Curio's page

Have: DragonKin/Aasimar

Want: Witchwyrd

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I've been quietly reading this thread and I have a few things to say regarding the current discussion (discounting the ms/miss/mrs part).

There are those who believe we should be careful with characters to make sure they are not offensive to others. There are also those who oppose this. While I can understand trying to keep PFS friendly and inclusive by not hurting anyone's feelings, it can also be hurtful and exclusive to limit character creation to what is "PC" to others.

For starters, how do you define "offensive"? Some may look at the LGBT community as "offensive". There are some who hate anything "magic" and call people involved with RPG games "devil worshippers". Parents playing PFS with their children sometimes tell you off for swearing (a common thing in RP game tables, to be sure), and then there are those who shrug it off as "the norm". There are those who can't take alcohol or drug references who might complain about a scenario involving them too.

I personally played at a table with a paladin of Arshea, who helped the party with their mission by successfully propositioning and then sleeping with an npc. None of us were bothered by this, but there are some who might be. Does that mean he shouldn't play his pally? No. The Gm could suggest, for instance, that the character had successfully flirted with said npc and went on a nice date, which would have brought a similar result. I doubt the player would have been upset if he'd been asked to tone it down that way.

Look at Golarion itself. You have a nation that worships devils and keeps slaves as a matter of course. To oppose this, there is a nation of freedom-fighters bent on taking down slavery. You have a whole world full of racism, towards humans, elves, dwarves, half-orcs, tieflings, what-have-you. There are Traits and Feats written with corruption, bigotry, and cruelty as part of their flavor. Much of these resources are allowable in PFS, though some have been banned. The thing is, Pathfinder's world is not PC. We can be, if we so choose, but what if we're not? Does it hurt the world of Golarion? Probably not.

What we must ask ourselves is this: Is the intent of the player to hurt other players with their character? Has the player shown hurtful and offensive behavior to other players out of character, or before/after the scenario? Do they appear to be particularly malicious with any player? Have they been asked to tone it down/stop and chosen to continue? If it appears to be the case, then yes, you have a disruptive player that needs to be kicked off the table and reported.

But what about those who like to roleplay? Are they necessarily being offensive with their choice of character personality? Are they being malicious? Or are they, much like actors, intrigued by a challenging character? Perhaps they enjoy finding ways to play someone so unlike themselves, or want to see if they can "redeem" the character over time. People always have some reason why they want to play ____. Instead of assuming the worst, maybe we should ask "why?" and see what their reason is. If the most important aspect of rping the character is not the particular area that the table finds offensive, you might be able to suggest a toned-down version that retains that spark they enjoy. Or just ask them to tone it down in general. Usually people will be accommodating if you ask politely. And really, isn't that what PFS strives for? Inclusion, respect, fun?

You know, both my husband and I didn't actually get a physical xmas card from Paizo this year. I don't mind if it has an expired promo code by the time it gets here, I just would love the card! Are there any extras left you can ship our way?

Curio, I ran this at Paizocon. My team did very well, and trust me, I did not softball them. There is really only one skill that they dont have to succeed at the mission, and the scenario offers a way around that.

I'm sorry your experience wasn't exceptional, but this is another instance of straying from written tactics where the tactics are less deadly.

Apparently, from what I'm hearing, system mastery was also involved. Some tables where the gm didn't play soft, also had the good fortune of having players with system mastery that gave them an edge despite having pregens that weren't really equipped properly for the scenario. They grabbed scrolls of Breath of Life, knew combat maneuvers by heart, ect. Many players who were experienced still had to review the characters and so didn't get the time to do things, such as buying items to keep alive or help them with their missions. Saying that your table did fine with everything as written doesn't say all tables had the same experience. My situation also wasn't unique. My table was half-dead when they came into the boss battle. We didn't have time to buy items, and we didn't know that our pregens' deaths would equal the deaths of our designated characters. We would likely have played differently if we had.

Curio wrote:

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Curio, when the table is reported, send a message to pathfindersociety@paizo.com with the session number and character number. You can request the credit be applied to a new character number and marked dead there, as you are allowed to apply dead pregen chronicles to a brand new character rather than be forced to pay the prestige or lose a current character.

