February Update— Achievement Points , Stars, Novas, Spotlights and Conventions!

First off, congratulations to the new five star/nova GMs and congratulations to Avery on your coin!

Secondly, when the point totals get straightened out will we be told which Cons are considered Premier vs Standard? I know what the guide says, but an actual listing would be nice for prior planning.

Finally, thank you Tonya and everyone in OP for your continued hard work getting all the things worked out for us. Very excited! Keep up the good work!

I appreciate you taking lore into account! I hope you and the rest of the team do the same for determining rarity and availability of future ancestries.

A running gag has developed in my lodges over the fact that so many races formerly common to the Society have suddenly gone missing in 2nd Edition. Especially when the Pathfinder Society has invested so many resources (and scenarios) establishing relationships with Tian Xia countries and extraplanar organizations.

I mean, if hundreds of tengu flock to the Pathfinder Society and then the last letter any of them ever sends home is "Going to deal with some lich, might not come home. Thought I was signing up for archaeology lessons?" The pool of new tengu candidates might dry up a bit.

Sometimes when you engage in archeology, archeology engages back.

Most lodges I've encounted run or play at a location twice a month. So...

1. It will take ~10 months for a player to earn an iruxi or leshy.
2. It will take ~5 months for a GM to earn an iruxi or leshy
3. A GM running 4 slots at a recognized convention will be half-way to earning an iruxi or leshy.

I think the economy is solid overall, but it also means it will be harder for GMs to earn boons at conventions.

It will also hurt GMs and players who only can play or run at conventions or rarely. I also like to collect boons so I can give them to my friends who don't have the luxury of being able to play PFS regularly. I won't be able to do that with this system.

From the guide:

Achievement Points: Typically, when a Pathfinder Society game you play is reported online, Achievement Points will be credited to your Paizo account that can be redeemed for special boons, such as new playable ancestries or access to rewards from a region other than the one you chose during character creation. (See Achievement Points.)

I don't see anything specifying that that boon *can't* be gifted to someone else.

Since you select which character number you're applying it to from your account, I don't understand how you could apply it to anyone else.

Since you select which character number you're applying it to from your account, I don't understand how you could apply it to anyone else.

Carrying over PFS1e concept that paper rules them all, can a player pay the cost, printout the "paper", then give that paper to another person to allow to their character?

AcP is new so Jared's question is valid and timely.

Edit: I live in Nebraska and I swear I just heard an scream of agony coming from the west....

I thought one of the concepts behind tracking the points and boons on the website was so that the boons would be applied to the player who earned them characters.

I believe that is how it is supposed to work.

While I agree with Xathos and Nefreet, it is a good question and a quick answer would do a lot to head off wrong assumptions.

Unless it is (or will be) in the Guide.

Congratulations new novas and stars!

And if you’re in the mountains of North Carolina on Friday, February 28 through March 1, why not stop by the DoubleTree by Hilton in Asheville, NC for Mace West!

Link: https://www.justusproductions.com/category/justus-events/mace-west/

I recall conversations supporting both sides. I’m not entirely sure if we ever finalized boon sharing. With regards to 2E, we need to remember that the design methodology is for the language to be much more deliberate. Generally, OPF is an inclusionary system, meaning only things that are specifically allowed are legal. Using that, it would mean that sharing 2E boons is not allowed since there is no rule permitting it. Course that’s just speculation.

Cyrad wrote:

I appreciate you taking lore into account! I hope you and the rest of the team do the same for determining rarity and availability of future ancestries.

A running gag has developed in my lodges over the fact that so many races formerly common to the Society have suddenly gone missing in 2nd Edition. Especially when the Pathfinder Society has invested so many resources (and scenarios) establishing relationships with Tian Xia countries and extraplanar organizations.

I mean, if hundreds of tengu flock to the Pathfinder Society and then the last letter any of them ever sends home is "Going to deal with some lich, might not come home. Thought I was signing up for archaeology lessons?" The pool of new tengu candidates might dry up a bit.

Well, now, that just makes me cry on multiple fronts.

