Yep, those all look real ugly to me. Now let's look at some average looking people (Charisma 10-12)...
1. Death Priest, pg. 50
2. Mistress of High Places, pg. 70
3. Poisonous Performer, pg. 102
4. Seductive Enchanter, pg. 183
5. Cultist, pg. 249
If these people represent average beauty, I can only assume the Paizo artists and writers were born and raised in, and have never left, the Viper Room.
On the other hand, their idea of Charisma 14 makes me think they frequent a different kind of club...
1. Priest of Oblivion, pg. 60
"Charisma determines a character's physical beauty" doesn't seem so certain anymore, does it?
Paizo needs to sell their products and PFS is supposed to help them do that, largely via the rule that each player has to possess, either on pdf or hardcopy, every book that their characters' draw rules from.
This rule is understandable, but increasingly impractical as the proliferation of books marches on. If you like using pdfs of everything anyway, maybe its fine for you. But if you're someone (like me) who likes having hardcopies, it's annoying having to face the choice of either buying everything twice or else carting around a truly unwieldy pack of books to every game. It's especially frustrating since it is entirely unnecessary: The truth is that at this point the pfsrd site is actually a better resource than the pdfs, since they update based on errata and even thread commentary from devs.
So I say get rid of the "must own/present the books" rule in PFS. Now, "that's all well and good," Paizo may respond, "but then how do we use PFS to sell product?" Well, I have an idea for that, too: Boons.
The way it works is this: Each Paizo product, whether purchased hardcopy or on pdf, will come with a code that can be redeemed in the PFS section of the website. The code will then randomly select three possible boons that the player can choose from. The player chooses his boon and then prints it out. The boon sheet has his PFS number included on it, so he can not simply make a bunch of copies and give them out; the boon only works for one specific character.
The boons available will be stuff people really want. Some ideas:
1. Races- There would be boons allowing players to build characters of various races. PFS would stop allowing non-core races altogether, except via these boons. Thus the approximate number of weird races could be controlled, and you wouldn't get the phenomenon of an inexplicable influx of X race each season. You could even have a few ultra-rare race boons floating around that allowed play as a centaur or an ogre mage or something.
2. Companions and Familiars- There would be boons allowing the selection of cool familiars and animal companions, like the faerie dragon, owlbear, hippogriff etc.
3. "Cameo Characters"- These boons would allow the creation of a level (randomly generated from 4-11) character that would not earn XP or level up, but which could be played (randomly generated from 1-6) times before being permanently retired. This would let players play around with interesting character and build concepts that they like, but which they might not be interested in committing a lot of time to.
4. NPC Codex Pregens- These boons would allow the player to use a specific character from the NPC codex in place of the usual pregens of a specific level. For instance, you might receive a boon that allowed you to play Meliski Traundor the Gambler (pg. 30) anytime you would normally have the option of using a level 7 pregen.
5. Unique/Sentient Magic Items- These boons would make interesting magic items available to the character for purchase.
6. Misc- All kinds of other stuff.
Note that none of these boons actually increase the power of the characters played; they just provide interesting options. Releasing these sorts of options in this way would make them feel special to the players that have them, would make unique-option proliferation more controllable (since the number of X option available could be set by the computer program that gives out boons), and would push product very effectively assuming people were excited about the boons available. Anyway, that's the idea.
I've seen a lot of angry people on these boards expressing some version of the following sentiment: "If you're going to have pages of house rules and/or restrictions on what I can and can't use, then don't lie and say that you're running a Pathfinder game just because you think that's all people will actually play. When you do that, you're misadvertising and wasting both of our time." Similarly, I've seen several threads devoted specifically to discussions over the degree to which magic and the casting classes can or should be restricted in different types of games.
All of this begs the question that I ask in the title of this thread. I think the Paizo powers-that-be have been spectacularly bad at addressing this issue, and it's a thorny one. See, the folks that say "It's not Pathfinder if you're not playing it exactly (or at least pretty close to exactly) as written" have a valid and understandable argument. The problem is, when you play Pathfinder exactly as written, you get a very specific sort of experience that is simply not what many people are looking for out of the game, for a variety of reasons.
What is that experience? Well, broadly speaking it's a sort of madcap pastiche that makes Final Fantasy VII look staid in comparison, wherein kitsune ninjas battle against or alongside robots and knights and samurai and elves. Wuxia monks run up walls while being shot at by half-angelic steampunk gunslingers. Oh, and now there are psychics. Everything plays out rather predictably if you're familiar with the system. Indeed, it must, since the entire thing is geared around "combat as sport" encounter based play. Everything (including, paradoxically, magic) works very literally, mathematically and unromantically. And typically, it's mostly all about kicking in doors and looting treasure.
