Pathfinder Society Second Edition Preview: Chronicle Sheets, Rarity, and More!

Redgar's ACG Characters wrote:

I meant the chronicles that 'recharge' stars mid-year for continuing to GM. We've had permission to keep filling those in for years, and I understand that nothing is changing w.r.t. existing replay methods?

You can only activate a maximum of one Star Recharge boon a year.

If you are a 3-star GM :
You get three replays. Those do not ever automatically refresh. When you use them they are used.
You can activate one Star Recharge boon per year, giving yourself 3 replays (assuming you do the requisite amount of GMing).

Have we ever established that this isn't something that the community made up? I've never actually found any sort of information that pointed to a definitive answer.

Hey Paizo team!

Just dropping you a message here since you're taking open feedback for the sheet.

The Hero Lab Code section of the sheet doesn’t have the correct spelling/casing format, instead of "Herolab code" it should read as "Hero Lab Code" since the product name and its various trademarks and such relate to the name having the space between the two distinct words.

Kevin Willis wrote:

Redgar's ACG Characters wrote:

I meant the chronicles that 'recharge' stars mid-year for continuing to GM. We've had permission to keep filling those in for years, and I understand that nothing is changing w.r.t. existing replay methods?

You can only activate a maximum of one Star Recharge boon a year.

If you are a 3-star GM :
You get three replays. Those do not ever automatically refresh. When you use them they are used.
You can activate one Star Recharge boon per year, giving yourself 3 replays (assuming you do the requisite amount of GMing).

Have we ever established that this isn't something that the community made up? I've never actually found any sort of information that pointed to a definitive answer.

Which part are you referring to?

Stars don’t recharge every year:
-Guide 10.0 page 18 says you gain the ability to replay one adventure per star. Nothing implies that those replays recharge.

You can only use one Expanded Narrative boon per year:
-That’s written on the Expanded Narrative chronicle sheet.

Adam Yakaboski wrote:

Kevin Willis wrote:

Have we ever established that this isn't something that the community made up? I've never actually found any sort of information that pointed to a definitive answer.

Which part are you referring to?

Stars don’t recharge every year:
-Guide 10.0 page 18 says you gain the ability to replay one adventure per star. Nothing implies that those replays recharge.

You can only use one Expanded Narrative boon per year:
-That’s written on the Expanded Narrative chronicle sheet.

I think the issue is that the sheet has SEASON 8 in big letters at the top, and the fact that the sentence as one/year could be for when they would release this every year at Gen-con.

I agree with Kevin that I have never seen any confirmation that you could use the expanded narrative from the blog post more than once, and so I have not.

I am not saying that people who do use it are wrong, but I am playing it safe with my interpretation.

I think the issue is that the sheet has SEASON 8 in big letters at the top, and the fact that the sentence as one/year could be for when they would release this every year at Gen-con.

I agree with Kevin that I have never seen any confirmation that you could use the expanded narrative from the blog post more than once, and so I have not.

I am not saying that people who do use it are wrong, but I am playing it safe with my interpretation.

Kevin is saying that you CAN use that sheet more than once, but only once per year.

Let me see if I can find something official.

I like the idea of using the Achievement Points to earn more PFS1 Replays. That's a good decision.

As far as the Chronicle Sheet goes, there are no spots for Achievement Points, Infamy, and Downtime. Will these be digitally tracked on the Paizo site only? I do realize that DT will not accumulate so that may not need a tracking system, but I think it might be something that should be listed on the sheet if it has different rates of earning for slow progression vs. normal progression.

I really feel that AcP should be listed on the Chronicle Sheets for similar reasons.

I fully agree. Every number that a player needs to keep track of should be on the chronicle sheet. I don't like the SFS faction system where you may have to look through your chronicle stack to figure out how much prestige you have earned with a particular faction.

What it comes down to is that I think every accumulating number that a player has to keep track of should be on the chronicle sheet. If that is 10 numbers then there should be a field for each and every one of them. If that is problematic then I think that is an indication that tracking that many numbers is problematic. If supporting keeping track of it is a problem that I would argue that it is problematic inherently.

While I generally like the new chronicle design I strong feel that the amount of numbers players are expected to track ignores key "human factors" design elements, i.e. that people will be turned off by the amount of "math" that the campaign expects of them, even if it is simple addition.

I'm making this a separate post because I feel it is a sufficiently separate topic. Please reconsider how PFS specific changes are made. Currently when looking at a character option I have to:

0) look at the original source (book)
1) look at the guild guide
2) look at additional resources
3) look at campaign clarifications
4) look at the FAQ
5) search for bulletin board changes by campaign staff

This makes building any character with non-core options more complex than it needs to be. I have seen many characters locally that, honestly, didn't know about one or more of the above sources of information. IMO I shouldn't have to go through a 6 step process for each and every character option in order to determine whether I can play that character in society play.

