Christopher Waterfield's page

Hirelings completely break immersion for me, so I do not use them. That is my personal preference and I'm not throwing shade on those who do use them.

Alex, thank you. These changes and acknowledgements are both welcome and long overdue. My personal opinion is that the GM should make each game as fun and engaging for the players as humanly possible, especially when certain parts of the adventure don't seem to facilitate the fun. I will openly acknowledge that I engage in this type of GM behavior already, and I welcome the criticism from the GM Hellknights.

Never said anything about terminating enemies with the good sense to surrender. Most of them were committed to fighting to death, however. I agree with you that PF2 handles this better than PF1 did.

It's not an evil act to give an enemy a quick/merciful death, it's responsible. I have several LG characters (paladins, warpriests, monks and clerics) that make it a standard practice to ensure that those who oppose them are put down for good.

And yes it is ultimately the GM's call as others have said.

VC Janice Piette can help you. You can find almost all of the public games in Ohio on Warhorn.

Anybody have an estimated run time for this? I finished prepping this and it looks like it will run very quickly.

Thanks for sharing. I plan to prep this today, and I'm certain to have the same questions. Scenarios still max at 10 treasure bundles, correct?

Crossover boon to unlock access to Space Goblins in Starfinder
PLEASE
PLEASE
PLEASE

Space Goblins
PLEASE
PLEASE
PLEASE

I love the idea of giving players handouts. I find the current system to be frustrating as a player and as a GM, due in part to time constraints.

This is definitely a gotcha, for all of the reasons described above. As a GM, would you pull something like this on your players in a home game or AP? Of course not, and you shouldn't do it here either.

The best GMs do all they can to facilitate fun for everyone else at the table. Removing player agency to all but ensure that they miss out on loot isn't fun for anyone.

North Market has AMAZING food options within walking distance.

You're the GM. Run it the way that will maximize the fun for your players. Our locals like rolling their own dice, so that's what we do here. We did the secret roll thing with the first couple PF2 scenarios we ran, and no one liked it.

Will PFS/SFS be at Origins this year?

Yes, some of us Ohio people will be running games again this year. We would welcome your support, should you decide to attend.

PF1 is still alive and well in our region. Based on player demand, we run about 33% PF1 and 67% PF2 at our LGS. Private home games are more like 80% PF1/20% PF2.

Well written and well thought out summary. It actively reflects our local experience. I love Starfinder in spite of starship combat, not because of it. I do what I can to avoid scenarios with starship combat, simply because they provide a 30-60 minute deficit of fun. The other content is typically outstanding and oozing with laughs and fun all around the table.

Nope

Congrats, Betsy!

I have a problem with the underlying assumption that everybody carries around a device capable of logging in to a website.

I know of at least one player who doesn't have any kind of online presence at all, and several who only have online access if they're at home - they carry neither a laptop nor a smart phone.

There's also another problem as none of the hotels that have hosted our local conventions have public internet access, and even the 'hotel guest' access doesn't cover the parts of the hotel where gaming takes place.
Most of the local game stores don't offer internet access, either.

Note that we're not talking about some minor outpost far from a major city - I'm talking about Silicon Valley, and large (100+ tables of PFS/SFS) conventions.

Same in our area (Northwest Ohio/Southeast Michigan). Only 1 of our local stores has internet access, our local convention doesn't have internet, and some of our players don't have a smart phone/laptop/tablet.

I'm in favor of making our OP experience more accessible, not less accessible. Paper copies of Chronicle sheets are absolutely needed.

And there was much rejoicing...

Thanks for your leadership and dedication. You will be missed.

Bob Jonquet wrote:

GM Wageslave wrote:

physical Boon

If by physical you mean adding that option to the menu for AcP, that's fine. If you mean a pdf that has to be printed and distributed by the organizer for the event, then no. We need to continue to move in the direction of paperless rewards. Ideally, using Gen Con as the model, we should have to print any rewards of any kind. Everything is handled digitally. And that process should propagate down through the community.

Aside from "We're moving to paperless office because it's better for the environment" point, what's the driving force behind moving from physical paper copies to a digital one? Is there a reason other than "let's use less paper?"