All the Ancestry boons seem highly overpriced, especially to use content you paid for in book form.

You're welcome to use it in your home games. Just not PFS without the boon.

You're welcome to use it in your home games. Just not PFS without the boon.

As the kids say, Duh! I wouldn't be concerned about the cost if I wasn't talking about using them in PFS.

TOZ wrote:

You're welcome to use it in your home games. Just not PFS without the boon.

As the kids say, Duh! I wouldn't be concerned about the cost if I wasn't talking about using them in PFS.

Lots of things had to be unlocked in P1FS as well.

I wouldn't be concerned about the cost if I wasn't talking about using them in PFS.

You are not required to use them in PFS for them to be worth your purchase.

Donald wrote:

TOZ wrote:

You're welcome to use it in your home games. Just not PFS without the boon.

As the kids say, Duh! I wouldn't be concerned about the cost if I wasn't talking about using them in PFS.

Lots of things had to be unlocked in P1FS as well.

In PF1 these ancestries wouldn't have been available to anyone other than convention GMs and purchasers of charity boons, so we've actually massively increased the accessibility to these kinds of options on the player side. We aimed to have these costs land in a place where we could be reasonably confident that anyone going all in to GM at a major convention would walk away with enough points to buy a new ancestry, regular GMs who travel to a major convention and do a 4 slot commitment will likely gain enough bonus points that they'll probably walk away with enough points for a new ancestry, and a player who plays twice a month will still unlock an uncommon ancestry once a year.

It also opens things up a bit more for the convention GMs since those who don't particularly care about less common ancestries can use the points to buy up a bunch of cheaper boons for free wayfinders, free resurrections, rebuilds, uncommon equipment and spells, etc.

Our primary goal with these price points was to open reasonable access for everyone to options that used to only be available to convention GMs, while still having meaningful perks and rewards for those convention GMs who volunteer their time to help run games and grow the organized play community.

I'd pay good AcP for a 'Seen It Once' type boon in PFS(2). :)

I wasn't fond of having to unlock races in PF1, either.

Being able to use the races in any PF2e game is required to make it worth my purchase.

I don't understand the reasoning of making them inaccessible in the first place. Come up with other uses for points to incentivize GMs and players. Having to wait a year to play a character concept you like does nothing to promote the game or sell the book.

Suggest another use as incentivizing as unlocking an uncommon race, then.

We aimed to have these costs land in a place where we could be reasonably confident that anyone going all in to GM at a major convention would walk away with enough points to buy a new ancestry, regular GMs who travel to a major convention and do a 4 slot commitment will likely gain enough bonus points that they'll probably walk away with enough points for a new ancestry, and a player who plays twice a month will still unlock an uncommon ancestry once a year.

GMing 4 slots at GenCon (a Premier Plus convention) gets you 48 points. That's 32 point short of the cheapest ancestry on this list. Even if you assume they also played in another 4 slots that's still short of the 80 points needed. Are you assuming those 4 slots worth of points are combining with other points they've earned from GMing at home? Because that's a pretty significant change from the way things worked with PF1 or SFS, where convention GMing was itself enough to qualify for these sort of awards.

I wasn't fond of having to unlock races in PF1, either.

Being able to use the races in any PF2e game is required to make it worth my purchase.

I don't understand the reasoning of making them inaccessible in the first place. Come up with other uses for points to incentivize GMs and players. Having to wait a year to play a character concept you like does nothing to promote the game or sell the book.

Hopefully not every new race will be Uncommon.

Michael Sayre wrote:

We aimed to have these costs land in a place where we could be reasonably confident that anyone going all in to GM at a major convention would walk away with enough points to buy a new ancestry, regular GMs who travel to a major convention and do a 4 slot commitment will likely gain enough bonus points that they'll probably walk away with enough points for a new ancestry, and a player who plays twice a month will still unlock an uncommon ancestry once a year.

GMing 4 slots at GenCon (a Premier Plus convention) gets you 48 points. That's 32 point short of the cheapest ancestry on this list. Even if you assume they also played in another 4 slots that's still short of the 80 points needed. Are you assuming those 4 slots worth of points are combining with other points they've earned from GMing at home? [...]