Exploration based play is very difficult to achieve meaningfully. Interesting social scenarios, though possible with skilled players, are not emphasized. Indeed, the system works against such play in many ways. It works against aesthetics oriented play as well, since the most optimized options for character creation are almost invariably the least interesting. And all of this is not to mention caster/martial disparity, which is very real. Even if the latter problem can be bridged, doing so requires a whole other set of conventions/assumptions that many find distasteful.
And finally, it is virtually impossible to challenge experienced players without departing from the RAW challenge rating system. Internal balance between party members can also be thrown off quite easily and quite dramatically.
If you have a problem with any of that, you have only one option (assuming you still want to play Pathfinder): make house rules and/or restrict the scope of available options. Yet this leads to an undesirable situation. As a GM you have to field (sometimes quite vehement) discontent over the restrictions you place, and as a player you can never be sure what you are or aren't allowed to do when creating your character. I've seen this issue cause quite a lot of arguments and frustration, and if nothing else it is certainly impractical.
I'd like to hear the community's feedback about these issues, and how we (or Paizo) might be able to address them. If possible, try to avoid rehashing the usual arguments or restating the complaints I already enumerated here. And please, those of you who feel that none of this is a problem: you're welcome to your opinion; I'm just asking you not to voice it here. I know, I know. It's all in the social contract and just don't be a jerk and yada, yada, yada. I've heard it all before and it really doesn't help the situation. In a way, you could say that this post is specifically an attempt to facilitate dialogue that will help players and GMs more easily arrive at a social contract.
A Closing Thought:
As an example of what I'm talking about, Paizo's confusion regarding these issues is illustrated particularly well by the Advanced Race Guide. What on earth does it mean to have "featured" and "uncommon" races? That the GM gets to decide whether those races are allowed in play or not? Isn't that always the case? What is the point or the value of telling players that a given race is "uncommon?" In what setting (since they don't seem to mean in Golarion)? According to whom? My campaign might focus on the longstanding total war between the world's two dominant races: the Samsarans and the Strix (this might look a lot like the comic Saga). In my Westeros inspired setting, the grippli aren't "uncommon" at all, because they're completely, non-negotiably non-existent. But then, in that world elves, gnomes, dwarves, halflings and half orcs might be too, despite their inclusion in the Core.
So, I posted about this before, but am making a new thread for two reasons. First, a few issues came out in the earlier thread that seemed worth including in the discussion from the start, and second, a lot of other issues came up that probably shouldn't have been included at all.
Last time around, the issue of constant liberal rebuilding got brought up and sort of took over the discussion. To be clear, this thread is NOT about whether people ought to be able to rebuild at a whim, or just play different characters every game, or anything like that. I understand why people do not want this, and I respect their reasons, (even if I could raise some critiques about them). Also, I am actually very pleased with the (semi) recent inclusion of a rebuilding option following the retraining rules. I think it was a sensible way to approach the issue, to a point. This thread is about the points where the current retraining rules fail us.
I would like us to address the following three questions:
1. Is allowing a (fairly liberal) rebuild of a character sometimes definitely better for the game?
2. Is allowing a (fairly liberal) rebuild of a character sometimes the only fair course of action?
3. Is this a case where Paizo/the PFS community ought to permit this behavior even if it cannot officially endorse it (similar to the way the police in most cases simply do not give tickets for going less than 10 mph over the speed limit)? Or should some official policy of circumstantial rebuilding be adopted?
My answers are yes, yes and maybe. Before I get into my reasons I will say that I am unlikely to find common ground on this issue with anyone who does not accept the following premise:
It is the nature of the Pathfinder system that in the case of many character builds (especially ones sufficiently complicated to be interesting, at least to a relatively experienced player) every part (abilities, feats, skills, magic items, etc) of said build relates to every other part, such that removing or altering even one thing will in many cases drastically negatively effect the way the build plays.
I could give a lot of examples of this, but I would prefer to avoid it. Like I said, if you don't accept this premise, you probably aren't going to agree with anything else I have to say about this topic. I personally believe the above premise to be fairly self evident. Accepting this premise means that you are not going to find the degree of retraining available in the current system satisfactory in many instances. So, back to my answers to the questions proposed.
