Acedio's page

I was looking at that and then realized it requires the technologist feat.

The cases where someone uses it to block line of effect for targets not within the radius of the dome is somewhat troubling and sounds obnoxious.

But otherwise, this is a 4th level spell (there are a great deal of other useful spells at that slot), has a hemispheric shape centered on the caster, cannot be reoriented to be below the caster (so limited use for folks in the air), and still consumes an action from the caster to get out of (even if its a swift action teleport, its still an action). Ultimately, its a defensive spell, and using it to negate effects until they get out of it doesn't seem so bad. There's several other players to interact with, yes?

It's rather useful in higher level play (inb4 "who cares about higher level play").

A save or suck shuts down encounters better than this spell does.

I think we should leave it in, but for the folks using it beyond its "obvious" applications to interfere with encounters in a great capacity, it might be good to remind them that "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should" and that the GM is also trying to have fun. Ideally, I think it could be rebalanced by increasing the spell level, but I understand the difficulty of errata for splatbooks.

Let's say HYPOTHETICALLY that we got Riddywipple de-clawed and now he's on a murderous rampage.

How much would it cost to procure a muzzle, and a blender and a straw so that we may continue to feed him bacon?

In all serious, it's cool to hear that John found a good opportunity to fit in the "rescue this other team" scenario!

kinevon wrote:

Michael Eshleman wrote:

IMO if an eidolon can receive negative chronicle boons, then it should be able to receive positive chronicle boons, and vice versa.

My personal opinion is that since eidolons don't receive chronicle sheets they also cannot receive positive or negative chronicle boons.

I agree with this.

Note, if you disagree with this, do you also feel that familiars, mounts, and animal companions can receive negative boons from chronicles?

"No, it is not" is not a double negative.

That being said. Boons are meant for characters, not their class abilities.

However, if something negative happens to your class ability, you can't just handwave it away.

This seems like a very arbitrary inconsistency that is designed to operate against the player, and frankly seems rather hostile. Is the root of the intent to prevent the eidolon from becoming more powerful than what the class feature intends, but also allow it to become weaker?

The logic should follow that if class features cannot benefit from boons, that they should certainly not be impacted by negative boons. Or you allow class features to be impacted by positive boons and negative boons. The approach must be consistent. Inconsistent rulings are inconsistent.

I don't have a copy of Inner Sea Races, so the following comes from d20pfsrd.com. If it is incorrect or incomplete please let me know.

Disinterested Observer wrote:

Elves who frequently interact with shorter-lived species often come to rely on their ability to wait out such impatient races. These elves gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls and skill checks made as part of readied actions in combat. This racial trait replaces the elven magic and weapon familiarity traits.

It occurs to me that while readied actions can delay a player, they need not. "I ready an action to attack the Orc in front of me as soon as my turn ends." is as far as I know perfectly legal. The net result being that the trait grants a flat +1 to all standard action attacks. It replaces some proficiency in some martial weapons that most martials won't miss and a bonus to pierce SR and ID magic items they won't miss at all.

This seems better than intended, I post it here rather than in the rules forum on the theory that it may not belong on the additional resources list.

This doesn't change anything about how readied actions normally work, so players should expect to use readied actions as usual.

That reminds me of another nasty to turn into a skeleton.

** spoiler omitted **
Got to say the more I think about it the more positive I become that no carry over of undead should be allowed. It would restrict cool BBEG in scenarios since they would inevitably get turned into undead for use by PC's.

Agreed on disallowing the carry over of undead. Though I'm not quite subscribed to the example you quoted. There are some very interesting monsters that would be out of place in terms of balance in scenarios from which they don't originate. Right now just saying "undead don't carry over between scenarios" is a very simple and elegant rule that leaves very little room for error.

I think there's also a strong chance that many people don't realize that the animated undead lose class levels upon being reanimated, and that leads to some balance problems and perhaps also contribute to the resentment of this mechanic. I also think with the onyx cost for Animate Dead is well balanced for the scope of one scenario.