Yes. They've just gained points equivalent to 3 months of weekly play for a player when running 4 slots and the rewards given to them just for GMing in general are greater than they were in the previous campaign. Being a regular GM at any game store is still enough to buy you all three ancestry boons listed above with points to spare. If you add in 4 slots at a convention like GenCon you can clear 4 uncommon ancestries with points to spare and if you go all-in at a con you're guaranteed an ancestry. The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

rooneg wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

We aimed to have these costs land in a place where we could be reasonably confident that anyone going all in to GM at a major convention would walk away with enough points to buy a new ancestry, regular GMs who travel to a major convention and do a 4 slot commitment will likely gain enough bonus points that they'll probably walk away with enough points for a new ancestry, and a player who plays twice a month will still unlock an uncommon ancestry once a year.

GMing 4 slots at GenCon (a Premier Plus convention) gets you 48 points. That's 32 point short of the cheapest ancestry on this list. Even if you assume they also played in another 4 slots that's still short of the 80 points needed. Are you assuming those 4 slots worth of points are combining with other points they've earned from GMing at home? [...]

Yes. They've just gained points equivalent to 3 months of weekly play for a player when running 4 slots and the rewards given to them just for GMing in general are greater than they were in the previous campaign. Being a regular GM at any game store is still enough to buy you all three ancestry boons listed above with points to spare. If you add in 4 slots at a convention like GenCon you can clear 4 uncommon ancestries with points to spare and if you go all-in at a con you're guaranteed an ancestry. The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Except that not all of us GM PFS outside of the occasional con. In effect you’ve raised the price of those boons, they now require us to GM regularly outside of cons in addition to volunteering our time to make conventions possible.

Suggest another use as incentivizing as unlocking an uncommon race, then.

A healing wand you can use twice a day.

Something that gives you a focus point once a adventure.

A hero point.

Gold/equipment/runes.

Now you come up with an explanation why uncommon ancestries are good idea.

If we’re using Gen Con as a benchmark, it’s always been required that you volunteer as a top “tier” which is 7+ slots most years to qualify for the top GM boon. At 16 points per slot, that’s 112 points. More than enough to get all but the hobgoblin boon, which in past years would have been considered a charity auction level reward and only available to a single, or very small number of people. You could add the eighth block to get the hobgoblin now, or you could just roll some local area points to make up the other 8 points.

The incentive program is not going to be the “best fit” for everyone, but it is the best we have and generally supports both local and convention play. As TOZ said, OPF leadership would be happy to hear about ideas for other meaningful rewards because we are always looking for ways to incentivize various play models. If you are looking for open use of all Paizo produced content, then you are looking for a home-style game. PFS/SFS is a campaign like any other where the GM, in this case Paizo, gets to decide what is acceptable for their campaign and then the players, all of us, get to decide if it is a campaign we want to participate in. For most, it is, but for some, it is not, and that’s okay. Every campaign cannot be all things to all people. It’s unfortunate that some will not play PFS because of these limitations, but we eternally grateful for the size and scope of OPF which is arguably the largest campaign that has ever existed.

Explore! Report! Cooperate!

TOZ wrote:

Suggest another use as incentivizing as unlocking an uncommon race, then.

A healing wand you can use twice a day.

Something that gives you a focus point once a adventure.

A hero point.

Gold/equipment/runes.

None of those are going to get me to GM at a convention.

I wasn't fond of having to unlock races in PF1, either.

Being able to use the races in any PF2e game is required to make it worth my purchase.

I don't understand the reasoning of making them inaccessible in the first place. Come up with other uses for points to incentivize GMs and players. Having to wait a year to play a character concept you like does nothing to promote the game or sell the book.

I'm not sure what wasn't clear in the sample explanation for the Hobgoblins. Races aren't 'locked' it's not a video game. Lore driven decisions make the campaign interesting.