1. Yes. This is particularly the case when a player wants to alter a character build that is too powerful and/or is based on unclear or controversial rules. In either of these cases, the player is very clearly doing what is best for the game by rebuilding, and oughtn't be hindered in doing it.
2. Yes. This is particularly the case when a player wants to alter a character build that has been impacted by errata or rules clarifications, or a character build that is based on unclear or controversial rules. To me it seems obvious that the responsibility for rules that are unclear (or especially those that are problematic to the point of errata) lies squarely with Paizo. Players whose builds are affected by such rules shouldn't be hindered if they choose to rebuild. To do so winds up punishing these players (due to the premise stated earlier), which is something akin to entrapment.
3. I'm not sure about this one, but I'd like to hear some opinions about it.
Played 5-13 on Wednesday. It has a hard mode. You cagey buggers...you really were listening! What can I say? Thank you. You certainly play your cards close to the chest...
The mod was awesome. It had both of the things I (and I think a lot of people)have been wanting to see more of:
1. A hard mode
2. At least one cool, set-piecey encounter with multiple types of challenges present at once.
Everyone playing seemed to have a great time (and the GM enjoyed being able to challenge people a little more too). Dyed in the wool optimizers will still cakewalk this, but at least now it starts to look a lot more like the players (and not the mod/encounter design) that are at fault when they do this.
This is a mod I could (and probably will) run, and run as written without feeling vaguely (or more than vaguely) frustrated. Great job. Thanks for writing it. Thanks for listening.
I'm going to attempt to argue that given the current structure and nature of PFS, being strict about pretty much any of the PFS specific rules serves no purpose. In fact, it does more harm than good.
The idea I'm discussing here applies pretty much across the board, but in order to make the point I'm going to start with a specific example that I think is particularly apt: the discussion over rebuilding after the Crane Wing errata.
Crane Wing and Crane Riposte were altered and many people believed that either they should not have been altered, or that the changes went too far and made the feat path unattractive. They wanted to be able to rebuild their character to a greater or lesser degree. I don't want to argue whether or not their opinions about the errata are correct. This is not another Crane Wing rules thread. One of the points I will try to make is that whether or not they are correct is irrelevant to how their situation ought to be handled.
Full disclosure: I believe Crane Wing deserved errata, but that the errata it got was not very satisfying. I do not, however, have a horse in the race. I had only one character with Crane Wing who is now retired, and I specifically avoided taking it anymore after using it with that character, because I felt it was too powerful and was annoying to GMs.
Several solutions were proposed for people who felt dissatisfied with their characters after the errata:
1. Allow them to replace Crane Wing and Crane Riposte, but nothing else (the current rule, which raised many complaints).
2. Allow to also replace Crane Style.
3. Allow them to replace all the Crane feats, and any feats they took as a prerequisite to those feats.
4. Allow them to do the minimum rebuild they felt was necessary for them to be satisfied, whatever that entailed, and have it approved by their local venture captain or lieutenant.
5. Allow them to rebuild the character completely, from the ground up, or just to make another character altogether with their current character's XP.
Of the possible approaches, the strictest one (save for forcing the players to keep the errata'd feats as well) was implemented. How do we determine whether this approach was the best one? Several points were made attempting to pacify the frustrated Crane Style players, among them:
1. The feat path is still good now so you should just keep it.
-Frustrated Player: the premise of my concern is that the path is not good now, and anyway the point is that I don't like the character anymore and I am reasonably entitled to that feeling
2. You're being allowed to replace the things that got changed so that should satisfy you.
-Frustrated Player: builds are an interlocking puzzle that often don't function the same when you remove even one piece, and anyway the point is that I don't like the character anymore and I am reasonably entitled to that feeling
3. The game is supposed to be social anyway, man, so just relax and enjoy the company of your friends! :)
-Frustrated Player: I can do any number of social activities if that's all I care about, but I have chosen this one because the mechanics of it are enjoyable to me, and anyway the point is that I don't like the character anymore and I am reasonably entitled to that feeling
And so on. I do not empathize with these players' feeling that they need to rebuild their characters, in this particular case. I do, however, believe they should be allowed to do it, and I do entirely empathize with their frustration at the pointless condescension they receive for wanting to. Because they are 100% correct about their central premise, which is very simple and which all the arguments against them ignore:
There are upsides (primarily, happy players) to allowing the rebuilds, and there are no downsides to doing so.
