CommanderG's page

Yes by all means another table.

I would bug the guy that is cheating on you with another GM :)

He obviously has greater interest in PFS and might find it neat to try it from other perspective.

I think everyone was hungry at that point and wanted to go eat :)

That and the main "tank/front line fighter" had blindfight - which actually worked out pretty good for that person. Which was super useful - that person failed their first miss chance roll but made the second one every time.

This is also group of people that for the most part are completely new to 3rd edition/pathfinder type rules.

Lastly I would say overconfidence?

The Act 1 fight lasted 2 rounds, the fight with the imp lasted 1 round, none of us could figure out why the chest room was considered a puzzle.

So the party did not expect that the enemies would not just fall down if you looked at them wrong.

I believe the sorcerer opens with an obscuring mists. (20% concealment penalty to hit her.)

Yes they disliked the obscuring mist and the tight fighting conditions

CommanderG wrote:

As mentioned in the rewards section of Part 5 each group member gets 129 gp. If they do not overcome the ambush (either by being knocked unconscious or fleeing) deduct that amount from the gold at the end of the scenario.

Assume this also means that they do not loss anything they had - like the enemies don't steal their weapons or personal gold for instance?

So they would have gained 417-129 = 288gp total for the scenario.

On the chronicle I would have crossed out Elixir of Healing and Wand of Disguise Self

I had question about that last fight in this scenario. From the descriptive text within the scenario it seemed liked the main goal of the enemies was to rob the pathfinder on their return trip. Emphasize on rob not kill.

If the opponents had overcome the players would it be permissible in PFS if I had ruled that they just robed them and left the party alive but unconscious ?

If so what would have been the ramifications to the players - no gold from the adventure or something worse?

Belafon and others,

I don't know if this helps but the party considered that end fight on "Intro 1" to be a little much. That was mainly I think due to the:

Don't miss out on a great opportunity, that scenario is one of my favorites to run or to play in, especially with the creepiness factor of it.

I agree that the general scenario looks neat - just not sure about the combat for people that are still new to these type of challenges.

missed a couple of the important documents

Speaking of documents - is there a listing somewhere of scenarios in PFS that I can find that ranks modules on difficulty level?

I ask cause without this board I would have ran my 1st time players of PFS though "Society Scenario 3-21 The Temple Of Empyreal Enlightenment", which I have been told has a "bad" reputation as being hard.

After prepping it I can tell why - some of the encounters, fights, and challenges look downright impossible to me for a group of 1st level characters with no special equipment.

Is it normal for all pathfinder guys to be running around with silver and cold weapons ? Is this some unwritten rule like everyone will acquire a wand of cure light wounds.

In general it is an order of magnitude more difficult than say "Intro First Steps Part In Service To Lore" which we ran last weekend.

Next just in case people have suggestions, we are going to be running:

Master of the Fallen Fortress followed by Confirmation

To be clear - I want to avoid something like 3-21 scenario - I'm not even sure I'm going to run it.

Yeah I have seen both resources, but really between the length of them, the intricate nature of pathfinder game system - which is really large and is so close to 3rd edition DnD except when it is not - there is a lot to get up to speed on. To make matters worse in this regard my 3rd edition knowledge was not very good since my local gaming group stayed on the 2E rules and/or other non DnD based game systems.

My primary focus right now has been to come up to speed on the combat system within Pathfinder. I have been rereading that section every week or so to try and make sense out of it. In general one of the problems I'm having is that I'm old and I just don't pickup things the way I used to.

The only reason I'm tackling PFS is because two individuals in my local group want PFS legal characters to take to DragonCon 2014. Otherwise I would not have jumped in feet first into this.

Thanks Fox, I think I must be getting a little defensive.

Oh and I'm also wondering if maybe my name was a bad pick - it was also a joke. Commander - yeah right, I live in a house with 3 woman (wife + 2 kids), I'm not in charge of anything around here.

I'm lucky if I can keep them from stealing my computer.

OK hopefully my last comment on that min/max thread. One of the quoted reference above for why I received negative criticism was a basically a response to one of your 5 star GM posters

As a GM, I don't find it much fun if EVERY fight turns into:

Player X: Channels
Badguys: Can't GO
Everyone Else: Kills Badguys

Kinda boring.

That was what the comment I made about if the GM is not having fun the players probably are not.

