My last subscription was divided into two packages, although I can't really fathom why. One of the two arrived; the second never did. According to the tracking page, the last activity on the second package was "Depature Scan: Enroute to USPS" in Urbancrest, OH, on June 26.
Since then, I have moved. I knew the move was coming, but the shipment came before the end of July (obviously, given the tracking), and I didn't leave my last address until July 16. As such, I figured there would be no problem with the package arriving before I moved, and indeed the other package arrived in plenty of time.
Is there anything I can do to try to get the missing package? Especially given that I'm at a new address? I have put the new address into the system, so there shouldn't be any problem with future shipments. However, I would like to get the two items from my subscription that never arrived.
The second line of Table 1-1 reads "Light Shields 50". That is also the second line of Table 1-2, where it makes sense as that is a shields table.
What should this line actually read? Based on context from the text, it should be something like "Mk 2 Standard Armor" or some such, but I'm not exactly sure.
I've got four Starfinder subscrtions, and have the complimentary SFS scenarios together with them. However, SFS scenarios 2-19 and 2-20 have not been added to my downloads.
My March subscription has not shipped yet; it's still Pending. Is this why the SFS scenarios were not added? Is there any way to get these SFS scenarios added to my account before that subscription ships, given that it could be a while before it's safe to open up the warehouse again?
There is no scale on the Amphitheater map (page 14). The map appears to be scaled so that you could draw it on a Bigger Basic. However, text in the scenario suggests to me that the map should be 10ft/square.
What is the scale of this map?
(Specifically: Each row of seats is 5 feet higher than the one in front of it, so that the seats farthest from the stage to the east and west
reach a total height of 40 feet. The east and west seats are four squares wide, so if it's 10ft/square, this is a plenty steep 45 degree angle for the seats, justifying the difficulty in going down the stairs. If the stands really are only 20ft wide, that's a 63 degree angle, which really should be more than difficult terrain.)
I thought I had remembered Paizo Advantage applying to SFS scenarios in the past. (The description of Paizo Advantage also suggests that they should be, as they're not non-Paizo downloadables.) I've got four in my cart right now, and I've applied a $10 coupon from a recent convention. However, none of the products are marked as being 15% discounted, and I'm on the last screen with the big "Place Your Order" red button.
Is the Paizo Advantage tag still on my account? Is something wrong somewhere with this order? (I've left the four items in my cart. I'm hoping that by doing so, I won't lose the coupon code when the cart expires....)
Background: according to the rules before now, any purchases players made at the end of a scenario had to be completed at the table. As written, the GM was not supposed to sign the chronicle sheet until it was completely filled out, including all the accounting at the right. A few regions claim to have followed that, but I've never seen it first hand (at least since I tried to do it myself as a callow newbie 6 years ago). Standard practice has been that the GM fills out all the grey boxes (requiring initialing) on the chronicle sheet, writes at least the PC's PFS # at the top (and maybe also player/character name), and gives players a signed chronicle sheet. Players then at their leisure make purchases, update their ITSes, and finish the white-box accounting at the right of the chronicle sheet.
Evidently, finally, after many years, the PFS team finally heard and responded to the feedback that the rules as written were impractical and largely ignored. Unfortunately, the changes made in response to that end up with a system that makes no sense.
According to version 10.0 of the Guide, there are two ways to complete a chronicle sheet. Either (a) the player completes the entire sheet, and the GM signs it when the player is done, just as the rules said before. Or, (b) the player wants to make purchases in between games, so the GM does not sign the sheet. (Indeed, as written, the GM doesn't even put in the event name and event code.) Instead, the next GM is supposed to sign the chronicle sheet once the player has completed purchases and accounting.
In other words, if most players do purchases between scenarios, then every session will start with the GM looking at and signing the disparate chronicle sheets for most or all of the players' previous game.
If it sounds like this makes no sense, that's because it doesn't. But that's what the rules say. I'm pretty sure that what they say right now isn't what was intended.
Analysis that the rules say what I claim.:
Look at Pages 15-16, "Filling out a Chronicle Sheet."
Let's suppose it's the end of a scenario, and you're filling out the sheet for the scenario just completed.
In Step 1:
Quote:
If the player made purchases after the end of his previous session and recorded them on a previous Chronicle sheet, perform any necessary tasks from Step 8–10 to finish filling the previous Chronicle sheet. Resolve any necessary steps related to these purchases on the previous Chronicle sheet prior to completing this step.