Someone tell me the downside. I want one reason that affects gameplay in any negative, quantifiable way. In other words, something other than "It just bothers me when people rebuild their characters." I want something valid and substantive that shows that allowing the player in question to rebuild his character alters the way the game plays for anyone else. It doesn't. To oppose it on the grounds that it just "bugs you" is pure selfishness. You are actively preventing someone else's enjoyment of the game in order to keep yourself from being annoyed by something that you have no good reason to be annoyed by.
An errata is essentially the admission of a mistake. A mistake was made in allowing the altered rule/game element to have been created in the first place. Guess what, Paizo? This does not make you look bad. Making mistakes is fine (to a point, anyway), as long as you correct them and fix the problems that the mistakes created. Doing so is not a sign of weakness; it is admirable. These players were affected by your mistake. Just give them whatever they need to fix it. It takes you exactly zero work or effort to do so. When somebody wants something done (for whatever reason) and there is literally no good reason not to do it, that person has a right to be upset that the thing isn't happening.
I was going to expand this to a broader point about the essential pointlessness of most of the PFS rules. Basically, I think there needs to be a lot more focus on restricting things that actually negatively affect game play and/or allow characters to be too powerful (like Crane Wing, which needed errata but caused confusion only because it was one of oh so many things that does and thus seemed capricious/arbitrary), and a lot less focus on restricting stuff that does neither of these things (like letting people rebuild).
Full-on, heavy restrictions of the latter kind might serve a purpose, as they create an overall environment of gameplay that can potentially have a certain aggravating charm (I gather this was part of the appeal of Living Greyhawk). But if you aren't going to go all the way with stuff like this, you shouldn't go half way either, because the resultant system is just mostly incoherent, with rules that cause frustration because they serve no aesthetic or mechanical purpose. Be the strict game or be the liberal game, but don't be some pointless fusion of the two. But anyway, I think will save all that for another post, as this one is massive already.
I started another thread the other day (linked at the end of this post) about an incident between myself and a player at a PFS game I ran last Wednesday. To summarize, I made alterations in the mod to increase the difficulty. None of the PCs died as a result, but one of the players became very irate about it, to the point of screaming insults at me in public and seeming almost as if he might come to blows.
Since then, the player in question wrote me an extremely sportsman like, gentlemanly email apologizing for having been out of line with his behavior. I wrote back, apologizing for my own arrogance in changing the mod, and for denying him the experience he was entitled to from the game.
All's well that ends well. However, there are a few things I feel compelled to say in regards to this incident.
1.) Despite what has been alleged by Mr. Brock and others, I do NOT recommend that PFS GMs alter the mods. A careful reading of my posts shows that I never recommended any such thing in the thread in question. I do not recommend (nor have I ever done so) changing the rules so that GMs be allowed to alter the mods at will. If anything, my posts here have been repeated calls for various ORGANIZED ALTERNATIVES to such behavior. Because I do entirely sympathize with GMs that feel the desire to change things in the mods to suit their individual tables. At this point, however, my advice to them is: try to avoid it. In the end, it really can't work out well. I speak from experience.
If you absolutely feel you must make the scenarios harder (and, again, I fully empathize with this impulse), I suggest first limiting your table size to four, especially with regards to the Season 0-2 mods. If you still feel compelled to make alterations, I believe that it is imperative that you check with your players first and do not make said alterations if any of them objects. If all the players want a harder game, well, I really can't see the harm and I don't see why anyone would be opposed to it in that case. But even then, your players should not feel pressured to go along with this.
2.) That said, it is worth stating that shouting, insults and even the barest intimation of violence should never be tolerated at a PFS table, no matter the dispute. I feel this needs to be said unequivocally, since Mr. Brock's post at the end of my previous thread not only implies that the behavior of the player at my table was justified, but that I brought it on myself. Shockingly careless and unprofessional (not to mention condescending) speech from an actual Paizo employee. Read his post yourself if you don't believe me. Yes, they actually pay this man.
Anyhow, I felt the need to clarify these issues in light of the dangerous implications of Mr. Brock's post, as well as the way it misrepresented my point of view. I would have simply responded directly, but he also locked the thread. To the frustrated PFS GMs out there: let my experience be a lesson to you. Ultimately, it's just not worth the hassle to try to change things yourself. Keep coming on here and posting and letting them know your frustrations, but in the meantime keep playing by the rules if you must play at all. The mods and seasons really are getting better in a lot of ways. Oh, and let's keep lobbying for a hard mode to become standard practice! Waking Rune kicked ass!
I play in and run both home games and PFS. I have run somewhere around 30-40 PFS games, and played in well over 100. I always had significant reservations about PFS, but tried to ignore or to find ways around them. Finally, this past Wednesday, the moment I had feared arrived.
I was running scenario 40, The Hall of Drunken Heroes, for a table of 5 veteran players at tier 10-11.
Spoiler:
They avoided the first encounter (not surprising), then came to the second, CR 14 encounter designed to, in the words of the mod “humble powerful PCs.” The characters are not even supposed to defeat this encounter. They won in about 4 rounds with minimal injuries. The following encounter was a fight with a succubus and her shadow demon minion. They save-or-died the succubus on round one.
It was then that I snapped. I had spent over 2 hours prepping the mod. I had walked through the snow while fighting off a rapidly worsening cold to spend another 4+ hours in a crappy nyc deli running the thing. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I went off script.
The shadow demon hadn’t even appeared yet in the encounter. By happenstance, the monk (who was also the party scout) was out of line of sight of the other PCs, near the wall the demon was hiding in. I ignored its written tactics and had it come out of hiding and magic jar the monk. Success! I said nothing to the other PCs but wrote the possessed player a note. He played it off like a champ.
They found the secret door in the library and the possessed monk suggested she go first to scout ahead. What she really did was go to the final encounter to warn the boss. Now, in the scenario the boss is a hezrou (CR 11). Having, as I said, snapped, I decided to go through with the plan I’d been contemplating and bumped it up to a glabrezu (CR 13). I’d like to point out that for a boss fight for a group of five PCs (levels 9, 10, 11, 11 and 11) a CR 13 encounter is actually far more appropriate than a CR 11 one, but that’s neither here nor there. I was at this point explicitly breaking the rules.
The glabrezu used its summon (success, got 1 vrock), got heroism cast on it (thank you, summoned vrock!) then used veil to look like a cleric of Cayden Calien and laid down among some other clerics it had killed. The PCs came to the boss room and found the vrock waiting for them along with their possessed friend. They started fighting them, only to have the glabrezu pop up and reverse gravity them, quickly taking the fight to a whole new level.
Well, despite the dramatically increased challenge level of the encounter, the PCs won with no deaths. But it was a brutal fight. It was knock down drag out and by the end of it the Wizard player was frustrated to no end. I barely convinced him to keep a lid on it until the game was over, at which point he literally jumped up screaming and demanding to know if I had run the mod as written. I told him I hadn’t, and what changes I had made. He started yelling at me, red-faced and in very provocative language, at the top of his lungs. I tried to talk to him calmly but he wasn’t having it. He screamed at me some more (yes, this was happening in public) looking nearly ready to come to violence, then stormed out.
Now, I want to point out that this was not some newbie stranger. This was a veteran Wizard player, with whom I had been at around 10 or 12 PFS tables previously. He had never displayed this kind of behavior before. It was, for me, intensely depressing and disturbing. The other players seemed sympathetic to both sides, and said they had enjoyed the game. We discussed the whole thing a bit. One of the players (who was also a GM, as was everyone at the table) had this to say: “You know, I’ve always said that when I run PFS, I look at it as just taking one for the team. Your monsters are going to get run over and destroyed, but you just put in your time so that other people will run for you too. You just have to look at it that way.”
Well, maybe he’s right. But god, how sad. So we GM just to “put in our time,” like it’s a job, so that we’ll then get to play in games where the same thing happens from the other side and we win far too easily in combats that are way, way too short? I’m sorry, but that’s just not for me. Honestly, I don’t think it’s very satisfying to a lot of PFS players (and especially GMs) but they go on “putting in their time” because for many of us it’s the only game in town.
And that reminds me. Whenever somebody does raise significant questions about the way the whole thing is arranged, that’s the usual response from the devs: “Organized play is not for everyone. Maybe you should find another game.” I understand the developers’ frustration, but I must say that’s a disrespectful response to people who are just desperately trying to find a way to make the experience better for themselves, people who in many cases are paying good money for their trouble, and who may very well not have, for one reason or another, other games to go to. Anyway though, you’ve finally convinced me, devs. Organized play is not for me.
I don’t regret my own actions in changing the mod. I also don’t blame the player who screamed at me. I blame the system that engenders these kinds of tensions (which inevitably boil over in various ways) between players, and then takes no serious steps to face the systemic issues causing them. Now, they say never raise a problem without offering a solution. So here it is, my solution for how to fix PFS, and kind of-sort of Pathfinder in general. Broadly speaking, the main sources of tension or imbalance that I have noticed are:
1. Class disparity
2. Player experience/competence disparity
3. The dominance of ranged combat
My solution has five steps, which are intended to work in tandem, and which primarily seek to address those three issues.