I think Blake's Tiger is at the root of the problem. PFS1 gives GMs what feels like a generous reward (at least for new GMs - old ones may have their pockets filled with various boons already anyway) while PFS2 gives less than peanuts for what is essentially the same amount of work. However, watery soup has a point. Honeslty, I'm not going to GM PFS2 at conventions -for the reward-, I'll do it if it's needed. I -will- gm PFS1 at a con -specifically for the reward-. If the difference is "get a race boon" vs "get 1/20th of a race boon" then I'll pick the first option any day. I'm not going to spend time writing up a report or even filling a blank table in the buggy reporting system for 2 or 3 points, my time is better spent elsewhere. And honestly, conventions are enough work to arrange already - as an organized I certainly don't want to spend extra time to report a couple of missing points.

PFS2 (convention) GM rewards are not worth the effort, amd unless the system is fundamentally changed (get a coupon code for a digital boon (race or otherwise), or something), whatever "consolidation" acp reward can be given to GM's for non-firing tables feels meaningless.

Yes, this. Say whatever you want about people's motivations to GM at Cons. The unintended result is that offering a reward of "1/20 of a race boon" is no reward at all, and will negatively impact our ability to recruit GM's - which means we'll have to offer fewer tables going forward. Is this really beneficial to the Organized Play campaign?

And yes, I am suggesting that additional ACP is not a meaningful incentive for most of us.

Ferious Thune, your comments about smaller conventions are spot on, based on my own personal experience as someone who organizes, GM's, and plays at several small conventions each year. My VA and I donate our own money to provide water, snacks, and Subway cards to incentivize GM participation at our local con. Race boons for PFS/SFS are the #1 incentive, (correction - free badge for the con is #2), free food is #3. We have to retain meaningful incentives to attract GM's from outside our local area, otherwise our ability to staff tables will be cut in half.

Thanks to Aaron we only have 2 open slots now:

Sat 15 Feb 9am-1pm PF2 1-05 Trailblazer's Bounty

Sat 15 Feb 7-11pm PF2 1-04 Bandits of Immenwood

Please send me an email if you are interested in helping us out with one or both of these scenarios.

Thanks to Treassa and Jeff for volunteering to take some of the open GM slots! Here's what is currently available:

Fri 14 Feb 6-10pm PF1 9-09 Beyond the Halflight Path

Sat 15 Feb 9am-1pm PF2 1-05 Trailblazer's Bounty

Sat 15 Feb 2-6pm PF1 4-08 The Cultist's Kiss

Sat 15 Feb 7-11pm PF2 1-04 Bandits of Immenwood

Please send me an email if you are interested in helping out.

BASHCon 35 will be held on February 14-16, 2020, at the University of Toledo Student Union (Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon).

http://ut-bash.com/

We are offering a total of 30 slots featuring all 3 OP campaigns. Our local and semi-local GM's have stepped up en masse to cover many of the GM slots, but we still need help. BASHCon offers free badges to GM's who volunteer at least 4 hours. Please consider helping us out for one of more of the following slots:

Fri 14 Feb 6-10pm PF1 9-09 Beyond the Halflight Path

Sat 15 Feb 9am-1pm PF2 Quests 1-4
Sat 15 Feb 9am-1pm PF2 1-05 Trailblazer's Bounty

Sat 15 Feb 2-6pm PF2 1-03 Escaping the Grave
Sat 15 Feb 2-6pm PF2 1-06 Lost on the Spirit Road

Sat 15 Feb 7-11pm PF2 1-04 Bandits of Immenwood
Sat 15 Feb 2-6pm PF2 1-06 Lost on the Spirit Road

Sun 16 Feb 11am-3pm PF2 Quests 1-4

Please send me an email if you are interested in helping as a volunteer for BASHCon 35.

Christopher Waterfield
Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio - Toledo

I'm new to the 2nd Edition party. Could someone please post an example of calculating earned income for downtime? For instance, Jose's first level fighter has a +2 Warfare Lore, and has 8 days of downtime after a 4 XP scenario. He rolls a _, which results in _ gp? sp? Armando's second level bard has a +5 Perform, and 12 days of downtime. He rolls a _, which results in _.

As a whole, this Resonance business appears unintuitive and unnecessarily complicated to me. I like the simplicity and accessibility of staves; everything else about Resonance appears to be extra paperwork/tracking for what benefit I cannot discern.

