a GM holding onto undefined GM credit for 18 months before making a tiefling, as that's going against the spirit of this opportunity.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

John Compton wrote:
That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling.

...crap. Guess I'd better get my wife's 3XP, currently-statted-out-as-her-first-aasimar-but-not-played-as-such-yet character into a game ASAP.

Quote:

What about for GMs?

...
If a GM intends to use a character made of GM credit to build an aasimar or tiefling, simply write something to the effect of "This character will be an aasimar when I play it" on the most recent Chronicle sheet that grants XP.

Okay, so at least I don't also have to worry about my own current 3XP slot.

Alright, just gotta get my wife into a game...

5/5

Thanks for clarification John. That seems more then fair.

5/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
John Compton wrote:

You don't need to get it notarized or anything like that

too late.

Thanks for clearing this up!

4/5

John Compton wrote:
The updated Guide will establish that a player cannot retrain a character into an aasimar or tiefling without a corresponding race boon. That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling. None of our pregenerated characters are aasimars or tieflings, so that means that pregen credit is not sufficient for grandfathering in a character.

How does grandfathering affect rebuilding? For example, let's say you locked in your aasimar/tiefling now by playing it and it only has 1 XP. Now, you decided that you're a little disappointed with the *blood-heritage* or *class* or *archetype* you've picked, and not necessarily the fact that they are aasimar or tiefling. Can you rebuild it at all using the level 1 rebuild rules, perhaps into another heritage (Demon-Blooded -> Qlippoth-Blooded), or class or archetype?

This is crucially important when determining newer things that come out, such as new archetypes from the ACG like the slayer ones announced today, where there are options that were not previously available.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Does your rebuild change the race after the deadline? No? You're good.

EDIT: I consider racial heritages as not changing the race however, so tread cautiously. :)

4/5

TriOmegaZero wrote:
Does your rebuild change the race after the deadline? No? You're good.

Yeah, that's what I want to say. I would imagine this is the case, considering you can rebuild most of your character anyway using Ultimate Campaign rebuild rules.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ***

Seems fairly clear. If you have the option to rebuild after the deadline it can only be to rebuild out of aasimar/tiefling into something else, but not vice versa. That would include retraining any blood heritages.

Remember folks, we shouldn't have to rule every single possible corner-case. Stick to the spirit of the expectation and you'll be fine.

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Does your rebuild change the race after the deadline? No? You're good.

Essentially this.

4/5 ****

Thanks for the clarification. Makes a lot of sense and is quite reasonable/generous.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Does playing We Be Goblins count towards playing the character, as you don't have a choice about playing a goblin?

Write on the chronicle that it is for an Assimar (or Tiefling) character?

Liberty's Edge

This means Okrin is legal to continue working with the Society. This makes Okrin very happy.

Okrin like working for the Society. Okrin like meeting pretty pirate women on ships.

FYI: This character's only mission so far was Murder on the Throaty Mermaid. Great scenario :)

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

Mistwalker wrote:

Does playing We Be Goblins count towards playing the character, as you don't have a choice about playing a goblin?

Write on the chronicle that it is for an Assimar (or Tiefling) character?

Based on what John Compton wrote a few posts ago

John Compton wrote:
If you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling. None of our pregenerated characters are aasimars or tieflings, so that means that pregen credit is not sufficient for grandfathering in a character.

I wouldn't expect a "We Be Goblins!" player chronicle to be sufficient for grandfathering.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
John Francis wrote:
I wouldn't expect a "We Be Goblins!" player chronicle to be sufficient for grandfathering.

I expect that you are correct, but one can hope.

:)

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Seems fairly clear. If you have the option to rebuild after the deadline it can only be to rebuild out of aasimar/tiefling into something else, but not vice versa. That would include retraining any blood heritages.

Either I am misunderstanding what you are saying or my understanding of John's post immediately after yours disagrees with you.

I read you as saying retraining to a different heritage is not okay.

I read John as saying retraining to a different heritage is okay.