Rereading that thread I got to say with the exception of the first response I either found the responses:

1. helpful
2. interesting
3. funny
4. informative

I really appreciated Walter Sheppard suggestion and David_Bross postings. That thread by the end had improved my opinion of this forum by quite a lot. Otherwise I would not have bothered to post this thread.

And as to that negative first post that really was a knee-jerk post cause the rest of that individual's posting I liked. I feel like I'm picking him out specifically and I don't want to continue that.

In closing I would like to take the opportunity to apologize especially to FLite & Wraith235 since my joke about killing the cleric was in bad taste. Rereading that post from me I should have put in "Cause the player was wearing a red shirt" or some other obvious joke reference.

Commander G

I have a response to your thoughts about the hostility. I'm going to spoiler it because it's not really the subject of this thread and I don't want to turn it into a "he said, she said, but he really meant that she meant..." mess.
** spoiler omitted **...

Belafon, one last comment on this - I did not put it on the other thread since as far as I'm concerned it is dead, but I would like to just mention that I liked your response the best.

Two options:

1) Know that they are going to lock down every encounter. Live with it as it lies. Play up the social encounters all you can. Put as much emphasis on describing how creatures act while you can. Make the (pushover) fight come to life as much as possible.

2) Know that they are going to lock down every encounter. Let it happen. Don't put any emotion into it. Let the players say to each other "that's the third encounter in a row where we haven't felt remotely challenged. This really isn't much fun."

I heartily recommend 1. The only time I would do 2 is if the players are likely to all be playing together for a lot of scenarios together (a game in someone's home for example) and it's clear that the channeler is going to keep anyone else from having a chance to shine.

Even then, I probably wouldn't do it until I've had a chance to talk to the player after the game and say "you're very effective, but you're cutting into other players fun." Every time a local player shows up at a game day with a "lock-down" combo, both GMs and players are generally good about saying something. 95% of the time the "offending" player will take a step back and only pull out the nuke once per scenario (or when needed for survival).

Yeah, I thought about starting a list in this thread. But I realized we don't need to. Thinking about it more, most of the hostility is really directed at...hostility.

I must admit it would be interesting to see if I could locate the specific threads and forums that lead me down to the conclusion of hostility and see how many of them where what are questions or responses to such "hot topics".

But overall my impressions of this board have improved with the general interaction of the postings - which I consider a good thing.

One of my biggest concerns on thou shalt not make modifications was party size - which according to kinevon was nice enough clarify that was only in seasons 0-3. Which given my limited insight into the scenarios offered, I had not encountered, something a FAQ would have provided me with some knowledge on.

As to me being a GM vs player that was not the intent of that thread personally I think you might be reading more into it or maybe it is just cause English is not my native language since I only speak bad English. I have been running successful games sessions both as a player and as a GM for several decades at this point now. I can ensure you I did not reach the number of games and game systems, not to mention recurring players, by randomly or mercilessly killing people off - that is no fun for anyone. For these games the number one goal was to have fun everything has always been secondary.

One way you can help is to be aware of when you are bringing up hot-button issues, and only do so delicately and gracefully.

Really I have no basis to understand what is a hot topic issue and what is not. Maybe this forum needs a FAQ sticky to the top explaining hot issues or just common answers to questions that you guys have seen over and over again?

Just to once again state that my opinion of hostility above was reached BEFORE I had posted anything - it had nothing to do with any forum postings of mine or response therein.

I actually thought the responses to that thread was helpful overall in understanding how PFS expects GMs to deal with stuff.

CommanderG wrote:

(See Paranoia for how players act when death isn't that important.)

Now that game can be a hoot to pickup and play occasionally.

Commander G

I have a response to your thoughts about the hostility. I'm going to spoiler it because it's not really the subject of this thread and I don't want to turn it into a "he said, she said, but he really meant that she meant..." mess.
** spoiler omitted **...

Three response to this:

2. Yes I did throw fire on that and it was a mistake - in a following post I recanted that statement cause it never happened. It was a inside joke that I did not mark clearly as such - the person asking the question that I responded to was one of the players in the game.

3. Overall I found the response to that thread interesting and positive - only the first post I considered a hostile answer.

Personally I ask the players after the game individually since some people have issues with expressing points of view in groups what their thoughts on a game are? I try to do this within 24 hours of a game session since it is still fresh in people's minds.