Tying Resonance to Charisma appears to be a low blow to martial characters in general. Aren't most martial classes MAD enough already? I fail to see the point of forcing characters to spend Resonance on consumables unless the intent is to nerf martials (and alchemists) even harder.

Why not base Resonance on class levels instead of tying it to a mental stat?

Our small corner of Ohio has been steadily growing over the last 3 months. For years, our weekly events could only support one table. For the last several weeks, we have had enough participants to support 2 PFS/SFS tables, and are on the brink of adding a third table.

We are slowly adding more SFS events, as more GM's and players are becoming more comfortable with the rules set.

This surge in growth has coincided with the departure of a disruptive player, who has been a long-term participant in our local RPG community.

All of our events should be posted within the next week or two.

Please consider joining us for PFS and SFS all weekend! Badges are cheap and parking is free!

Where: University of Toledo, Lancelot Thompson Student Union, 3154 North Towerview Boulevard, Toledo, Ohio 43606

Website: http://ut-bash.com/

Parking: Area 13 (surface lot and parking garage in the NW quadrant of campus as shown here: https://www.utoledo.edu/campus/directions/pdfs/Main-Campus-Map.pdf

I applaud the change. Druids have been needin' the love for a long time now. Welcome to the party, Concordance!

I've been attending U-Con since 2012, and I look forward to returning this year. Not to take anything away from the awesomeness of Origins or Gen Con, but U-Con is my favorite convention.

It's big enough to offer a wide range of board games and PFS, without being too crowded. It's also where I played Pathfinder for the first time. I had excellent GM's and got to play with awesome people who got me hooked on the game right away.

It's worth your time to check out if you're in the area. It's affordable and tremendously fun.

So any estimates on when the Harrow Deck will be back in stock? It's not available at any of our local stores (I've been looking for months). I'd like to support our local stores, if possible.

I'd be cautious about this approach, as the experience of the campaign's more active convention GMs doesn't necessarily reflect the experience of someone who runs games at one convention per year and was really hoping for a race boon. Were there to be a special equipment boon introduced into the GM rewards rotation, it would likely need to be offered as an alternative to—not a replacement of—the race boon on offer.

Amen to that. Thank you providing this perspective.

Holy necro, Batman! It's been 7 years.

Silver Crusade:
Brother Ernesto, faithful servant of Sarenrae (LG Human Cleric 10/Paladin 2)

Grand Lodge:
Miloslav Davidovich, Gorum devotee (CN Half-Orc Unchained Invulnerable Rager Barbarian 12)

These look amazing. I haven't GM'ed either of these scenarios yet, but I will definitely utilize them when I do.

I will say from personal experience that I find showing up to play a special with pregens that are foreign to me to be a frustrating experience. I am a big believer in preparation, especially when it comes to PFS.

Thanks so much for creating these documents and sharing them with the PFS community.

Well said. I was already a fan of your artwork, now you can count me as an admirer of your perspective-filled prose.

Brava!

The Harder To Kill boon has prevented at least 2 lower-level PC deaths at our tables recently. Our players have always been good about buying snacks, but the program has encouraged some to buy hardback books and board games on PFS nights.

A couple of players have benefited from the Day Job bonus, but most in our group don't play PC's with Day Jobs. Both benefits are definitely appreciated by our player base.

Anyone have an Oread they would trade for an Undine? Needed to complete a Suli...

Same here. This question came up last week on our local group.

Thank you! This sounds like a fantastic program that will energize our local player base, especially those who don't or can't travel to conventions.

Thank you!

Dark green would look great as well. I like the glyph of the open road idea.

So Christopher, what colors would you like to see in a VA polo shirt?

Hmm

I was thinking that you could get purple to match your hair, and I could get gray to match mine.

If we're going for uniformity on color, I will compromise and go with purple.

Maybe this really doesn't matter. Maybe I should give up on the idea and assume that between my friendly manner and my purple hair, people will just find me to ask me questions at most cons anyway.

Maybe I should just make myself a custom pin with "PFS Questions? Ask ME!" on it.

I'll admit that I really like both the look and the visibility of the current Venture Officer shirts, though. They make you super easy to spot.

Hmm

Hilary, I will second your request for VA polo shirts. I think it's a great idea, and I would be happy to purchase a couple to wear at local PFS events and cons.