I'm not doing this to be a jerk or to say haha you were wrong. I honestly just want to point out that this isn't as clear-cut as some people are imagining it is. I don't even have a horse in this race. I have 1XP, as a player, on my only Tiefling, who is Shackleborn and will stay that way. I'm just watching people's comments and responses and, from my perspective, it seems like people are reading things in the way that supports their previous assumption about how things do/should work.

As an example in one of John's earlier posts, at one point he referred to locking in "another native outsider or three."

Later in that same post he said, "We also recognized that these conditions would enable however many people to exploit the system and create a dozen new native outsider characters for a rainy day. In a way, that's a feature and not a bug. Although I scratch my head a bit at stockpiling aasimars, I'm also aware that the campaign serves a wide range of play styles and interests, so if someone is wild about aasimars and wants to play a bunch of scenarios in a month, that's his or her business."

Now to me that says that they are fine with someone making a dozen more Aasimar/Tieflings before the cutoff, as long as they meet the 1XP requirement.

Someone else read John's post and interpreted it to mean that the limit was 3. I am not naming the person, and I don't intend this as an attack on them either. I just wanted to point out that things are not as cut and dried as some people are claiming.

Shadow Lodge

Jiggy wrote:
John Compton wrote:
That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling.

...crap. Guess I'd better get my wife's 3XP, currently-statted-out-as-her-first-aasimar-but-not-played-as-such-yet character into a game ASAP.

Quote:

What about for GMs?

...
If a GM intends to use a character made of GM credit to build an aasimar or tiefling, simply write something to the effect of "This character will be an aasimar when I play it" on the most recent Chronicle sheet that grants XP.

Okay, so at least I don't also have to worry about my own current 3XP slot.

Alright, just gotta get my wife into a game...

I don't see why that second part you quoted wouldn't apply to your wife's character; just have her write "AASIMAR!!!!!!111one" on her latest GM chronicle for the character, and she should be good, assuming it's all GM chronicles.

If it was played as something else, then she decided to rebuild but has nothing but GM chronicles since, I imagine simply documenting the rebuild on the latest GM chronicle would work, too.

Shadow Lodge 2/5

What about if you played the character once for after creating it specifically as aforementioned native outsider race, then gm credited the next two xp to bring it to 2nd level? Would being second level before August still count?

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

Kezzie Redlioness wrote:
What about if you played the character once for after creating it specifically as aforementioned native outsider race, then gm credited the next two xp to bring it to 2nd level? Would being second level before August still count?

You've actually played it once (or more) as an Aasimar/Tiefling, and not rebuilt it to some other race since then? That counts! The GM credits are irrelevant in this case.

Shadow Lodge 2/5

Oh, good. Thanks for that one, John! :)

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

SCPRedMage wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
John Compton wrote:
That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling.

...crap. Guess I'd better get my wife's 3XP, currently-statted-out-as-her-first-aasimar-but-not-played-as-such-yet character into a game ASAP.

Quote:

What about for GMs?

...
If a GM intends to use a character made of GM credit to build an aasimar or tiefling, simply write something to the effect of "This character will be an aasimar when I play it" on the most recent Chronicle sheet that grants XP.

Okay, so at least I don't also have to worry about my own current 3XP slot.

Alright, just gotta get my wife into a game...

I don't see why that second part you quoted wouldn't apply to your wife's character; just have her write "AASIMAR!!!!!!111one" on her latest GM chronicle for the character, and she should be good, assuming it's all GM chronicles.

If it was played as something else, then she decided to rebuild but has nothing but GM chronicles since, I imagine simply documenting the rebuild on the latest GM chronicle would work, too.

Because none of hers are GM chronicles.

Silver Crusade 4/5

SCPRedMage wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
John Compton wrote:
That means that if you're playing a character that you intend to grandfather in as an aasimar or tiefling, it's critical to play the character as an aasimar or tiefling.

...crap. Guess I'd better get my wife's 3XP, currently-statted-out-as-her-first-aasimar-but-not-played-as-such-yet character into a game ASAP.

Quote:

What about for GMs?

