Organized Play Initiative: Digitization

The move to have character raised with AcP is troubling, as it is not specific to the character but is a player resource used in place of a character driven services.

This means that AcP will now be used up for minor boons that should either be on the chronicle sheets which are no longer around or have NPC spell services that are needed. This would be in place of the wanted boons that AcP was supposed to take the place of, such as Race (Ancestry) boons and Convention boons that had been handed out in the past.

Hopefully, there is some other system in place specific to the character instead of a player combined resource used to suck up AcP for Raise Dead and other services that Fame had been used for.

Indeed. There were already enough players upset at the number of games required to unlock an Uncommon Ancestry.

Now those players have to either delay those unlocks longer or go without all of the minor Boons (like Wayfinders) that used to be acquired through Fame.

I would still appreciate it if Alex or Tonya would speak to why they have once again instituted a policy that relies on a website-based system before that system has actually been completed and tested.

It's going on two months now since I submitted a request to correct AcP totals. If even that can't be done efficiently now, why have you jumped the gun on this new system?

As a fairly minor example of how overloaded the web team is, PF2 glyphs are still not displaying yet.

It may be shallow and wrong of me but I admit that when I see a poster I do not recognize I do glance at their stars/novas to get a quick idea of how much GMing they have done. In some (emphasis on SOME) cases a lack of GMing experience does impact the validity of their arguments to me.

I do have one particular concern about the move to AcP only.

Currently if your PC dies you can access return to life using either fame or AcP. The AcP Second Chance boon increases in price every time it is purchased. That will mmake it increasingly difficult to restore a character.

Is there a way for this boon to increase in price on a per character basis rather than per player.

“Saint Bernard de Clairveaux” wrote:

I would still appreciate it if Alex or Tonya would speak to why they have once again instituted a policy that relies on a website-based system before that system has actually been completed and tested.

It’s going on two months now since I submitted a request to correct AcP totals. If even that can’t be done efficiently now, why have you jumped the gun on this new system?

As a fairly minor example of how overloaded the web team is, PF2 glyphs are still not displaying yet.

It may be shallow and wrong of me but I admit that when I see a poster I do not recognize I do glance at their stars/novas to get a quick idea of how much GMing they have done. In some (emphasis on SOME) cases a lack of GMing experience does impact the validity of their arguments to me.

If the web team's overloaded to this extent, Saint Bernard de Clairveaux's point seems even more validated.

More importantly, let’s not be elitist. Many Society players have been buying Paizo products and playing Society since launch, but might not have lots of stars. The voices of those loyal customers are important because they have supported Paizo over a decade +. The voices of new players matter too, because the overall success of 2e matters a lot to Paizo’s business model.

And FWIW, that person is posting on an alias that displays stars, but the stars are not showing up on the forum here. That may be indicative of yet another website issue (or maybe the name is too long… which is also a site / design problem). Stars/novas/glyphs often display incorrectly or not at all, making them even less useful as a forum tool.

As an aside, I know tons of 2/3-star GMs who are way better at what they do than most 5-star GMs. Stars aren't even accurate indicators of talent.

Putting that much emphasis on stars or novas is totally unhelpful to this — and most — conversations.

Can anyone tell me where in the Guide I can find the one minion rule? I can't find it and I want to be sure I understand it. Or is it something just in the new guide?

It may be shallow and wrong of me but I admit that when I see a poster I do not recognize I do glance at their stars/novas to get a quick idea of how much GMing they have done. In some (emphasis on SOME) cases a lack of GMing experience does impact the validity of their arguments to me.

I’m not necessarily proud of having only three (undisplayed in forum) stars and one glyph since playing PFS since Season 2. That I have that many means this: I am a gamer who greatly prefers playing to GMing, but I take seriously the obligation to give back to the community. I have some fans of my GM style, but I ain’t perfect.

Having said that, I wasn’t directing my comments to you, but rather to the Paizo team. So I can’t say I care if you dismiss my arguments.

They can take me seriously or not, but I hope they’re taking feedback into account as an aggregate.

One other "bug" to be aware of when conducting audits of your character's reported reputation -- in the early months of season one, it looks like the bonus reputation checkbox wasn't in the system yet, so I think scenarios 1-03, 1-04, and 1-05, if you played them when they were current will likely not report the faction success even if your paper chronicles show it. It looks like by the November time frame things were working. (1-00. 1-01, and 1-02 didn't have bonus faction missions and are thus unaffected).

If your chronicle shows the bonus reputation and you're off by 1-2 points in your online summary, its worth reaching out to the GM if you can, or your VC if you can't.

While I do have some concerns, such as the ever-increasing cost of raising dead characters, and over-costing of ancestry boons, I in general support this change. I have had too many friends locally who had paper boons and chronicles destroyed in natural disasters, with little recourse as far as race boons go.

If your chronicle shows the bonus reputation and you're off by 1-2 points in your online summary, its worth reaching out to the GM if you can, or your VC if you can't.

And this is exactly what I DON"T want to see

"Hi, can you wade through paizos site of errors, goblins, and tech ysoki to try to fix an error from a game 6 months ago...."

It gets really annoying really fast.

I won't deny that conducting these audits/helping people straighten out a years worth of reported scenarios is work, and generally annoying work. However, I think the future process is promising and valuable from the "more incentive to report", "more eyes confirming the report", "more data for the OP team to lobby for increase resources".

It would be nice if there was a way they (OP) could do an audit of the early scenarios (especially if they have a 'last-updated' timestamp) and perhaps blanket grant full faction credit on those three missions for old and un-touched sessions. Sure it might over-grant some reputation, but if they can do it as a quick batch update, its easier than having hundreds/thousands of players trying to track down GMs to get it fixed.

The faction mission checkbox yes/no really needs to show up in the Show Sessions view on the Summary page to help with these audits. At present there's no way for a player w/o edit rights to confirm if the box was checked or not for an individual session. For instance if they show 2 bonus faction in their summary, but should have 4, they can't tell which session is failing.

pauljathome wrote:

It may be shallow and wrong of me but I admit that when I see a poster I do not recognize I do glance at their stars/novas to get a quick idea of how much GMing they have done. In some (emphasis on SOME) cases a lack of GMing experience does impact the validity of their arguments to me.

I’m not necessarily proud of having only three (undisplayed in forum) stars and one glyph since playing PFS since Season 2. That I have that many means this: I am a gamer who greatly prefers playing to GMing, but I take seriously the obligation to give back to the community. I have some fans of my GM style, but I ain’t perfect.

Having said that, I wasn’t directing my comments to you, but rather to the Paizo team. So I can’t say I care if you dismiss my arguments.

They can take me seriously or not, but I hope they’re taking feedback into account as an aggregate.

I obviously miscommunicated for which I apologize. I am most certainly NOT saying that I dismiss (or even downplay) all (or even many) arguments based on lack of stars. I was not trying to be elitist

For example, number of glyphs was totally irrelevant when looking at your post above

I was just intending to point out that
1) the Paizo web team is so overworked they can't fit getting that achieved into their schedule (ie, I was agreeing with you)
2) the information isn't completely irrelevant

To hopefully be clearer, an example of a discussion where I think stars ARE relevant is when people are discussing how Paizo should format a scenario. And even there, while I DO think experience matters, I'll certainly consider a well reasoned argument by a novice GM. In fact, some arguments GAIN weight when given by a novice GM

Can anyone tell me where in the Guide I can find the one minion rule? I can't find it and I want to be sure I understand it. Or is it something just in the new guide?

Just in the new guide.

PFS2 is *moving to* a One Minion per PC rule.

Here is the exact text as it will appear on Wednesday.

Minions: With the exception of temporary creatures, such as those created by summon spells, no character can have more than one minion. Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat.

One other "bug" to be aware of when conducting audits of your character's reported reputation -- in the early months of season one, it looks like the bonus reputation checkbox wasn't in the system yet, so I think scenarios 1-03, 1-04, and 1-05, if you played them when they were current will likely not report the faction success even if your paper chronicles show it. It looks like by the November time frame things were working. (1-00. 1-01, and 1-02 didn't have bonus faction missions and are thus unaffected).

If your chronicle shows the bonus reputation and you're off by 1-2 points in your online summary, its worth reaching out to the GM if you can, or your VC if you can't.

It would be a good idea to report these sorts of errors to pfsreportingerrors@paizo.com

This accomplishes 2 things. 1. It is *much* easier for them to fix this without plowing through back records. 2. It lets them know where errors in the system may be.

I was just intending to point out that
1) the Paizo web team is so overworked they can't fit getting that achieved into their schedule (ie, I was agreeing with you)
2) the information isn't completely irrelevant

This actually jibes with my point: The PFS team needs to stop making policy changes that require the website before a working solution has been developed by the web team. Until that happens, they should find other analog methods. Don’t force us to suffer just because the team likes to bite off far more than it can chew.

Mind you, I’m very excited to move paperwork entirely online. But we all know that Paizo has had difficulty implementing stable, efficient solutions on the website. I can only imagine how much time Alex has to spend on individual AcP corrections. My sense is that he doesn’t have tools that let him do it with a click.

When I last heard back from Tonya about my correction request, she suggested that the change had to go through the web team. That approach to web development is going to undermine this entire proposal.

I won't deny that conducting these audits/helping people straighten out a years worth of reported scenarios is work, and generally annoying work. However, I think the future process is promising and valuable from the "more incentive to report", "more eyes confirming the report", "more data for the OP team to lobby for increase resources".

Less games being run because you've annoyed the heck out of the DMs spending more time tracking down a small math error.

You might be able to ameliorate this with a couple of fudge points.

Eric Nielsen wrote:

I won't deny that conducting these audits/helping people straighten out a years worth of reported scenarios is work, and generally annoying work. However, I think the future process is promising and valuable from the "more incentive to report", "more eyes confirming the report", "more data for the OP team to lobby for increase resources".

Less games being run because you've annoyed the heck out of the DMs spending more time tracking down a small math error.

Another reason for my recommendation to send it to pfsreportingerrors@paizo.com instead

Bongo BigBounce wrote:

Can anyone tell me where in the Guide I can find the one minion rule? I can't find it and I want to be sure I understand it. Or is it something just in the new guide?

Just in the new guide.

PFS2 is *moving to* a One Minion per PC rule.

Here is the exact text as it will appear on Wednesday.

Minions: With the exception of temporary creatures, such as those created by summon spells, no character can have more than one minion. Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat.

Just to clarify. So I can't ride a purchased horse into combat if I have another minion? Even if the horse does NOT fight, it just moves me around the battlefield?

Online Guide Team Lead - JTT wrote:

Bongo BigBounce wrote:

Can anyone tell me where in the Guide I can find the one minion rule? I can't find it and I want to be sure I understand it. Or is it something just in the new guide?

Just in the new guide.

PFS2 is *moving to* a One Minion per PC rule.

Here is the exact text as it will appear on Wednesday.

Minions: With the exception of temporary creatures, such as those created by summon spells, no character can have more than one minion. Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat.

Just to clarify. So I can't ride a purchased horse into combat if I have another minion? Even if the horse does NOT fight, it just moves me around the battlefield?

That is my understanding.

Just to clarify. So I can't ride a purchased horse into combat if I have another minion? Even if the horse does NOT fight, it just moves me around the battlefield?

A purchased animal does not gain the Minion trait so it would not be a Minion. You would need to Command an Animal at that point, which is taking one of your actions, to give the animal one action.

The benefit of the Minion trait is that the animal/familiar gets 2 actions for the 1 action you spend.

pauljathome wrote:

Just to clarify. So I can't ride a purchased horse into combat if I have another minion? Even if the horse does NOT fight, it just moves me around the battlefield?

A purchased animal does not gain the Minion trait so it would not be a Minion. You would need to Command an Animal at that point, which is taking one of your actions, to give the animal one action.

The benefit of the Minion trait is that the animal/familiar gets 2 actions for the 1 action you spend.

It sounds like it could use a clarification from campaign leadership.

Bongo BigBounce wrote:

Can anyone tell me where in the Guide I can find the one minion rule? I can't find it and I want to be sure I understand it. Or is it something just in the new guide?

Just in the new guide.

PFS2 is *moving to* a One Minion per PC rule.

Here is the exact text as it will appear on Wednesday.

Minions: With the exception of temporary creatures, such as those created by summon spells, no character can have more than one minion. Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat.

Will the organized play team be offering an explanation at some point for why this change is being made?

pauljathome wrote:

Just to clarify. So I can't ride a purchased horse into combat if I have another minion? Even if the horse does NOT fight, it just moves me around the battlefield?

A purchased animal does not gain the Minion trait so it would not be a Minion. You would need to Command an Animal at that point, which is taking one of your actions, to give the animal one action.

The benefit of the Minion trait is that the animal/familiar gets 2 actions for the 1 action you spend.

But the phrase "Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat" kind of means that they DO count as minions IF they DO take part in combat. Hence my question and Jareds answer

What does 'take part in combat' mean?

Will the organized play team be offering an explanation at some point for why this change is being made?

Seems very unlikely.

Minion is defined in the core rules. So if they write it as "Only one minion active at a time" that satisfies the purchased mount problem.

They'll need to clarify summoned creatures, as those have the Minion tag.

Minion is defined in the core rules. So if they write it as "Only one minion active at a time" that satisfies the purchased mount problem.

They'll need to clarify summoned creatures, as those have the Minion tag.

Text is being revised.

"With the exception of summon spells, no Player can have more than two Pawns on the table. As such, a player who has already placed a second Pawn, either as a result of a class feature (such as a familiar or an animal companion) or as a result of using an Ally boon, cannot benefit from any Boon or Ability that places a pawn on the table. Player purchased mounts do not count as pawns assuming they do not take part in combat."

Open to better terms than pawns, if anyone can recommend one. But please take further discussion to the One Minion Per Player thread.

This is still an errata level change. The core rulebook is clearly written with the presumption that characters can and will have more than one minion at a time. And if it there is an actual errata to that effect coming, campaign leadership should do themselves a favor and not get out ahead of another change prematurely.

To the best of my knowledge this is a campaign specific rule, not a preview of an errata.

Well, I have a character with both an Animal Companion and a familiar. I never use the familiar in combat, but have occasionally had it scout in Exploration mode. So is that okay as long as the Familiar is never actually a pawn or the board during an encounter, or not? If it no longer is okay, then I'm in the camp of "I'd like free retraining to change out that feat".

This also demonstrates an inconsistency in the org play process. Why are we so willing to place an [arguably] unnecessary restriction on minions which is obviously a deviation from core, yet we avoid a simple clarification for much more important things like Battle Medicine like its made of Kryptonite?

This also demonstrates an inconsistency in the org play process. Why are we so willing to place an [arguably] unnecessary restriction on minions which is obviously a deviation from core, yet we avoid a simple clarification for much more important things like Battle Medicine like its made of Kryptonite?

I thought the FAQ of errata (or was it the errata of the FAQ??) solved the Battle Medicine problem.

TwilightKnight wrote:

This also demonstrates an inconsistency in the org play process. Why are we so willing to place an [arguably] unnecessary restriction on minions which is obviously a deviation from core, yet we avoid a simple clarification for much more important things like Battle Medicine like its made of Kryptonite?

I thought the FAQ of errata (or was it the errata of the FAQ??) solved the Battle Medicine problem.

In theory CRB errata 2 was going to address it. I believe it was originally expected to drop around Feburary and then around GenCon...

General FYI: I just noticed the Chronicle boons are now listed on the "Boons" tab of the "My Organized Play" web page. Only the boons from scenarios and modules are listed (in other words, PFS2 1 through 25, 2-00, Fall of Plaguestone and Ages of Ashes AP), and there's no cost or points to spend yet, but you can see how it will work eventually.

The funny/weird thing is that there are boons listed for adventures that I have not played....

Gary Bush wrote:

TwilightKnight wrote:

This also demonstrates an inconsistency in the org play process. Why are we so willing to place an [arguably] unnecessary restriction on minions which is obviously a deviation from core, yet we avoid a simple clarification for much more important things like Battle Medicine like its made of Kryptonite?

I thought the FAQ of errata (or was it the errata of the FAQ??) solved the Battle Medicine problem.

In theory CRB errata 2 was going to address it. I believe it was originally expected to drop around Feburary and then around GenCon...

So this did not fix the problem?

In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.”

Not entirely. That was a stealth update that dropped sometime before Gen Con. While it addressed 1-2 of the lesser-problematic points of contention, there are still others pending. There are at least three lengthy threads where this has been discussed, but its a fairly headache-inducing rabbit hole I do not recommend diving into unless you're into masochism.

Quick question: How are we, as GMs at a table, supposed to be able to confirm what a player's character has for boons attached to their character?

Presuming they will be responsible for providing their PDFs much like players are required to have a copy of their additional resources, will GMs have the capability to confirm they should have certain boons?

Example; I get a player who is playing an Aasimar Catfolk, who was adopted by Hobgoblins and has Hobgoblin Weaponry as an ancestry feat, and he wields an Orc Knuckle Dagger. How do I confirm that this player has purchased the boons for the Aasimar Hertiage, Catfolk Ancestry, Ancestral Adoption I for Hobgoblin, and Avid Collector - Core Rulebook, all for this one character?

Thanks!

Quick question: How are we, as GMs at a table, supposed to be able to confirm what a player's character has for boons attached to their character?

Presuming they will be responsible for providing their PDFs much like players are required to have a copy of their additional resources, will GMs have the capability to confirm they should have certain boons?

Example; I get a player who is playing an Aasimar Catfolk, who was adopted by Hobgoblins and has Hobgoblin Weaponry as an ancestry feat, and he wields an Orc Knuckle Dagger. How do I confirm that this player has purchased the boons for the Aasimar Hertiage, Catfolk Ancestry, Ancestral Adoption I for Hobgoblin, and Avid Collector - Core Rulebook, all for this one character?

Thanks!

Just like IRL, have them show you the boons.

Quick question: How are we, as GMs at a table, supposed to be able to confirm what a player's character has for boons attached to their character?

Presuming they will be responsible for providing their PDFs much like players are required to have a copy of their additional resources, will GMs have the capability to confirm they should have certain boons?

Example; I get a player who is playing an Aasimar Catfolk, who was adopted by Hobgoblins and has Hobgoblin Weaponry as an ancestry feat, and he wields an Orc Knuckle Dagger. How do I confirm that this player has purchased the boons for the Aasimar Hertiage, Catfolk Ancestry, Ancestral Adoption I for Hobgoblin, and Avid Collector - Core Rulebook, all for this one character?

Thanks!

You ask him to show them to you. When you purchase the boon it creates a downloadable PDF with the character number in it.

Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata Page 258 wrote:

In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.”

I completely missed that change. Glad they made it.

Gary Bush wrote:

Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata Page 258 wrote:

In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.”

I completely missed that change. Glad they made it.

Zachary Davis wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata Page 258 wrote:

In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.”

I completely missed that change. Glad they made it.

** spoiler omitted **

Ferious Thune wrote:

Zachary Davis wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata Page 258 wrote:

In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.”

I completely missed that change. Glad they made it.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Ah. So the great debate continues...bummer.

Quick question: How are we, as GMs at a table, supposed to be able to confirm what a player's character has for boons attached to their character?

Presuming they will be responsible for providing their PDFs much like players are required to have a copy of their additional resources, will GMs have the capability to confirm they should have certain boons?

Example; I get a player who is playing an Aasimar Catfolk, who was adopted by Hobgoblins and has Hobgoblin Weaponry as an ancestry feat, and he wields an Orc Knuckle Dagger. How do I confirm that this player has purchased the boons for the Aasimar Hertiage, Catfolk Ancestry, Ancestral Adoption I for Hobgoblin, and Avid Collector - Core Rulebook, all for this one character?

Thanks!

For an online table (and an in-person one, I guess, if the player has an internet connection), a screenshot of the player's "Boons" tab under "My Organized Play" could cover it - at the very bottom of that tab will be a list showing all purchased boons (names only) and the name of the character(s) for whom they were acquired.

I must admit that I'm loving the irony of the fact that this change will mean that the player is supposed to bring MORE paper to the table once we actually have physical tables again.

Not only do I have to bring the chronicle for the session where I won the boon but I also have to print out and bring the boon itself.

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure that almost all GMs won't check and most players won't bother to print out the certs so most of this work will actually be pretty much irrelevant as we'll all just use the honour system anyways.

I must admit that I'm loving the irony of the fact that this change will mean that the player is supposed to bring MORE paper to the table once we actually have physical tables again..

Only if they decide to use paper sheets, an not digitized scans.

I am seriously considering sending out all my chronicles digitally, from now on.

pauljathome wrote:

I must admit that I'm loving the irony of the fact that this change will mean that the player is supposed to bring MORE paper to the table once we actually have physical tables again..

Only if they decide to use paper sheets, an not digitized scans.

I am seriously considering sending out all my chronicles digitally, from now on.

It’s still a very big assumption that everyone has a device that they can take with them to a convention with all of their PDFs on it. I have both a tablet and a smartphone, and I’m going to feel compelled to print all of the sheets in case batteries run low at a convention. Meaning I will use far more paper now than in the past.

I also assume since you’re considering giving digital chronicles, that it means GMs at physical tables don’t have to hand out chronicles before the session ends? Are there allowances for conventions and not having your previous chronicle when you sit down at the next table?

I think those will be answered when the guide comes out tomorrow, but I have already spoilered a lot of stuff.

Let me just say that yes, the way the guide is written, the assumption is that players are honest and will not lie about things. If that assumption is wrong, then honestly, we have a lot bigger problems than race boons.

I think those will be answered when the guide comes out tomorrow, but I have already spoilered a lot of stuff.

Let me just say that yes, the way the guide is written, the assumption is that players are honest and will not lie about things. If that assumption is wrong, then honestly, we have a lot bigger problems than race boons.

I believe that the vast majority of players are honest and the mistakes they make are genuinely honest mistakes.

Which is why I find this whole move rather amusing and pointless. The Paizo web team worked hard on this and pushed back other things they could do and all for, in my opinion, no real effect on anything at the vast majority of tables.

To be clear - I'm talking now JUST about the digitization, NOT the other changes being discussed.