Organized Play Programs Reveal Year Information

Reborn Strife is every other month, right?
Anyway, this all sounds awesome!

Huzzah!

So is Pathfinder Society Special #2-00: The King in Thorns, going to be run online at GenCon? Or will it wait till later in the year or next year to be played IRL?

PFS 2-00 and SFS 3-00 will make their debuts at GenCon Online! More info in next week's blog, I'm sure.

So is Pathfinder Society Special #2-00: The King in Thorns, going to be run online at GenCon? Or will it wait till later in the year or next year to be played IRL?

online at GenCon. 1-99 is being held until the next major physical convention, as it is a Grand Convocation style thing that only works in the flesh.

So...is it Corruption's Reach or Corruption's Grasp? Why is the logo different?

Something tells me that the next Adveture Path after Agents of Edgewatch, will be set in Iobaria.
And maybe even a volume of the Lost Omens series.

Marc Waschle wrote:

So is Pathfinder Society Special #2-00: The King in Thorns, going to be run online at GenCon? Or will it wait till later in the year or next year to be played IRL?

online at GenCon. 1-99 is being held until the next major physical convention, as it is a Grand Convocation style thing that only works in the flesh.

Damn. I should make that my first 2E GM session to match the 2012 Grand Convocation.

I've really enjoyed the story arcs of PFS The Year of the Open Road. And as a frequent GM, I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of how the scenarios are presented. So I'm excited to see more evolution in the way you present scenarios.

I'm curious about the Pathfinder Bounties, though. I've really enjoyed the idea of having 1 hour scenarios that can be presented in a weeknight evening without pushing the boundaries of closing time for my local game store. What are the implications of not assuming that the player characters are Pathfinders? Is this supposed to open up storylines? Will regular players with PFS characters see any difference in the organized play mechanics? I'd love to hear more about the concept.

Something tells me that the next Adveture Path after Agents of Edgewatch, will be set in Iobaria.

And maybe even a volume of the Lost Omens series.

Nope, it was revealed in the Adventure Path panel right after that there will be two three part adventure paths after Agents of Edgewatch. The first runs levels 1-10 and starts in Otari, where the Beginner Box is set. The second is 11-20 and is a return to the Ruby Phoenix Tournament.

I've really enjoyed the story arcs of PFS The Year of the Open Road. And as a frequent GM, I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of how the scenarios are presented. So I'm excited to see more evolution in the way you present scenarios.

I'm curious about the Pathfinder Bounties, though. I've really enjoyed the idea of having 1 hour scenarios that can be presented in a weeknight evening without pushing the boundaries of closing time for my local game store. What are the implications of not assuming that the player characters are Pathfinders? Is this supposed to open up storylines? Will regular players with PFS characters see any difference in the organized play mechanics? I'd love to hear more about the concept.

Just guessing, but bounties being not-explicitly pathfinders should mean you can skip explaining factions, pathfinder school training, etc. I assume we'd still want society legal builds, and no evil/no pvp, but it does simplify things.

Just guessing, but bounties being not-explicitly pathfinders should mean you can skip explaining factions, pathfinder school training, etc. I assume we'd still want society legal builds, and no evil/no pvp, but it does simplify things.

The stream also indicated that they would be for level 1 characters only.

So...is it Corruption's Reach or Corruption's Grasp? Why is the logo different?

Should be Corruption's Reach, I pinged Tonya about the logo.

Eric Nielsen wrote:

Just guessing, but bounties being not-explicitly pathfinders should mean you can skip explaining factions, pathfinder school training, etc. I assume we'd still want society legal builds, and no evil/no pvp, but it does simplify things.

The stream also indicated that they would be for level 1 characters only.

I think that was for the first year, but they could branch out. If they are going to be for other levels, but only for a one level span, I hope there is consideration given to allowing adjacent levels to play, otherwise they would be a scheduling nightmare.

PFS 2-00 and SFS 3-00 will make their debuts at GenCon Online! More info in next week's blog, I'm sure.

Oh my goodness! New specials! Woooot!

Also congratulations Dennis and Kate on your first special!

Hmm

Looks very interesting

So, question concerning this....when is the last quest, and what number is it? I am going to try and even out the exp on my current characters over the next few months, and it may take some clever juggling.

In the art piece for corruptions reach, is that “bear with purple tufts” a god callers eidolon? Does that imply we might be getting rules for summoners in 2e?

I'm almost certain that is Dolok Darkfur, who is indeed a god caller's eidolon we met in 1E.

On the change from PFS quests to bounties, I have the following reactions:

All repeatable? Fantastic!

Not tied in with the Pathfinder Society? I'm a little sadder on this one. If we are introducing newcomers to the game, we should be introducing them to the Society as well. Even if this involves some extra jobs the Society takes for money.