That being said, I think opening up some of the variant animate undead options (such as fast zombie) would be good. Admittedly, I had thought they were legal up until I noticed this thread.

why is it fair that a first level spell (aspect of the falcon) can give you the equivalent of a feat (improved crit) and a good bonus to perception that would otherwise cost you thousands and thousands of gold in magic items to obtain? there are many other examples, but that's probably the most extreme.

because its magic!

Because it lasts a minute per level, and costs your first action in combat to cast (unless you quicken it). It's expensive in a different way.

Feel free to scenario farm then, I guess? At the end of the day it really only impacts your group and whoever you play with at a convention.

Having it as a widely supported practice is probably not good for the health of the campaign.

Here's the thing: Currently, one needs the scenario in hand to access the chronicle. If, however, chronicle perusal were less demonized, it would be feasible to create a database with chronicle rewards and make it available. Then those who want information on chronicle contents would have a location to look at rewards without accessing the entire scenario.

Not that you actually need to read the entire scenario to get at the chronicle. Those are commonly kept at the end of the document, thus opening the .pdf and skipping to the last page without reading the 20-30 pages between is entirely possible, preserving much of the scenario's mystery.

Except some chronicles have boons on them that are awarded based on decisions made in the scenario. Such information is a spoiler (ranging from minor to major of course). That seems to me like it would not "preserve much of the scenario's mystery."

Because information from it is used in scenarios, reading the Core Rulebook is cheating.

The snark here is unhelpful and doesn't actually advance your argument.

Searching for a chronicle sheet you don't have requires that you read scenarios before you have played them. Reading a scenario in advance is strongly discouraged unless you are going to be running it in the near future. This is because there are players that have trouble managing the advance knowledge they obtain from reading a scenario and wind up spoiling or metagaming (intentionally or otherwise).

Not terribly difficult.

If you want to do it and not impact anybody, be discrete and non-disruptive about it. People won't smile at that practice, though.

This is starting to be ridiculous. People are really arguing that an obvious typo has to allowed in PFS even though it has been corrected because it hasn't been corrected by an official enough source?

To be fair, usually James Jacobs does not want to be taken as a rules source. But in this situation I think it's at least somewhat obvious that he's more correct than the book.

James isn't part of campaign leadership. Those in charge can take care of this as they see fit.

Again you would be contradicting an official paizo source. Do whatever you want at a private PFS game, but don't take action at a public event.

So you say that, but I can't help but wonder whether allowing people to buy this at 5k simply because James Jacobs's recommendation for the correct price is not "a ruling from campaign leadership" is helpful or harmful to the campaign. Do you think that if people are allowed to buy this at 5k, there will be problems and frustration when campaign management inevitably corrects the price to 25k?

I'm not convinced blindly adhering to what is obviously a typo is really the best thing to do. Ambiguous and poorly written rules are one thing, but it is painfully apparent that this is a mistake and anyone denying it (don't see anybody mind you) is simply being obstinate.

As reasonable folks who (I'm assuming) don't like dealing with people who are upset after forced loss of equipment, it's probably easier in the long run if the 25k price is used.

Honestly it sounds like the more sensible thing for people who have this problem to do is to stop buying hard cover books and only buy PDFs.

I know people like hardcover books because they're nice and because it helps supports FLGSs (I usually buy PDFs and hardcovers myself), but if Paizo is not going to make it easier for customers who buy these more expensive books to participate, then people should consider not buying these books.

Vote with your dollars and tell Paizo that you think their support is insufficient. That's really the best you can do.

Complaining here on a yearly basis during convention season has not really helped. The rules as they are address the concerns of the campaign with regards to enforcing rules and proving ownership of sources. At this point in time, book sales are not a problem that needs to be considered with this rule.

EDIT: So no one feels tempted to lecture me about how I can work around this problem, I already buy the hard cover books and the PDFs.

The true primitive archetype is removed as a legal option from play on July 9, 2015.

