July Update – AcP, Sanctioning, Spotlights and Conventions

Huzzah!

I'm so excited for the AcP system!

I'm also happy for the decision to extend the rebuild boon with the intent to push out APG sanctioning out before it goes away <3

An excellent update. Thank you.

Let me rephrase:

In 30 days, PFS players, you have 30 days to get your act together.

Yes?

Weird flex, but okay.

60

We will extend the date of the free rebuild to 31 August.

Thank you for extending the free rebuild past the (expected) sanctioning date of the APG.

Yay! Yay for Achievement points. Yay for boons. I am so happy that you are extending the rebuild past the APG date. One of my characters has been kept as a strict GM Baby so that I could eyeball Oracle before making her! Thank you so much!

Congratulations to Alexander Lenz! Well deserved!

A question... (And one you probably cannot answer yet, but I am still going to ask it, because it is burning in my brain.)

One of our upcoming iconics, Korakai, is a tengu. Will tengus be listed as a common race in the APG? Otherwise, it will be a bit weird having a pregen whose race is not available for new players making characters. I hope so! I love Korakai! James Case did such a good job writing him up!

Congratulations Alex! You put so much work into every Task Force Review and have earned this honor!

One of our upcoming iconics, Korakai, is a tengu. Will tengus be listed as a common race in the APG? Otherwise, it will be a bit weird having a pregen whose race is not available for new players making characters. I hope so! I love Korakai! James Case did such a good job writing him up!

I mean...the Fox Form feat wasn't legal in 1st edition but our Iconic Witch was clearly a fox form kitsune and I refuse to believe otherwise.

I mean, iconics are known to break the rules now and then.

One of my characters has been kept as a strict GM Baby so that I could eyeball Oracle before making her! Thank you so much!

Solely an observation, assuming this GM baby credit places her above 1st level currently, but you might be better served keeping her a GM baby depending on how much you intend to play her before APG is released.

She currently has N gold. If she plays one scenario and uses K gold worth of consumables beyond School Items while earning M gold from scenarios played, then unless K > 0.85*(N+M), you're losing a significant amount of gold.

I think this rebuild serves those who have been actively playing a given character (+/- how efficient you have been with your consumable consumption).

Because this is fun and relaxing for me, I used the 85% rebuild gold to try to calculate how the OP team expects players to use consumables.

Have we seen a list of what the ACP boons will be?

This ACP system and rebuild boon is great as I want to use it to fix/update a couple of my characters with this. But, I am completely confused by the gold stuff mentioned for this rebuild and I don't understand how it applies to me, at all.

Also, I went into the page and purchased the rebuild boon, and saw that there was something to download, but my computer did not recognize what file type it is. What is this and what do I need to open this file? If you haven't figured it out already. I am a completely analogue and in-person player with no online play experience or know-how.

This ACP system and rebuild boon is great as I want to use it to fix/update a couple of my characters with this. But, I am completely confused by the gold stuff mentioned for this rebuild and I don't understand how it applies to me, at all.

Also, I went into the page and purchased the rebuild boon, and saw that there was something to download, but my computer did not recognize what file type it is. What is this and what do I need to open this file? If you haven't figured it out already. I am a completely analogue and in-person player with no online play experience or know-how.

Right click the file. Rename. Rename it anything as long as it ends in .pdf

Have we seen a list of what the ACP boons will be?

This blog post from February has a list, but I don't know if there have been changes since then.

Did I read correctly that the APG will be sanctioned before the end of the month,aka before the book comes out? I'm hoping to have it sanctioned for Gencon so I can play a Ratfolk Witch or an Orc Druid Mauler, but dont want tonget my hopes too high just yet.

Ashanderai wrote:

This ACP system and rebuild boon is great as I want to use it to fix/update a couple of my characters with this. But, I am completely confused by the gold stuff mentioned for this rebuild and I don't understand how it applies to me, at all.

Also, I went into the page and purchased the rebuild boon, and saw that there was something to download, but my computer did not recognize what file type it is. What is this and what do I need to open this file? If you haven't figured it out already. I am a completely analogue and in-person player with no online play experience or know-how.

Right click the file. Rename. Rename it anything as long as it ends in .pdf

Ah, awesome! Thanks!

This ACP system and rebuild boon is great as I want to use it to fix/update a couple of my characters with this. But, I am completely confused by the gold stuff mentioned for this rebuild and I don't understand how it applies to me, at all.