...
If a GM intends to use a character made of GM credit to build an aasimar or tiefling, simply write something to the effect of "This character will be an aasimar when I play it" on the most recent Chronicle sheet that grants XP.

Okay, so at least I don't also have to worry about my own current 3XP slot.

Alright, just gotta get my wife into a game...

I don't see why that second part you quoted wouldn't apply to your wife's character; just have her write "AASIMAR!!!!!!111one" on her latest GM chronicle for the character, and she should be good, assuming it's all GM chronicles.

If it was played as something else, then she decided to rebuild but has nothing but GM chronicles since, I imagine simply documenting the rebuild on the latest GM chronicle would work, too.

It sounded to me like his wife's character isn't based on GM credits. Maybe she played 3 times with a level 1 PC of another race (or pregens) and then rebuilt into aasimar. So now she still has to play it as an aasimar to make it legal.

Shadow Lodge

Jiggy wrote:
Because none of hers are GM chronicles.

Yeah, that'd do it.

3/5 5/5

If she wants to GM a game for this Friday evening...

On another note, does this mean that Aasimars and Tieflings will become available on Con boons again?

Shadow Lodge 4/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Perfect. Great judgement call John! It's exactly the elegant middle ground I'd hoped the PFS leadership would go with.

(And expected - we have been given ample reason to expect good judgement from past experience!)


Meh looks like this will be tight for me :( only game available last week was 3-7 so I had to play a pregen. I'm leaving for japan on the 5th.

So it looks like the pregen wasn't sufficient and I /have/ to play the intended tiefling character next weekend to get it grandfathered.

To be honest.. I only have 3 characters but don't really expect to ever go to a con. Feels weird trying to shoehorn a character I may have not made for months in before my trip.

Shadow Lodge

FiddlersGreen wrote:
On another note, does this mean that Aasimars and Tieflings will become available on Con boons again?

Any unused boons have been confirmed as still being valid, and Mike has stated they are going to wait a bit (possibly at least a year) before reintroducing new aasimar/tiefling boons.

4/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.
John Compton wrote:
It's apparent from reading the messageboard and a few messages I've received that it's not clear what qualifies as "grandfathering." Let me clear that up.

I have to ask: What are we gaining from this decision?

We're certainly adding costs, both personal and systemic:
We're making some serious changes to standard procedures, and they're tremendously difficult to verify. As far as I know, never before have we been required to report or record anything about the character build played, indeed there is no way to actually do this through chronicle sheets or the reporting system. How am I to know whether or not a player played a specific game as an Aasimar or Tiefling if that information is not, and never has been tracked?

How are we supposed to audit information that isn't tracked? You're creating a rule that cannot be enforced, and that's just asking for it to not be enforced.

You're asking GMs to make changes to their signed chronicle sheets, something that is generally strictly against the rules, if they want to use credit from any game they GM'd before yesterday on a Tiefling or Aasimar. That's kind of a bad precedent.

And to what gain?
A few players holding out and playing their favorite races won't materially affect the diversity of characters while the majority of players go on to create characters of the core races and the newly available ones. Diversity is still being increased, and isn't that the goal of this change?

If this ruling doesn't increase diversity, what do we gain from it?

This ruling really looks to me like the hecklers are getting their veto.

The only complaints I've seen expressed about people banking Aasimars and Tieflings were either a.) they're not supposed to or b.) the person complaining doesn't like A/T and wants to see them gone. I've not seen a single post expressing a constructive benefit for limiting access to grandfathered characters. Not. One. Constructive. Benefit.

(Admittedly, I don't consider following arbitrary rules simply for the sake of following rules fun or a constructive benefit. I toe the line at work, I play PFS to have fun.)

This is a game, this is about having fun. There has been a rules change that limits some players' ability to use part of the game that they enjoy, and some of those players are aggressively trying to preserve that. What's the harm in that?

When it comes down to choosing between someone trying to continue playing the game they enjoy, and other people getting their feathers ruffled because people are enjoying the game in a way they think is wrong, shouldn't we come down on the side of the people who are simply trying to have fun?

