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Hi, Makarion! We don’t currently have a group playing in Mansfield, but I have had occasional people ask. We do have active groups in Columbus, Akron, Cleveland and Toledo. All about an hour and a half from you and not really conviennent. If you would like to make the drive, maybe on a weekend, I can help you get signed up to the right Warhorns. Would you be interested in getting a group started in the Mansfield area?
I think it would be worthwhile connecting to the local Organized Play volunteers (known as “Venture Officers”). Pathfinders and Starfinder Society run a lot like DND Adventurers league: monthly releases of serial adventures that each take 4-5 hours to play. We love to play in venues that have play space and let us buy stuff! As for younger players, most society adventures are PG-13 ish. Generally there is some violence (kill the monsters, sometimes dealing with bad people as well), but a good game master knows when to tone it down. In my area, we have had several young players who participate regularly, though we typically ask a responsible adult to also play or hang around while the kids play. What players buy is going to vary from group to group, but our local GMs like to buy the map product and adventure path books. Players and GMs alike tend to purchase snacks/drinks from the store on game day, and buy minis, dice, and rules books. Though I’ve always suspected that the biggest profit items for the game stores are the snacks. Depending on where in the world you are located, you can get in contact with the regional coordinator through the emails listed here: https://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/communities/paizo/findpop/ These folks can get you connected with any existing local groups there might be. Questions specific to Society are usually answered pretty quick in the Organized Play section of the forums. Welcome!
To be extra certain (since I feel a lot of people will need help getting games reported properly). Is AcP granted correctly only for newly reported sessions, or will it be granted for sessions that are edited to fix errors? Eg: player numbers got entered wrong. That is, what is the Best Practice for getting people’s games fixed?
Ooooo I might just have to spend a couple months GMing for all these Lodges I've been crashing lately ^_^ I've had the chance to play at a table with you once or twice as well, so have an "official" invite from the Buckeye Lodge to "crash" our GM pool too. :) We run SFS several times a month, Monday nights and Saturdays. New GMs are always welcome. (FYI, our VL is planning to continue to schedule games exclusively online until at least late summer.)
Introducing Con-Current 2021 We welcome gamers of all types to join us (virtually, of course) for three days of “Bee”ing yourself while we play Pathfinder and Starfinder together. We may not be able to gather in person this summer, that only means there will be no lines for food, the bathroom is always clean and well-stocked, and the “hotel” room is close by. We still have plenty of gaming and socializing opportunities. There will be no cost to attend but we encourage you to donate to our sponsor charities for 2021, Jasper's Game Day and Planned Parenthood. We have three fun-filled days planned for you of games, author tables, charity events, and daily/nightly activities. Several events will request donations to participate — we appreciate your support of our partner charities. For current information, visit our website: https://con-current.org/ or email us at ConCurrent2021@con-current.org Important Dates
Considering putting in a order for these with my FLGS. Do we know if the set will be similar to the Pathfinder battles? Eg: 3 minis per booster, 8 boosters per brick, 4 bricks per case giving a total of 96 minis per case, with a very high probability of getting at least one of each of the 32 different figure?
Your assumption is correct. The multi-table specials continue to have a minimum number of tables required. In this case, 3 tables minimum. Honestly, the story would suffer greatly without having the multiple tables. However, the tables do not have to be in the same physical location, if they can communicate in real time, such as via Discord.
Other GMs can also loan tables they have made for society scenarios. If you are in a location with an active “in person” (though probably operating online at the moment) society group, they might be able to hook you up with some ideas/help. There is also the online lodge at http://pfschat.com. My understanding is that Roll20 has no immediate plans to create and sell the individual scenarios for Pathfinder or Starfinder.
Overall my biggest question for this adventure is why do they speak common? Real answer: Because it’s extremely boring to play a role play heavy scenario when you can’t talk to the locals. In-world answer: Whatever reason you can think of. Examples to spark your own ideas: 1. They speak common, but very poorly. 2. An Ulfen wizard brought his spell book a century ago and it was written in Common so that no one else could steal his spells. So everyone learned Common as a secret ritual language. 3. Hundreds of years ago, a Linorm King sailed to Valhalla, and her primary language was Common because she was raised in Oppara. She taught everyone. 4. They arent speaking common at all, they just all have babelfish in their ears. 5. They have all had a curse of tongues put on them so everyone learns the cursed language (Common) as a child. 6. It’s not actually Taldane. It just sounds exactly like it. 7. The Ulfen weren’t the only ones to venture to Acadia. Someone from Taldor established a colony nearby and thought all the locals to speak Common. 8. The gnome Lirall put a long-lasting *tongues* spell on you before you left the ship without you noticing. Etc. Ooh: my best one yet: 9. Sveinn Blood-Eagle has been teaching them Common for the last year since he knew the Pathfinder Society was coming.
