Pathfinder Society Playtest—September Update

Thursday, September 27, 2018

We're reaching the two-month mark, and playtest results for our first three Pathfinder Playtest scenarios are rolling in. By far, we're seeing that the largest amount of feedback came in over the first two weeks of the playtest, with the two 5th-level scenarios steadily receiving survey results each week. This feedback's been really valuable in analyzing what does and doesn't work in these adventures, so please do continue to playtest and encourage everyone to let us know what they think. The surveys have been averaging about 3-5 minutes for player surveys and about 5-7 minutes for GM surveys.

We're not just here to talk about surveys, though. I'd also like to highlight a few special topics: an updated appendix format in Pathfinder Playtest #4: The Frozen Oath and our imminent re-release of Pathfinder Playtest #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak to test out the updated resonance rules.

The Frozen Oath

As a quick reminder, this 10th-level scenario is available for download now. However, unlike the other playtest scenarios so far, this adventure does not include any pregenerated characters. It's important to either schedule time during the event for your players to create their own, or have everyone create a character before the game.

We'll have the player, GM, and open response surveys up on the site shortly.

A New Appendix

I've been going back and forth on different ideas to make the creature appendices more useful. Right now, scenarios print and custom creatures directly in the encounter, and any reprinted creatures (such as from a hardcover Bestiary) are reprinted in an appendix at the back of the adventure. On one hand, that's nice because it should cut down on the number of resources a GM needs to have on hand while running the adventure. That said, there's room for improvement, especially because this can lead to a fair amount of page flipping between the encounter description and the appendix during play.

That means experimenting with new creature stat block organization. Because scenarios are digital-only products with somewhat flexible page counts, we have a few options.

• Include all of the creature stat blocks—custom and reprinted—directly into the encounter description.
• Include none of the creature stat blocks in the encounter description. Instead place everything into the appendices.
• Include the custom stat blocks in the encounter description, and expand the appendices to include all of the stat blocks that are necessary to run the adventure.

The first option is certainly tempting because it places all of the information where a GM needs it, but in some cases that can be numerous pages of stat blocks across several subtiers. Based on some past scenarios with 3 subtiers, it's easy to start losing track of the adventure amid the many stat blocks—especially once they're interspersed with sidebars and creature illustrations. That also complicates one of the strong requests I've seen in the GM surveys: a desire to have stat blocks start and end on one page. The more those stat blocks are competing with other material, the harder it is to make them fit cleanly.

Well, the playtest is a time for experimentation! While developing "The Frozen Oath," I tried to fit in as much as I could. You'll find that the essential stat blocks for running a 4-player table appear directly in the encounters. Given this scenario doesn't have multiple subtiers, I could manage that; however, each of these stat block sections would be roughly double the length were this to be, say, a Tier 9-12 adventure. In practice, that might be too much to jam into a typical scenario's text.

I also changed how the stat block appendix looks. Rather than including all of the stat blocks in the same section and alphabetizing them, I broke down the appendix by encounter area, starting each one on a different page. Each encounter area's appendix now prints all of the stat blocks—both the ones already appearing in the adventure as well as every stat block necessary for scaling the encounter for larger groups. That way you can find all of the creature statistics all in one place, flipping pages less often or just printing off the pages you need.

Take a look, and let us know what you think.

Raiders of Resonance Peak

As the design team reviews playtest feedback, they've been busily revising systems and exploring new solutions. One of the major topics is resonance, which influences how often a PC can attune to and activate magic items. They've developed a new approach that's launching in the coming weeks, and to provide more avenues for playtesting it, the design team has created an updated version of "Pathfinder Playtest #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak" that includes revised rules for all of the treasure you could find. In addition, they're updated the 5th-level pregenerated characters to reflect this new resonance approach and the recent playtest errata to characters' starting skills (plus some minor corrections here and there). Once this new version comes out, you'll still be able to run either version for credit, and you'll report them both in the same way. Expect to see a special survey for this new version of the adventure.

John Compton

Organized Play Lead Developer