I think this leads to the perceived complexity that can push new or casual players away from the game; that is that they can't just buy a couple books and play the game as published.

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

Maybe the chronicle could have a space to write how much you earned, but there should really be a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Point totals.

the PF2 chronicle is too busy and uses space inefficiently.
It can not accommodate the current amount of text on many PF1 chronicles.

I'd assume handwritten text (what GMs and players will write in) of Comic Sans 18pt at 100% line about 6.42mm, or 7.1mm(9/32")(medium ruled) per line. Current chronicle layout has a column 33.3mm down the right hand side and about 37.8mm with headers. It could easily go down to 25mm. A large signature runs about 48mm wide or two right hand column widths.
Personally I'm not a fan of your current body text, but it is what it is (paid for). I prefer 12pt or 10pt body text at 110% line pitch.

the player name box is too big for the information it contains. All that's needed is "123456-99" and lines for where the GMs add reportables and players can fill in totals. My suggestion is to run them down the right side of the page along with Event Code, date, GM signature, and GM number.
That frees up the rest of the page and has everyone filling out just the right hand column.

Items by subtier could be eliminated and added to the boon section. The vast majority of these items in PF1 was redundant access or at times a boon to the CORE campaign. I'd ask if there's going to be a PF2 CORE campaign.

I'd just have a largish section of about 12 lines for text and have descriptive static text on line 1, "conditions gained and items sold" and then on line 5, "conditions cleared, expenditures, purchases, and notes". Totals can be on the right hand column rather than cluttering up the somewhat free form lines with static boxes for redundant totals that will appear in the right hand column.

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

Maybe the chronicle could have a space to write how much you earned, but there should really be a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Point totals.

I don't even think it's worth spending the space to track what was earned because it's an OOC currency that is different based on how and where you played: player, routine GM, RSP GM, local convention GM. special convention GM (and possibly a sliding scale, that's unclear). A hand written mistake by a rushed GM could create a lot of frustration/confusion by the recipient.

Let the software where you spend it do the tracking.

You never need to know how many achievement points were earned in that moment, only how, where, and when you played.

Kate Baker wrote:

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

Maybe the chronicle could have a space to write how much you earned, but there should really be a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Point totals.

I don't even think it's worth spending the space to track what was earned because it's an OOC currency that is different based on how and where you played: player, routine GM, RSP GM, local convention GM. special convention GM (and possibly a sliding scale, that's unclear). A hand written mistake by a rushed GM could create a lot of frustration/confusion by the recipient.

Let the software where you spend it do the tracking.

You never need to know how many achievement points were earned in that moment, only how, where, and when you played.

Also if the table is not reported you didn't actually earn any, personally I see this as an advantage.

Blake's Tiger wrote:

Kate Baker wrote:

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

Maybe the chronicle could have a space to write how much you earned, but there should really be a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Point totals.

I don't even think it's worth spending the space to track what was earned because it's an OOC currency that is different based on how and where you played: player, routine GM, RSP GM, local convention GM. special convention GM (and possibly a sliding scale, that's unclear). A hand written mistake by a rushed GM could create a lot of frustration/confusion by the recipient.

Let the software where you spend it do the tracking.

You never need to know how many achievement points were earned in that moment, only how, where, and when you played.

Also if the table is not reported you didn't actually earn any, personally I see this as an advantage.

You'll have the chronicle with the event code and GM signature, which should be all you'll need to correct those oversights. (Now whether Paizo's response to an unreported game will be, "You'll have to get your GM to report the game" or something more helpful, I don't know).

{it fits a lot on the page}

I'm just being helpful in my way - so feel free to ignore the post.

I did a test layout and it works with all the fill in fields on the right hand side. I'd note;
my fill in boxes tended to be taller with less or similar width than those in the sample.
There were three fill in box widths. Long fields like name, character name, GM signature(the long poles in the tent), accommodated an OPF Paizo# of "695695697-9898" (character #s with ACG start at "1001")and were 2.06*0.31 inch with identifier text. Medium fields like experience and gold accommodated "55,555.5" were 1.25*.031 inch. Short fields such a chronicle and tracking # were 0.88*0.31 inches with identifier text. Identifier text was 8pt trebuchet bold in the upper L-H corner of the box using 40%K (so you can write over it), Paizo style has it centered at the bottom with white text on a dark background.
Body text at 10pt with 110% leading makes it significantly larger than in the sample which is at about 7-8pt bold and I'll guess 200% leading. Larger text with less header manages to do about the same... a difference in style/taste but I prefer not to resort to reading glasses.
my line space for notes was 4.06*0.25 inch (4 lines per inch or 6.3mm per line) for 14 lines of text which was far taller than in the sample. This area covers purchases, sales, conditions, downtime, and notes along with associated costs. Certainly with less height more lines could be fit in.