Your GM should be making you aware that your cold iron weapon (or whatever) did a surprising amount of damage to the creature, if it has a weakness. A good GM communicates how various weapons/energy types affect the target. It’s part of narrating the story. A lot of how heroic a combat feels is dependent on how the GM narrates it. Honestly, I never felt “heroic” when the fighter/paladin/whatever slaughtered everyone on the opposing side in the first round of combat, frequently before my PC would even get a turn. Heroic is when the PCs overcome a challenge that they have a possibility of failing.
I went to purchase the new PF2 Gamemastery Guide PDF yesterday and noticed that at some point I lost the ability to put items in my shopping cart. Please help, I want to give you $$$. :) Behavior: When I tap the “Add to Cart” or “ Add PDF” button/text for an item, it returns a message of “Your request produced an error” in the location where the link/button was. This happens with any product I have attempted to put in my cart.
I sold the travel time as the characters having to go out of their way to use the gates in the walls that enclose the various sections of the city. Of course, being North Korea Lite, there were guards checking papers at every gate, causing delays and a line of people waiting to pass through. Trying to get to the Ministry of Tithes? Wow, looks like another long line of People queueing at the gate... gonna take at least an hour and a half to get through. Took my players until “Day 2” to catch on. Then we all had a bit of a joke about it.
This might be too niche to matter, but do you need to own Gods & Magic to use the Pantheon Web Supplement? This seems to be a moot question, since the web supplement deals only with Divine Intercessions, which are only applicable for home games. (Under Rulings and Clarifications in the Gods & Magic book section above, GMs may not interact Divine Intercessions.)
Guys, this is clearly a PF2 question, since the text quoted iis from that book (though Doug didn’t specify). So while your answers are correct, they are not useful to OPs situation. According to the text quoted on p.294 of the PF2 CRB, NO, Riding dogs are NOT combat trained and will take the Frightened penalty. Only Warhorses and Warponies are exempt. I don't know of any rules that allow animals to be trained by the PC. Justification: the text clearly calls out warhorses and warponies, not riding horses or riding ponies or riding dogs. I see nothing in the CRb that gives a riding dog this ability. The flavor text from the Bestiary doesn't matter in this case. We are only using it for stats, if needed. As an aside, for purchased animals, the Command an Animal action only gives the animal one action, not two like a minion (familiar or companion) would get.
One other note – The Origins staff event organizer noted that a $10 processing fee applies to any badge returns. If you are volunteering at a level that receives a badge as part of the perk package, please keep this in mind before purchasing badges, as any fee incursions are the responsibility of the GM.Does this mean we shouldn’t buy a badge if we are volunteering for 4 or more blocks as OPF will provide one? Correct, For Origins you should not buy your own badge. In the past, GM badges have been available (just) before Event Registration.
Thanks for volunteering to GM. For 2E, we don’t know how many tables of credit the quests or modules might or might not be toward your new “Glyphs,” there is no overall 2E table count being displayed anywhere in your My Organized Play section, and no Glyphs being shown in posts. Currently, we have not been told a timeline for any of these things to happen. At least in my area, we are working on the Trust system. If you run a table and say you’ve earned a Glyph by GMing 10 tables, we simply believe you.
Now I’m paying attention to this as it also has consequences for Sustaining Summons. (Sustain to give the minion two actions). I don’t have my CRB handy, but could I technically Sustain three times in a round to give my minion 6 actions?! That’s very overpowered. I’ve been interpreting it as a person is only able to Sustain a spell once per round, but based on the discussion, I need to adjust my understanding....
And I stand by my point. If you wanted to know why people (on this thread) are disappointed/upset, you need to ask the people on this thread. Your friend, no matter their qualifications, does not speak for *me.*
No, you and your player are wrong. Why would you ask a random person why people are upset instead of reading what people here are saying they are upset about?? The people this is hurting are those that want something “special” to put on the schedule at conventions or occasional game days to draw in players for our events. This thread is filled with Venture Critters saying “This hurts my scheduling.” If the problem is people speed running repeatable adventures — and don’t fool yourself to think it doesn’t happen with scenarios too — the answer is to not to stop giving correct* XP for modules, it’s to stop making them repeatable. Other than a few modules that were written inappropriately short for the amount of XP given, modules generally give about 1 XP per hour. Emerald Spire is a perfect example of a module that gives too much XP for the time it takes to play each level. The very fact that these power-levelers you speak of used ES to do it only reinforces the fact that most modules did NOT over-award XP for the time spent. You are seeing the exception and making a rule. When I scheduled modules for our local game days they were always done in 10-12 hour “slots.” At conventions, modules typically get 3 slots or 12-15 hours. And at the end you get one level. Exactly on target for 1XP per hour. In fact, the 12XP currently being given for Plaguestone is significantly less than your 1XP per hour standard. It’s perfect length for each chapter to run in about 12 hours, with a bit of roleplay. All that is needed here is to do like the other 64 page modules have done: One sheet with 12 XP per chapter. If creating individual sheets is the problem, then make the sheets like quest sheets where you tick a box for every part played, and only get the keepsakes and boon(s) once you complete all parts. That is literally a few minutes additional work (to put checkboxes on the chronicle) than the current plan. * I use the term “correct XP” to mean XP rewards as written in the adventure.