Also, I went into the page and purchased the rebuild boon, and saw that there was something to download, but my computer did not recognize what file type it is. What is this and what do I need to open this file? If you haven't figured it out already. I am a completely analogue and in-person player with no online play experience or know-how.

Yeah, there’s a definite downside to the 85% gold thing if you aren’t completely changing your character. If you just want to adjust attributes or swap out a background or something small like that, which isn’t possible using retraining, you end up paying a 15% tax in order to be able to do so. Which is weird, but ultimately probably not too bad. I feel like in a few instances getting 85% gold will end up in someone having slightly more than they would have from selling things back. In most cases, I think it will end up in having less gold than they would just selling items back.

If I end up using a rebuild on my Champion, it’s going to be because there’s a background I want to change into or that I need something as a prereq for an archetype that retraining can’t get me. It’s doubtful that I would change any equipment, and as things stand right now, I haven’t spent any gold on consumables on the character. I’m pretty sure with the school items and no way to use scrolls that I probably won’t ever spend much on consumables. And I don’t really know why I would ever sell anything back under normal circumstances.

But it’s good to know that the 85% thing doesn’t apply to people who used the boon before the text appeared on it. That would have been a mess.

Congratulation Alex.... now get back to work I want a lot of things from the APG ^^

Did I read correctly that the APG will be sanctioned before the end of the month,aka before the book comes out? I'm hoping to have it sanctioned for Gencon so I can play a Ratfolk Witch or an Orc Druid Mauler, but dont want tonget my hopes too high just yet.

No:

We will extend the date of the free rebuild to 31 August. This allows us enough time to get the APG sanctioned and for players to use the rebuild to include options from that book.

APG seems to be coming out at the end of the month, that is, at the time of the GenCon. It's pretty much impossible that it would be -immediately- sanctioned. However, the free rebuild boon was extended by a month, from the end of July to the end of August, so 1 month after the release.

Apparently, they hope to get the APG sanctioned in a month, but I think that seems maybe a bit too optimistic, given the time it normally takes for stuff to get sanctioned.

Not to mention that previous blog posts have led me to believe that they'll maybe rotate the races which are available through ACP instead of everything being available all the time, so even if orc (probably not but you'll never know?) or ratfolk (Probably yeah?) get sanctioned, you may end up waiting for a month or a couple to get the previous races out of rotation and add those into the AcP rewards. Not 100% sure though.

We're working hard on the APG AR review, but it's phenomenally crunchy.

I don't know if an official plan for a sanctioning date has been made. APG release is almost certainly intended to be ]on GenCon. So even if it's sanctioned on launch, that means you're trying to digest 270 pages of crunch and rebuilding your character while at the same time you're rushing from slot to slot.

If I were you, I wouldn't try to do that, I don't think it would be really enjoyable. You could play a level 1 APG character where the rebuilding stakes aren't so high. Meanwhile, for your higher level characters, you can take your time to make plans for a proper rebuild over the course of August.

I guess it depends, if someone has been working on a build that is based on mostly CRB options, but they want that character to be an adorable ancestry from the APG... like orcs for example... sure that could likely work even if you ignore the actual rules and ancestry feats for orcs.

On the same token, it might be a better idea to take some more time absorbing the rules for the new classes and archetype, you really to not want to rebuild a character into a tiefling gnome swashbuckler multiclass rogue without a solid understanding of those options.

And just consider that many of your GMs at Gencon will have been busy prepping their tables, and might not be able to answer all of your potential questions yet.

Quote:

One of my characters has been kept as a strict GM Baby so that I could eyeball Oracle before making her! Thank you so much!

Solely an observation, assuming this GM baby credit places her above 1st level currently, but you might be better served keeping her a GM baby depending on how much you intend to play her before APG is released.

She currently has N gold. If she plays one scenario and uses K gold worth of consumables beyond School Items while earning M gold from scenarios played, then unless K > 0.85*(N+M), you're losing a significant amount of gold.

I think this rebuild serves those who have been actively playing a given character (+/- how efficient you have been with your consumable consumption).

Yeah... I realized that. She'll stay a GM Baby for now! This is a character concept whose mechanics have been tough to nail down.

We're working hard on the APG AR review, but it's phenomenally crunchy.

I don't know if an official plan for a sanctioning date has been made. APG release is almost certainly intended to be ]on GenCon. So even if it's sanctioned on launch, that means you're trying to digest 270 pages of crunch and rebuilding your character while at the same time you're rushing from slot to slot.

If I were you, I wouldn't try to do that, I don't think it would be really enjoyable. You could play a level 1 APG character where the rebuilding stakes aren't so high. Meanwhile, for your higher level characters, you can take your time to make plans for a proper rebuild over the course of August.