If we’re using Gen Con as a benchmark, it’s always been required that you volunteer as a top “tier” which is 7+ slots most years to qualify for the top GM boon. At 16 points per slot, that’s 112 points. More than enough to get all but the hobgoblin boon, which in past years would have been considered a charity auction level reward and only available to a single, or very small number of people. You could add the eighth block to get the hobgoblin now, or you could just roll some local area points to make up the other 8 points.

The incentive program is not going to be the “best fit” for everyone, but it is the best we have and generally supports both local and convention play. As TOZ said, OPF leadership would be happy to hear about ideas for other meaningful rewards because we are always looking for ways to incentivize various play models. If you are looking for open use of all Paizo produced content, then you are looking for a home-style game. PFS/SFS is a campaign like any other where the GM, in this case Paizo, gets to decide what is acceptable for their campaign and then the players, all of us, get to decide if it is a campaign we want to participate in. For most, it is, but for some, it is not, and that’s okay. Every campaign cannot be all things to all people. It’s unfortunate that some will not play PFS because of these limitations, but we eternally grateful for the size and scope of OPF which is arguably the largest campaign that has ever existed.

Explore! Report! Cooperate!

The reward for 4 slots at last GenCon was an uncommon race boon that let you build a Ghoran, a Kobold, or a Lupine. Now maybe that isn’t “top tier”, but it sure feels like it’s equivalent to the Leshy or Iruxi. I’m not asking for the Hobgoblin, but 4 slots translating to some type of ancestry boon like it previously has seems pretty reasonable to me.

Personally, I think those suggestions are bit too general. Think of it this way. When you unlock a race boon, it is for a specific race not just pick whatever you want. So granting something like a focus point is too vague and upsets the balance of the game design. If it was a focus point that could only be used under a specific set of circumstances, that might be more doable. Something like a one-use boon that you would need to slot that would grant an additional use of the Heal spell to target an ally that has the dying condition.

I hope we don’t do too much more Hero Point rules. We already have multiple ways to earn extra HP and the GM is empowered to issue them as much as they want. I wouldn’t want to see it become a charictature and we use it as a default reward when we cannot come up with something better or different. It started to feel that way in 1E with the reroll reward. It got so that there was almost zero chance of players not having one. We might as well have eliminated the reward and just given everyone a reroll just for playing.

None of those are going to get me to GM at a convention.

How many conventions do you GM at? I'm waiting on reasons for locked ancestries.

stuff

IIRC, I believe one of the issues was the belief by many campaign leaders that the top rewards were going out a bit faster than intended so that might be why the price is higher. Just speculating. Like with anything, it’s a matter of trying to find a balance between casual local players and hard-core multi convention goers. We are all going to have our bias on where that line exists.

Gold/equipment/runes is "GM for power."

Ancestries should be power neutral incentives; their novelty is the draw.

I'm not sure what wasn't clear in the sample explanation for the Hobgoblins. Races aren't 'locked' it's not a video game. Lore driven decisions make the campaign interesting.

So I can play a Hobgoblin without a boon in PFS?

The "uncommoness" is artificial. If you have a party of six Iruxi, those six are the only know Iruxi in the Pathfinder Society plus any NPCs met along the way. Gen Con special events are the only time more than six Society members are together. The can be 2000 people in the world playing Hobgoblins, and it will not effect any other game going on.

Until you do a multi table event.

Less jokingly in a season or two you might get to play a hobgoblin without a boon as the story advances.

How many conventions do you GM at?

PaizoCon, GenCon, Origins, Phoenix ComiCon, RinCon, SkalCon. At my peak, I was at maybe 6-7 cons in a year? Not counting online cons.

TOZ wrote:

Suggest another use as incentivizing as unlocking an uncommon race, then.

A healing wand you can use twice a day.

Something that gives you a focus point once a adventure.

A hero point.

Gold/equipment/runes.

Now you come up with an explanation why uncommon ancestries are good idea.

All of those are bad as they disrupt the gameplay of a scenario. The idea of earning access to uncommon things is the best way to go. One of the great things about PF2 is that it is balanced. If we start handing out more and more stuff that unbalances the game, then we've wasted all the time, effort, and money that went into PF2.