I decided to make a new thread about this thing I posted elsewhere, because it seems totally insane. I thought the snapleaf was originally supposed to be a one-use item. But reading the item description in hero lab and on OGC, I don't see anything about that. This has to be an error right?
Because otherwise...does the snapleaf really make everybody who's willing to pay 750 gp a ninja, able to use invisibility at will as an immediate action? Does this mean vanishing trick is now obsolete?
Someone may come along and say that you can't activate snap leaf unless you're falling but...I'm not sure RAW supports that interpretation. Yes, it says you have to activate both the feather fall power and the invisibility power at the same time, and feather fall says it targets "freefalling" stuff, but...
1. the text of snapleaf says gives the benefits of feather fall and invisibility, which theoretically negates the target restriction on feather fall and
2. even if you don't follow that interpretation you could easily argue that you activate both feather fall and invisibility at once, but only invisibility activates successfully since the feather fall target is invalid
If either of these interpretations are true, snapleaf has got to go, lest we want every PC in every game from now on to essentially have vanishing trick, only better since it's an immediate action.
Even if those interpretations aren't correct, snapleaf still renders boots of the cat and ring of feather falling pretty much totally obsolete, and ought to be banned just for that.
Erick Wilson Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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Well, I made the cull. I've voted over 500 times. My monster is (mostly) done. Nothing to do now but wait and hope.
Let me tell you, I was a whole lot more confident when I first entered my submission this year. I thought that, after the previous three years' foibles, I finally had it all figured out and knew how to make a truly superstar submission. How wrong I was. After being glued to the voting page and the threads these last several days, I now see all the things I did wrong this time around. I know exactly what I'd do now if I could re-enter my item today, but sadly I can not.
Like most of us, I am probably not going to make it to the top 32. I'm not going to say "everybody who entered is a winner!" because obviously that's not true. But if you don't win, you'll still hopefully have done the next best thing: you'll have learned. And that's the only way to get there.
I have been deeply humbled by the creativity and insight I have seen on the voting page and in the threads these last couple of weeks. I want to thank the judges for giving me this opportunity to lose and learn, and maybe even to win. I want to thank you for your patience, time and attention. I also want to wish all of my fellow contestants the very best of luck.
My submission is not good enough for the top 32. I sure hope it sneaks in anyway ;)
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
-Michael Jordan
"Take risks, and you’ll get the payoffs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed. It’s that simple.”
- Bobby Flay
I talk a lot of trash on these boards. Like many of us, I probably need to show a little more restraint in that regard, but for now I figured the least I could do was take a minute to give my opinion about season five and all of the (for me at least) very welcome changes Mike and company have been making.
1: Treasure
Thank you, thank you, for fixing the out of tier treasure awards. People were getting way too fat from playing up all the time. The new way still rewards you for challenging yourself, but not so much that it gets out of hand.
2: Rebuilding
I love the rebuild rules. Personally I'd like them to be even a bit more permissive, but I acknowledge that I'm on the extreme end of that spectrum. I think the new prestige based system is a great and balanced way to allow rebuilding to be part of the game for those of us who want it.
3: Difficulty
The mods do seem to be getting a bit tougher, overall. Still not nearly hard enough for my taste, but better. I still think the most important change you could make would be the inclusion of some kind of "hard mode" for all mods like we saw in the season four finale (I played it on hard and it was awesome- maybe the best time I've had playing PFS). Then you could ease up a bit on the "regular" mode, since I do understand that some people are finding it a bit much since season four.
4: Roleplaying
I can see that you're making a concerted effort to include more RP-heavy stuff in the mods, and make that stuff more central to the missions as well. I know a lot of people requested it, and I thank you for listening and responding to those requests. If I can criticize for a moment, I think there's perhaps almost too much RP now, and some of the specific scenarios have seemed a bit clunky or forced. But still, overall I'd have to stay it's a definite step in the right direction. My main suggestion would be to consider breaking out a bit more, in these RP-focused mods, from the strict encounter design model that's typical of the usual adventures. RP-based stories need more freedom to be able to play out in different ways. Otherwise the encounters feel contrived. My GM for 5-03 was forced to say to us a few times "Look, the bottom line is that you just can't do that because the mod doesn't account for it." That's awkward, and detracts from the experience for everyone. Furthermore, please consider that RP takes a long time. Therefore, even if you are going to have set encounters, there need to be fewer of them, which means those few encounters have to be more difficult. Otherwise the mod will be either too long or way too easy.