I then tend to ask some pointed question such as what do you think about encounter xyz? How was my handling of this or that situation.

Based upon feedback I attempt to adjust for the next session.

The problem is what happens when a DM decides "oh sure they can take 7 of these..." and then a character dies. It doesn't take more than 2-3 deaths to seriously cut into a characters wealthy by level and make them.. if not exactly unplayable, then at least rather likely to hit the death spiral. (You sell off your equipment, you go into the dungeon naked, you're more likely to die, so you sell your equipment so...)

Yes I will agree with that it does appear the penalty for death in this social play games is pretty crushing. Has it ever been discussed maybe toning down the penalty for death ?

We are supposedly part of an organization after all - where is the Union Rep when you need them?

Just to be clear if not I'm talking about your character's faction

"run as written" to be what you see- uniformity can trump playability, at least in organised play... it is part of the beast inherent in running public events.

I honestly have no concerns about "run as written" back in the days I probably ran 40-50 LFR modules and ran them every time exactly as written. To be honest I did not even think about it. Adjustments never entered my mind.

But like most human beings you tell them explicitly that they can not do something you almost invariable have those that rebel.

GRAAAARRRRRRG!!!! Is much easier to type than something that may require you to double check a few facts and look up references.

This is a good example of what I would consider negative reaction to a question and statement - I 100% agree that the question might be one that has been asked over and over again on the forums. But if someones instant answer is to attack the person asking the question - maybe they should not respond?

I for one have not been on this forum for 4-5 years playing PFS and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

That or you could do what I have done in the past for my job which is to provide a link sending the user to find the information themselves.

Just one point: Season 0 to 3 scenarios were written for 4 PCs, and have no adjustments, other than the APL to sub-tier rules; Season 4+ scenarios are written for 6 PCs, and include both the APL to sub-tier adjustments, but include sidebars on how to adjust most of the encounters for 4 players. Sometimes those sidebars are on a later page, which is just one more reason to give each scenario a good read-over during prep...

That is very helpful so far for whatever reason I have only seen season 3 modules and/or the free products.

OK, I have been reading thread postings on this site for a bit, heck even posted a few which is very unusual for me. I got to say my initial reaction to this forum was one of general hostility toward GMs which I find confusing since without GMs you have no players. Please note this initial reaction was generated before I posted my first post. The thread on min/max was kind of a test post.

The first response I got on that thread was exactly as expected instant hostility towards a potential GM asking a question, but the followup posts were much more modulated even the ones that disagreed with the subject. Overall I found the thread an interesting read and hopefully others did as well.

Personally I think the focus on the “run as written” that keeps getting quoted all over this forum should be toned down. Generally, most GMs especially ones that mainly run home games are not used to someone telling them what they can or can not do.

Instead I think trying to emphasize the positives would be a better tract, after all people respond better to carrots than sticks. Positives as I see it:

It should be pointed out that the PFS has a range of scenarios and modules available that seem to range the gambit between more easier or harder combat. This would allow a GM that only likes nail biting fights to just run those modules. It also allows players to pick scenarios or modules that may or may not be combat heavy. After all not everyone wants really tough fights, some people gasp just want to role-play and have casual fun.

I see this as no different then in a home game were you do not want every fight or adventure path you take the party on to be super hard or deadly. All hard fights get boring, all easy fights are the same way.

I will say that I find it very odd that modules/scenarios don't have at least simple adjustments built into them to handle number of players. As I see it that is about the only real adjustment that would be a nice to have as number of players really affects difficulty level.

But I digress, not having to worry about adjusting the modules difficulty lets you focus on the game and the players actions more. This should allow the development of the NPC better and heck even focus more on making the combat more descriptively interesting vs worrying about some adjustment you made that may or may not be working out.

It also provides a more consistent game play which is nice, of course this it is a little hampered with the massive amount of rules Pathfinder has. No one person can be expected to know each and every rule and how it interacts. Not to mention it is easy to miss something in a scenario you have prepared or forget something, but in general should be closer to a hopefully a good logical story.

Anyone else have any positives they would like to add?

Question on Combat Scenarios – what if anything is the ruling on leaving the defined battle area in PFS? Just to be clear, Defined battle area is the map provided in the scenario for the combat.

Since nothing is written in the scenario on this and the scenario is to be ran “as written”, is this:

1. Not allowed
2. Considered a fail for that encounter
3. Acts - like asteroids and they warp to the other side

Doesn't seem that the GM has the right to simply extend the battle map - cause that would be or could be a serious modification to the combat.

also in your statment "the Monster did not have spellcraft so would not know the details of such healing" the same Idea goes for channeling negative energy ....without Knowledge religion the Monster isnt going to know who did it ... and an argument could be made that he wouldnt even know how it was done without it

My understanding is that in general, barring invisibility/stealth/etc, a creature does know who or what used a spell or ability against them. Is this not correct?

Do agree that the monster would have no understanding specifically of what the ability is, but it is a simple causality relationship that dude X did something and I felt a sharp pain, lets kill him.

I think this falls into the "do NPCs have visible health bars." area. Most GM's I have played with say no, unless you have some way to make a check, all you can see it that they have been or have not been hit, and that they are or are not moving.

Cool thanks for checking on that, I hate to miss rules like that, drives me crazy.

Wraith235 and Flite, I do forget that forums posting are not like IMs, not a frequent poster. But the death of the cleric was an inside joke, as mentioned above, one of the players is actually reading this forum.

To clarify, no one in the game played actually died. I don't think I ever even attacked the cleric directly. He was hit with an area effect spell but that was incidental.

In general it appears PFS scenarios have enough built in effects trying to kill the players without the GM assassinating a player. In the first two scenarios I have seen there is one with what can easily be a DC 18 or so fortitude save vs death. And another one with a trap that can hit multiplier players for 6d6 damage. This is all for 1st level characters which seems pretty harsh to me.

I pray this was not a new to PFS player because chances are they wont be returning to the game

I have talked to all of the players and at least one is reading this forum posting and can discuss if they want to. All of these players are long term friends of mine we have been playing games for years together. And that includes the Min/Max guy, the fights we have had over rules are legen … wait for it … dary.

We must both enjoy it or we would not play these types of game together.

We tend to play tons of games, the number one comment I received from the people at the table about PFS had nothing to do with PFS but the actual game mechanics of Pathfinder. They found it too complicated with all the concealment rules and generally expressed an interest to just go back to 4e Dnd.

The other rule that caused them the most trouble was the 5 foot diagonal calculations. Not to delve into a battle of game systems but I have never understood why 3rd edition rules did not play on a hex map, it would approximate the area of effects better.

On the other hand:

1. Intelligent Monster
2. Clearly didn't hurt them much, as they were then able to dogpile the cleric.
3. How did they know that? Without deathwatch, they would need to stop and check to see if he was still alive. Did they make their heal check? Or did they just magically know when he was dead and stop attacking him after that?
4. And yet most healing requires touch, and no one else was close to him. For that matter, without a heal check, they don't know if he is dead, or just close.

Opinions can differently be different on what a monster would or would not do.

My take on touch healing would be
1. party members could approach cleric without suffering opportunity attacks
2. monster was not a spell casting - no spellcraft - so while it would know that magical healing exists it would not necessary know the details of such healing.

As to not hurting them much - this particular enemy would not have survived another hit from that cleric.

I'm not aware of a heal check needed to determine dead or not - can your provide the rule page for this for future reference? I'm most certainly not a master of all pathfinder combat rules - heck they are a lot of them.

Assuming other characters were up and threatening, why did the monsters finish the cleric (I mean besides the fact that you hate his character.)

Lets see -

1. intelligent monster
2. pissed about the dude harming all of his friends
3. cleric was still alive and closest target
4. lives in a world where magical healing is available so by #1 knows that all it takes is someone to wave their hands and the cleric is standing again but beheading stops that from happening.

technically no one else in the party had the ability to heal the cleric, but the monster did not know that

So, how did this turn out for the first game?

It did not go bad after the Cleric died. The rest of the party succeeded in the scenario just fine.

Cleric dazed some monsters, they recovered got enraged and just focused on him as being the biggest threat, after one critical charge the cleric was on the ground. Next round the same monster finished him.

In PFS play with running the module "as written" changing creatures are not allowed or changing rules for that matter.

Otherwise the simplest fix would be to just disallow players from worshiping evil deities, fairly effective since almost all parties, scenarios, modules, campaigns, etc. tend to be good vs evil.