Thanks, this kind of format is very helpful.

Rarely does being condescending help make a conversation productive.

John Compton wrote:

So far the feedback I've heard about the Expanded Narrative boon is "This shouldn't be a convention boon" or "This should be a GM boon," which by omission seems to say "Otherwise, this boon works fairly well with the exception of those issues."

Is that accurate?

Personally I am happy with it being a convention boon, I would just like it to be more reliably available to GMs at those conventions. As someone who mostly GMs, an Expanded Narrative boon would be far more useful than the GM reward Undine race boon that I received at my last event.

Convention boons are good to help encourage/reward convention attendance.

But I think Expanded Narrative is a boon that is not good to limit to conventions. There are plenty of local GMs that can't attend conventions that do enough in their local circle that they would deserve this reward. It should be distributed like the Star Reward Boons Chronicle.

Regarding the Expanded Narrative boon, that's something I'm willing to explore making more commonly available. One advantage of convention boons is that they allow the campaign to test out an idea, use it more if it works, or discontinue it if it doesn't without causing too much damage. So far the feedback I've heard about the Expanded Narrative boon is "This shouldn't be a convention boon" or "This should be a GM boon," which by omission seems to say "Otherwise, this boon works fairly well with the exception of those issues."

Is that accurate?

I think the Expanded Narrative boon is designed correctly, because it incentivises and rewards people for GMing more often.

The accessibility is the only problem. Even for people who can attend conventions, I've heard a couple of stories about frequent and respected volunteer GMs in a few gaming communities being disappointed with being unable to get one of these boons at Gencon or Paizocon because of unlucky rolls at the token exchange counter.

This will make a lot of volunteers that help make PFS a better community happy.

Does allowing every character you make to play any scenario, so long as the same character doesn't repeat a scenario count as "unlimited replay"? Just trying to figure out what camp I'm in.

Effectively yes. Among the other reasons why that's bad, there are some scenarios that have particularly strong boons, so there would be incentives to run those far more frequently (honestly, I would not be surprised if people tried to run them once per character every character because some of these are very strong).

I think replay for credit is unhealthy, but I also think that what we have for reopening scenarios for replay is about right (the GM star recharge boon should not be convention only though). Replay for credit is problematic in summary because it removes the incentive to try new scenarios and just run the older, "superior" ones over and over again.

Replay for no credit would be a nice to have, because I think it's important to allow the "hard core players" to continue to participate. But unfortunately there are people out there who are not mature enough to allow people who can play for credit to have precedence when claiming seats. (And again, a lot of this has been solved already with core campaign so it's far less of a problem).

The "Fires of Karamoss" sidebar indicates you ignore hardness altogether. But, as far as I know, that's the only place that rule has shown up. Which makes it very troublesome, because players who know it want to use it, but we don't have an actual reference anywhere other than a single scenario.

Oh ok, it looks like we're talking about different things/I misread your post/I don't know how to read. Sorry! Do you happen to have the wording?

EDIT: Found it (sorry, I'm struggling real hard today)

Fires of karamoss has a sidebar on page 16 about fighting creatures with hardness, which reads:

Hardness works differently for creatures than for objects. Unlike an object, a creature with hardness takes full damage from energy and ranged attacks (as opposed to half damage), which is then reduced by the creature’s hardness. If the creature is vulnerable to a certain type of damage, that damage is increased before being reduced by the creature’s hardness. At the GM’s discretion, certain attacks may bypass a creature’s hardness entirely. In the case of robots such as [redacted] (who have vulnerability to electricity), it would be appropriate not only to apply 150% of the electricity damage dealt by an attack, but to also allow that damage to bypass the robot’s hardness.

Cool! Vulnerability precedence! But yeah this should be FAQ'd please.

After a long bout of reading CRB on this matter, the simplest explanation I was able to derive was the following (hope it helps or makes sense):

1. Harness and Energy Attacks (specifically halving energy damage) are properties of objects.

2. Harness and 'Energy Attacks' rules are separate, and are not tied together in one package.

3. A Robot is not an object, it is a construct, so it does not have the 'Energy Attack' rules. It is given the Harness rules explicitly.