And some questions:

1) Since they are repeatable, that means they are for Society credit, correct?

2) Does accessible to newcomers mean they'll all be low level, or will there be higher level bounties?

3) Will they still have the same tiers and challenge points?

The new logo for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society season reminds me of the Legend rank icon for my other favorite card game, Hearthstone.

https://i.imgur.com/mDO5Dsa.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/31/1e/68/311e68c6bd86f051f9d116ee90c51941--game-i con-game-cards.jpg

They answered your questions on the stream yesterday

1) Since they are repeatable, that means they are for Society credit, correct?

They will award credit.

2) Does accessible to newcomers mean they'll all be low level, or will there be higher level bounties?

The currently planned ones are all level 1 only.

3) Will they still have the same tiers and challenge points?

They're designed to just be played at a single level.

Thank you, Evil GM! Do you remember which panel this was a part of?

It was in the latter half of the Organized Play panel that was on in the 12-2pm slot Thursday 28th.

And some questions:

1) Since they are repeatable, that means they are for Society credit, correct?

Correct. You'll still get a Chronicle sheet fairly similar to the ones quests currently grant.

2) Does accessible to newcomers mean they'll all be low level, or will there be higher level bounties?

Currently this means they'll be low level.

3) Will they still have the same tiers and challenge points?

They will not. The first batch will all be Level 1 and will only have scaling for additional players.

Edit Which I now see Evilgm already covered, so just consider this verification.

Hmm wrote:

And some questions:

1) Since they are repeatable, that means they are for Society credit, correct?

Correct. You'll still get a Chronicle sheet fairly similar to the ones quests currently grant.

Quote:

2) Does accessible to newcomers mean they'll all be low level, or will there be higher level bounties?

Currently this means they'll be low level.

Quote:

3) Will they still have the same tiers and challenge points?

They will not. The first batch will all be Level 1 and will only have scaling for additional players.

Edit Which I now see Evilgm already covered, so just consider this verification.

What about characters who had an uneven number of XP gained from Quests?

After the last scenario in that part of the world I am looking forward to discovering an area of Golarion that has not been covered much in established material.

I like the idea of players learning more about Iobaria as their PCs explore it.

I'm enjoying seeing how the Quest line continues to evolve and improve.

I'm not at all sure that this is an improvement. I very much like the current quest format.

Having L1 only quests means that experienced players have relatively little incentive to run or play them. I think that will be a problem although I hope that I'm wrong.

I know that I, personally, will likely not run them EXCEPT maybe at a local con (if that ever occurs again). And I've run and played most of the PFS2 quests.

I am seeing the same issue, Paul. Having them only cover Level 1 will make scheduling of them harder rather than easier. I really like the current structure of the quests in order to make them easier to schedule at regular game store events. I think the bounties will become more of a convention thing, rather than the 'play anywhere' thing that the quests are.

It's good to have convention-friendly material... but quests were great for regulars too. This change will make them a less frequent gameday selection.

However, let's also recognize some other things that may be factoring in here:

1) Repeatable scenarios often take more development time and effort;

2) Balancing a PF2 scenario over multiple tiers is challenging;

3) Writing an intriguing adventure in a small word count is hard, meaning that the development time for a quest may not be that much less than the development time of a scenario.

By limiting the tiers covered, you are making it simpler to balance one of these factors, and maybe freeing up some dev time.

Hmm

I've enjoyed the new Quests as well. As long as it's still under consideration to at some point have higher level bounties, I'm willing to give it a chance. But it does seem like it's going backwards a little bit in terms of the level restrictions. These don't seem like they're going to be great options for the week night short sessions at shops that close early.

The one downside to the current quests from a player/GM perspective has been that many of them tend to seem to run closer to 2 hours than to 1, and I can see that being more of an issue were even higher level ones to be written.

I think I'd hope and prefer that maybe Bounties be targeted at a single tier instead of a single level. That would save the development time for having two different tiers and adjustments, but also give some flexibility for the scheduling. But I can't imagine that wasn't discussed.

I don't mind losing the direct tie-ins to the PFS plot. In a lot of ways, that makes Bounties more relevant in future seasons, since they aren't covering material that may seem outdated.

My gut reaction to the bounties isn't really one of joy, although I suppose the idea has some possibilities.

An adventure with only one level makes it a lot less flexible to schedule. It's rarely going to be the thing you pull out for an ongoing group; as soon as not everyone is the same level, it's useless. So suppose Joe played a couple of games of PFS and now he's bringing his friends. But surprise! His newly level 2 character can't play!

At least locally here, the strictly level 1 adventures never really became a staple, even though evergreens like Wounded Wisp were pretty popular. I can see why you might not want to have someone crash the demo party with a level 4 character, but I think just one level might not be enough wiggle room. Suggestion: aim for level 1-2, not just 1.