In my several years of play I haven't seen players pick up more than 3 conditions or sell more than 1-2 items in PFS. Almost all conditions have to be cleared before the game ends (*cha-ching*).
Purchasing tends to be 1-4 items. Wizards have longer lists as they scribe spells and buy scrolls and what not and GM babies have a long list on their last GM chronicle. Long lists usually wind up on the back of the chronicle with a total on the front.
Core, Slow Track(now done with incremental XP), and subtier weren't addressed and I assume that's part of the changes for PF2. Where does the Infamy go?

I'm sure we'll be fine with the form come august. These things evolve as the seasons go by.

I just noticed that the Max Gold section has disappeared. *sad face*

Any chance we can get that back? As a player, I have gotten a lot of chronicle sheets where the GM has not written the Gold amount legibly. Since players generally end up getting max gold, it is useful in trying to decipher such scribbles.

And as a GM it’s very handy to have it printed right on the sheet when I am filling it out. Hopefully, this info will be put at the end of the scenario at least, so no one needs to manually add up gold for each encounter.

Gold could be determined by character level and not scenario dependent.

I thought one of the objectives for the new rules was to make the game more accessible for new players.

Currently item access is based upon chronicle sheets, 8 bullet points in the guild guide, and a fame point chart.

Now we have to know item rarity, item level, character level, achievement pts, infamy pts, and source of item access (e.g. chronicle sheet, splatbook) to determine if someone can buy an item. This structure is going to be negatively viewed by new players.

The new approach is complexity for the sake complexity.

I thought one of the objectives for the new rules was to make the game more accessible for new players.

You're confusing Paizo the game company's goal for PF2 the game system with OPF the organized play administration's overarching GMing of PFS2 the living campaign.

Gold could be determined by character level and not scenario dependent.

That might be a good idea. It could vastly simplify the rules for assigning pregen credit to lower level characters and holding chronicles.

Also, the current beancounter approach seems to be accounting for the sake of accounting. All scenarios of the same tier end up within 5% of each other for gold, so why even bother with the difference? And why care if the exact value of a hoard is correct to the last gold piece? Instead of saying "do this encounter or lose 513GP" just make it "do this or lose 500GP" in nice even chunks.

Robert Hetherington wrote:

Gold could be determined by character level and not scenario dependent.

That might be a good idea. It could vastly simplify the rules for assigning pregen credit to lower level characters and holding chronicles.

Also, the current beancounter approach seems to be accounting for the sake of accounting. All scenarios of the same tier end up within 5% of each other for gold, so why even bother with the difference? And why care if the exact value of a hoard is correct to the last gold piece? Instead of saying "do this encounter or lose 513GP" just make it "do this or lose 500GP" in nice even chunks.

It would also make writing/developement of scenarios easier

It also makes out-of-tier gold easy to calculate...I love this idea....so simple

Was one of my big pushes for PFS reform during the playtest.

Just have a chart in the guide that says your level and how much gold to gain per xp gained.

Solved weird problems with playing at the lower end of modules, playing up/down/out of subtier. Flatterns the wealth differential between different characters significantly.

(My other was a change in the subtier paradigm which judging by the sample sheet clearly didn't go through)

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Robert Hetherington wrote:

Gold could be determined by character level and not scenario dependent.

That might be a good idea. It could vastly simplify the rules for assigning pregen credit to lower level characters and holding chronicles.

Also, the current beancounter approach seems to be accounting for the sake of accounting. All scenarios of the same tier end up within 5% of each other for gold, so why even bother with the difference? And why care if the exact value of a hoard is correct to the last gold piece? Instead of saying "do this encounter or lose 513GP" just make it "do this or lose 500GP" in nice even chunks.

It would also make writing/developement of scenarios easier

I would personally appreciate no longer having to mention loot that just seems to be there to fill a quota, so I am also pretty happy with the change.

Potential drawback to 'subtier' removal is attempting to scale a table that has one or two lower level characters present -- one of the unseen benefits of 'playing up' is having enough coin to remove the pricier higher level conditions.

If there is no financial incentive to play 'up', then there will be a pull 'down'.

Not a huge deal on the surface... but only if the unique items for a scenario are available at all levels and not gated behind a subtier requirement.