Spoiler has the CRB sources.

At least this is how a lot of us concluded prior to the FAQ that robots didn't halve energy damage.

Edit: Corrected "object" wording.

Edit 2: The thing I have yet to see addressed that I'm still not sure how to rule on is the precedence of hardness and vulnerability to electricity. Do I subtract harness, then multiply damage by 1.5? Or do I multiply damage by 1.5, then subtract hardness? Or do I ignore hardness altogether?

Yeah, that's one post I keep on my PFS Clarifications List

That's a really cool list, thanks, James!

This is tangential to what I'm actually talking about, and I'm not sure why you're avoiding the point. While I sympathize with what you are saying, and 100% agree with you that it's a problem that needs to be solved, I'm going to avoid derailing.

Nowhere did I claim it was from the FLGS. That's a different problem (and a serious one at that). I'm not sure if I articulated my point poorly, or people are reading in between lines that aren't there.

Also, the point still stands. It punished people for greater participation.

Sure... but two things about that. First, more products individually, I will agree with you that that's extremely likely. More products overall? Much harder to conclude.

More importantly, though, giving in to what those people want could potentially destroy (or at least significantly weaken) the entire OP campaign, which not only undermines the marketing effort, but also ends up in the long run hurting those same people it was trying to help.

I wasn't making a statement about whether it would increase sales, I was pointing out that this policy is likely having a greater negative impact on people who probably "buy more individually", AKA loyal customers.

* It really is a pretty small fraction of the player base that's having problems finding scenarios. They're here, and there are probably more of them than are posting on this thread. More replay would help them. But, there are many more people out there for whom it's not a problem.

For the sake of fully understanding this particular point, It's important to acknowledge that this "small fraction of the player base" is composed of people who spend more time playing the campaign than other people, and are more likely to be people who purchase more products. (As a side, the counter argument that "it's not designed to be played that much" is dumb, because it's telling people to engage in the product less and to look elsewhere to spend time.)

That's the messed up part of this whole no replay for no credit ruling, it punished people who spent more time with the campaign, which was backwards.

To reiterate before people jump on this, I understand why it's done this way, and that it is less of a problem now than it was then.

Last year, I thought the best answer for this initiative issue was "GM does what makes the game easier to run for them as long as they still provide positive experience for the players."

And a year later I still can't understand why people are so worried about this that it needs to become a campaign policy.

Did the GM clump initiative to create an unfair situation, kill a bunch of PCs and make people mad? That sounds like they did the wrong thing. Did the GM clump initiative and nobody noticed and had a good time? Then what's the problem?

Is this really a big problem in PFS? Do we really need a ruling for this? Aren't there more valuable things we could spend time discussing on the forums?

Sometimes I wonder if the incessant arguing here about little things is a deterrent for new people.

Personally I think replay for no credit is harmless for communities with the organizational capacity to handle it.

However, replay for no credit is a workaround/solution to a problem (scenario availability) that already has a few workarounds that do not involve opening replay for no credit. Moreover, it does cause some scheduling difficulty for larger communities. For instance, how do we guarantee that someone who can play for credit is prioritized over someone who cannot? From what I learned from Drogon last time we debated this, it seemed like a substantial risk for his community and I think it's an important one to prevent elsewhere. And because of that disadvantage, and perhaps others, there's not going to be enough of a voice to get that policy changed.

The majority is less interested about the corner case where people don't show and a table gets canceled which results in the people who did show having nothing to play. There are workarounds but there are also situations where you wind up with scheduling conflicts that are impossible to solve for everyone.

Is that problem alone worth opening up replay for no credit? Probably not. But perhaps that might change if there was more data on how frequently that happens. Or alternatively we'd have enough proof to make an informed decision to not address it because of infrequency. Maybe there are also some more draconian community level rules that could help prevent that.

I think if there was better tools in place to help determine if people were eligible for credit for a given scenario, we could then have the scheduling sophistication to open up replay for no credit.

Of course, the other side of that if Paizo were to try and invest in scheduler tools that integrated with their session reporting DB, we could then have scheduling tools that could calculate a playable scenario for a group of people.

That's development dollars though.

No, it will just be a colossal waste of time (and therefore money).

Like this entire argument.

As such I reject your notion that there is a legacy problem as a superficial treatment of the matter. There is no legacy problem because my suggestions align with what the previous and dominant perspective on the skill.

Ok. I reject your notion that this is a problem that needs to be solved with a new policy, so I suppose we just agree to disagree.

Ripple effect is still unmeasurable within pratical bounds.

Previous assumption was that take 10 was within the GMs authority to dictate. The suggested rule would impact every skill check where the author considered a GM might bar take 10. Might be minor in most situations but changes like that cause unexpected problems that are often more cumbersome than the issue they were intended to solve.

Well, Andrew had some examples. I think it's also reasonable to answer your query with "nobody knows," which is an important thing to consider because then to make your proposed (or similar) ruling work, someone is going to have to figure that out, and that's going to cost time and money.

But I think immediately I can point to a couple of things with certainty that they won't be addressed in legacy content:

1. The task itself cannot bar a Take 10 unless the scenario specifically dictates otherwise.

2. GMs cannot use the environment or the setting as a way to preclude Take 10 unless authorized by the scenario.

I can't imagine that many legacy scenarios have explicit stipulations on when to use and not use Take 10 because it's been a non-issue up until this point (in one way it still isn't an issue because of the no FAQ necessary).

4 GMs are required to make an objective assessment on whether the circumstances constitutes a distraction or "immediate" danger.

If I'm Mike Brock, and I get a complaint that a GM did not "objectively assess whether a circumstance constitutes a distraction or 'immediate' danger", how do I prove this? I mean, I understand the intention of the proposed rule and it's a good goal, but the ruling needs to be something 'measurable'.

Acedio wrote:

That being said, I'm not sure if Take 10 is such an issue that campaign management is particularly worried about. I mean, really, what prohibiting take 10 because it "trivializes encounters" says is "I know you have at least a 55% chance to succeed, but I really want to squeeze that last 0%-45% to see you fail."

Note that in the case of repeated checks - climbing a cliff, for example - that chance to succeed drops rapidly.

Yeah I think that's a slightly different context, but still that's a good counterpoint and important information to consider when making a decision about allowing take 10s.

Acedio wrote:

How would PFS Campaign Management practically issue a ruling exactly?

By making the scenario author the default on Taking 10.

1. The task itself cannot bar a Take 10 unless the scenario specifically dictates otherwise.

2. GMs cannot use the environment or the setting as a way to preclude Take 10 unless authorized by the scenario.

3. GMs cannot deny Take 10 based on pacing, tension, or drama.

4 GMs are required to make an objective assessment on whether the circumstances constitutes a distraction or "immediate" danger.

For example, a player make Take 10 to clear spiked pit when not in combat or specifically distracted.

That took me 5 minutes. Did it ruin anyone's game?

That might work going forward but that doesn't address the 7 seasons of content that have been previously designed around different assumptions.

It's not practical for legacy reasons.

For Mike or John or Linda to create a take ten rule for PFS, it creates a scenario where they are saying they know better than the design team.

I think PFS Campaign management and the Design Team have different objectives in mind when it comes to the rule set.

For instance, table variation is a very touchy problem in PFS that often turns into needlessly heated arguments. Table variation for a home game (which is clearly what Pathfinder Design Team writes their content for, see any "GM Discretion" rule) is a complete non-issue. In fact, the GM in a home brew doesn't even need to use the rules in the book and can modify them at will because "who cares."

So in the context of adjusting rules to function sanely in a global campaign where at least some degree of consistency is desired, I would say the PFS Campaign Management at the very least is more concerned about table variation than the Design Team and is likely more adept at identifying and dealing with it. Though this is not to claim that PFS Campaign Management is terribly worried about table variation in general.

That being said, I'm not sure if Take 10 is such an issue that campaign management is particularly worried about. I mean, really, what prohibiting take 10 because it "trivializes encounters" says is "I know you have at least a 55% chance to succeed, but I really want to squeeze that last 0%-45% to see you fail."

Sometimes difficulty is important in a game. Other times its unnecessarily irritating. How would PFS Campaign Management practically issue a ruling exactly? There are tons of possible circumstances where the greater population of PFS would see "no take 10" as appropriate, and still there are many others that would see it as fine and not care.

Does "use responsibly" or "be reasonable" really not work?

I understand your reasoning completely, but I also think that's a good case for it to be a neutral action.

GM discretion still seems like the best approach to me.

(Thanks for fixing embarrassing typo!)

Potential alignment infraction for G-E axis and L-C axis, but there's no catch all and it should be something negotiated with the GM.

Here are some questions to ask:

Lawful-Chaotic: Is killing this person violating regional laws? Does the Paladin's Deity approve of this action? Is the Paladin violating their Code of Conduct?

Good-Evil: Is the kill necessary? What are the motivations? Did the opponent attempt to surrender? Can they present any realistic threat anymore?

CDG is probably not a good action, but it is also contextually not evil. It is also likely not a lawful action, but it is contextually not chaotic.

Here's a similar thread that might be useful to continue this discussion.

Hope this is somewhat helpful!

EDIT: Fixed typos.

There's no catch-all for what alignment CDG falls under it is completely within the domain of GM discretion. Trying to box it up is probably unhealthy. The motivations of the OP are a useful piece of evidence that could help categorize it, but unfortunately it's just one anecdote among an infinite number of possible scenarios. So I'm not sure we should say "CDG is evil" just based on the motivation put forward in this thread.

And I don't think blanket declarations about what action it is will help anybody. GM discretion is a simple way to look at it that can be handled on a case by case basis by people who fully understand the situation.

First, CdG is never a good act, but it isn't always an evil one. Not good =/= evil.

As to GM interpretation variance, it's an unfortunate necessity, and ultimately creates what I like to call the alignment interpretation tax. When alignment disagreements happen, the player has to either not authentically RP their character, or they may have to pay for an atonement.

It blows, but it's a reality.

Agreed fully!

Let's also not forget that a PC needs several alignment warnings before a shift to evil alignment is forced. So an isolated incident like this probably isn't the end of the world.

But it is at least an interesting discussion point.

Ok, but it's still somewhere between evil and neutral action per the rules.

There's no argument being made for it being a good action, just a question of whether its an evil action.

Typically killing helpless opponents who have no practical way of threatening you in the future leans towards evil, but I think an argument could be made for it to be a neutral action if there's the right justification.

I don't think the reasoning of "I want to get the last hit" would really qualify as neutral though.

Good Versus Evil

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.

But this is a fine example of GM discretion.

You could decline to take credit for your character or hold the credit for a different one.

Mike,

I think this website suffers from a lack of webdesign and as a result is cluttered and difficult to navigate for new users. Even though I've been browsing paizo.com for a few years now I still find myself stumbling on new links that were put in a place that I didn't expect that would have saved me a bunch of page traversals.

This does not seem to be a PFS problem, because the PFS site is constrained by the web design decisions made for the entire paizo site. I don't think PFS leadership will get very far on their own unless the web team is willing to do a more global revamp (which I would strongly suggest).

The first thing I thought when I started PFS was that the paizo.com site looks like a college senior design project. It's not exactly professional, and more problematic is that its difficult to navigate. There's an apparent lack of planning on how content should be organized (at least from this user's perspective). It could very well benefit from an overhaul especially given how sharp the website of paizo's primary competitor looks.