Leaving out factions is another thing. I do think there's rather a lot of overhead involved in a session, which has bogged down quests a bit. Getting peoples' signup info, faction stuff, school items, slotting boons - they do eat into an hour's quest time. I can see why you'd want to reduce that.

But I dunno about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If what you do is just "it's like a quest, but you don't get Rep", that just feels like you got substandard rewards (and for a harder to schedule adventure) so why would you even bother? Even as a GM who's running the adventure multiple times on multiple demos, it kinda feels like you're cheating yourself. If you'd just run some regular quests or evergreens you'd have gotten more out of it.

Reducing overhead is good, and I can see why you might want to do bounties as "no boon slotting, no school items, no faction slotting" but there should be something else instead that makes up for it. For example, a bounty that doesn't award any faction Rep could award more Fame.

I also don't know so much if you should really disavow factions in bounties altogether. I think you could write really good bounties with low overhead if you made the bounty about just one faction (or school). The mission comes from that faction, and you earn a point of Rep with the faction at the end. You could then write a whole cycle of loose bounties, each of which showcases a single faction or school. Where have I seen this before? Since they're all replayable, they make for a pretty good "getting to know you" series for existing players test-driving a new character too.

You can make the numerical outcome a certainty: fixed Rep/Fame/Gold depending on the story. So you can prefill half the values on the chronicle sheet, cutting down on overhead time.

A single Tier makes more sense than a single level. That way, one could always play a pregen at 1, 3 or 5 to join your friends.

I know that I, personally, will likely not run them EXCEPT maybe at a local con (if that ever occurs again). And I've run and played most of the PFS2 quests.

I just had a thought that might help to incentivize GMs a little.

Let the GM apply the chronicle to a level 1-4 character and get full reputation/fame.

For any experienced GM, a chronicle that can only be applied to a 1st level character has a value that rapidly approaches 0.

Michael Clarke wrote:

So...is it Corruption's Reach or Corruption's Grasp? Why is the logo different?

Should be Corruption's Reach, I pinged Tonya about the logo.

Yes, Reach should exceed Grasp. ;)

I, for one, like the idea of the bounties.

As an organizer, once 2-3 are available, you can schedule them as a table for a Game Day. Perhaps mix them in with actual quests (though I expect from this announcement that only season 1 will have quests now).

As I am looking at teaching a pretty decent sized group from work about PF2 (we had one session, which went well, but something has gotten in the way of running another)

I, for one, like the idea of the bounties.

As an organizer, once 2-3 are available, you can schedule them as a table for a Game Day. Perhaps mix them in with actual quests (though I expect from this announcement that only season 1 will have quests now).

As I am looking at teaching a pretty decent sized group from work about PF2 (we had one session, which went well, but something has gotten in the way of running another)

The following is NOT meant to be snarky. I am genuinely curious.

Could you please explain to me the advantage of the new format (as opposed to the existing quests) for this purpose? I'm honestly just not seeing it. Sure, they're repeatable but they're ALSO for level 1 only so its not as if that really matters that much (as far as I can tell).

Advantages I see: no need to explain factions, no need to deal with pathfinder training schools. Simplify the mission briefing q/a, to give more time for the combat or skills/role play challenges. I can see more interesting content fitting into a 1 hour window.

Cons: the narrow level range is the biggest iMO, definitely think they should still award fame, even if no rep is involved.

Yeah, it’s really not so much what the Bounties are that I think people don’t like. It’s that quests are being replaced with something that doesn’t fill the same need. I think people would generally be ok with quests going to one tier and not being as tied into the society. But this is quests being replaced by level 1 only content that provides less rewards. For a group that can only meet for two hours, that’s not sustainable. Once they have 12 Bounties, they have to move on to other things, as they’ll be 2nd level. And when that happens with some of the players before others, either someone is making a new character or someone is left out, or worst case there aren’t enough players to make a legal table anymore.

If Bounties were being introduced alongside quests, or we were getting a 50/50 split, I think there would be more excitement. It’s the indication that there will be no more new quests, after we pleaded for so long to get more and higher level quests that is the problem.

Ferious Thune, yes, that's it. I do think Bounties will fit very nicely into our convention newcomer slots, and I could see us doing a run of 12 of them in Play-by-post as a GM to start a character off. I'll just miss the sheer utility and flexibility of Quests. Quests were one of the most awesome new options in Society play.

I'm sure the Bounties will be great come convention season in 2021, though!

Hmm

Back in the D&D 4th edition days (insert jeers here - I know).

I was a in-store volunteer GM for the weekly D&D encounters. For those unfamiliar, it was an attempt to support and generate in-store play on week nights. The material for each session was short. Similar in a way to the Quests or what is being described for Bounties.