How many times have people played in PFS and then saw the 'higher' subtier chronicle items and went 'dangit, now I can NEVER get that!'

EDIT: Before folks say 'Just GM it', realize that most areas are challenged to get a single table of a scenario to fire, so chances of finding enough people to play for six other prospective GMs is exceptionally unlikely at best.

EDIT2: With the new 'rarity' system, there's really no need to print unique gear for separate subtiers, is there?

Some late feedback to this post. Hopefully it will still be read and considered.

Adventure Summary
I like the Adventure Summary section because my brother can't remember what happened in 99% of scenarios.

Having said that, the Adventure Summary section is too big. Most scenarios can be summarized in one sentence, three sentences at most. And if it takes longer I don't want that much detail.

Items section larger
Basically, this section needs to be larger. The Items section needs to be wider, especially if you want to put unique items into chronicles. In some of my chronicles, just that one unique item takes up more space that you are providing for all items!

What goes in the items section?
Also, in general stop putting items into the Item section unless:

A) The price is discounted. (And I think ALL items we find in scenarios should be discounted 10% by default!); or

B) The item is unique. This would greater solve the problem with that section being currently too small.

Potential drawback to 'subtier' removal is attempting to scale a table that has one or two lower level characters present -- one of the unseen benefits of 'playing up' is having enough coin to remove the pricier higher level conditions.

If there is no financial incentive to play 'up', then there will be a pull 'down'.

Even while playing up, I haven't seen having to pay for condition removal be something that comes up very often.

Not a huge deal on the surface... but only if the unique items for a scenario are available at all levels and not gated behind a subtier requirement.

How many times have people played in PFS and then saw the 'higher' subtier chronicle items and went 'dangit, now I can NEVER get that!'

Very rarely actually. The angst is more "I played this with the wrong class/faction".

Also, the Downtime section is too large. I'm not sure what you have planned for it, but I can't imagine downtime being too exciting. It can probably be combined in notes, or on a single line.

Items sold and conditions gained could be one a single line or just in notes. I've had three level 12 characters now and on each I've sold maybe 2 items each. This section should not have more space than items.

Even "items bought" could be reduced a line or two.

In the items section, I think you could save space by not writing the book where the item comes from. Today's gamer just Googles the item and finds it in the SRD. The book's name can be found easily enough and is not needed.

In the items section, I think you could save space by not writing the book where the item comes from. Today's gamer just Googles the item and finds it in the SRD. The book's name can be found easily enough and is not needed.

That's a really, really bad idea.

"Today's gamer just Googles the item and finds it in the SRD." Not the least of which because of how many issues this tactic causes.

Even "items bought" could be reduced a line or two.

Some scenarios, you don't buy anything. Other times, you buy a new armor, five scrolls, a couple of potions, upgrade your cloak of resistance and do a few other things.

Please keep what book items are from on a chronicle. It helps at venues where there is spotty / no computer access. It helps with those players that like to play, but aren't computer literate. They do exist.

As for items bought... I really wish that went on an ITS, but understand needing to have some blank space for personal / GM notes. I've had to write "*see back of chronicle" a couple times in PFS when I ran out of space, but I don't like to do so.

Hmm

Please keep what book items are from on a chronicle. It helps at venues where there is spotty / no computer access. It helps with those players that like to play, but aren't computer literate. They do exist.

It can also be really helpful for assisting people who are computer literate but don't realize that sites they find like e.g. d20pfsrd aren't actually reliable rules sources since that site has to rename and rework any feat that references Paizo IP. If someone tries to take a feat called Battlesmasher with a prerequisite of "Must worship a god who grants the War domain" thinking "Oh man, this would be great for my Iomedaean fighter and it's from a legal source" without actually looking at said legal source, they might not realize that the feat is actually called "Gorum's Smash" and the prerequisite is "Must worship Gorum", meaning it's actually not a legal feat for their character. Considering that Paizo has said they're going to infuse more of Golarion into their rules elements, it's likely that such sites are only going to become even less reliable going forward, so getting people into the habit of recording and referencing the proper rules source could help avoid confusion and frustration that could be created by someone trying to use Google as their primary rules reference without being familiar with some of the nuances of the gaming environment.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Please keep what book items are from on a chronicle. It helps at venues where there is spotty / no computer access. It helps with those players that like to play, but aren't computer literate. They do exist.