I agree that players who want to use APG stuff at Gencon are better off making new level 1 characters.

But many players will get the book earlier due to pre-order subscriptions.

And we had Starfinder players making their own mechanics the same Gencon Starfinder came out. Making a level 1 character for a whole new system is way more challenging than making a level 4-5 character using new rules.

And lots of players want level 1 Lost Omens World Guide/Character Guide options that were unavailable until we got the AcP system online. Some players just want to see what's on the AcP (and don't follow the blog that carefully) and are waiting until the full lauch of the AcP before making any final decisions.

Well I wasn't planning on rebuilding someone for Gencon. I just wanna make a plant druid named Stump who has a Leshy familiar named Twig who is a Mauler. Starting at level one. Druid doesnt have too many feats for the plant druid, so this works well for my concept. Was hoping to use him mostly during the Con to level him up lol.

"Mauler"?

"Mauler"?

It's not just for familiars anymore.

Have physical books already dropped?

Have physical books already dropped?

No, but the list of archetypes that is in the book was in a screen shot that dropped during a PaizoCon Online panel about the APG. The developers also discussed a lot of the content that will be in it. You can find that video on the Paizo Twitch channel page.

Gotcha.

Congratulations Alexander!

Gotcha.

Here's a list of APG confirmations from the stream if you're curious about anything else.

Do you know how to find that on Twitch? I can't seem to locate this panel at all, though I could find the YouTube video.

Hmm

We don't need a boon to rebuild a level 1 PC that hasn't played at 2nd level, right? What about "GM Credit Only" PCs beyond level 2? Can they be rebuilt without a boon?

Also, what are "code rolls"?

Code roll is Paizo's terminology for launching a new version of the code running their website. Other places might call it an 'update', a 'release', a 'deployment', 'push', etc Lots of terms used throughout the industry. I hadn't heard code roll before, but I'm guessing its short for 'code roll out'

Do you know how to find that on Twitch? I can't seem to locate this panel at all, though I could find the YouTube video.

Hmm

Here you go!

We don't need a boon to rebuild a level 1 PC that hasn't played at 2nd level, right? What about "GM Credit Only" PCs beyond level 2? Can they be rebuilt without a boon?

Also, what are "code rolls"?

These are boon-style rebuilds for characters outside of the normal rebuild limits: played a scenario above 1st level.

Until you play a game in which your character has 12 or more XP, you can freely rebuild your character completely except for Reputation earned and character number.

Don't forget that retraining is available for feats (archetype dedications and multiclass dedications are feats) and skills. All it takes is 7 days of your Downtime after a scenario.

What about "GM Credit Only" PCs beyond level 2? Can they be rebuilt without a boon?

Hmm, this is tricky. I want to say that you don't need to rebuild because in my mind until you play with the character nothing is locked in. But you *do* get downtime! So I'm not sure what to make of that

This is why you should probably just record the dice rolls you made for your Downtime activities, and then when you sit down to build your character and apply their Chronicles, everything can be done at once.

This is why you should probably just record the dice rolls you made for your Downtime activities, and then when you sit down to build your character and apply their Chronicles, everything can be done at once.

Yes. There's a distinction between assigning and applying. It's probably in the guide now. Otherwise, I'll never find the post. I think Nefreet's suggestion is a good one.

... Why the 15% charge of overall wealth for character rebuilds? This likely won't heavily effect me immediately, because I've already done a couple of my rebuilds, but for both of those, I used this primarily to change a few aspects of my character I didn't like and to use options from books that weren't previously available. In both cases, this literally didn't affect my equipment at all. And given I both was low enough level as to not have needed to "upgrade" things and the fact that pathfinder school items were the expendables I used, this would have reduced my gold significantly for no reason...

PFS1 used a system that allowed sell-back at 100% of existing items. This seems like a much better way to do rebuilds, as then the character has spent what they've spent and used what they've used, and they can trade in existing equipment where applicable but aren't punished if they don't need to do that. Even if you had the sellback rate by 85%, shrug, but this just seems like a very odd change to make with really no rationalization as to where that number came from.

EDIT: It's hard for me to say if 15% make sense at later levels.... but what was this number based on? Care to show your math?

Someone else guesstimated the math earlier up thread and it seemed rather compelling (to me, at least). I doubt Leadership will release their reasons.

Mind you, it averages out. Some people who spent heavily on consumables will actually get more back from a rebuild. Some people like yourself will lose more.

But the average player will come close to breaking even.