In my past experience when someone wants to play an evil character or worship and evil deity it usually indicates trouble for the party and causes strife among the players. Sooner or later they always seem to want to pull one over someone in the party and claim their alignment or deity demanded it.

Course on the flip side if they do not and they play nice – shouldn't their evil deity smite them for not following his tenants?

Hey speaking on the topic of silver arrows -

Are the 20 silver arrows for 3 gp or 20 silver arrows are 41 gp? The debate is over the missing keyword per missile in the book, which looks just like a type-o/omission to me.

I'm assuming 41 gp since ammunition typically refers to a single arrow/bolt/etc.

Otherwise it would get really strange to me, since you would draw ammunition for your bow - shoot the arrow, it hits and then all your arrows disappear :) Since per rules (core pg 141) ammunition that strikes a target is destroyed and if ammunition without the keyword "per missile" means the bundle of arrows then archers are in trouble.

Actually, whether you can report that scenario depends on which check box you used to select it.

I believe the check box for it under Free Products won't let you report it.
The check box for it under Season 3 is the one that works, IIRC.

Yep you are correct - checkbox under Season 3 works correctly. Thanks for that.

One of the responsibilities of the GM according the society play is validating that the player has all the sources for his character – either hard copies or water marked PDFs. I'm going to assume that we don't have to validate that a water marked PDF is actually that player – cause someone's email can be gobo@gmail.com and his actual name is Paul.

How long does this normally take and do you require them to have a handy sheet that has feat, spell, trait, item, etc and its source and page # for validation or do you normally just glance at it and say – OK looks good? Given the number of feats, items, traits, etc in this game I'm doubtful that anyone could know them all – maybe that would make a good trivial game?

I'm assuming the GM is not required to keep track of the exact number of charges a character uses from say a wand of cure light wounds, basically we go on the honor system for players or is this a mistake and I should track every arrow expanded and charge used?

One last question about item tracking – say I'm an archer firing silver arrows. I shoot 10 silver arrows then later during the adventure we find a catch of 20 silver arrows. Can I replace the 10 silver arrows I used with the found arrows or do I mark down at the end of the game that I used 10 silver arrows?

Yep having the same issue - other scenarios can be added just fine but that one does not seem to take. Assume a bug with the server code.

Jiggy wrote:

Quote:

The scenario is "3-21 The Temple Of Empyreal Enlightenment"

This one has a reputation. You shouldn't run it for a batch of firsties regardless of whether there's a healer at the table. Kyra won't save them.

Yeah, that should not be someone's first ever PFS game...unless we want to start yet another "I hate haunts" thread.

It's also tricksy and requires knowledge skills and makes you evil and....

Our current "Level 1 marathon" set is First Steps part 1 ("Let's run errands in Absalom!"), Master of the Fallen Fortress ("Dungeon crawl time"), and the Confirmation ("Yay! You survived your first two assignments--now write your thesis").

These are all repeatable, and they make a nice intro to the world, the game system, and society play.

Ok you talked my into changing plans, I think I will just take your starting scenarios and run with it. After running series everyone should be 2nd level I think and much better equipped to deal with 3-21.

Thanks everyone for the comments, much appreciated.

Option 1: Play The confirmation. It comes with a built in solution to this problem.

Option 2: Encourage someone to snag kyra or play a cleric for one adventure. It doesn't matter what tactics you use, people are going to get hit. The heals and the channels should be enough to get you through the adventure.

After the adventure make sure everyone gets a clw or infernal healing wand.

Just to be absolutely clear you are talking about the "Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–08: The Confirmation" correct?

If that would be a better start then that sounds like probably the best solution. I would hate to start them off with a total party wipe.

I would much rather have them get invested in their characters before killing them off, just kidding :)

Paz/nosig,

I know nothing about difficulty levels of pathfinder society. That module was picked by one of the players by random die roll.

Season 3 - roll d12 - count the mods - ok you just won 3-21.

CommanderG wrote:

Yeah I once ran Tomb of Horrors (Advanced Dnd 1st edition) where no one brought a thief - can we say that was a short game?

Bringing a thief would be no help to you in Tomb. So many of the traps in there are of the "no save, no chance to detect, auto screwed variety" and in any event 1e thief find/remove trap skill chances are pathetically low.

