Pathfinder Society Retail Incentive Program Announced!

Monday, September 26, 2016

Today is special—two blogs on one day! Lots of PFS goodness! First up, a new program aimed at rewarding purchases made at Friendly, Local Game Stores or other retail establishments that offer Pathfinder Society space for games. This has been in the works for some time and I am exited to reveal it to our playerbase!

Later today, John Compton introduces the newest Pathfinder Society scenarios—#8-04 Wardens of Sulfer Gulch and #8-05 Ungrounded But Unbroken.

Without further ado...

Retail Incentive Program

Back in March, at GAMA Trade Show, Erik and I announced a program for retailers that would encourage players to purchase items from their stores. Since then, the PFS team drafted ideas, solicited feedback from stores and VOs, made revisions, and are now ready to try the program. We may need to tweak it from here, but we want to give it some time in the field before we start making changes. Once launched, if you have feedback, post it as a comment or email it to pathfindersociety@paizo.com.

Right now, the program is focused on the Roleplaying Guild Guide. To those playing Adventure Card Guild—don't despair. We haven't forgotten you! I just didn't want to hold the program while we explored options for card scenarios.

In writing the program, we observed that not all PFS games are held in FLGS space. Sometimes they are in community halls or sporting halls that also house a refreshment stand or other sales outlet. Thus we named it retail, not retailer, and offer it as a tool for any location with a retail outlet patronized by Pathfinder Society players.

We realize that demographics are different and each retail location should decide what is best for their business, thus participation in the retail incentive program is not mandatory. Locations utilizing the program should advertise its presence to their clientele.

For countries outside the US, an approximate equivalent of local currency is used. For example, $10 USD = 7. 67 British Pound or 13.27 Australian Dollars or 8.96 Euro, so round to the closest .25 and use that figure. This doesn't mean you have to look up the exchange rate each game day, just use the general exchange rate.

Please note, the benefits gained from the retail purchase program stack with benefits a player receives from the reroll program.

The Details

This proposal grants a benefit to the entire table, scaling depending on how much money someone spent.

Game stores and other retail locations are an important part of the Pathfinder Society community, and it's important to support them so that there's always a public venue for organized play events. Players can now redeem receipts in exchange for a modest benefit shared by the entire table—all as a way of thanking players for supporting their game stores.

Redeeming a receipt simply involves showing it to the GM, who marks the receipt to denote that it was used. A player can only use a receipt in this way on the same day as she made the purchase, and only for events held at that venue. A player can acquire and redeem a receipt during play so long as doing so would not significantly disrupt gameplay, though it must occur before an encounter begins. The receipt need not be for Paizo products; the storeowner may include any products the venue sells as qualifying purchases.

At any time during an event, players may redeem receipts from their purchases worth $10 or more to gain a single-use benefit that applies to all of the PCs at the table. If the total combined receipts provided by one or more players are $50 or more, all players receive an enhanced benefit. No matter how many receipts the players have, the table can never use the same benefit more than once during a game session; they can, however, gain both benefits during a session.

All of the PCs gain the following benefit:

• Harder to Kill: Treat the character's Constitution as 5 points higher than normal for the purpose of determining when hit point damage would kill him. For the enhanced benefit, treat the character's Constitution as 10 higher.

Each player may also choose to use one of the following during the game:

• Cheaper Healing: Before the end of the session, you can use the benefit to reduce the Prestige Point cost of one spellcasting service of the healing subschool by 1 (minimum 0). For the enhanced benefit, you can instead reduce the cost by 2.
• Recover from Wounds: The PC recovers hit points equal to twice their character level. For the enhanced benefit, each PC also recovers 2 points of ability damage to one ability score. This benefit can only be used outside of combat.
• Bonus Wealth: If you do not use the subsidized healing benefit above, you can instead choose to roll twice and take the higher result when rolling a Day Job check. For the enhanced benefit, you also increase the gold you earn from the day Job result by 50% (maximum 300 gp total).

So there you have it—the Retail Incentive Program. We will update the policy section of the website as soon as possible and the policy will appear in the next version of the Roleplaying Guild Guide. As this is a new program, we appreciate constructive feedback. Remember to post it here or send it to pathfindersociety@paizo.com.

Don't forget to check back later for John's blog!

Until next week: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator