Pathfinder Society: Digitization Update

I agree that I don't like that needing to build up a safety net for resurrection competes with ancestry/other fun boons. A free resurrection/raise dead at some threshold (while Liked would be nice, I suspect it would be placed higher) helps.

I do hope the costs incentivize people to try a couple tables of GMing Double ACP + a no-risk chronicle for a character you're wanting to "protect" a bit. (Either because too squishy at level 1, or the build doesn't come online until level N, or whatever) I'm a prolific GM, I've spent(440) close to double what a pure-player-only could have earned (at least on scenarios/bounties, if you factor in both sanctioned APs, it not quite that extreme). And I still have more than double that in my bank.

As a replacement for GM-boons, I think its close to doing its job. The relative weight of the convention pricing and Ancestry boons still feels like its trying to encourage more 'regular weekly/monthly' GMing over convention GMing. Which may be healthier for local lodges, but may make it harder to attract in-person GMs at large conventions in the future.

But as a replacement for player-convention-boons, there's a still too many per-character-must-haves/must-reserves that eat away at your savings.

With the old system, every separate character needed a pool of fame in case they needed a Raise. Most of them never did. That's a lot of locked-in fame. Now, I need only a bit of AcP reserved and it'll protect all my characters. Much more efficient.

Kind of, but not entirely. Bad coincidences happen, and if you’re only keeping 40 AcP and have two characters die in the same day at a con, you’re out of luck on the second one. You probably don’t need 40 per character saved up, but you may find yourself delaying purchasing an ancestry boon several months because you get unlucky. The same character dying twice in the same scenario isn’t unheard of. We’ve got a wealth of accessibility to games for some right now, and a complete lack of games for others who can’t or don’t want to go online to play. 10 games could be a week for some right now, 20 weeks for others under normal circumstances. It might be a year for some players given everything.

There's probably a better place for this question, but I'm going to ask here anyhow.

It looks like Cursebreaker (Vigilant Seal) got a change or clarification.

You earn Cursebreaker once, and once you finish uncursing an item, you can work on a second item and then a third (if you've got the time)?

There's probably a better place for this question, but I'm going to ask here anyhow.

It looks like Cursebreaker (Vigilant Seal) got a change or clarification.

You earn Cursebreaker once, and once you finish uncursing an item, you can work on a second item and then a third (if you've got the time)?

That is how I read it.

Another change is the requirement to keep the Curse Breaker boon slotted until the curse was broken. It appears that a character can take a break on the process and maybe do some other downtime activity. Makes sense given we not "slotting" boons anymore.

And I think I may have been doing this wrong for one of my characters.... Hmmmm...

Kind of, but not entirely. Bad coincidences happen, and if you’re only keeping 40 AcP and have two characters die in the same day at a con, you’re out of luck on the second one. You probably don’t need 40 per character saved up, but you may find yourself delaying purchasing an ancestry boon several months because you get unlucky. The same character dying twice in the same scenario isn’t unheard of. We’ve got a wealth of accessibility to games for some right now, and a complete lack of games for others who can’t or don’t want to go online to play. 10 games could be a week for some right now, 20 weeks for others under normal circumstances. It might be a year for some players given everything.

In either scenario (online high frequency or offline low frequency) the rate of acquisition per scenario is largely the same. The player in more frequent games (10 games in a week) is going to be functionally at much higher risk of the 'bad coincidence' outcome in any given month than the player who is only doing 10 games over 20 weeks. They should generally need about as much AcP for raise dead proportional to the number of games they play.

A new player would have access to the 40 AcP they need by the time they hit level 4 (assuming they have a single character and didn't GM at all). In the old model, every single character that a player made would be at risk until around that same point. This removes the need for it. If a player wants to only hold onto that 40 as a backup before spending -- that's on them. This new system as least alleviates the risk of that same player finally buying an uncommon lineage and having the character die in their first scenario with no recourse.

I look at it this way.

If My boon character dies, I can pay 80+ to get a new boon and start over, or I can keep a reserve of 40 (or 80 if I have a lot of them) and prevent the character from dying. It feels like a pretty good deal.

I also am not sure the assumption is that every character will make it to retirement age. At some point, if raise dead becomes too cheap, there is really no risk ever to the character. Which lowers the stakes of the game considerably.

I will grant that the ideal level of risk for each player is going to be different, and to some degree, this system does that. Highly risk adverse players can keep large reserves, and focus on one or two races at a time, while players who like a lot of risk can play more different races at once, but at a higher risk level.

This new system as least alleviates the risk of that same player finally buying an uncommon lineage and having the character die in their first scenario with no recourse.

Once again, not entirely. Because the boon and the Resurrect come from the same pool of points, then if they've spend their AcP on a boon, they are out of luck. So do they wait until they've earned 120 AcPs to buy their Tengu boon? Now we're talking close to three years for a once a month player.

There isn't going to be a one size fits all answer, but the assumption that a 40 AcP loss is not a major setback for some players is just off. A stated purpose behind Achievement Points was to make boons more accessible to players who can't attend conventions. A subset of players who can't attend conventions is players who live in smaller areas where conventions aren't going to be common, which also are more likely to be areas where there aren't games multiple times a month, let alone multiple times a week.

By taking away the fame/reputation/prestige/whatever you want to call it option to get their character raised, and tying it instead to the same system as other formerly convention boons, the system is once again weighted against the players that it was trying to (at least in part) accommodate in the first place.

To not have a cost to raise dead characters we run the risk of reckless behavior from some players with the attitude "Hey, I can rez this character for free, so why not take this action that could put the rest of the party into jeopardy as well."

The cost is reasonable in my view.

A cost is reasonable. This being the only practical option is not reasonable. Resurrect costs more gold than you earn for the entire level at 5th level (375 vs 300) and all of the gold that you could earn at 6th level (450 vs 450). So there's no real alternative at those levels besides spending the Achievement Points, unless you have a very generous party.

We have plenty of people tossing out large Achievement Point numbers that they've built up. I fail to see how that prevents them from being reckless, while I can definitely see how someone who only has enough AcPs for the thing they might want to get might lose out. One free resurrect at Admired and Revered is not going to suddenly create a huge problem with reckless players if that problem doesn't already exist. But it should avoid punishing some players for not having access to enough games to keep a stockpile of AcPs.

I acknowledge that some people don't like risk in their RPGs. That's OK. PF2 is inherently risky. I, myself, don't like unnecessarily risking my characters: I try to avoid being the odd low-tier character playing up (even with Mentor boons), I try to make tactically sound choices, I'm not afraid to run away and regroup. But I may be scarred as my first ever PFS experience/character was level 1 playing up in 4-07 with not the most amazing fortitude save.

So nobody's opinion on how easy it is to get a Raise Dead is really wrong. It'll come down to an organizational decision if anything is to change.

However, for some perspective (never GMing):
You could get 16 Prestige in PFS1 by getting both primary and secondary success in 8 games played on that one character, so just below level 4.
You can get 40 AcP by playing 10 games on any character regardless of success conditions, but if you stick to just one, it would be just over level 4.
You can reach Liked in 5 games if you get every success condition on one character (just under level 3). You'll gain 20 AcP in the process.
You can reach Admired in 15 games if you get every success condition on one character (level 6). You'll gain 60 AcP in the process.
You can reach Revered in 30 games if you get every success condition on one character (level 11). You'll gain 120 AcP in the process.

If you GM one game for every two games you play, your AcP doubles.
If you GM one game for every game you play, your AcP triple.

The lesson I take away is that if I want more boons/raise dead opportunities, I should GM more. But that's just me.

The lesson I take away is that if I want more boons/raise dead opportunities, I should GM more. But that's just me.

And I’ll refer you back to the extensive and at times heated discussion from PFS1 about the privilege enjoyed by some and inaccessibility of boons for others, which included much discussion about why not everyone has GMing as an option, and are what largely led to the AcP system being introduced in the first place. I don’t really feel like having all of those same conversations again. Achievement Points were a step forward. The removal of Fame might make sense from a tracking standpoint, but on this particular issue of raise dead/resurrect, it’s a big step backwards where the question of evening out access to boons is concerned. We’re basically back to “It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t see a problem,” and that’s sad.

We’re basically back to “It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t see a problem,” and that’s sad.

No. It's objectively better now than at any point in PF1. Any new character will generate enough AcP for a raise dead *on any character* in roughly the same amount of time they'd have to have played cautiously in 1E. It's a net gain for the player on the same fixed time continuum. A single player getting to around level 8 will have earned 80 AcP, enough for a boon, or two raise deads. If they opt to spend that 80 on a boon race for their second character, they will not be any worse off than they'd have been in 1E starting a second character. And thanks to this system, they're able to do something that they probably wouldn't have been able to do on their second character in PF1.

If the individual chooses to overspend or buy something immediately, then yes, they can bankrupt themselves. But that is a choice. If you're really concerned about these players, then you should be advocating limits before players can purchase race boons (e.g. earn 120 before being able to buy something for 80). That's just a different way of giving away 40 extra AcP for each character a player manages to keep alive, which is effectively all your proposal does.

We’re basically back to “It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t see a problem,” and that’s sad.

What part doesn't affect me? Or any of us?

That I hardly get to play?
That I'm AcP poor?
That my characters die?

I have all of those, and I'm not sure the problem actually exists, but I'm also not going to complain if they hand out reputation dependent discounted raise dead.

Edit: This was a response to cavernshark. The other post snuck in in between.

It can both be better than it was in 1E and worse than it was a month ago (or really 5 months ago when fame started going away).

I don’t understand the rest of what you’re trying to say. How is you can raise a character for free without spending the achievement points that you’ve earned in any way the same as you can’t spend the achievement points that you’ve earned until you earn even more achievement points? That’s just punishing the players even more.

Ferious Thune wrote:

We’re basically back to “It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t see a problem,” and that’s sad.

What part doesn't affect me? Or any of us?

That I hardly get to play?
That I'm AcP poor?
That my characters die?

I have all of those, and I'm not sure the problem actually exists, but I'm also not going to complain if they hand out reputation dependent discounted raise dead.

You are apparently comfortable GMing based on your comment that you would just GM an extra game. There are many, many players who will never GM or be comfortable GMing.

Blake's Tiger wrote:

Ferious Thune wrote:

We’re basically back to “It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t see a problem,” and that’s sad.

What part doesn't affect me? Or any of us?

That I hardly get to play?
That I'm AcP poor?
That my characters die?

I have all of those, and I'm not sure the problem actually exists, but I'm also not going to complain if they hand out reputation dependent discounted raise dead.

You are apparently comfortable GMing based on your comment that you would just GM an extra game. There are many, many players who will never GM or be comfortable GMing.

My GMing or not GMing has no effect on other people's rate of AcP gain. Plenty of people can attend these nice Fantasy Grounds real-time online Premier events that occur multiple times a month now to earn extra AcP while playing that I can't do, but that's neither here nor there either.

If your underlying argument is GMing should reward you the same AcP as playing, whatever that number is, I will respectfully disagree but not with vehemence. However, that still doesn't make me--or anyone else posting that I can tell--possess the attitude of, "It doesn't affect me, so it's not a problem." I can understand scarcity economics and come to a conclusion that's different from someone else with empathy even if I'm willing to do something more to get more that someone else may be unwilling to do.

Blake's Tiger wrote:

The lesson I take away is that if I want more boons/raise dead opportunities, I should GM more. But that's just me.

And I’ll refer you back to the extensive and at times heated discussion from PFS1 about the privilege enjoyed by some and inaccessibility of boons for others,

Actually, the majority argument was that not everyone had access to *conventions* That led to AcP

There were minority arguments that:

1. Not everyone has access to GMing.
2. Some people can only play 1/month.

This was competing with the arguments that:

3. GMing is extra work, and therefore it is reasonable for it to have a larger reward.
4. OPF VOs will do everything they can to give people whatever reasonable support they need to lower barriers to play and to GMing.

These 4 arguments were weighed against each other and the current attempt to balance them was come up with.

There have been several responses in this thread that amount to achievement points are easy to earn or it’s only 40 achievement points or some variation of that. Or that a player can always GM if they want more achievement points. Or that someone has managed to earn hundreds of achievement points so why can’t someone else earn 40. Those are all variations of the same viewpoints that were expressed, for years, about why boons only being for GMs or players at conventions wasn’t a problem and if a player wanted a boon they could just go GM or play at a convention, or GM or play at an online convention. All of those arguments ignored the factors preventing someone from doing so. It is sad to me that we have returned to a point where people are arguing in a similar vein.

That is different from saying that we are in the exact same situation that we were in in 1E. It is a comment on the attitudes of people in this thread, which are similar to the attitudes of people in years past, not the mechanics of the game.

My stance on the mechanics of the game is that achievement points were introduced to make it easier for players to get access to boons, so that GMing or travel is no longer a requirement. That was a good thing. Players also earned fame and had that separate resource to use towards an unfortunate situation where they needed to raise their character. Whether or not they purchased their tengu boon did not depend on whether or not their other character might need a raise dead. They were two separate pools, with a fallback of the second chance AcP boon if it was needed. The majority of the other Fame options have made it into the Reputation system, many of them with no cost associated. (A few have a small cost).

When fame was removed, it became one pool. Where previously if you earned 80 AcPs and wanted to go ahead and spend it on an ancestry boon, you could do so without worrying about whether or not your higher level character would be able to be brought back if they died.

Now, players have to decide whether to spend that AcP or save it. That’s not a big deal for someone with a lot of characters who plays a lot or GMs a lot. It is a big deal for someone who has been waiting for months to get enough AcPs to buy the tengu boon for their new character, and who now has to make a decision about protecting their high level character or going ahead and buying their boon. If they don’t want to risk their high level character, they are now waiting months longer, almost a year longer if they play once a month, before they can both afford the tengu boon and have enough AcPs for the resurrect.

That’s all I’m saying. The removal of fame increased either the risk for the players that achievement points were largely trying to help or lessened their ability to purchase boons. While the rest of PFS players who won’t even notice the difference keep going. It affects the players who play less frequently in a larger way. And those players being affected are a big part of the group of players that the AcP system was supposed to be helping.

All that giving a free Resurrect to a character that reaches Admired would do is restore some of what was lost when Fame went away. I don’t think Fame was removed because too many characters were getting raised. 60 reputation is more than twice the amount of fame that you would have needed for a resurrect, so it’s not even going back to what we had. But it will free up some players to spend their AcP without having to worry about whether they are risking the other character that they have invested a considerable amount of time into and whether or not they are going to have to delay buying a boon they’ve been saving for by a significant amount of time.

You get a character to a certain point (60 reputation), you get a safety net for that character that doesn’t compete with your chance to make use of uncommon options in the game. The AcP system can go back to being about accessing additional options and not being the only practical method to protect a character.

Edit: This was a response to cavernshark. The other post snuck in in between.

It can both be better than it was in 1E and worse than it was a month ago (or really 5 months ago when fame started going away).

I don’t understand the rest of what you’re trying to say. How is you can raise a character for free without spending the achievement points that you’ve earned in any way the same as you can’t spend the achievement points that you’ve earned until you earn even more achievement points? That’s just punishing the players even more.

Fame was *always* an experimental system. The boons were *clearly* marked with a "this is subject to change" For a variety of reasons, (which I will not go into here) Fame did not do everything it needed to do, did some things badly. That is the reason it was removed and replaced.

AcP gives a bonus *above and beyond* what the game system is designed around. The fact that it gives raise dead *at all* unbalances the game system. The fact that it makes it *free* *greatly* unbalances the system. The result is that PCs can play far more freely and bravely than the system is designed for.

For example. My 120 AcP Catfolk pregen would never have put herself in the position to be pounce by lions *twice* in one scenario, as I did this afternoon, if I didn't have 40 AcP in reserve.

The degree to which this is good or bad is largely a matter of personal taste. And the degree to which this is good or bad for the *campaign* is a matter for campaign leadership to decide.

There are a lot of conflicting goods in this equation, and ultimately they are hard to balance. Campaign leadership also has a lot more data on how often people *need* raises. (because they can see how often that boon gets purchased.)

I don't know how often someone who only plays once a month, who has bought a race boon but can't afford a raise boon, goes down, without a hero point (or to mass damage.) But I imagine it is pretty rare. Certainly I have not heard of it happening here, or on the discords, or on facebook.

At some point, the only way to prevent that is just to make every race boon come with a second chance boon.

There have been several responses in this thread that amount to achievement points are easy to earn or it’s only 40 achievement points or some variation of that. Or that a player can always GM if they want more achievement points. Or that someone has managed to earn hundreds of achievement points so why can’t someone else earn 40. Those are all variations of the same viewpoints that were expressed, for years, about why boons only being for GMs or players at conventions wasn’t a problem and if a player wanted a boon they could just go GM or play at a convention, or GM or play at an online convention. All of those arguments ignored the factors preventing someone from doing so. It is sad to me that we have returned to a point where people are arguing in a similar vein.

That is different from saying that we are in the exact same situation that we were in in 1E. It is a comment on the attitudes of people in this thread, which are similar to the attitudes of people in years past, not the mechanics of the game.

My stance on the mechanics of the game is that achievement points were introduced to make it easier for players to get access to boons, so that GMing or travel is no longer a requirement. That was a good thing. Players also earned fame and had that separate resource to use towards an unfortunate situation where they needed to raise their character. Whether or not they purchased their tengu boon did not depend on whether or not their other character might need a raise dead. They were two separate pools, with a fallback of the second chance AcP boon if it was needed. The majority of the other Fame options have made it into the Reputation system, many of them with no cost associated. (A few have a small cost).

When fame was removed, it became one pool. Where previously if you earned 80 AcPs and wanted to go ahead and spend it on an ancestry boon, you could do so without worrying about whether or not your higher level character would be able to be brought back if they died.

Now, players have to...

Let's hypothetically do what you propose. Now imagine my first character dies right before I hit 60 reputation. Maybe I would have been at 60 reputation but I missed out on a few secondary success conditions, through no fault of my own, just some bad dice or a rough party. I'm now in forced to use my AcP to raise instead of buying that amazing race boon I'd wanted. Sounds familiar right? We all have loss aversion. But a system like this is always going to have an initial accumulation ramp up where risk is higher until you hit a breakpoint.

You obviously think that it's too far into a players life cycle. I'm almost certain you don't actually need a free raise dead on every character. How much fame did you have locked up on all your PF1 characters? Probably way more than you needed. This system pools your risk. It's better for veterans and new players. Your proposal is just a block 40 AcP bonus at level 8. They could put 2-4 more AcP on every scenario and the net effect would be the same. Someone would still complain that that they have to make a choice between a cool boon and a raise dead. A similar choice they had to make between faction boons and raise dead under the old PF2 fame model.

Maybe the way to phrase it is this. Some in this thread see it as all you have to do is save 40 AcP and you can protect all of your characters. I see it as save 40 AcP or else all of your characters are at risk, if not of permadeath, then of a pretty debilitating wealth hit. And if you really want to be sure, save 80. Save 40 AcP or else isn’t a big deal if you’re earning them quickly. It’s a huge deal if you’re earning them slowly.

It’s different than prestige, because you could never spend prestige and basically not miss out on anything. But many options are locked behind achievement points, so if you don’t spend them, you’re cutting off your options in the game. Achievement points don’t feel like a reward when you can’t spend them. Prestige also equated to bonus wealth. Achievement Points largely do not, because you’re spending them to get access to something, not to get the thing. Except where Second Chance is concerned.

Giving someone a free resurrect is not the same as giving them an extra 40 AcP, because as you say, they might never need it. What it would do is let them spend the achievement points they do have more freely on the many other options available now and in the future that are locked behind that system. You know, like actually using them for something fun after spending months earning them.

Maybe the way to phrase it is this. Some in this thread see it as all you have to do is save 40 AcP and you can protect all of your characters. I see it as save 40 AcP or else all of your characters are at risk, if not of permadeath, then of a pretty debilitating wealth hit. And if you really want to be sure, save 80. Save 40 AcP or else isn’t a big deal if you’re earning them quickly. It’s a huge deal if you’re earning them slowly.

Shouldn't your characters be at some risk? We can argue about how much, but what you are saying is more or less the point I am making. Your characters are adventurers going out and risking their life. To some extent, their tactics and responses to things are going to depend on how they feel about risk to their lives.

If the character's life is *never* at risk, doesn't that some what distort the game? You can do a lot to minimize the risk to your character by withdrawing when close to death, by spreading out to avoid AoE attacks, by saving a hero point to come back from dying 3 or 4, by getting to safety when you are wounded 2. And so on.

And how big is that risk actually? As a GM I think I have come within one point of killing a PC with massive damage once. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of times a PC has dropped to wounded 2 or gotten to Dying 3 without a hero point.

My play experience has had about a half-dozen instances of characters at tables I've been at being in that sort of dire straits (particularly at L1 but that's another issue entirely).

I've actually upset tables because my characters have become *very* conservative on their risk-taking because of the limits of ACP (was one of those folks saving up for quite some time to get a tengu when they became available).

Now that I have a tengu character, if I ever GM they'll probably get my GM credits so they aren't risked until the 'slush fund' of 'Immediate retirement pay-off' is refilled, or I'll play a pregen and apply the credit to them.

It's not the way the system is supposed to work, but it's the options I've got at the moment with a mere 5 ACP in the "Cool Stuff/Holy Crap" Fund.

I’ve been to dying 3 half a dozen times on one character who is not particularly fragile. I’ve been at wounded 2 facing something that had already crit me once. I take toughness and diehard on pretty much every melee character now. I’ve had to use a hero point once to prevent death, which still probably should have resulted in me dying, but it was a strange sequence of events (multiple area of effects triggering all at once while I was already dying 2).

A character should have some risk. And a character that has a single raise dead after completing 15 or more missions for the society has had some risk. They’ve also earned at least one chance to overcome bad luck. (Or would have more than twice over previously). If it happens a second time, there’s only so much you can do.

The issue is with the decision to lock basic items, ancestries, and other things behind AcP and then also locking the only realistic means of reviving a character behind that same system. It’s no longer about what a particular character has earned. It’s about telling players you can’t use these options unless you want to risk losing a character that you’ve invested a significant amount of time in. Or unless you’re fortunate enough to get to play so much that it’s an insignificant amount of AcP.

Raising a character is easier in PFS than in the base game, and it should be, because in a home campaign you can just roll up a new 7th level character (or whatever) and keep going. You are also quite possibly routinely facing creatures that are level+3 or more, especially if you’re in a small area and having to play up. In PFS, losing your character means possibly not being able to participate in the scenarios that are running at your location (if they are higher level, unless you want to eternally play pregens), losing access to all of the things on all of the chronicles that character earned, without the ability to go back and play most of the scenarios again, etc.

The Fame system made sense in game as your character having done enough for a faction that they earned a raise dead. No matter how people spin achievement points it is not that, because it is also what the player has earned in order to be able to access uncommon options.

But PFS is going to do whatever they are going to do with regards to how you can raise a character. I just want people to stop dismissing something that might take a person a year to earn as though it was nothing.

AcP gives a bonus *above and beyond* what the game system is designed around. The fact that it gives raise dead *at all* unbalances the game system. The fact that it makes it *free* *greatly* unbalances the system. The result is that PCs can play far more freely and bravely than the system is designed for.

The rules don't even make any sense to even tell if it imbalances the game in the first place. And no I'm not joking I legitimately don't know what to do at this point given that apparently there are two completely different ways to resurrect a character which is only vaguely mentioned.

On the one hand I understand the concern. On the other I'm 99% sure Im getting 40 ACP just GMing twice so the amount of effort required is minimal to the point where you can't really complain they aren't trying to make it easy to get ACP

I think I was the only poster in the thread that mentioned a large pile of ACP and was still on your side about too many little-ACP items nickel & diming away savings for big things, let alone needing to save ~8-10 scenarios worth to have the pocket raise dead for the character you just spend 16-20 scenarios worth of ACP on. I was not trivializing your complaint and it feels like you've tried to lump me into the people who disagree with you.

Yes, I said, I hope it does encourage more people to GM more or try to GM. I think that's healthy for the campaign. I'm not sure I understand what makes it impossible for someone to GM, but even accepting that for specific individuals, I still think a system, that across the population of players, incentivizes GMing is good.

No I don't think the current ACP prices, and what's in the ACP pool of items is balanced in a way that replaces the multiple currencies/rewards that have been folded into the system. I was generally happy with the at-launch ACP items compared to their costs/rate of earning. The raise dead _back up_ option on top of fame was perfect IMO. Now that fame is gone, and a lot of popular faction boons were moved into ACP land, I'm less happy.

Brainstorming partial solutions on the cost-side:
1) Give every player (not character) 1 free raise dead ritual when they join the society/retroactive to all existing players. Keep the existing ACP version as a "recharge". Allow it to recharge above "1" copy stored (to support the multiple-characters at a con issue). This should provide the safety blanket people need to play a "valuable" character. Most people won't need it, it doesn't eat into their ACP held in savings. By the time they might need to recharge it, they could have some ACP stockpiled. And the fact that its 1 freebie across all your characters should still serve to limit overly aggressive/reckless play.

2) Review the non-0 ACP items:
A) Things that kind of stand in for the 'ask your GM'/working around issues with how Organized Play works:
i) Access related: Ancestries/heritages/uncommon spells/etc: These all feel appropriate for the reward pool, IMO.
ii) "Meta system": Raise Dead, Infamy reduction, rebuilds, things like the playtest's 'start at level 2/3': These also feel appropriate.
iii) Things that help smooth out rough edges of bad organized play experiences/party composition: Hireling Translator, Treasure Bundle Insurance, Hireling -- I don't love these in the list of ACP. Hireling w/ fame felt close to an always purchase (assuming the player interacted with the fame system). I think the translator/TBI are both rare enough that its not worth too much time trying to 'fix' them, but a better solution for Hireling IMO would be nice. I think we will see a pretty broad divide between 'legacy' characters with hirelings bought with fame and 'current/post-fame' characters without hirelings.

B) "Powerful" Faction options -- These all look 'cheap' compared to the expensive access boons, but each one does eat up a scenario worth of ACP pushing back any major reward. This leads to either players completely disregarding the faction flavor & bonuses, or delaying, by about a level, their rewards. That definitely feels too long to me. Complete spit-balling here -- reworking all the free and non-free faction rewards into a 'perk' tree that you get (free) selections from when you reach the new tiers. Then have a per-tier for-cost ACP boon that lets you pick an extra perk from that tier. Might help give more faction flavor to characters, without costing them their ACP. Cons: another new subsystem and we've been trying to simplify things. Need a fair bit of work to rebalance items within the same tier at similar 'values' if its a 'choose n' model.

I just want to point out that the current system isn't supposed to be replacing fame + ACP.

It is replacing fame. Period. ACP was added to *remove* fame. There was an overlap period. That period was intended to give people a safety net against bugs in the system.

I don't think I ever saw that articulated before. But I could have missed it. Its definitely not how most players are viewing it though.

Yes, I said, I hope it does encourage more people to GM more or try to GM. I think that's healthy for the campaign. I'm not sure I understand what makes it impossible for someone to GM, but even accepting that for specific individuals, I still think a system, that across the population of players, incentivizes GMing is good.

Not having a working computer? Someday Eric when this whole thing boils over I'll show you the Rubegoldberg setup I used for most of last year.

I was not trivializing your complaint and it feels like you've tried to lump me into the people who disagree with you.

Apologies if I did that. And maybe I'm bringing baggage from other threads that have touched on the same topic since Fame started going away.

Yes, I said, I hope it does encourage more people to GM more or try to GM. I think that's healthy for the campaign. I'm not sure I understand what makes it impossible for someone to GM, but even accepting that for specific individuals, I still think a system, that across the population of players, incentivizes GMing is good.

Encouraging more people to GM by offering access and extra things is fine. Even having one of those extra things be a raise dead when it's desperately needed is fine (we had Debt to the Society in 1E in the past. Not exactly a GM boon, but was a con-exclusive boon for a long time). It's when "just GM" becomes the answer when a player is faced with whether or not to spend the points they've earned that you lose me.

Like I said, I don't want to rehash all of the conversations from the past about why GMing is not an answer for every player. I appreciate that you are at least willing to accept that is true for some people. Honestly, someone's reason why they can't/don't want to GM is none of our business. If it's true for them, it's true for them.

I'm going to offer up an out of the box, but relatively simple, possible compromise. Let the Second Chance boon bring back a character even if it is bought several sessions later. Since we are no longer spending a resource that is character specific, why does it need to be spent during the session that the character is killed? Why can't I earn 40 AcPs after my boon character died and then spend it to bring them back?

Right now, the main answer seems to be that there's no easy way to update the "Character Died" checkbox in the system. So just stop using that checkbox. The GM can mark that it's an unresolved condition on their chronicle. We've moved toward trusting the players more anyway, so if someone wants to cheat it they can, but a player that wants to tell a GM they'll buy the Second Chance boon when they get home and then doesn't can do that now in most cases.

No, this doesn't solve all of the issues that I brought up. You can still end up with a player who doesn't have a character in tier with the group that they regularly play with. But at least if they do decide to play a pregen, they are earning the AcPs to bring their higher level character back, so that maybe that won't be the case forever.

A player is still having to give up other rewards that were previously in a separate pool, but at least we're not telling them they have to wait to spend the ones they have earned just in case. And if they never have a character killed, or they reach a point where the gold is no big deal, then they don't have to "bank" that 40 AcPs. There's still the same cost as now, but a player that only has enough AcPs for whatever option they want can go ahead and spend them and still know that in a worst case scenario, they have an option to bring their character back eventually that doesn't involve losing an entire level's worth of gold in a system where if you aren't keeping up with the expected purchases, you're falling behind.

I don't think I ever saw that articulated before. But I could have missed it. Its definitely not how most players are viewing it though.

Yeah, it's definitely not the way that it was understood, at least in most of my interactions with people. There was a pretty clear "Fame=Prestige, Reputation=Fame, AcP=Boons" mindset up until the announcement that Fame was going away. That announcement itself was awkward (I understand why due to a busy con season) with some GMs at GenCon awarding Fame, others not, players looking at their characters online and seeing Fame reported when that was really Reputation, etc. So I think it's reasonable to cut people some slack for not understanding if it was always intended that Fame go away.

Went back and looked. Yes we did start with both fame and AcP. I think I got confused because of the way that almost as soon as AcP started actually being functional, discussions started about removing fame... It felt like fame was just in there as a stop gap to transitioning over.

I still feel like between school consumables, various faction boons, existing AcP rewards, the relatively low risk in the system created by hero points, and the above normal wealth by level curve, we don't need more ways to make characters functionally unkillable.

But that is just my personal opinion.

Went back and looked. Yes we did start with both fame and AcP. I think I got confused because of the way that almost as soon as AcP started actually being functional, discussions started about removing fame... It felt like fame was just in there as a stop gap to transitioning over.

I still feel like between school consumables, various faction boons, existing AcP rewards, the relatively low risk in the system created by hero points, and the above normal wealth by level curve, we don't need more ways to make characters functionally unkillable.

But that is just my personal opinion.

You seem to have changed that opinion over the course of this thread, which I’ll admit, has left me confused.

No.

I still think a free raise dead at 60 rep *for that character* is reasonable. (Though I would like it to be 60 rep by the society as a whole so that PCs *can* branch out.)

What I object to is making second chance cheaper, or creating a seperate "currency" so that characters can get a free res by 3rd level or lower.

That said, if we *had* a robust enough back end that could handle it, having second chance remove the "dead" tag for a character would be nice.

Alternately, I think marking it on chronicles would be fine as well.

No.

I still think a free raise dead at 60 rep *for that character* is reasonable. (Though I would like it to be 60 rep by the society as a whole so that PCs *can* branch out.)

What I object to is making second chance cheaper, or creating a seperate "currency" so that characters can get a free res by 3rd level or lower.

That said, if we *had* a robust enough back end that could handle it, having second chance remove the "dead" tag for a character would be nice.

I never suggested making second chance cheaper. I have been arguing for a free raise dead Resurrect for a character that reaches Admired the entire thread. (EDIT: The swapping of names for Resurrect and Raise Dead in 2E will forever give me trouble).

I have separately been arguing that 40AcP should not be dismissed as being a small amount just because some players can more easily earn more, but I never suggested reducing the cost of second chance.

My argument is that a player who is playing once per month, for whatever reason, will take a long time to earn 40 AcP. It will also take them a long time to get a character to Admired. Without a Reputation-based Resurrect, they have to hold onto those 40AcP instead of spending them on a fun boon, or else the character they have been playing for more than a year is at risk. Where if there were a reputation-based Resurrect, they could freely spend those points and know that their other character is safe.

But the character isn't safe. He'll still need those 40 until he has, on one character and assuming all success conditions met every time, until he's played 5 to 20 more games to earn that hypothetical free resurrection, at which point he'll have 60-80 more AcP (at the revered threshold he's earned enough for a race boon and a second chance). When he hits 80 AcP, that new race boon has 10 games to survive before earning 40 more AcP for a second chance safety net and isn't near the reputation based threshold.

So while I'm not going to complain if they give me a bonus one for higher level characters, but I'm not seeing it fixed the stated problem.

I never claimed there shouldn’t be any risk. It’s 15 games to get to 60 rep. If a player wanted to make sure that character was safe, they could save their 40 AcP after 10 games. 5 games later, they could spend all of their AcP on whatever they want (hirelings everywhere, whatever), and not have to worry about that character needing the AcP for a raise.

If they are saving up for a boon ancestry, they would wait 5 more games to spend any AcP. They are now 20 months into playing PFS. That’s a long time to wait for a boon. But they can now spend that 80 AcP and know that their high level character still has an option.

If they need to wait until they can spend 80 AcP and have 40 left over, they are waiting another 10 months. That’s more than 2 1/2 years.

Now maybe they want to do that to make sure their boon character is also safe. If that’s what they choose to do, that’s up to them. Or maybe they want to go on and start playing their boon character after waiting for 20 months to afford it, even though that boon character will be at risk.

But their other character will have another option, so there is less overall risk in just spending the AcP.

I got into the free Resurrect at Admired camp because it resembles what we had with Fame. It’s the biggest character specific reward that did not make it over to the Reputation boons. But it’s correct to point out that it does not directly protect low level characters. Maybe letting Second Chance be purchased to bring back a character that died in the past is a better direction to go. I don’t know which I’d prefer, or if I’d want both to happen at once. That might be too much or might address both sides of the issue.

I think being able to apply Second Chance retroactively would be a very helpful thing, but I'm pessimistic regarding it becoming a reality.

However, the one thing I don't want to come out of all this is for Second Chance to go back to increasing cost because "you all have free resurrections at Revered" or some such. That will screw over the unlucky once a month player more than the current theoretical problem.

Yes, on that I agree.

My argument for having both a reputation biased raise and keeping the non-escalating cost of Second Chance is that Admired is more than twice the amount of reputation (60) as the Fame-based resurrect cost (25).

I will certainly advocate for keeping SC at a fixed price.

So, one thing that I just thought of, re: moving marking dead on character sheets but not in the system is that it removes a vital piece of feedback about how deadly scenarios are...

Is that a tool currently used by the OP developers? (noting how many deaths a given scenario causes). Or just one that could be? I'll admit it certainly could be, but I feel atypically lethal scenarios generally can also just be ID'd by players and discussions in and out of forums; I certainly can point to plenty of scenarios pthat are highly dangerous/overtuned and I can't see that data.

Or is that thought more about possibly giving them a baseline level of death in XFS?

So, one thing that I just thought of, re: moving marking dead on character sheets but not in the system is that it removes a vital piece of feedback about how deadly scenarios are...

Wait.... Isn't that way to random for the information to be reliable? Like for example if one person were to be mistaken in how rules work and another runs it straight can be the difference between a character dying or not.

It’s more an issue that the Character Died checkbox is only for permadeaths, so it’s already not capturing complete information. Though if there are a large number of permadeaths on a low level scenario or bounty, I could see that being useful information to have.

Are the backgrounds listed in Adventure Path Players Guides only for characters who are playing those Adventure Paths? I have a kobold who would love access to the Dragon Scholar background from Age of Ashes.

But from my reading, none of the AP backgrounds are Society legal, correct?

Hmm

At present, none of the AP backgrounds are society legal. To my knowledge none of the chronicles grant them, nor do the AP Player's guides show up in the list of legal sources on the Character Options page.

That was what I thought. I was just double-checking, since that one would have been perfect for my dragon-obsessed Kobold braggart swashbuckler. Hermean Expatriate is society-legal, but that would be better for a human character as Hermea's ruler experiments on humans, not kobolds. (Lorewise, it just doesn't work!) I am guessing that I am just going to have to use the Additional Lore feat to pick up Dragon Lore, since I don't see any other backgrounds that really offer it.

Hmm