5: Faction Missions
There were way too many. They took up time and largely seemed like a distraction. The new way is much better, even if perhaps the new missions, such as they are, are a bit obtuse at times.
So, that's it for now. Just wanted to say great work and that I, for one, am very happy with the direction you're taking things.
In another universe wherein I was magically put in charge of PFS overnight, things would work very differently. Now, don't freak out. I am not about to be put in charge of PFS, overnight or ever. None of these changes will probably ever happen. I have no influence over anything, so nobody has to lose their minds and regard this thread as threatening. All I am wondering is how far afield I am from the tastes and preferences of the PFS community in general (I'm guessing the answer will be "very.") So, here is the vision of PFS as it would exist in my perfect world:
1. There would be a fast track for levelling up, just as there is a slow track. It would probably require only two games to gain a level. Furthermore, all characters would get a free rebuild usable at anytime before level four, as well as one rebuild every time a hardcover book was released. This would be in addition to the rebuilds currently allowed when erratas are made that affect your character. Rebuilds would, overall, be extremely permissive.
2. You would not keep track of gold pieces. Whatever character you played that night would have to have magic items of total value equal to or less than that indicated for his level in the CWBL chart, with something like the existing limits on max gold per item. Each character would have a level based per-game gp allotment to spend on expendables like wands, scrolls and potions. Every time you levelled up, you would simply add gp value to your items to bring yourself up to your new CWBL. (The system for all this would probably actually be slightly more complicated than what I'm saying here, but you get the idea.)
3. The mods would have only one tier, but would be written with an easy, normal and hard mode. In the case where there was no obvious consensus, the players and GM would vote on which mode to play/run, with the GM's vote counting double. Basically, normal mode would be more or less what we have now. Easy mode would probably see all the CRs reduced by one, and hard mode would see them all increased by one or two.
4. Since there is no keeping track of gold, rewards for the mods would come in the form of boons and access to special magic items, with better (meaning cooler, not more powerful) stuff being available for beating hard mode. In general, the boons and special access magic items would be more effective/unique/interesting (more like the ones they have started to give in places like Thorn Keep, as well as the race boons and such that are currently awarded only at cons). One of the boons you could get would definitely be the ability to start your next character at 2nd or 3rd (maybe even 4th) level rather than having to start at level 1.
5. Resurrection would be obtainable only through boons or, possibly, prestige (not exactly sure what I would do with the prestige system...maybe keep it more or less as is). It would be one of the boon options available in probably something like 30%-50% of the mods, maybe more if you're playing hard mode.
6. The campaign record sheets would be smaller, probably printed on cards or something that you could keep in your wallet or a cardholder so they're less bulky to keep up with. In general they would be condensed and you'd need less of them.
7. About half the scenarios written would have a slightly more roleplaying or puzzle heavy orientation, achievable because they would have only one or two fights in them. Even the normal scenarios would probably have something like three fights and one optional.
8. You would get double XP and totally awesome boons for GMing.
Well, I think that's it, my vision of a perfect PFS. I'm sure it will be a nightmare for a lot of people, but maybe some of you would like it. Let me know your reactions. How alone am I on this?
I've seen a lot of threads saying the mods are too easy or saying that they're too difficult. Everyone posting along those lines is missing the point.
Too easy or too difficult are relative terms. The problem is not that the mods are too easy/tough, but that the high degree of customization available to characters at this point has all but rendered obsolete level range as an accurate indication of mod difficulty. You can create two characters of the same level who are wildly distant from each other in terms of overall power.
Incidentally, yes, this has always been true especially in 3.5, but it was less true in PF for a while. But now the Beast of Power Creep is slouching inexorably towards the destruction of this game. Rovagug's awake; we're gonna need a bigger boat; etc.
The bigger boat we need, in this case, is difficulty ratings for mods that are more specific than the current level ranges. The only other option is to stop publishing books that give PCs choices, and even then we still need difficulty ratings because the damage has already been done.
For those who are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, let me explain. There are two PFS players locally who I will call Bond and Rip. Bond's characters are totally optimized killing machines, so much so that I have actually started dropping out of games if I see he is signed up to play in them. I drop out of these games because I know that with him at the table the mods can not possibly present any significant challenge. Although I personally find this degree of optimization boring, I do not blame Bond at all. There are very good arguments to the effect that he is playing the game "correctly."