I'll pass it on to my bf, thank you! The thing is, why is this even happening? Why couldn't they have made the scenario without killing a designated character, as we're all used to? Is that even necessary? We can understand how awesome the pathfinder society is, without having our own characters be fodder for that truth.

I'm not sure why you are under the impression that playing We Be Goblins doesn't also result in the death of an assigned character.

Playing a pregen and dying requires you to resolve that death with the assigned character, or re-assign it to a character number not currently under use.

Secondly, all the pregens were more than capable of completing thier tasks.

From my experience, the pregens weren't capable completely, or at least, at my table. There were some set skills that were required that none of the pregens had, so we had to improvise. There also is the fact that the characters need to go shopping to properly be prepared, even though it is a time-sensitive mission that tells you that you don't "have the time". It is also true that some tables were played "soft", and so whether they were truly able for what they needed to do is still under question. If you gm the scenario as written, you will likely tpk the party.

Another thing that's a problem is that the missions themselves aren't always clear. I am limited to what I can say without spoiling anything, but I can say my character didn't have clear orders. She was told to do something that required a specific target that wasn't said in her briefing, only alluded to. In order to actually know what target it is, you need to Meta from Siege of Serpents. That shouldn't have happened. There should have been more information and ways to get it, so that those who hadn't ever played Siege could successfully find the target in Rise. Also, the printed mission statement itself was badly-typed. I had to read it very carefully in order to understand it. I also showed it to my gm when it was clear that I wasn't given even a good clue of the target, and my gm misread it. It wasn't his fault, since they didn't space the words well enough to distinguish them separately. Please fix that in the future, as it wastes a lot of time!

Do I think they need to fix this "finished product"? Yes. I understand there are those who would say otherwise, but from my gameplay, there are clear problems that have not been addressed.

1. Tell the players that pregen death=designated character death. Most players don't play pregens, so the rules aren't clear to them about this. Also, specify whether people have to pay 22 prestige to regen the character or if it is the 5 point cost that is in We Be Goblins Too. As has been pointed out, both Goblins and Rise use pregens that you cannot play in any other scenario, and are the only chracters you can choose from. It would be more than reasonable to allow a 5 prestige cost to regen you designated characters for this.

2. Missions need to have more clear instructions, if they don't otherwise do so. If they have a target, or two targets, give those targets, or at least, give the gm the info/who to contact to help the pc find out what they are. Retype the mission statements so they are legible. I would volunteer to do this if asked. It wouldn't take very long and is vital for proper gameplay.

3. Either give the pregens all the items they need beforehand, or allow that they actually have time to shop for them. You can't say "there's no time" or "it's time-sensitive" if they need to shop in order to survive.

4. At least half of your gms played it soft. That in and of itself should tell you how hard the battles really were, and if these pregens are really up to the task.

5. With a special that requires so much and needs to have all tables done within a certain timeframe, you need to be prepared. Some things take time to locate. For instance, while the Core Rulebook has all the core spells, you still have to look them up to make sure of their effects and duration. Also, many players such as myself have the pdf form, which, when our devices go caput mid-game, is useless. Why not just have a printed copy of those spells for table reference, just in case for those instances? It's not like we don't have the Book, but seriously, when you're doing a con, some tablets and phones just don't have good battery life, so that pdf Core Rulebook can't be accessed. You can't always get a table near a plug either.

If these points were addressed, it would help a lot. I daresay it would improve the chance that this scenario would be fun for everyone, which is after all the main aim.

Curio, when the table is reported, send a message to pathfindersociety@paizo.com with the session number and character number. You can request the credit be applied to a new character number and marked dead there, as you are allowed to apply dead pregen chronicles to a brand new character rather than be forced to pay the prestige or lose a current character.

I'll pass it on to my bf, thank you! The thing is, why is this even happening? Why couldn't they have made the scenario without killing a designated character, as we're all used to? Is that even necessary? We can understand how awesome the pathfinder society is, without having our own characters be fodder for that truth.

I can still remember Serpent's Rise, even now. I know there are those on here who had tons of fun doing it, but sadly, this was not my experience.

1. The characters were interesting. By themselves, they were well-built. They just weren't built to do this scenario well. Not only were they required to use skills that none of them actually had for their respective missions, but the players at my table were hampered by the unclearness of the missions themselves. Sometimes you had to Meta from your memories from Siege of the Serpent to actually have a clue what to do, which obviously wasn't the intent. Mind you, these were not newbies to Pathfinder.

2. Character death. Nowhere in the scenario or any disclaimers was it said that your pregen's death would also be your designated character's death. Later some tables found out about it after the fact, which caused much dismay. Some GMs counted the characters as dead, while others didn't because the biggest precedence that we'd had for a pregen-only scenario was the We Be Goblins series, which not only gives you credit for a designated character, but also doesn't kill your character if your goblin dies. The matter-of-fact reaction from the staff suggested that they expected this to be no problem, but when you have to res a 7th level character with 22 prestige, that's a bitter pill to swallow. Especially when you have no warning. I will not put spoilers on this fact, because I believe it shouldn't be hidden from anyone who wants to play Serpent's Rise. You should be allowed to know beforehand that there is a risk in your choice of character designation.

3. Some GMs played intentionally softer. Considering that the "end boss" can (and did, at my table) easily wipe the floor with an entire party within a few rounds, some GMs realized that letting him do so would kill the enjoyment, especially when people found out about #2 above. So some of the fights such as that were toned down. The survivability of the party depended on either this, or having everyone run away, which most players would not usually do without cause if given the chance.

Till this scenario, I had been having a lot of fun. I had no complaints up to then, because there really weren't any. However, because of this game, everything on Monday was overshadowed by it. I was seriously tempted to not play Monday, as my bf's character had died (I was the only survivor in the group and told to outright flee), and I wasn't sure if he'd have anything to play, since we were originally going to play our level 7s together. We clearly had no idea that there would be anything like this.

I would ask for a change in the rules for Serpent's Rise. A retroactive change to let all the designated characters who'd died live, and any prestige in rezzing them be refunded. I honestly thought that would happen before the end of the con, with outcries and complaints reaching a high point, but oddly, I have not seen much on here. I can't be the only one upset by this. I talked to other players afterward who shared the differences in their table-play.

I do not hate Paizo. I would never hate them. I just don't think this was a fair situation. We should have had warning that our choice in character designation could lead to their deaths if we died in-game. I'm sure if we'd been told this earlier, all my table would have run after the 1st battle, or possibly after that one trap killed 2 of our party and badly wounded the rest. Certainly the end boss nearly TPKing in one move would have made us flee. But we were ignorant of this, and so braved on as we usually do in dire circumstances, thinking "Thank god this is only a pregen!". If only.

Can someone take a picture of a less "iconic" Paizogeek from times to times?

A little beer belly, unclean beard, glasses, long hair, goblin shirt, way too many pins on the badge... C'mon?
Next time I want to see the #potus visit Paizocon and his comm-spin-doctor-press-attaché make sure we have decent pics of real geeks.

That's my bf. He was waiting till I was done with doing trades at the figure exchange. I think half of those pins are from other cons. He's got his hair long atm, but he's pretty much always wearing a beard and glasses. I love him just the way he is. :)

@Cosmo Thank you for posting such a nice sleeping pic of him! I can save this to my computer for posterity! It's just too cute!

Majuba, my bf and I will be arriving at the hotel sometime between 1- 3pm on Thursday. Depends on traffic. Will you be at the hotel at any time around then?

Does this mean that they may expand and continue the We Be Goblins adventures further in the future too? Are we gonna see a "We be goblins Pour!" pub-brawl adventure? Or a survival-horror "We be goblins live!"? Or am I just too into coming up with silly things involving goblins? I want to play this new one! Goblins are so fun to play! :)

Could you reserve a goblin brain apiece for me, Curio, and my lovely bf Tempest Knight? We did so love the ones from last year!

p.s. Is it bad that in your last post I imagined you saying that with The Count's voice? Five! Five goblin brains! Ah ah ah ah!!!

Mine are, in order of importance:
1.The Eternal Obelisk
2.The Trouble With Secrets

After those two, I'm up for any of them really. Stoked to actually get to play an Out of Retirement scenario! :)

I have 3 items showing up on my schedule, but each event I had signed up for still has me signed up lol. Sooo crazy today....

Yeah, looks like we're not alone in seeing that. I just noticed Cort Odekirk's message about checking on it. Hopefully it will be solved and my bf and I will have the slots we picked. *crosses fingers*

Ok, I'm a little concerned. I was able to sign up for the events I wanted, but most of the events are showing 0 sign-ups, despite being listed in my schedule after clicking. Is that a bug? Does this mean some people may be kicked off an event that doesn't show how many are actually in it? Or could it be a problem from my end? I'm hoping it's just a little issue with my computer's view.

My rogue volunteers to assist in the roll to check for glitches! (traps!)

Sorry, couldn't resist! If we all help, we could probably make a pretty high roll though....

Sadly, I am one of those in the "minority". I have no idea how many of us there are. I work when they need me, which seems to change a lot. They just don't give the old 9-5 jobs in retail anymore. If they ever did. I certainly never saw hours like that.

I think the only real way to tell when would be best would be to do a survey. Have it as a once-off on your Paizo account when you log in. That way, we don't have random people coming in and skewing the numbers for the lolz.

@JoeyDaWiz This isn't Paizo ignoring us and doing whatever they want, unlike some companies. They've been honest and upfront that they had a problem, and have done their best to fix it. Stuff can happen. Doesn't mean I'm gonna bail on them if they have a bad day.

Well, that inconveniences people like me, who have to leave for work around that time or a couple hours before. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to get around the time problems.

Noon eastern is, I assume 3 hours off pst? That's 9am pst. So no, no lunchtime for Paizo's staff, which are running on pst right? 10am pst is 1pm eastern.

What, you mean maybe 10am pst? That's would give them some time to get up and have some breakfast, but...they said they aren't staying up overnight to do this. So you have to give them sleep, and they need to have their breakfast too. 8am would be wrong imo, even if it gives the east coast more time, it takes away a whole chunk of the time the staff would have to work with after waking and eating.

I guess those with the option to carry a smartphone everywhere with them will be doing so. I had no work today, so it was such a convenience, but...well, you know what they say about best laid plans...

Ouch. Um I have a few questions: When you said earlier that you'd have to do the lottery again, did you mean the special events? And 2, did any of the open events get full? Because some claimed to have some people in them without letting me press the button to join. I sure hope this can be resolved before I have to go to work later tomorrow, but I know things can't be helped. Thank you for all your hard work.

Majuba. We should be arriving about 3pm Thursday for check-in. If we're earlier than that, we might look for you in that game room you mentioned. I'm a female brunette, but the most noticeable thing would probably be the hulking goofball following behind me (my bf). I was about to say "brute", but we both know he doesn't have it in him. I'm not sure if he'll have his purple paizo shirt on that day too. Should I try to wear my hair in various ways each day to get your attention? Note to self: need to get yellow ribbons.....ah well. I'll just wear my yellow/orange tie-dye skirt Thursday! Yes....I have decided.

p.s. If you get the reference, kudos! I wish my hair could look good that short, but alas! It must stay long!(ish)

Majuba, what times are best to meet you? Will you be on location on Thursday? Should we try to find you? I just realized I might not be able to tell you the room number, since I won't know myself till we get there and I don't have a smartphone. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

Curio wrote:

Majuba' did you also reserve one for my bf Tempest_Knight too?

Of course ;-)

Despite all the yap... Er , yarking, still 8 left!

sorry about the autocorrect Kobold Cleaver - you'd think since my wife plays a cleaver wielding kobold it would have been fixed by now.

Thanks Majuba! I'm sure he'd be delighted to taste one! Maybe I should bring a container of ice cream to go with it.....mmmm....

Curio wrote:

I was updating my characters on the site, and decided to peruse my session listings. They seemed to be shorter than I recalled. So I looked through my Chronicle sheets. Well, turns out some of the events my Rogue played from previous Paizocons weren't even listed! Including oddly Siege of the Diamond City! Will we be able to have this fixed by staff at the Con this year? I have the sheets to prove my attendance!

Even though this was last years PaizoCon - I would start with contacting your local Venture Captain or Venture Lieutenant to have the issue looked into. Regional Coordinators

Thank you! I've contacted my local VC! :)

I was updating my characters on the site, and decided to peruse my session listings. They seemed to be shorter than I recalled. So I looked through my Chronicle sheets. Well, turns out some of the events my Rogue played from previous Paizocons weren't even listed! Including oddly Siege of the Diamond City! Will we be able to have this fixed by staff at the Con this year? I have the sheets to prove my attendance!

I thought Kobolds said "Yark", not "yap".....

Majuba, did you also reserve one for my bf Tempest_Knight too? He's volunteering as a GM, and I can almost guarantee he'll be wearing his purple Volunteer shirt all con except maybe Sunday, so finding him will be fairly easy. Of course, he's not that hard to spot anyway, being so tall. :)

My bf reminded me that under PS rules, we can't actually craft magic items. So no craft item = no phylactery. Also, even if it was only for 10 minutes, evil aligned player characters are not allowed. Also, if they were to allow such a special entity, you'd probably need a chronicle sheet, which I doubt they'd ever make.

They *might* allow an npc to do something like this though.

I know I'm going to hear some "interesting comments" from my bf about this but....I want one too. I'm Curio. Can you also hold one for my bf, Tempest_Knight? I'll make sure he changes his badge to reflect the name. He's always telling me to at least try something once before saying no. And really, who can resist Goblin brains! Are they best fresh, with the Goblin still kicking? I'm honestly curious. I can pm the room # when we receive the info, ok? Or we can arrange pick up too, whichever works.

@Buri Team "I'm too too old to be on Teams!" of course! XD Or Team "Stupid Tween Fads Are Ruining My Fantasies!!".

Maybe I missed when it was said, but I've been wondering a key question: What type of campaign is he doing? Is he in a Pathfinder Society Sanctioned one? Or is this an independent campaign? If it's independent, then house rules can apply. If not, then he'd need to follow what's allowed by PS right?

Snorter wrote:

What would the range increment be, on sling-propelled nads?

Would they reach the far end of the main hall?

Now that I've had sufficient caffeine, I'd say that since they are also known as 'stones', that the usual range increment for a sling would apply, though their fleshy nature would indicate that they would only do d2 points of subdual damage, and necessitate a DC 15 Fort save to avoid being nauseated once the target realizes what they've been hit with.

It's late but I feel I must say this: If she's glaring him down, it's likely they're already frozen solid in fear from her wrath. So they might just be very dangerous, at least enough to confuse the poor sod who gets hit by them in this experiment.

That's good news Epic Meepo! I'm new to Pathfinder and this will be my first PaizoCon. Unfortunately I messed up on the event lottery and have an event I don't think I'm qualified for. It wants Veterans. I'd gladly trade it for a low level event! It's Race to Hell's Gate Friday 7pm-12am. I have a window from 1pm-12am open, so hopefully I can get a trade.

I'm planning on going to Paizocon this year with my boyfriend and his nephew, and I wanted to ask a few questions. Do we need to *each* have a copy of the core books as well as any materials that we used to make our characters? Also, do each of us need to own our own copies (in the case of printed pdfs), or is it alright to print multiple copies from a source bought by one person?

Thx for the info guys! I got another question. What's a Chronicle sheet and how do we get one for the PAXport? I don't think we were told to pick one up. The PAXport also doesn't say you need one.

My boyfriend and I got through all 5 adventures. We also won the Core rulebook, a poster, and a book! :) It was really fun, especially hearing the different interpretations of the samurai's accent! What I'm curious about is whether you can only make 1 character with the special races on the card, or if the card unlocks making characters of those races in general.