The main difference was that the D&D Encounters was written in blocks and intended for a weekly run for a continuing storyline. So the booklet came with 6-9 sessions of weekly material. Level-ups happened withing that storyline (usually after every third week). So new players could play in what was basically a campaign that took place over 6-9 weeks.

I could see Bounties working as described as an introduction to Pathfinder if the stories were individual parts of a connected story. That would keep people coming back to get the next part of the story, even if the entire story played out at 1st level.

I really do like the idea of publishing scenarios that support the weeknight game. A 6pm start after work that can reasonably end before the local shop closes at 8pm is a nice thought.

But I think it'll be harder to run if the stories are (a) stand-alone and (b) published only once-a-month.

My hot take here is I'm a little sad to see quests as a format go away, but I am VERY happy that a shorter format takes its place. To be honest, I've always thought quests are neat conceptually but ultimately take so much time to setup and run compared to the reward you get back out of it they haven't been terribly attractive to me. Quests seem to take about half as much time as a scenario, but give rewards only a quarter as good.

If I were to offer a suggestion, I'd double the rewards of quests and keep them around. I don't see any reason (outside the very tangible reality of content pipeline overload) that bounties, quests, scenarios, and adventures can't coexist as a sliding scale.

All that said: Very excited to have bounties available and see what develops in this new year of PFS!

As someone that has GM'd 9/10 of the quests and played 5/10, I tend to agree. I like the idea of quests but the ratio of rewards to time is not there. I feel like the ratio was better in PFS1 but I could be wrong, I didn't play many of them.

Bounty's sound fun and a better fit for the 'bite sized adventure' niche. I also like the idea of them being a jumping off point for new players/characters to join the Society. Despite the issues with questionable difficulty, the narrative opportunities presented in Fall of Plaguestone were great for the same reason.

Quests should stay the way they are but be worth 2 xp and twice the gold. They almost all took 1.5 to 2 hours. As a shorter format scenario was great but making efen shorter ones will probably make for a very fragmented and shallow experience.

I honestly don't like the idea of bounties beyond a couple of demo sessions. They sound gimmicky otherwise.

I'm kinda confused about that since I've been running quests as "4 quest in four hours" format in roll20 ._.;

I've also successfully run quest 1-4, an 5-8 in our venue's 4 hour scenario slots. It was a bit of a tough fit -- but it didn't feel as good as SF/PF1 quest packs. Between the increased depth of each pf2 mission briefing, re-sign-in/deal with chronicles in between each one, and all the boons/pf training juggling, it did feel like admin tasks ate into a significant amount of the time. Plus the simple fact that the stories are disjoint.

If quests had been restructured as Bounties with
normal tiers (1-4) even if all year 2 bounties are limited to 1-4
no pf-trained items
no faction rewards/no rep
Limit the mission briefing to a box text (just some text the PCs read off a notice board, no one to question)
I hate saying this, but maybe no boons activate during bounties/ no slotting.

That would have solved most of my problems (not the 4 sets of chronicles to fill out in between each block), but I'll also grant that since bounties are targeting shorter sessions as their primary goal, speeding up 4-in-1s should not be a priority.

If there's time for them to look at at least expanding form single level to single subtier (1-2), I think that will go a long way. While the stories are still disjoint, they are implicitly tied together as 'down on their funds/bored adventurer spamming the bounty board' which works better for me.

The one downside to the current quests from a player/GM perspective has been that many of them tend to seem to run closer to 2 hours than to 1, and I can see that being more of an issue were even higher level ones to be written.

I am glad I am not the only who has seen this trend. I was beginning to think I was GMing them wrong since no one else had addressed this.

I think I'd hope and prefer that maybe Bounties be targeted at a single tier instead of a single level. That would save the development time for having two different tiers and adjustments, but also give some flexibility for the scheduling. But I can't imagine that wasn't discussed.

THIS. Limiting it to Level 1 means there isn't really any need for them to be repeatable. Players will play through them once, maybe twice, but they since they cannot be played again with the same character, their use becomes limited. And honestly, once a player has experienced all the options involved, it becomes a moot point anyways. The "farming" of scenarios was part of what killed 5E Adventurer's League locally; the modules being endlessly replayable meant some players would just use them as grind quests to jump to 2nd level.

Some players like to devote play to one character at a time. The current Quest format gives them an option while awaiting the next scenario to play. And while I can understand making a decision to never develop scenarios after a certain CR (for example, 5th level where the last pregens are set), I think limiting this to a just level 1 might be short-sighted.

Luckily, we have seen LOTS of changes in this first season, with the format and presentation of scenarios evolving as time passes. I'm sure this will be no different.