Rip's characters, on the other hand, are almost universally terrible from an optimization standpoint. He takes a level of this and a level of that, mostly based on the sort of roleplaying experiences the character has had during play. While I find this degree of rules-ineptitude frustrating, I do not blame Rip at all. There are very good arguments to the effect that he is playing the game "correctly."
A party composed entirely of Bond-built characters would roll equal CR mods every time with no difficulty whatsoever, to the point that the mods would be effectively unplayable (except for those who enjoy winning with 0 challenge).
A party composed entirely of Rip-built characters would be rolled by equal CR mods every time, to the point that the mods would be effectively unplayable (except for the highly masochistic).
"Well then," I hear you saying, "everything is fine. Some Bonds and some Rips will show up, and it will all balance out." Would that it were so. My own personal experience has indicated that it is not. Even one or two formidable optimizers at the table renders the old mods impotent, but the newer mods often turn deadly without their presence, to the great frustration of the Rip-style players who get TPKed and then come post threads about how the mods have become too hard.
Incidentally, the greater difficulty of the newer mods is usually the result of artificially manipulated encounter levels, often involving enemy alchemists (who are great at going nova and are therefore unnaturally effective as NPC challenges) and/or environmental difficulties that have not been factored into the encounter level. But I digress...
The point is, mods need to be printed with difficulty indicators. It's as simple as putting Easy, Average or Hard somewhere on the cover, with "Average" mods probably cleaving pretty closely to the existing CR guidelines. Easy mods should challenge only fairly ineptly built parties. Hard mods should challenge even seasoned optimizers. This simply needs to be done in some fashion, if not in exactly the way I've indicated. People need to know what they're getting into. Otherwise some significant portion of players are going to be frustrated whether the mods get easier or tougher.
Erick Wilson Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
Just some things I've been wondering about.
1. When you see an item often/rarely, does that tell you anything about the item's standing?
2. When you vote tie, does it count as a vote for the purpose of the voter tags and so on?
3. Why when you vote tie does it sometimes show you the same two items again?
4. Although it's cool that some people are so enthusiastic and are voting a thousand times or more, is it possible this allows those people to have too much of a disproportionate effect on the rankings?
5. Should we consider it a problem if we notice the marathon voters' items are particularly well represented in the top 32? Is that mathematically likely to happen given the way the voting is going, and assuming those people are upvoting their items whenever they see them?
6. Should we consider a limit on the number of votes allowed to each person in future years?
By the way, I don't blame anyone for automatically upvoting their own item. I would consider it supererogatory to do otherwise.
So, a friend playtested the ninja in my game. It was really annoying. He was invisible all the time and the rules for finding/targeting invisible people are a pain, and basically it was awful. I felt that vanishing trick was too powerful, but wasn't sure why until I broke it down. Most of the ninja tricks copy spells of approximately 2nd level. Darkvision and Shadow Clone are the most obvious (the latter actually being a nerfed version of a 2nd level spell). Vanishing Trick copies Vanish, which is a 1st level spell, but it's a swift action. In other words, it's basically quickened which makes it the same as a 5th level spell. That's out of control. At best you could argue that it's the equivalent of a 3rd or 4th level spell, which is still significantly better than Darkvision and Shadow Clone, etc. In 3.5, Swift Invisibility was a 2nd level spell (ok, 1st for Bards). So in theory, that means Vanishing Trick should duplicate swift invis in order to be balanced against the other tricks. In other words, Vanishing Trick should render the ninja invisible for one round at the cost of one ki point. If you want to argue that swift invis was only 2nd level for classes that got spells at a delayed rate, well...ok, I guess. But isn't that an argument for it being more powerful? Anyway, if you must bump it a little, then give them one daily use free like some of the other tricks get. As a personal idiosyncratic touch, I also like the idea of the one round duration not getting used up as long as the ninja only takes a single move action or less. Something like that, anyhow. You know, so they can use it to creep around or hide in place. Anyway, the point is that the ninja being invisible constantly (like they will always be the way things stand since they will just vanishing trick at the end of every round) is really annoying in play, and is demonstrably overpowered relative to the other ninja tricks. You are incentivizing people to be obnoxious, which is the opposite of good. Add in Invisible Blade and things just get worse. Unless of course the thing the ninja is fighting sees through invisibility, in which case the ninja's special trick just doesn't work at all, which is not very fun or exciting either.
On another note, a few people seem to be complaining about the ninja's lack of access to unarmed combat, which you must admit is a staple of the archetype. Can't you just add a trick that gives them unarmed combat as a monk 3 levels lower? Please do.