It can also be really helpful for assisting people who are computer literate but don't realize that sites they find like e.g. d20pfsrd aren't actually reliable rules sources since that site has to rename and rework any feat that references Paizo IP. If someone tries to take a feat called Battlesmasher with a prerequisite of "Must worship a god who grants the War domain" thinking "Oh man, this would be great for my Iomedaean fighter and it's from a legal source" without actually looking at said legal source, they might not realize that the feat is actually called "Gorum's Smash" and the prerequisite is "Must worship Gorum", meaning it's actually not a legal feat for their character. Considering that Paizo has said they're going to infuse more of Golarion into their rules elements, it's likely that such sites are only going to become even less reliable going forward, so getting people into the habit of recording and referencing the proper rules source could help avoid confusion and frustration that could be created by someone trying to use Google as their primary rules reference without being familiar with some of the nuances of the gaming environment.

Also abilities that had a special rule concerning all of that type but wasn't repeated in the text of said abilities every single time.

Armor Style Feats come to mind, for a good while d20 just had the feat text up, not the rules governing those feats, namely, that you had to actually wear the type of armor mentioned in the prerequisites for the feats in question.

Also abilities that had a special rule concerning all of that type but wasn't repeated in the text of said abilities every single time.

Betrayal feats were leapt to my mind. The clarifying rules text is on the site but not on the same page as the feats, which can still cause confusion. I can recall a specific (non organized play) instance of someone being vocally upset because they had taken a betrayal feat on their inquisitor without actually reading the expanded rules for how betrayal feats work. Suffice it that while the player was perfectly happy thinking he could grab his allies and use them as shields, he was less thrilled to realize that the feat actually only allowed his allies to use him as a shield.

Tangential, in addition to Paizo products I've written a lot of 3pp sourcebooks and I occasionally get questions from people where it's very obvious they're working from an incomplete or differently organized online rules source and haven't ever actually looked at the book itself, because the answer to their question is literally in a prominent sidebar, the first paragraph of the section where the rules element(s) are presented, or a similarly accessible location. Or where the item in question was corrected in errata before the book even went to print and is clear in its function to anyone with an actual copy of the rules source.

Even in home games I tend to ask my players to use an actual rules source (either the print product or PDF) when creating their characters and save the digital tools for error checking (in the case of something like Hero Labs) or quick reference at the table.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Please keep what book items are from on a chronicle. It helps at venues where there is spotty / no computer access. It helps with those players that like to play, but aren't computer literate. They do exist.

It can also be really helpful for assisting people who are computer literate but don't realize that sites they find like e.g. d20pfsrd aren't actually reliable rules sources since that site has to rename and rework any feat that references Paizo IP. If someone tries to take a feat called Battlesmasher with a prerequisite of "Must worship a god who grants the War domain" thinking "Oh man, this would be great for my Iomedaean fighter and it's from a legal source" without actually looking at said legal source, they might not realize that the feat is actually called "Gorum's Smash" and the prerequisite is "Must worship Gorum", meaning it's actually not a legal feat for their character. Considering that Paizo has said they're going to infuse more of Golarion into their rules elements, it's likely that such sites are only going to become even less reliable going forward, so getting people into the habit of recording and referencing the proper rules source could help avoid confusion and frustration that could be created by someone trying to use Google as their primary rules reference without being familiar with some of the nuances of the gaming environment.

Or when the site includes 3rd-party items with the same name as Paizo items. For instance, we once found a Dreamcatcher in a PbP scenario. A quick search said this, but it really should have been this.

Please keep what book items are from on a chronicle. It helps at venues where there is spotty / no computer access. It helps with those players that like to play, but aren't computer literate. They do exist.

As for items bought... I really wish that went on an ITS, but understand needing to have some blank space for personal / GM notes. I've had to write "*see back of chronicle" a couple times in PFS when I ran out of space, but I don't like to do so.

Hmm

Unless the gold spent is also on the ITS you pretty much have to list what you're buying on the chronicle anyway to total up the gp value of the purchase.

Which means you wind up with three different places you're tracking gear: the chronicle , the ITS , and a usable character sheet (because the its does NOT generate one of those)

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

And yet the alternative is a website that arbitrarily at times decides that you've never GM'd scenarios and has gone down for months at a time in a situation that will probably occur again. Like your not wrong but Paizo isn't the most reliable of sites.

Still have the question about how we are tracking Fame, since it wasn't on the chronicle sheet.

Will it be on the sheet in the final version, or is it a note section thing for now?

Kate Baker wrote:

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

And yet the alternative is a website that arbitrarily at times decides that you've never GM'd scenarios and has gone down for months at a time in a situation that will probably occur again. Like your not wrong but Paizo isn't the most reliable of sites.

My other paragraph of the quoted post suggested a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Points.

My other paragraph of the quoted post suggested a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Points.

I'll probably use a spreadsheet.

Is it possible to make them much easier to be fillable from a computer?