I'm open being convinced that there is some constructive benefit that outweighs the implied lack of trust that comes from telling me I have to write something arbitrary down on a chronicle sheet in order to play a character later, and the changes to the long established, and very reasonable rule of never changing a chronicle sheet once it's been signed. But so far as I can tell, nobody in favor of this type of rule has even tried.

A simple, straightforward rule of "If the first chronicle is dated before August 14, 2014, then it's legal," is the most natural and least antagonistic way to phase out these races.

Please resist the heckler's veto and reconsider this ruling.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I know I am but one small voice in the gallery, but I applaud this move. Shaking up organized play is necessary to keep it interesting. Tieflings and Aasimars do have mechanical advantages, and I have seen more of them than most core non-human races. I doubt that was the intent when these races were opened up and I fully support management's decision to restrict these races.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

Akerlof wrote:
When it comes down to choosing between someone trying to continue playing the game they enjoy, and other people getting their feathers ruffled because people are enjoying the game in a way they think is wrong, shouldn't we come down on the side of the people who are simply trying to have fun?

Not if, in the view of the people making the rules, the change will result in a better net experience than allowing the status quo to continue.

Exactly the same "you're ruining our fun" argument is raised every time something gets banned (such as, say, master summoners).

(And from what I can see, based on both the forums here and the players at several game stores in my area, the vast majority of the players view this change as a positive one. The hecklers, trying to get their way by shouting louder, are the ones arguing to keep plane-touched PCs).

That aside, though, I have to agree with you about the enforceability of the restriction on GM credit babies.

A concrete example: I have a character with 12XP from GM chronicles. All I have to do, in order to make this a valid basis for an Aasimar PC, is make a note on the most recent chronicle stating my intention to build this character as an Aasimar PC when I do eventually instantiate it.

So - let's say I decide to do this. A year from now, when I bring the character to the table for the first time, how is the GM to know that the note was made prior to August 14th 2014? This is a chronicle that has no signature on it other than mine. Even if I had another GM (or VO) co-sign the chronicle, as some of our local GMs do, I'm only required to annotate the chronicle by August 14th, even though the most recent chronicle was assigned in June.

4/5

4 people marked this as a favorite.
John Francis wrote:
Akerlof wrote:
When it comes down to choosing between someone trying to continue playing the game they enjoy, and other people getting their feathers ruffled because people are enjoying the game in a way they think is wrong, shouldn't we come down on the side of the people who are simply trying to have fun?

Not if, in the view of the people making the rules, the change will result in a better net experience than allowing the status quo to continue.

Exactly the same "you're ruining our fun" argument is raised every time something gets banned (such as, say, master summoners).

(And from what I can see, based on both the forums here and the players at several game stores in my area, the vast majority of the players view this change as a positive one. The hecklers, trying to get their way by shouting louder, are the ones arguing to keep plane-touched PCs).

Let's take a look at some previously banned options:

Master Summoners: Slowed down play with a flock of summons. That's a pretty legitimate reason to ban them.

Synthesist Summoners: Effectively obsoleted other melee classes (at least at the levels where most PFS is played, I understand they're under par at higher levels.) That's a reasonable reason to ban them.

Gravewalker Witch, Undead Lord Cleric, Vivisectionist Alchemist: They're all pretty irredeemably evil in Golarion lore. That's a reasonable reason to ban them. Also, the Undead Lord can have the same minion-related gameplay impact as the Synthesist and the Vivisectionist obsoletes the rogue, also arguable reasons.

Bracers of Falcon's Aim: They're unarguably under-costed for what they do. That's a reasonable reason to ban them. They got banned the same week I got enough fame on my archer to buy them, I was somewhat put out but could accept that there was a reasonable argument to ban them.

There is an articulable reason for why each of these options is detrimental to organized play beyond "I don't like it."