The feedback sounds harsh I imagine, but please don't view it as an attack on the developers or anyone working at paizo - the criticism is directed specifically at the product. It's difficult to change software that's been around for years because it's hard to justify dedicating a budget towards revamping something that already works.

Overall, I think the product could heavily benefit from some reorganization and great deal of usability testing. Admittedly, it's been a very long time since I've done any web development, so I don't think I can provide any specific advice (not that my opinion was exactly solicited anyway), but web design consultants are aplenty so there should be many professionals available to provide some insight into how to improve the experience here.

For an easy improvement, people also seem to be suggesting that "Additional Resources" is somewhat of a misleading name. I think that's a reasonably sound observation. Naming is a very tricky business, but it is also very important because names are one of the most important tools that users can use to learn about the software they are interacting with.

"Legal Resources" may be a more concise, intuitive name.

Hope that helps, sorry if I offended anybody.

That sounds like a lot like a local problem that could be resolved with a reasonable dialog between the player and the GM.

I stand by my earlier comments, I think some people are going out of their way to justify making it more difficult than it needs to be.

It is supposed to be a more fun, more consistently accessible form of flavor for the players to feel like they are actually doing things to support their factions. I don't think the idea is to try to read them in such a way to make them needlessly difficult, unlikely or specific.

Sure, but while you and some others see a pearl of power not qualifying for that objective as being needlessly difficult, others see it as being too permissive.

Neither point of view is wrong, and ultimately its not that big of a deal either way. Both sides have really well justified opinions.

I'm skeptical that things are as broken as some participants in this thread would suggest.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Collaboration (15 Fame/ 2 Prestige):
You have gained enough notoriety in the society to gain access to the discoveries of others, and to have others benefit from your discoveries.
You may spend two prestige from this character as well as two prestige from another character with this vanity that you possess in order to gain access to the boons and items of a chronicle sheet in that character's possession on this one. Said chronicle sheet must be present at all times.
This vanity cannot be used to gain access to races.

I can think of a certain set of rather notorious boons in season 4 that might be abusable with this proposal.

Not to say that this isn't a good start though, just gotta point out corner cases.

The mystic theurge grandfathering was a mite harder: anywhere from 13 to 16 xp.

DMing also doesn't count, you need to PLAY it.

Ah, right forgot about that one.

Quintin Verassi wrote:

I meant as in abuse of the rules of change, not validity of the change itself

There was an outcry on the forums, I know there was a thread on grandfathering that just wouldn't die, and I know of several others on the boards that were upset about it. One of my characters lost Arcane Strike, but them's the breaks.

The unchained summoner change left some GM's out in the cold, but leadership made a deliberate choice when they made their ruling, and stuck to it. I respect that. If they had made concessions, I'm sure we would have had more new APG summoners for a good long time to come. You still have a fourth level amorphous blob of GM credit, you might not be able to make an APG summoner but there are plenty of other non-summoner options available to you.

Our player base has shown they don't have the maturity to be responsible when management gave us a chance to make another aasimar/tiefling before they rotated out. I would prefer management not give us advanced notice of any future rotations. Full disclosure, I have a single grandfathered aasimar and a single grandfathered tiefling, to this date they have not been used yet.

The criteria for grandfathering has been relatively easy to meet (4 XP), so there was a small amount of people impacted by the changes.

The people who are impacted seem to feel blindsided and that's most certainly a notable downside of the approach. Though it seems like the benefits of the strategy outweigh the downsides so far, and it's clear (at least to me) that they've been putting effort in minimizing the ripple effects. Can't please everybody, unfortunately.

They teach people in school that "slippy slope" is a fallacy that does nothing to combat a point of view other than distract from the point. This is a fantastic example of that.

If you honestly cannot see the difference between the examples you provided and taking a passive aggressive, spiteful action against another player or character, then it is not worth the time explaining what is wrong with your counter argument. The differences are self evident.

Edit: I stopped reading your post after the first sentence. thejeff's answer was pretty spot on.