TOZ wrote:

Suggest another use as incentivizing as unlocking an uncommon race, then.

A healing wand you can use twice a day.

Something that gives you a focus point once a adventure.

A hero point.

Gold/equipment/runes.

Now you come up with an explanation why uncommon ancestries are good idea.

Every suggestion you made leads to power creep, to the detriment of the game. In some cases they are weak versions of power creep but no, I would not prefer those boons be available.

Davor Firetusk wrote:

I'm not sure what wasn't clear in the sample explanation for the Hobgoblins. Races aren't 'locked' it's not a video game. Lore driven decisions make the campaign interesting.

So I can play a Hobgoblin without a boon in PFS?

The "uncommoness" is artificial. If you have a party of six Iruxi, those six are the only know Iruxi in the Pathfinder Society plus any NPCs met along the way. Gen Con special events are the only time more than six Society members are together. The can be 2000 people in the world playing Hobgoblins, and it will not effect any other game going on.

I am routinely seated at PFS Smackdown in Columbia, Missouri once a month with over 30 different Pathfinders. In the Online region I am running tables for over 30 different Pathfinders every month and often more. I am also in contact with well over 100 on a weekly basis. I just can't run that many games online anymore due to my live events or I would have more Pathfinders at the tables.

Gen Con is not the only Con. We've got several online cons going on throughout the year. I attend 4 live cons every year and would love to attend more. I'm working on making that possible.

Donald wrote:

How many conventions do you GM at?

PaizoCon, GenCon, Origins, Phoenix ComiCon, RinCon, SkalCon. At my peak, I was at maybe 6-7 cons in a year? Not counting online cons.

I was asking Toz.

...Missouri once a month with over 30 different Pathfinders. In the Online region I am running tables for over 30 different Pathfinders every month and often more. I am also in contact with well over 100 on a weekly basis.

Are these one big game like at Gen Con? If not, the number of uncommon races do not matter, since they are not interact with each other.

You must be new around here.

Davor Firetusk wrote:

I'm not sure what wasn't clear in the sample explanation for the Hobgoblins. Races aren't 'locked' it's not a video game. Lore driven decisions make the campaign interesting.

So I can play a Hobgoblin without a boon in PFS?

The "uncommoness" is artificial. If you have a party of six Iruxi, those six are the only know Iruxi in the Pathfinder Society plus any NPCs met along the way. Gen Con special events are the only time more than six Society members are together. The can be 2000 people in the world playing Hobgoblins, and it will not effect any other game going on.

Not in society. OUTSIDE of society yes, as long as you own the content.

(the rest of this is not specifically for you, I just don't want to make a 2nd post)

It sounds like people are upset that the races cost too much and compared to gming at a con, sort of yes, it gets you enough points for half of a "chose your boon" which when you remember you get to chose whatever you want and you earned half of it, that's not that bad.

Now sure, you don't actually get a full race boon, but you also don't get something you don't want. I GMed at origins once and got a leshy boon. Did not really care for it. Basically a wasted boon. No offense to anyone or leshy, but at that point 2e was confirmed to happen and 1e was going to end, and I already had literally almost a dozen characters, most of which weren't even level 10 or up. I also really like reptiles and leshy was just a neutral thing, so it just wasn't for my tastes. But my friend also GMed origins and he completely ROCKED a leshineticist. He dove into that and rode it all the way through eyes of the 10. Good for him.

But now, if I GMed at origins, assuming most or all of my slots went off, which I probably wouldn't do a whole lot, but probably would play a few times, I would earn a decent amount of acp. Even if it's not enough for a current race boon, at least I don't end up with another boon I DON'T want.