Now, we have Aasimar and Tiefling. The first difference is that they're not being banned, they're just being rotated out with some being grandfathered in. If they're being removed because they're an unreasonable option, why aren't they being banned outright like the other unreasonable options? They're marginally more powerful than core races, but not nearly as dominant as, say, a Synthesist. Sure a 20 Dex Tiefling Kensai Magus is amazing, but is he appreciably more amazing than a 20 Dex Human Kensai Magus? Nope. Same for Tiefling Alchemists and Aasimar Oracles and Paladins. Early entry prestige classes? I don't see early entry Mystic Theurges or Eldrich Knights soloing content. There are a lot more of them now, but that's because they're actually playable at the levels PFS plays at rather than just coming into their own a couple levels after the retirement arc.

They're being rotated out to increase diversity. I might not like that line of reasoning personally, but I can accept it as a reasonable decision. They're being grandfathered in: If you have an existing character, with even 1 xp, you can keep that character as an Aasimar or Tiefling. That's great, that's accommodating: That's saying they aren't disruptive, it's just time for a change.

Some people are stockpiling them? So what? There certainly aren't enough people stockpiling them to make an appreciable difference on the diversity 6 months down the road. Things won't change right away, they wouldn't have changed regardless unless the options were banned outright, so why make major rules changes because of a few outliers?

Again I ask: What do we gain from this ruling?

We don't really get fewer planetouched, the people stocking up on dozens of them are outliers and won't affect the overall numbers. We won't see an immediate change in the balance of races, sure, but we wouldn't have seen that anyway without banning them outright. We won't even see people stop stockpiling them: It's not like I can't just go through all the GM credit chronicles I have for the last 6 months writing "This is an Aasimar" and "This is a Tiefling" on them just in case. Also, from the threads, most of the people marathoning The Confirmation and the like are doing so with planetouched anyway.

What is this ruling trying to accomplish? Fewer panetouched? Fewer people banking planetouched? Why were 1xp characters grandfathered in in the first place, and how does this ruling affect that reasoning? A few points:
--Players marathoning scenarios like The Confirmation are not affected, all they have to do is run the scenario with a planetouched character. It doesn't even have to be unique.
--GMs aren't affected. They're being encouraged to alter signed chronicle sheets, which is bad for campaign consistency, but no real trouble for a GM.
--The rule is unenforceable: I don't know what race a character was when it was played at a table other than the one I was running. Half the time I don't even know the races of characters at my own table, I'm much more interested in playing out the story than accounting for details that might not even have any in game impact. Even if I do know what race is, how am I supposed to remember that information for something that might have happened months ago? At the most I can only police players at my gamedays, there's no way in the world for me to police players at a con or visiting players. If we're supposed to go on the honor system, why are we telling GMs to write the race on their chronicle sheets?
--This ruling only impacts players who seem to be the legitimate target of the grandfather clause in the first place. Grandfathering gave players like Jiggy's wife, with an existing level 1 character and who had been considering playing a planetouched character in the future, a chance to play them now. But these, not the people farming out dozens of Tiefling clones, are the players who no longer have a grandfatherable character.

The original intent was to allow people to use an existing level 1 character to create a planetouched before the option goes away, after all wasn't that why they chose to grandfather in characters with 1xp instead of 4xp? So why do we care about how many characters a player banks?

What benefit do we gain from forcing these last minute kludges onto players who want to play an Aasimar or Tiefling? Is providing a sense of vindication for players who simply don't like planetouched really a good thing? Look at the forum, now we've got an "If there was one class you'd wish Paizo to drop from PFS legality, which one would it be and why?" thread. Is that a healthy attitude that we want to encourage? Because this grandfathering ruling certainly encourages that.

That's exactly why it's important to resist the heckler's veto, otherwise it just encourages more hecklers.

And I can't ask it enough: What do we gain from this ruling? What goal is the ruling trying to achieve, and will it actually accomplish that goal?

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Akerlof wrote:
What do we gain from this ruling?

A shake-up in the mix of commonly played races.

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kyle Baird wrote:
Akerlof wrote:
What do we gain from this ruling?
A shake-up in the mix of commonly played races.