Someone else guesstimated the math earlier up thread and it seemed rather compelling (to me, at least). I doubt Leadership will release their reasons.

Mind you, it averages out. Some people who spent heavily on consumables will actually get more back from a rebuild. Some people like yourself will lose more.

But the average player will come close to breaking even.

Thanks, didn't spot it because of hidden text. I don't find that logic that compelling, mostly because I don't tend to see people use a lot of consumables beyond those found in-game and ones from their training. I could see 1.5 per level, but 1.5 per scenario seems mighty high.

Beyond this, I just don't get the logic for punishing some players and rewarding others arbitrarily... A sell-back system doesn't seem more complicated, and it means you pay for what you use. If I'm building a character with the intent of rebuilding later (something one might do if they think that a particular build will only be effective at a certain point), I'm essentially incentivized to blow through consumables as much as I can early on, as I'll be getting that gold back later.

One thought I had, is that it also might be an effort to encourage people to use the downtime retraining options more. Even a heavily optimized crafter (or earned income w/ feats & boons to do on-level dcs instead of level -2) would still rather have a couple adventures loss of downtime -- to swap a couple of feats or re-assign pathfinder training points, etc -- instead paying 15% for those changes.

Now this doesn't help when you want to swap in a new ancestry, but basically leave everything else the same (which I know is one of your particular use cases).

One thought I had, is that it also might be an effort to encourage people to use the downtime retraining options more. Even a heavily optimized crafter (or earned income w/ feats & boons to do on-level dcs instead of level -2) would still rather have a couple adventures loss of downtime -- to swap a couple of feats or re-assign pathfinder training points, etc -- instead paying 15% for those changes.

Now this doesn't help when you want to swap in a new ancestry, but basically leave everything else the same (which I know is one of your particular use cases).

I'd kinda assume the ACP cost is the "cost" associated with this that incentivizes that sort of thing, not the gold cost, which is supposed to be, in theory, neutral. I realize this isn't true for the free rebuilds, but for the future ones that have ACP costs (some scaling) associated with them, you're fairly limited in how many of these you'll purchase.

+1 for 100% sellback and not 85%. I don't know about you guys, but the only consumables I ever use in 2e are the ones provided for free at the beginning of the session from the Scrolls/Swords/Spells schools. Why would I want/have to pay a 15% wealth tax simply because I wanted to play my PC up to the 2 week cutoff window instead of grab a rebuild boon 2 weeks ago and sit on it for "who knows how long" until the ACP system that was supposed to be launched ~1 year ago suddenly started working. For all any of know the ACP system could have been delayed another year! Its like 1 step forward 2 steps backward.

For me random wealth tax makes this a no go. I'll have a bunch of PCs stuck with their builds and no/very little season 1 scenarios to play any of the cool options from the APG. Is it really the intent of the nebulous PFS gods to de-incentivize using new APG stuff?

Clearly people should know what they spent on consumable items because they have an inventory of items which will exclude the consumables they spent. It should be rather easy to say 'you don't get back any consumable item costs spent' with a rebuild so your total gold will be:

TOTAL GOLD FOR REBUILD = TOTAL REMAINING GOLD + TOTAL INVENTORY 100% GOLD COST

(i.e., if you spent 25 gp on consumables that aren't there you'll be 25gp short the total chronicle gold).

Let us not forget that some of us just want to use already sanctioned materials (i.e., an Iruxi/Leshy/Hobgoblin) and WOULD have used them on new characters MONTHS ago if the ACP system worked prior to using up non-repeatable scenarios. Half my PCs were earmarked to just be the same build but with a previously sanctioned new race (maybe a swap of 1 or 2 ancestry feats is what this will amount to but no change in inventory).

Just a weird decision from the powers at be.

Sounds like the system works as intended.

I think a lot of us, myself included, have been trained to work frugally in a race to get weapon and armor upgrades. When we do buy consumables, we think of them as last resort items.

I don’t have a solution for us—other than changing our working paradigm—just the observation.

It does suck that I dragged my feet in grabbing that boon for one of my characters. I just wanted a feat changed. Had I known ahead of time there was going to be an extra cost ("tax" isn't really the right word because taxes pay for other services), I would have grabbed it sooner.

But now I'll just use the Retraining system.

I do somewhat agree that the AcP cost should be enough. That's an extremely limited resource for most players, and prevents them from using AcP on other fun things like uncommon races.

To have the 15% cost on top of the AcP cost seems a bit much to me. But not enough that I'll rally against it if it's what Leadership thinks is best.