OK, so the GM is supposed to look at the player's last Chronicle sheet. In the rules as written, they were supposed to do this anyway, as it's necessary to verify the math of the new chronicle sheet. With very few exceptions, nobody ever did that, of course.
But, dig deeper into what it means to resolve any necessary steps.
In Step 8:
Quote:
Note: players may purchase items between scenarios. (see Step 11). In this case, players should resolve steps 9 and 10 with the GM of their next session before play begins.
OK, first, you're supposed to read ahead to step 11:
Quote:
Step 11: To allow players time to decide on purchases between sessions, they may postpone recording bought items until the start of their next session. To minimize the amount of table time spent on Chronicle sheet maintenance, players who chose this option must arrive at their next session with a list of what they wish to purchase, the cost of these items, and preliminary totals for their GM to review.
Fine. If GMs are following the rules, players should come prepared to make it as quick as possible. Seems reasonable. So, let's go back to where we were in step 8. It says steps 9 and 10 will be resolved with the next GM. So, OK, if the player isn't going to do all their purchases now, we're done. (The GM hasn't signed the chronicle sheet yet, but steps 9 and 10 are supposed to be resolved with the next GM, so we're done.)
What are the steps 9 and 10 that are supposed to be resolved at the next table? Most relevantly, in Step 10:
Quote:
Once you’re satisfied with the information on the Chronicle sheet, fill in the gray box at the bottom of the sheet and sign (W).
The grey box at the bottom (labelled W on the image) is where you fill in the event code, event name, date, GM PFS# and signature. Indeed, it explicitly says in step 10 that here is where you sign. But, it explicitly says in step 8 that if the player isn't done purchasing at the end of the session, it's the next GM that should do step 10.
So, the rules clearly say that unless the player is a rare one who completes all purchases at the table, then the GM that writes down an event code and signs a chronicle sheet is not the GM who ran the adventure for which the chronicle sheet was issued, but whatever GM the player happens to have next.
One thing that would be really nice would be if there were an explicit list of design goals. I know that streamlining the system is one goal that's been articulated, but are there others? Am I just blind, and have I missed it?
Here's why this would help a lot. Right now, the feedback conflates "this isn't working the way I would want a game to work" with "this isn't achieving what you're trying to achieve".
Explicit design goals would help. It would let people know if PF2 just isn't going to be the sort of game they're looking for. They could then give feedback on that, realizing that any complaints about systems not working are a bit off base, complaining that a boat doesn't move very fast on the beach. It would also let the designers articulate why they made some of the changes they did in light of the goals.
I didn't pay a lot of attention to the D&D/5e playtest, nor have I to the system, but back during the playtest I was aware of a few things. First, they wanted it to be easier to pick up than 3.5e or 4e. Second, they wanted to recapture the "feel" of 1e-3e, which had been somewhat lost in 4e, while still including things from 4e that fit and were beneficial. Finally, they were clear about "bounded accuracy": they didn't want bonuses to get out of hand as characters got to higher level.
I suspect there were more goals than that. My point is that even as somebody only vaguely paying attention to it, I knew that much.
Other than making it more streamlined, I don't really know what the Pathfinder/2e design goals are. (I also think that it doesn't really succeed at being more streamlined; that has been discussed by a lot of people in other threads discussing the complexity and organization.)
For instance, is it a design goal for every character to be able to ignore (modulo the ubiquitous chance of a critical failure) all but level-appropriate challenges of every form? If so, then the +1/level, and the fact that a 15th level fighter in armor can sneak better than a 5th level rogue, is actually OK. The game is going for a mythic feel, where characters aren't just Batman, but are somewhere between Amberites and gods.
Another example: in what way is it supposed to be streamlined? Calling everything under the sun a "feat" may reduce the myriad confusing vocabulary, but also may introduce just that much more confusion as different things get conflated together, and things of a given name are or are not found in the same chapters as what you'd expect. So, how does this fit the streamlining?
In short: other than having a new edition to revitalize interest and get people to buy new core books, what is PF2 really trying to do? Are there a handful or so of unifying principles that we can use to judge all the changes that have been made? (For instance, why critical failures on all kinds of skill rolls? That's a huge change, and has pretty severe consequences in some cases; I gave some numbers re: picking a lock in another thread. What's the design goal that makes this an important change?)
First, I want to say that I really don't like the critical failure rules. When accomplished adventurers fail spectacularly 5% of the time they make a check (which is more often than it used to be, thanks to a lack of "Take 10"), they aren't epic heroic adventurers, they're bumblers. This could be modified with a "Fail Forward" advice such as is found in 13th age, but that wouldn't really be consistent with the huge number of enumerated effects of critical failures. (Pathfinder is just a much more rules-heavy system than 13th age.)
I've tried to put some numbers on one example case. Consider somebody with +10 to Thievery picking a DC 20 lock. In Pathfinder 1, they could just do it by taking 10. Assume that the lock takes 3 successes to pick (based on "Pick a Lock" saying that the simplest lock requires 3 successes). I ran some simulations, and discovered that 9% of the time you will break your lockpicks before you succeed at picking the lock. That's distressingly large. (It's not quite as bad as Skyrim, only there you carry around dozens of zero-weight lockpicks, so it's not the same thing.) As another note, 34% of the time it will take more than 6 rolls to succeed.
Picking a lock has turned into a boring minigame with a high chance of receiving an irritating penalty for playing.
What is the design goal of the critical failure rules? If this were Paranoia, or a game which in general was supposed to be set to "Yakkity Sax" as background music, then having frequent critical failures might make sense. For Pathfinder, though, it's just irritating. Run the numbers on some of these things; do we really want players accruing these crit fail penalties as often as they will in the system as presented?
The problem with starship skill check DCs has been discussed at great length in other threads.
However, that's not the only place there are problems. All through the game you find skill checks whose DC is a base plus 1.5×the CR of an opponent creature, or something else that you expect to scale roughly with PC level.
What was the thinking that led to this design decision? As far as I can tell, this means that the things that you do all the time will get harder and harder as you get to higher and higher level. The character who focuses on a skill will typically have that skill start out at +4 to +8 (assuming class skill, depending on the controlling score). When that character is 10th level, if he put a skill rank into the skill every level and increased the controlling attribute at both 5th and 10th level, his skill bonus will typically be +16 to +19. Typical DCs, though, will have gone from 15 to 30. Rolls against level-appropriate foes that you were making on a d20 roll of 7-11 now require a roll of 11-14, meaning that you're making it only a little bit better than half as often. And, this is for the skill that you have focused on, investing in it at every level, and bumping the right stats. For other skills, your decline in ability has gotten even worse.
I know that some class abilities give you skill bumps for some skills, but that only partially mitigates the problem, and only for a couple of skills, typically.
As far as I can tell, this is a serious design flaw that is laced all throughout Starfinder, that will make the game very frustrating for players (even if the unplayability of high-level starship combat is fixed) as they level up. To my mind, this makes the game broken, and in immediate need of a truly huge number of errata. What was the design thinking that led to this decision?
Three of the seven tables I ran at GenCon aren't showing up in my list of tables GMed. I believe I've heard that there seems to be some systematic database problem with reported tables not showing up. Is this the case? Is there any hope that the lost information will be found? Since I turned in the reporting sheet, I don't have much information about them other than which scenario they were and when I ran them.
In the rush to get things finished, I didn't take good notes on whom I was giving GM credit to, and I fear I've forgotten in some cases. I was hoping my online record would tell me, but alas a couple of those sessions are missing.
I had thought that if one had four Starfinder subscriptions, then one would have Pathfinder Advantage. I do have four, but it's not showing up on the check out screens. Was I mistaken that I should have it?
Is there a way to figure out which artist created a given piece of art in the book? I know that sometimes you can find a signature or initials that let you figure it out, but that's not always the case.
According to p. 133, the DC to identify a creature of average rarity is "10+1-1/2×creature's CR".
I'm pretty sure the intention is for (say) a CR 20 creature to be DC 40 to identify. However, that's not what's written. There are two problems.
First: 1-1/2 is not 1.5 or 3/2, it's 1/2.
Second: standard order of operations means you multiply and divide before adding and subtracting; where two operators are of equivalent precedence (e.g. × and /), you do the operations from left to right. So, if you have a CR20 creature, you start with 10, add 1 to get 11, and then subtract 1/2 times the creature's CR, or 10, to get to 1.
I know what's meant, and what most people will understand it to mean. But what's meant isn't what's written. Standard mathematical notation would lead you to conclude that a CR 20 creature of average rarity is DC 1 to identify.
M Human Astrophysicist 10 / Linux Nerd 4 / Violinist 2 / Dramaturge 1
This game is a pre-arranged game of Core PFS, with the ambition of going all the way from level 1 to 12, completing all of Season 5 (with some additions) along the way.
Sadly, finances do not seem to be going in the direction I'd like them to be going. I'm having play a bit of the austerity game, at least for now. Please cancel the following subscriptions:
I received an email from one of the players at my table of Solstice Scar from PaizoCon, saying that the game hadn't shown up in his list of sessions. I checked, and it also hasn't shown up in my list of GMed sessions.
Are there still issues, and is reporting of Solstice Scar from PaizoCon still known not to be complete? Or should I be worried that my table never got reported?
(I have another table from PaizoCon that wasn't reported. This was "The Green Market", which I ran as a pre-PaizoCon game. I asked HQ if I could just give them the reporting sheet, and was told yes. I believe that this worked in previous years. Later in the con, I was hearing that HQ did *not* want to report individual pick-up games, but that we should do it ourselves. So, I did it wrong... but didn't know that until I no longer had the reporting sheet. Is there any hope that session will ever be reported?)
In at least some PaizoCons past, at the special if a group of 6 people wanted to play together, and they had a GM they wanted to play with (and who had agreed to this), they could muster that way.
Many messageboards have a "pre" or "code" tag that allows the stuff in between to be formatted in a monospace font, with spacing intact. (I.e., spaces at the beginning of the line stay, spaces between words are not contracted down to one.)
Is there anything like that here? The "How to format your text" Show button at the bottom when composing doesn't include anything like that.
If there isn't something like that... how hard would it be to add it? I've got tools that print out nicely ASCII-formatted stat blocks and such, but they end up looking like a mess when posted to message board threads.
Order 4217952 arrived today. On the order was the Pathfinder Society Pawn Collection. The invoice confirms that that was what was ordered. However, what you actually shipped was the Summon Monster pawn collection.
I played "Legacy of the Stonelords" at PaizoCon 2014. This was when the Paizocon specials were considered "beta tests" or some such for the true introduction of the special a couple of months later at GenCon.
I'm just remembering that I think that John and Mike announced at the end of the run that those of us who played Legacy at PaizoCon would be allowed to play it again without having to burn a GM star. The reason was, Legacy wasn't entirely complete; there was a section at the end, after what was the big final battle for us, which wouldn't be introduced until GenCon.
Am I remembering this right? Even though I've already played Legacy of the Stonelords, do I have a free replay of that one available to me?
I received an email on November 28 saying that this order was about to ship. However, it still hasn't arrived. Usually, it has arrived by now; it's possible that a local PO or UPS depot is backed up.
Are you able to check the package tracking on your end to see where it's supposed to be? (I didn't see a tracking URL in the mail; its possible I'm blind.)
When should we expect the PFS scenarios released today to show up in the downloads for those of us with PFS scenario subscriptions?
I'm scheduled to GM one of them this weekend. (Our VC scheduled this back when the scenarios were advertised to be released last week, so it wasn't originally so tight.) I generally like to have some time to prep scenarios, but have a lot scheduled the next two days....
PFS will be playing from 10am to 9pm in Springdale (Pittsburgh) this coming Saturday. Player spots are still available for Beyond Azlant Ridge and Ageless Ambitions.
I received the Bigger Dungeon Flip-Mat with my latest subscription shipment. I do subscribe to the maps. I believe that I pre-ordered Bigger Dungeon early enough that I should have received a free PDF along with the physical map; it's possible I'm remembering wrong. However, I cannot find the PDF in "My Downloads".
Do you have records, did I order it too late to get the free PDF? If not, would it be possible to add it to my downloads?
I've been a four-star PFS GM for a while now. (Got it back several months ago.) If my understanding is correct, once I attained that status the three Bonekeep modules were supposed to be added to my downloads. Is this correct? They aren't there right now. What should I do to get them added there?
Will this be part of the maps subscription? If not, will there be a free deal similar to what we've seen before where if subscribers add it by a certain date, they get a free PDF?
Edit: oops, should have read the product page first. Both questions are answered there.
I haven't seen a serious thread on this, so if I've missed something, please post links to the appropriate places!
In the past few years, there have been "early arrival" games for those who are in and ready to play on Thursday. Indeed, last year, at least in the afternoon the PFS room was set up, and we were able to just play in there. (Will that be true again this year?)
Who's interested in getting things together? I'm definitely interested. My flight claims that it will land in Seattle at 10:45AM. Allowing for small delays, travel to the hotel, and getting situated, I'd be up for something probably starting at around 2PM.
Happy to play, also happy to GM. I'm going to be GMing "Captive in Crystal" a million times (well, five times) during the convention, so I could do that again, but there is something to be said for variety.
If there are people playing "Serpent's Ire" on Sunday night who haven't yet had a chance to play "Serpent's Rise", I'm a 4-star GM, so I'd be happy to run that one as well.