Already got that from the initial announcement. This new ruling limiting what's eligible for grandfathering doesn't have any real impact on the diversity of races being played.

<Edit>
To clarify, my posts today are in relation to this post from yesterday ruling that a character has to have been played as an Aasimar or Tiefling, or GM credit has to have been earmarked for one of those races in order to be eligible for grandfathering. Not the original removal of the races.
</edit>

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Akerlof wrote:
Kyle Baird wrote:
Akerlof wrote:
What do we gain from this ruling?
A shake-up in the mix of commonly played races.
Already got that from the initial announcement. This new ruling limiting what's eligible for grandfathering doesn't have any real impact on the diversity of races being played.

This announcement also brought on this nearly 700 post thread, and multiple other threads debating what is and what is not acceptable for grandfathering, and what is and is not legal. In light of all the back and forth, they discussed the situation and decided to give some guidelines so that it makes thing smoother at the table when asked what is legal and what is not.

I think it could have been a bit more openended, but in the long run, a lot of folks were asking for clarification, and now we have it.

That, IMO, is what we gain from this ruling.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Sniggevert wrote:
That, IMO, is what we gain from this ruling.

Well said, Sniggevert, well said.

5/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

For those vehemently opposed to this secondary ruling: I'm personally ecstatic about dropping A's and T's. I'm also personally totally fine with people stockpiling them for the next few weeks. But a firm ruling was needed, and was needed now, not in three weeks. So that's what we have. And I'm fine with that too.

4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

Akerlof wrote:
Kyle Baird wrote:
Akerlof wrote:
What do we gain from this ruling?
A shake-up in the mix of commonly played races.

Already got that from the initial announcement. This new ruling limiting what's eligible for grandfathering doesn't have any real impact on the diversity of races being played.

<Edit>
To clarify, my posts today are in relation to this post from yesterday ruling that a character has to have been played as an Aasimar or Tiefling, or GM credit has to have been earmarked for one of those races in order to be eligible for grandfathering. Not the original removal of the races.
</edit>

I honestly had trouble seeing how most of your post applied to that what John said in his post.

I could be missing something but it just appears to be a pretty lenient clarification on how this all applies to GMs with proto-characters waiting to exist.

What was the clarification you wanted from his post instead?

Silver Crusade 2/5

Blazej wrote:

I honestly had trouble seeing how most of your post applied to that what John said in his post.

I could be missing something but it just appears to be a pretty lenient clarification on how this all applies to GMs with proto-characters waiting to exist.

What was the clarification you wanted from his post instead?

The concern is on the player side, not the GM side. For example, I never really think about my characters before I rebuild at level 2. So I had planned on playing a few new numbers between now and August 14th with some stock level 1s or the PFS pregens, and then letting that credit sit for a while (several months, a year, who knows?) before seeing if I felt like playing another Aasimar or Tiefling.

But with the ruling that a number has to be played *as* an Aasimar or Tiefling, that slightly raises the cost of this effort, since rebuilding into the race is no longer an option. Now I'll just have to throw together a lvl 1 Aasimar and a lvl 1 Tiefling to grab those credits with, and later decide if I want to rebuild out of the race or stick with it.

That's hardly a prohibitive cost, but it is a small irritation. Others have it worse than I do, if for example they have a character with a credit or two but little to no chance to play before August 14th.

All in all, it's just easier—less paperwork, less rules to think about—to have the option of letting credit sit to be shaped later.

So it's not my favorite ruling ever. But don't take my grumbling to be meant strongly, it's not. I enjoy Mike & John's leadership of the campaign and I trust their judgement. And as Sniggevert, Eric, and Majuba rightly point out, having *a* ruling is better than not having one on a topic like this, even if the particular ruling isn't a favorite. :-)

Horizon Hunters 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis

[SARCASM]

You know, maybe the solution is to just take away the rebuild rules? That would certainly solve this problem wouldn't it?

[/SARCASM]

Really, of all the options the campaign leadership could have chosen, I guess I don't understand why the latest clarification is at all a problem.

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