I believe the most successful recorded approach to the Tomb was the fighter Robilar who excavated the place with orcish slaves and earth elementals. Far safer than actually dealing with the mad nonsense inside.

Been years since I ran that module, so I don't recall the traps - just remember it being as you say "auto screwed variety".

Did not find that module fun at all to run - I have always wondered how it made it so high in rankings.

I will agree with the scaling badly as far as DC goes. Unless I'm missing something they have already taken most feats for increasing DC besides just pouring on more Charisma. Which given that they skimped a little on wisdom might not be doable. The number of times per day does not increase either without Charisma bump or the spending of additional feats.

Still seems powerful for something that mimics a 4th level wizard spell – Mass Daze.

Guess I will just see how it runs, if it really bugs me or others during play, I will talk to the player about it and either get him to use caution in its ability or to just locate another GM/players that will not care.

Yeah I once ran Tomb of Horrors (Advanced Dnd 1st edition) where no one brought a thief - can we say that was a short game?

If these guys where veteran players I would not care cause they would know what they are getting into.

But these people have never played in Pathfinder Society heck most have never played Pathfinder or 3rd edition Dnd at all. Seems asking them to either play a character they do not want or to just kill them all is not a good way to encourage more people to play pathfinder.

I will check starting gold and see who has the ability to use a scroll of cure light wounds and/or potions of cure light wounds. That might be a valid option.

The scenario is "3-21 The Temple Of Empyreal Enlightenment" - I do not see any potions or wands available for healing.

Situation: You schedule a scenario and no one brings anyone who has any healing ability.

Five players, running a 1st level scenario with brand new characters.

I know there are rules for a GM to run a pre-generated character but I seem to recall that was only for if the party size was three since four is minimal legal. This is correct, right? I know in a home game this is what I have done in the past, a healer henchman, usually used as comic relief.

Assuming this is not legal, do I bully someone into playing a cleric or other healer? Seems like bad mojo to me

Or just run the scenario “as is” and proceed to kill them all? This does not seem like a fun option to me.

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this in Pathfinder Society and how they went about fixing.

Seems from what I read the standard way of dealing with this is for everyone to acquire a wand of cure light wounds on the good chance someone in the party can use such an item, but this is not possible given 1st level with brand new characters.

Andrew Christian – You hit on one of my issues with this – others have mentioned that the whole point is for the players to have fun, but the GM is a player – not in the traditional PC sense to be sure, but if the GM is not having fun I can more or less guarantee that the players are not.

Guess I will find out if this is as a crazy ability as it looks to me. It just tripped my internal gaming alarm. I'm going to be GMing my first PFS game this coming weekend with four new PFS players and one veteran.

The one veteran PFS player, one game under his belt, is the one with the channel character build. They are also asking me if the scenario chosen contains a lot of undead cause if it does they want to play an archer ranger instead of the channel cleric.

We had a player with this exact build in our area. I'll direct him to this thread so he can tell you how his games were.

Oh that would be great a highly interesting read.

Base 10
Charisma 18 (+4 DC)
Trait: Sacred Conduit (+1 DC)
Feat: Improved Channel (+2 DC)
= 17 DC

Could be 18 if they had maxed Charisma out.

If this was a home game I would just slap on the normal condition that most other Daze affects have like the level 0 spell - only once per minute.

Basically this appears to be a 4th level spell - Mass Daze, except it has a wider area of effect and no restrictions on level or number of times a person can be affected.

But agreed they can have fun - but I know if I built an enemy cleric with that the party would hang me up by my feet and throw the cat at me.

LN Cleric of Dispater with Negative Channel (Variant) – Rulership

Sources:
Ultimate Magic – Variant Channel – Rulership allowing for (Harm) to cause Daze
Inner Sea – Dispater God (LE w/Rulership)

Makes it trivial to build a cleric with at least a DC 17 repeatable daze affect usable enough times a day to basically just lock low level fights down. This includes Selective Channel to avoid hitting party members.

Seems like in your typical low level Kobold or Goblin encounter – might as well just not bother running it as a Will Save of +0 is not going to mean they are doing a lot.

On the other hand running a Scenario/Module heavy in undead makes the character concept worthless, at least at low levels until they acquire control undead.

I'm just wondering if any GMs have dealt with this and what if anything they did about it?