Felix Gaunt's page

Sadly this does not help me, now if they somehow brought back PFS1 that'd be great. I guess one can dream! lol

Slyme wrote:

Everything I am seeing happen with Paizo and PF1 vs PF2 I have seen before.

I have a similar history with RPGs and I don't see the current concern over PF2E as any different than virtually every edition of every RPG I've ever seen. The exception might be DnD5E since 4E was soo universally disliked that they could have done almost anything with 5E and it would have been readily accepted. Otherwise, even DnD has experienced the same vitriol about their newest system going all the way back to when OD&D was "replaced" in the last 70's. I can more easily understand the gripes from the younger or less experienced players who have not gone through this process before, but for those of us who have seen this phenomenon countless times before, there is no reason for all the "grrr."

What surprises me is that I'm not sure anything has been learned from the past. 3.5 was popular but had issues, so they created 4th which...crashed and burned. PF1 rose out of the ashes of 3.5 and has been doing well. Then 5E came and people flocked to it, partially because it wasn't 4th (I agree there) but also for it's clean simplicity.

Now Paizo is taking a well liked game (ala 3.5) and creating one in what, 1 year? I want to say that 5E took waaay longer than 1 year to "perfect". Why is Paizo rushing this so much? Why not engage the PF1/PFS1 community more instead of leaving them behind? I think if they took another year to refine PF2 and also come up with better compensation for PFS1 people that they'd be far far better off. This all feels quite rushed and like PF1/PFS1 is being left at the altar, very perplexing... I REALLY hope I'm wrong on all this, but I'm not feeling great (and I want to). :-/

I honestly feel like in 2-3 years we might either be seeing Pathfinder 3.0, or the death of Paizo as a company. Based on what I have seen voiced here on the forums, over on reddit, facebook, in person, etc. A large portion of the PF1 community is vastly dissatisfied with PF2. Nothing about it is groundbreaking enough to steal a meaningful share of the market away from D&D5E, and they are going likely to lose a lot of loyal PF1 customers.

If I am wrong...great...I'll either play PF1 home games, or move on to a different system.

I'll be honest, I am a little worried about PF2 going the way of 4th. :-/ I am hoping that they can keep enough PFS1 players in PFS2 to help build PF2 into something great, cause lets be honest the likelihood of people leaving 5E (given its current popularity) for PF2 is probably not all that high. Losing even some of your PFS1 base would most definitely not be good, which is why I'm hoping they recognize as much as reasonably possible the commitment their PFS1 base put in when designing PFS2, i.e. Stars, Boons, etc. *cross fingers*

So I read through all the posts in this thread and one of the things that stuck out to me is people are lets just say "less than enthused" with the decision to effectively scrap good permanent boons for temp ones. There were some who were in favor (not vociferously so) and some who were ambivalent (perhaps new players?), but overall I'd say the response hasn't exactly been a full-throated endorsement of the decision.

So rather than put anyone else through the same pain that I just went through I've curated those "less than enthused" sentiments below. Enjoy! ;-)

While I like the prize table approach I think if you sacrifice permanent (race) boons you should get a permanent benefit in PF2.

Boons - it's been said a few times but what makes a boon fun is that it makes a character different - a permanent fun boon is waaaay better than a mechanical benefit.

Even if there's little or no mechanical benefit I'd far rather have a flavor boon.

Also, spending boons for one off bonuses (no matter how powerful) would be pretty soul destroying (bye bye vanarra, dhampir, ganzi - hello minor benefit on rolls).

GM boons are a thank you for the time effort and often money that GMs have put into making conventions fun. Printing, buying maps, buying minis etc... quite often you'll look round a convention hall and see GMs have scratch-built 3D terrain or created unique minis for important foes... We do it to make the gaming experience as fabulous as possible for our players, GM boons have always been really important to me in feeling that Paizo values that effort and investment.

I'm also in agreement that trading in a race boon should have some sort of permanent effect.

Boon Table: Ultimately, OP has to do what they believe is best for OP, but the described system doesn't really inspire me to volunteer to GM PFS 1 scenarios going forward. Specials, online, as long as some form of indefinite replay is going to be supported, probably. Running 3-5 tables of the same scenario over and over for PFS 1? No, that doesn't interest me.

I very much like the idea of trading in boons with a prize table methodology, but if I spend a race boon, I would want a similar type of benefit, something long-lasting and flavorful without being overpowered. Obviously, trading race boon for race boon would be nice (if not feasible at the start of PF2 content being released).

Honestly, I would like some promises about this sort of thing because I think it would help keep people engaged in 1e.

I'm not a big fan of the boon table for reasons mentioned by several other people already: some specialty boons are more far-reaching or permanent in v1, especially those for convention attendance and/or GMing (not to mention auctions) - boons which, essentially, had a cost in both money and time (either travel, admission to the event, and/or time preparing scenarios for GMing) and - forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this - they are being reduced to one-off number crunches? It sounds like expediency is taking precedence over respecting the previous playerbase, which might be necessary by logistics, but I wish there was another way to integrate those older boons into v2 play in a way that feels more 'fair.' Understanding that it's not feasible for the transition team given the complexity of the process doesn't make it sting less on the receiving end ^_^;

I'm not happy with the boon table scheme. Only getting weak temporary bonuses from sacrificing valuable 1st Edition boons that do cool stuff for your character would feel more like a slap in the face to most players who invested in 1st Edition.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

Boons: Frankly, this is the worst bit. What was mentioned earlier about "Legacy" boons that are things that remind us of our characters are far more what I expect. Trading in a race boon, something that I worked hard for and gives lots of flavorful and storytelling benefits, for a one time mediocre mechanical benefit is just coo coo bird. At the very least, race boons should be traded in for something of equivalent status, either a race boon for 2e or a item or something permanent that let's us give flavor and love to the new character. Like a "Scion of the Grand Lodge" sort of boon.

As far as Boons?

Something with flavor or history versus some random 'one-off' reroll or die bonus, please. A lot of resources were devoted to earning those in some cases, so turning them from Guinness to Miller Lite is not the solution...

Not super keen on the proposed means to deal with boons, from what I've seen "Check a box to get this one-time benefit" boons tend to either end up forgotten or deliberately held back "for when I REALLY need it." I'd rather see something similar tacked on to the PFS2 equivalent of those boons, in line with how some of this past year's con boons were able to scale by spending other boons (Such as the aquatic elf/gillman/merfolk boon)

As for boons... I'm not a fan of the proposed system, personally, because of what I value about boons. My favorite boons were always those that offered a new character option or design choice. Turning something that let me create a character I couldn't otherwise create, into a boring power-boosting numbers benefit, isn't especially valuable to me.

As far as the boon trade in or whatever, I also believe that if I turn in a GM race boon that I had to GM 5+ tables at GenCon to earn I ought to get one of comparable value, NOT a one or however many time mechanical value benefit!

As an aside, I have found that after the announcement of PF2 I have been GMing less PF1 and more Starfinder and I will continue to do so as I believe we are now in a time of diminishing returns for PF1. I also almost always take a SFS boon over a PFS boon if give the choice unless it is a race boon or something that I can use on a current PF1 character immediately. That's just my YMMV.

I also want to say that flavor boons, even if they give little no mechanical bonus are much preferred to anything that is one time use or boons that are only useful in very specific circumstances.

Permanent, thematic boons are something I am vastly more interested, rather than turning my collection of PF1 boons into a blank currency.

In terms of the 1e to 2e boon conversion. Your suggested change sounds lack luster and disappointing. Why can't you just let people trade in a race boon for a race boon? Your likely going to have season 1 or season 2 early race access boons anyways. So where is the harm in just letting them be exchanged. Those races generally get added a year later to the greater public anyways (e.g., legacy races in starfinder) so why are we splitting hairs about the 'long term' power gains here turning off new players. Its just silly if you ask me. To swap a character defining choice type boon that is 'no more powerful than any other for a extremely short term one off buff boon just sucks. Why bother at all. I have hundreds of normal chronicle sheets filled with that kind of 'boon' and 90% of them sit there unused. The 10% used are only for the bonekeep type...

I will also second (third? fourth?) the notion that _flavor_ boons are the best boons. I absolutely loath boons that offer one time benefits, or that can be only used in extremely limited situations. I am never going to remember that I get +1 to hit vs kobolds from cheliax on the third wednesday of the month.

Here's the thing, I've heard people say they don't care if Stars or Boons carry (not a lot of people), heard people say they would prefer them to not carry (even less people), and A LOT of people say they should transfer in some capacity. This capacity being as some sort of Star recognition as well as permanent boons versus temporary, since most people hand-wave temporary and really focus on permanent as a way to add variety and create even more "unique" characters.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

In conclusion it's probably no surprise to anyone but my local lodge has been crushed hard by the announcement of PF2. This is partly due to people liking PF1 and therefore not being super excited about PF2, but also because it's just wildly unclear what sort of recognition will be given to PFS1 in PFS2. I have spoken with quite a few people and pretty much to the person they've all said if there was some sort of "permanent" recognition of PFS2 in PFS1 that they'be be more willing to try it. Which at the end of the day isn't this what Paizo wants, more people trying/playing PF(S)2?

And that's my 2 cents, cheers! :-)

As the one lone GM showing up on the Warhorn, I can tell you that someone else assigned me those slots. So no, I did not pull rank and sign up to GM... and I really have no idea what's going on! I gather that someone else should be assigning GMs to games, though.

Weird, I would have thought there would be some communication to prospective GM's. I also volunteered to GM and have not heard anything, so I guess this means I to could be assigned to GM a game? Surprise you're GMing every night till midnight! lol

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

My lodge is definitely in decline, but the main factor I have seen is lack of GMs. Without GMs signing up, players don't sign up for tables on our Warhorn, and even when they do, it's a question of if the table will fire when everyone shows up. I can't tell how much 2E is affecting us, but I'm sure it has something to do with it.

My personal theory is that with the "end" of the PF1 campaign on the horizon, GMs find it harder to justify giving up their time to GM for GM boons they are hardly ever going to be able to use, while they still have scenarios to play.

Of course, these days I have started to see it as a problem, that some people don't GM at all.

I agree, I think the vacuum that Paizo has created with PF2 has had a substantial impact on PFS. We have a local Con that has always had really good turn-out, now we can barely fill even a handful of tables. I also think it's not just GM's not wanting to invest GM time but also Players not interested in progressing their characters knowing they all have a rapidly approaching end-of-life. Throw in the lack of knowledge of GM Star/Boon carry-over that just leaves everything in limbo.

Yeah....fixing Crane Riposte is not a fix for Crane Wing, it just fixes what CW inadvertently broke with the errata. Yes Jiggy that would definitely help (+4 after the roll), although I think it'd be better if they just left it and made it Monk only (with a higher level requirement), and maybe let 20's hit. Possibly also add if they roll a 20 that you CAN use CW but it'll still hit, they just they won't be able to confirm the critical. The options are numerous on how to fix CW, it's just a matter of picking one. Given Jason's response I'm hopeful that they'll have a good solution by the end of the week. :-)

Human fighter 5. Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longsword), Weapon Specialization (longsword). Assuming Dex 14, +1 full plate and a ring of protection +1, has AC 28 when fighting defensively. So... yeah. Not a MoMS problem.

Yeah....it's mostly a MMoS problem (although kudos to your build ;-) ), the 2 level dip is really the issue. Make CW Monk Only and require MoMS 4 or Monk 6, walla. I don't consider 4 levels in a Class a dip, especially in PFS where the issue seems to have arisen from. Fighters get all those fancy exclusive feats, I see no reason why Monk's shouldn't get some love also. :-)

Also, and this is the most amusing part. People seem to think that being able to avoid one melee attack a round is like...OMG the most amazing and all-powerful thing ever. I've gotten by CW so many times, and been hit by stuff (while using it) on numerous occasions. You also have spells to contend with, ranged, flat-footed, invisible, stealth, the list goes on and on. I fail to see where the strong distaste for CW comes from, maybe people just hate Monk's? lol

This appears to be mostly a PFS issue and they should of addressed it themselves, having it trickle into Pathfinder was a mistake. What's done is done though, we can only hope that somehow it's re-balanced so as not to trash an entire feat chain. :-/ I've heard a lot of good options on here on how to fix it, pretty much anything is better than the way it is now.

That's why PFS is so dangerous for Paizo. It greatly grows the market, and so it is a big-time business asset. But there's no greater source of confirmation bias imaginable, as well....

PFS is so far removed from normal Pathfinder as to be almost totally different games. The fact that PFS complaints (and I've GM'd\Played PFS a lot) have affected Pathfinder as a whole is....just inconceivable. The PFS Coordinators should of nipped this in the bud with Paizo, or if a change really was needed then fix the root of the problem, the 2 level MoMS dip. Make CW only available to Monk's, say MoMS at 4 and a normal Monk at 5 or 6. Something like that, happy medium. Not this, this was just misguided and heavy-handed. I am sure the intention was good, but (imho) it was a mistake and it's unfortunate that they waited till the new edition is getting released to notify everyone. It doesn't take a precog to know that this wasn't going to go over well. :-/

René P wrote:

Crane Riposte now does nothing. You can't take an AO while doing Total Defense.

Oh, I had forgotten about that, double sad.

Yeah... I really don't think they tested this or thought about it in any way shape or form. Doesn't really instill me with a lot of confidence. :-/

Once per round, +4, declare before? lol Wow, there's nerfing and there's just destroying. Kinda makes Crane Riposte suck even more too, what a shame. They could of tweaked it a bit, instead they hit it with a sledgehammer. Like Rynjin said this is just poorly designed now, I kinda wonder if they even tested it. I will so be ignoring this errata in home games, cripes...

Alas that is the price you pay for running a game with twinked out munchkin's. lol I've learned to just avoid those kind of groups, imagine running "Eyes of the Ten" with them, or worst yet playing it without a majorly optimized character and not doing anything. Although I guess you could always just take a nap! Would be funny sleeping through "Eyes" and getting the boon at the end! :P Friend asks how it was and you're like "Not sure, I slept through it. Zen Archer just solo'd everything." lol

I think what you need to do is find out the people whose play style most matches your own and run/play with them, that's what I do and it's worked out pretty well. I give everyone a couple chances and if it doesn't work out I just politely and discreetly avoid their games. Not that there's anything wrong with characters like that, everyone is entitled to play however they want, it's just not my cup of tea.

Actually you haven't always needed a physical copy or watermarked pdf/printout, the powers-that-be have stated on here multiple times that copies of physical books are fine. I'm relatively new to PFS so it's possible that in the thousands of board posts that there are some that contradict this. Only the Shadow knows for sure! :P

Actually the "mind-boggling" ruling is recent, see the quite definitive post above! :) And yes I'm very happy that the PFS leadership has come out and laid down the law so definitively! Kudos!

As I said it's not surprising that people prefer books, for a lot of people they are easier. For those who say bike to a game, or walk, jog, run, take public transportation, they aren't the best idea.

I think some people view the world through their own point of view, for stuff like this you need to be more open to other people's view-points and situations. Obviously I'm not the only one who is perplexed by the ruling, and obviously I'm not the only one that sees flaws in the logic.

Given that at the moment it seems pretty definitive there's not any need to be mean and tell people to do something that maybe isn't possible for them. Perhaps they don't have mad l00t and can't feasibly just buy pdf's willy-nilly. Effectively saying if you don't like it that you should just go home is kinda insensitive.

My rule of thumb for stuff like this is that anything that makes it harder for people to play PFS isn't good. But heck that's just me and maybe I'm just crazy! :P Most (all?) of us are adults on here and should treat each other with dignity and respect. If you agree to disagree and have an opinion simply state it as Phillip Willis did and we can all do a group hug afterwards! :)

I agree with Bristor, I find it... perplexing that PFS is effectively penalizing people for buying the physical book. I know a lot of people who run Pathfinder home games buy the physical books because they are easier to pass around the table and flip through. You can also lend them out to a player to review or what not, all in all a very useful medium for that kind of thing. PFS though makes having the physical books a pain due to the numerous reasons already listed.

As Bristor said what's possibly the most mind-boggling thing about this ruling is it effectively makes PFS players not want to purchase physical books, thereby screwing over your local game store which I'm going to go out on a limb here and say isn't the best idea. I myself have a combination of both physical books and pdfs and now am in the unfortunate situation of having to decide what to do about this restriction. I certainly am not lugging half a dozen or more books around to PFS, and am also certainly not going to buy a cart to do so! lol

While this is by no means a game-breaker for me with regards to PFS, it certainly doesn't endear itself to the PFS community as a whole. :-/ One things for sure though, the odds of me buying a physical book again (now that I'm playing PFS) is extremely low.

Title says it all, trying to find a definitive ruling on when they should be going. Personally I'd think it's their own initiative roll modified by their initiative score, but since this is for PFS (looked on the PFS board, no answer) I need the actual ruling and not "Well it depends on the GM". I find it hard to believe that there isn't a ruling for this already given how important a question it is.

Most of the games I play I know the scenarios ahead of time but not who is playing what, that's only done on game night when people do or do not show up and indicate what they can play. Numerous times I've seen people only able to play one scenario, and about half these times they had to play/up down to do so. With the podcast idea they either a) play up and risk death for the same reward as playing their tier (awful idea) or b) play down and now have a permanently lower WBL. So basically a lose-lose.

Another example is gaming weekends where the gameshop runs 4 games every 4-5 hours all weekend. I've seen plenty of times people show up with a character to run only to find out that someone didn't show up or is using a different level char (due to numerous reasons) and now they are forced to play up/down.

Let me say it's incredibly unfortunate that a (hopeful minority) is causing grief and adversely affecting the rest of the players. I think the most important thing with whatever change is implemented is that it doesn't penalize those normal players who only play up periodically and not consistently.

Also let me stress that right now no one at my gameshop appears to have a problem playing down because they know they can always play up at a later point to make up for the gold loss. Without that ability to balance out their WBL I fully expect people to have issues playing down. :-/

I'd also point out that the 'stuck playing down' method leads to one other problem...

you never get that back.

Yeah that seems to me to be one of the biggest problems of the draft proposal, there's no way ever to recover from playing down WBL wise. You'd essentially be exchanging one issue for the opposite of said issue, i.e. very wealthy or very poor.

The fundamental flaw in the system is that players have too much of a choice as to whether they get more wealth.

This may be an issue but the proposed rule is like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. You're now making it so there is no way to recover the lost gold from playing down. Where before you had a higher WBL now you're making a literal permanent lower WBL.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, there are some people (myself included) that travel a significant distance to play. It's not like I can walk or drive 15/30 mins to find out there isn't a game that I can play that's my tier and do something else. I spend about 4 hours going back and forth, and would have no interest in playing up or down for less.

'My character is being 'punished' because of the proposed changes.'

In reality, there has been a flaw in the system that has been allowing you to become overpowered over time. Correcting this flaw, and allowing your character to develop in a manner that is more in line with the game rules is not the same thing as punishing your character.

Playing down IS a punishment, you're getting less gold therefore a permanent WBL decrease. You're just exchanging one issue for another and could very well lose a not insignificant amount of players in the process.

"...a lot of people"...

I've played or GMed PFS since it was first introduced at Paizocon in season 0. Something like 100 games maybe more, I've been to cons, home games, and helped organize a local shop. I have yet to see a single person walk or even threaten to walk because of the table's choice or tier.

Maybe it's a regional thing? Considering I've yet to see it happen, I'm pretty sceptical it's 'a lot of people'.

I understand what you're saying, but I think IF this change is made that you'll start to see it quite often. Right now you can readily compensate for the gold lost/gained from playing up/down by playing the opposite at another time. So in general at the moment people aren't that worried (see my comment earlier), taking that AWAY would cause a significant amount of problems, far far far more than exist today. The more I think about the change the more I scratch my head that it was even considered. I'm very glad that they've asked the community for input on it.

I GM'd a 1-7 scenario tonight where 3 people were the 3-4 range, one was 1-2 and one was 6-7. The 2nd level Samurai got brutalized multiple times and while frustrated he was quite happy when he got his 3-4 scenario gold. The 7th level Summoner had fun but really it was pretty much a cake walk for him, with his summoned creatures doing most of the work. Thing was he didn't sweat playing down because he knew he could just play up at a later time to make up for it. So everyone was happy by the end of the night and all was well with the world. I personally have never seen anyone "pressured" to play up and I'd hate to see the actions of a few (how often does this happen anyway?) ruin something that while not perfect at least isn't horribly broken.

With regards to this change at my gamestore, a lot of the players tonight said what I've heard here on the boards, that if they have to play down (or up) that they just won't play. While now you can play down one scenario but play up another to even things out, take that away and you're left with the opposite of the problem you have now. Instead of having more WBL you have less WBL, solving one issue but creating another. Also it's actually fun to have a blend of levels at a table, this would almost be like creating class warfare where the higher levels won't play with the low and the low won't play with the high. I'd almost say you're creating many many many more problems than you're solving.

Also I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this or if it happens that much, but I travel a good 4 hours once per week to play PFS. The gamestore has 3 scenarios on that day, a few times I've only been able to play one of them and then I had to play up or down a few times. Most of the time while we know what scenarios are going to be run we don't know who is playing what, so I could very well drive all the way in and find out I either gotta play up and get less gold or play down and get less gold, which needless to say would suck massively. I'm sure other people would have this problem as well, and I'm also sure if it persisted that we'd end up losing players.

All that being said I've seen a bunch of good compromises on here, so I'm hoping that PFS listens to its players and comes up with a solution better than the one initially proposed.