I don’t think I have ever seen an AP run at our conventions. Thornkeep was the only module I recall. Most of our module play has been limited to game games dedicated to it. Ok. That’s your experience. Yet many people in this thread are saying that their experience and needs are different.
I really like this idea. This is a good compromise that will work for those of us who want to run this under PFS rules. It seems to me that the most cumbersome part of the old process was figuring out how to trim down the module to fit into a certain number of play hours and still make sense. This idea leaves the plot trimming up to the GM, and still allows us to work within the PFS play restrictions. (With a loose interpretation of Run As Written.)
Because when I play the module with the new rules, my character is expected to end as a 4th level character. And I only get one level of PFS credit for my “real” PFS character. Playing the module with my PFS legal character under the new rules would be perfectly possible if we just got 3 levels of PFS credit.
I noticed. Gonna run it for Black Friday/ Fifth Saturday in November. Super glad to have some extra content for PF2. :)
Remember, that in order to save the carriage, the PCs need to take some action to follow up on the prophecy, Otherwise the PCs notice the runaway coach too late to save anyone and the carriage crashes into a ravine, losing them some treasure bundles. Huh. I don’t know how I missed that; I agree with you. My bad.
The pudding fights were tough, since most of the pregens were built to use Pointy-Slashy Things. But... in 2E, *everyone* is trained in unarmed attacks. Once the party splits the first one and realizes the Attack did no damage at all, the GM might need to give the party a hint on how to stop the things. The two best plans I have seen so far are to create as many puddings as possible and let Ezren roast em all like giant marshmallows, or for the melee characters to throw down their weapons and start punching it in the squishy bits. As we all learn a new rule set, I think a few hints from the GM on better tactics is a good thing. I’m not advocating telling people how to play their characters, but I suspect that very few players will realize that everyone is now trained to punch things — this is a change from how we are all used to thinking.
For what it’s worth, I played it as the Shimmerford Road runs along the long edge of the map with the gate. I also made sure to mention crossing the road as the PCs get off the boat and head into the town. Later, I just had the carriage race out of control along the edge of the map from the north, past the gate, then (potentially) crash a few yards farther on. Remember, that in order to save the carriage, the PCs need to take some action to follow up on the prophecy, Otherwise the PCs notice the runaway coach too late to save anyone and the carriage crashes into a ravine, losing them some treasure bundles.
Also, in your example, Flat Footed is no longer a bonus to attack, it’s a penalty to AC. We’ve always had a lot of complicated math. Take Power Attack for example: to correctly calculate the penalty/bonus I need to know the critters BAB, then determine how many multiples of 4 that is, determine if its weapons are one or two handed or Primary or Secondary. And that’s just *one* feat that a critter might have going on. There are also probably buffing spells that I need to calculate as well when I roll that d20. IMO, the math for PF1 only seems easy because we are used to it. I do not believe that the math for PF2 is objectively more difficult — it’s just different.
This has been discussed in he GM slack channel when prepping for GenCon. The devs confirmed that the text listed under OP’s second quote are an accidental holdover from playtest text. The rule “increase/decrease one degree of success/failure” is the correct rule to apply in all situations. I expect there will be a bunch of Core Rulebook errata for our Christmas present. :)
My rofl-stomping group reported for part 2 of the mission last night, but without their Life Oracle. The Oracle was apparently just slowing them down as we completed the scenario in about 4 hours (compared to 7 hours for part 1). Everyone was glad, if confused, to see Eliza at the Wounded Wisp. Speculation of what she was doing in Absalom instead of Galt led to the off the cuff suggestion that she might be a member of the Decemverate. A quick chuckle around the table at the unlikliness of that and they were prepared to hear her out. Eager to do her bidding, they made straight for Skyreach, flying over the front gate, but leaving it locked. As soon as they noticed buildings on fire, undead wandering aimlessly, and unknown people sneaking around the grounds, their energies were diverted from Skyreach to the more immediate problems. They quickly mopped up the various problems and “scared straight” some agents of GM Torch. Who promptly spilled the beans about Zurnzal in the Repository. One petrified Arcanist later, and the PCs finally found out the location of Vahlo. And Torch. The storming of Skyreach is back on! Aside: The other table was splaying Serpents Ire so we had a two-Zurenzal evening. Everyone had a chuckle about being in two places at once, once they realized who my group was pumping for information. The fight atop the towers was a letdown since we only had 4 players, so there were no minions to take the PCs attention from the main guy. Knocked him out in one round. Once everyone got blown to the Wall, they were both horrified to see the fully healthy halfling and amused that the imposing Taldan man was actually a halfling. He made it to two rounds this time, and had the chance to smite the halfling paladin of Chaldira. But even my dice wanted him dead and three nat 1s in a row later, the PCs got the upper hand, and the graveknight fell to a well-timed arrow from GM Torch. The PCs drew weapons as Torch approached, but were willing to listen once he dropped his bow. As the pile of items on the ground grew, so did their sympathies for him. By the time he offered to answer all their questions, there was no thought of killing him. Of course the first question hey ask is one Torch couldn’t answer. (Since the info wasn’t in the scenario!) They wanted to know the names of the other two Decemverate members that he had incriminating information on. The next question was how he knew Vahlo was a graveknight. The little history lesson made the paladin turn white realizing that it could have easily been her, as he was once also a halfling paladin of Chaldira. That couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it. And it caused the paladin to be a little more understanding about Torch’s actions. After confessing all, Torch is going to go spend some time on the tropical island owned by one of the PCs. A nice little vacation where they can keep an eye on him. The PCs were ready to take up arms gain when two of the Decemverate strolled up, but quickly calmed when Eliza revealed herself. When she made her speech about passing the helm to another, every member of the party literally put their hands out to take it. And Fade to Black........
Good question! The retail incentive has been pretty popular among the stores where we play. They mostly sell snacks and drinks to us, but people also tend to do their boardgame buys on game days because of it. It looks good to the store owners. So much this. I’d like to continue to incentivize players to buy merchandise at the stores we play in — none of which sell the T-shirts, pins, and book bags that are being discussed in this section. I’m not sure how to best do so under the new rules, but maybe something like 1 extra hero point if you (personally) buy $10 of merch and 2 Hero Points if you buy $20+. But that might put us at risk of giving out too many hero points.
I ran part 1 for a local group the weekend before GenCon at 17-18 (yup, I’m a glutton for punishment). Our run time was about 7 hours. Mostly spent on roleplay, as this was a power build group and they trivialized the encounters. Like CigarPete, both Mantis encounters were shut down quickly by people with near-permanent see inivisibility. They knew what they were walking into in the Pagoda encounter and focused fire on the Hyakume. He didn’t last past round two. Three huge water elementals then played mop-up on the claws and that was that. The party was highly amused to discover the new body of the person they were searching for. His new and old body were transported back to Absalom for someone at the lodge to sort out. (The players, of course, are not yet aware of what is about to go down back at the lodge. Poor Monkey Goblin might be thinking he was better off on Mediogalti Island after all.) Much fun was had Roleplaying the party scenes and sweet talking the patrols around town. I was pleased that none of my party was ready to slaughter the gnome on sight and they listened attentively to her story. Part 2 is this Saturday. Also at 17-18 (I said I was a glutton for punishment!). I’ll report back on how it all ends...
I’m sad to hear that this happened to multiple people this year. I do similar to Jeff. Ask another player/GM to watch my things for a few moments while I do the needful. But, unless it’s someone I personally know, I also take the valuable stuff with me (ie phone and tablet).
I disagree. I believe his story about faking his betrayal in Rivalry’s End. That little speech he gave never meshed well with how he acted in other scenarios. It felt fake at the time. I see Torch as a man driven by the need for justice. Certainly bitter and resentful, but also a champion for those being abused. And, to him, the “abused” are the Pathfinder agents. He has demonstrated that he is willing to do what needs to be done in order to protect others, even if those same people will vilify him for his actions. But also a man who is not going to complain if serving justice means he can serve a side of revenge on those that wronged him in the past. Chaotic Good, leaning Chaotic Neutral. The kind of man who belies that the end justifies the means. I am glad to see that the Emerald Sage Jewel healed some of his scars. Perhaps it’s healed his soul a bit too.
It was fun being killed with you last night. Thanks again to Iammars for running for us. (Wish me well, I’m currently in the middle of a very large scrum outside the dealer hall doors waiting to Buy All The Paizo Things!)
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Venture-Captain, Ohio—Columbus 161 posts (163 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 42 Organized Play characters. 