And I can save those points for a future boon rotation. Potentially saving up for a new super amazing boon that, at the time they come out, nobody will have the points for yet and I will. What if they made a conjoined aasimar tiefling. Like you get all the best parts all the time. And the cost was like 200 points or something. Also maybe only 1 purchase ever (until they change it later) and most people are like "damn it, now I wish I didn't buy that hobgoblin and leshy" but then next week it's game time and I roll up with one. That'd be amazing. It'd be beyond a simple convention boon and super rare. In the end it would have been worth it. Personally I'm only buying an Iruxi. Then I'm saving up for a tiefling AND tengu (or something else. But I'm adding tiefling to whatever) and together those will be expensive. But by the time those come out for society, I'll have saved up the points for it. This is just an example. Probably won't happen, but you can imagine. What if they put a single mythic tier in as a reward with restriction that you can never gain more than that single mythic tier and must be a certain level and it would be Hella expensive. Maybe the benefit from that could be something like, once per scenario you can regain all your spell slots of a single spell level, or all your hp, temporarily max your focus points at 3 if you only have a pool of 1. See? Sounds awesome. The possibilities are nearly limitless for this system.

And that's sort of how it is now. We don't see long term goal. We don't see what will happen later. Some of the boons may suck, some may be like "Im not sure I personally want it but I'm sure it'll become useful to some". And then someday some REALLY amazing things will come out and people will want them, and some people will have decided to save up the bonus points from cons and such (and there will probably be some paper boons, not quite as good as ancestry boons but still good.) and they'll be having the last laugh. They'll be changing things as things go and they'll probably try to get the best balance they possibly can.

Paizo is thinking big picture with this achievement point system. All we can do is learn to accept that they probably know more about what they're doing than we do. And that they'll do things well enough to satisfy the majority. There will always be some who aren't happy, but that's humans. There's no pleasing everyone.

The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Uh,that's not really true. In PFS1 if I gm'ed a couple of days at a minor Con I got a race boon. Now I don't.

I'm not actually complaining. I'm happy with the new rules. I think they're probably a net improvement. But it is certainly the case that things have gotten worse in some ways for some people.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, effect the new structure has on getting GM's at those minor cons

Xathos of Varisia wrote:

...Missouri once a month with over 30 different Pathfinders. In the Online region I am running tables for over 30 different Pathfinders every month and often more. I am also in contact with well over 100 on a weekly basis.

Are these one big game like at Gen Con? If not, the number of uncommon races do not matter, since they are not interact with each other.

In Columbia we're hitting eight tables for Smackdown. Online we've had several tables at a time going. For online cons we've had more than 15 going at the same time. Players do interact with one another as they move from table to table over the course of a day's gaming.

Players with uncommon races are going to be mingling with one another at various tables. My service area has lodges where players attend both events. There are also tables running in small groups where the players can bring their characters to the monthly events. They can bring the characters they play online as well. That's the beauty of Org Play. The campaign is universal and open to all players with legal PFS2 characters. So, I expect to see uncommon races mingling with common races pretty quickly once the AcP goes live.

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

Now what would be interesting would be a way to trade ACP (or equivalent) from one system to another, but that is probably complicated.

Now what would be interesting would be a way to trade ACP (or equivalent) from one system to another, but that is probably complicated.

It'd be an interesting thought experiment, at least.... award folks who are still running PFS1 points in the all-new PFS2, so that they might have an easier transition to the new system?

Potentially in lieu of GM boons, if going for direct fairness or in addition to same for promotion of new system?

Michael Sayre wrote:

The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Uh,that's not really true. [...]

Sure it is. Did you get three race boons a year just for GMing regularly on your way to 5 stars before? Because now if you're an active GM you do, plus your bonus points for convention GMing. If you do 7+ slots at a major con, you get an ancestry boon's worth of points plus a free rebuild and three free resurrections. And if you don't want/need an uncommon ancestry you've got e.g. many lifetimes' worth of free resurrections.

At the end of the day this is one of the most generous programs we've ever had. The World Guide is a core assumption. Every weekly player gets enough points for a new ancestry over the course of the year and a twice-monthly GM who GMs a con can clear three. A highly active GM who runs weekly games and attends multiple cons might clear a year with 6 or more. And that'll apply to every GM, not just the ones who make it to GenCon or get lucky on an RSP roll.