Could run almost anything else, but would need warning. Could also run some non-PFS things. One such is "Find Jatembe!", my 12th-level mythic one-shot in which 6 mythic heroes are tasked with finding Old Mage Jatembe, whom it turns out is still out there somewhere in Golarion (or so reports say). I also have a Fudge science fiction game "Stranded in Deep Space" that is a claustrophic mystery and which is very character-interaction-driven.
What else are people planning on / are people interested in? Other GMs should feel free to use this thread a central clearinghouse for planning Thursday games, if such a place doesn't already exist.
Reading about the Hypnotic Stare in Occult Adventures, I can read that it's obvious that both activating and maintaining a Hypnotic Stare is a standard action, or that it's obvious that it's a free action.
Which is it? Is there an official source for the answer somewhere that I could post PFS GMs and players to?
The fact that it talks about doing other things (e.g. a gaze attack or similar ability) while maintaining a stare implies that it actually can't be a standard action at least to maintain it, but other things (like Bardic Performance) that can be maintained for free explicitly call it out as being so.
I'll be running the two-part Wonders in the Weave scenario this coming Sunday. There are three spots pre-set for it; I'm manipulating the Warhorn limits so that those pre-set people get their spots. (Two of these were people who signed up when I tried to run this a few days ago, but didn't get enough people.)
These are two scenarios, so you'll get two chronicle sheets, but I want to run through both with the same set of characters. The first game, The Dog Pharaoh's Tomb, will be on Sunday at 1:30PM EDT (17:30 UTC), and the second will beon Sunday at 7:30PM EDT (23:30 UTC).
When you sign up, please sign up for boht games. Email me at rknop@pobox.com with (1) Character name, race, and class; (2) PFS #; (3) Faction; (4) Alignment & Deity; (5) An image I can use to make a token (a big image; I'll make the token from it); (6) If at all possible, a character sheet; (7) If at all possible, previous chronicle sheets. (For the last two, you don't have to send me the actual sheets if you can send me a link to where you cache them on the net.) Also, if there's anything unusual about what you'll be doing with your character, let me know about that.
Does the +1 for point-blank shot add to splash damage with an alchemist's bombs? I never thought it did, that it only added to direct-hit damage. Somebody was telling me otherwise the other day, however.
Which is right? The feat description just says "ranged weapons", and doesn't address splash directly. "Throw Splash Weapon" in the combat chapter doesn't say anything about the PBS feat. The Alchemist Bomb class feature just says that PBS does apply to it, but does not separate out splash from direct-hit damage.
Putting these together, I suspect that I was wrong, and that additional damage from Point-Blank Shot should apply to splash damage. Is there an FAQ somewhere that says otherwise, or that clarifies this?
I used to play a lot of EVE Online. My main character was one who did a lot of building and selling of stuff.
In between this, the PVP rules and ownership and such, it really sounds like Goblinworks is trying to reimplement EVE Online in a Fantasy world rather than a spaceships world.
The non Gen Con pick-up authorization has finished. If you did not set your subscription for Gen Con pick-up and you have not received your authorization email let us know by emailing, posting a new thread, or giving us a call Monday.
I am not going to Gen Con (and as such did not arrange for Gen Con pick-up). However, my subscription order is still Pending. The order number is 3603028.
OK, I know this is an FAQ, but I didn't find it in the FAQ. If there is a place I should have looked to find it, please point me there, and I will feel suitably stupid.
Is there a summary somewhere of the table requirements for the multi-table specials? That is, I'm looking to answer a couple of questions for all of the multi-table specials. First, how many tables are required for the special to go? Second, what level ranges are necessary? (E.g., do you have to have a table at each level range, could you do with a whole bunch of tables that are all 1-2, etc.?)
Is there a summary somewhere for all of the specials that lists these answers?
I suspect you can piece some of it together. For instance, since I was at PaizoCon, I've got "Siege of Serpents", and I see that it says near the beginning under "Running the Event" that you can run it with as few as 5 tables. But it doesn't tell me about the requirements about level range representation for the 5 tables. Also, I'm sort of hoping there's a concise summary somewhere.
I just tried to purchase a PDF as a gift. It was one I had already.
I did check the link to enable gift options. However, it never gave me a place to put in the person for whom this was a gift. If figured that would happen when I clicked "Place your Order", but instead the order was just placed and complete. I believe that my credit card was charged, and that I now have ordered the same PDF twice for myself.... The order does seem to indicate that it was a gift, but not who it was for. And, again, I was never given anywhere to put in a gift recepient.
