Jack Amy's page

Looking forward to seeing Scribbleface resurrected as a Pathfinder Chronicler.

If the new campaign does decide to have scenarios that are exclusive to 4* and 5* GMs, then I would like to see those scenarios available to 1E PFS GMs that have already put in that time.

I think GMs should still be able to earn 1E stars, and those stars should be displayed on the message boards still. I can't speak for everyone of course, but I certainly have a degree of pride in having earned them.

I don't know how popular it would be with the existing 5*s and other GMs who are working hard towards the 5* requirements, but it might be necessary to relax the requirements for that prestigious 5th star as it gets progressively more challenging to earn with no new specials being released and fewer players available to play them. Or just make Bonekeep evergreen ;)

I look forward to the challenge of earning 15 'stars'.

As there will be a finite amount of content, I think that opening up more replay options would be beneficial. At the moment, with new content coming out every month, there is always a opportunity for people to play no matter how much content they've consumed so far. From August 2019 onwards, that will no longer be the case and players are going to find it harder to find to assemble tables that have had nobody play a particular scenario yet.

A little disappointing this hasn't seen more traffic, where's the contention! ;)

I guess we've just got to hope that Tonya or John run their eyes over this post, think it's a good idea and give it the thumbs up. Thanks for the backing this has gotten so far though, and the insights posted certainly help support this idea.

With Crypt of the Everflame, Masks Of The Living God and City Of Golden Death all being included on the latest humble bundle, now felt like a good time to ask for this series of modules to be set up for play in campaign mode.

I've only got two brief arguments for this, but they are:

• Each module is spaced 2 levels apart, meaning that in order to run this in sequence, other scenarios need to fill the gap which unfortunately breaks up the trilogy.
• Crypt of the Everflame's coming-of-age theme makes the scenario more appropriate for characters that are not yet Pathfinders, and the 2nd half of the book I hear can be tough on 1st level characters as the expectation is you level up partway through.

My point is that your contributions to this thread are not constructive. Don't tell me not to play a Rogue just because you somehow can't make a good one.

I'm pretty sure BNW knows how to make a decent rogue, I believe he's just pointing out that a character doesn't need levels in rogue to be a good rogue, and that other classes may help realize your concept better.

QFT. A level 1 character with 7 CHA, class skill, and 1 rank will have a +2, +6 when it's their animal companion. That means a 19 to push, and you cannot successfully push if the animal is injured. Good luck with that. If you're in a situation where you can't take 10, there's a chance you'll fail to get it to respond to a known trick as it's a DC 10 check for that.

Player: "I tell my lion to attack. It's got the attack trick trained twice."
GM: "Roll that Handle Animal."
Player: Only a 3 on the die, total is 9."
GM: "Your cat is now compulsively grooming itself, though still following its last command of defend."

Imagine the party's reaction when you fail that check on Heel to get it to stop attacking a surrendering NPC.

+8 with a training harness. Calculating a lesser value to prove a point without acknowledging the original number quoted is pretty poor form. If you see an error in my calculation please inform me, or the bonus as 1st must be considered to be +8 and not +6.

Why are people pushing their animal companions in combat? DC 25 is high regardless of your charisma being 7 or 10. Allocating 4 points of your 20 point-but for a +2 to handle animal checks to increase your push chance percentage from 15% to 25% is not good.

The situation you mention seems pretty anecdotal, and isn't really a compelling argument for a higher charisma. Assuming your animal companion is injured, the chance of your AC failing to follow your command is 15% at 1st level. The loss of action economy is pretty bad here, but it's at 1st level and the benefits from a strong ability array show much better than at any other level. The character gets so much more from having +1 to hit & +2 to damage from a higher STR, or +1 INIT, REF & AC from a higher DEX than a +10% chance to handle your AC. Not only that, but this drawback is completely negated by 4th level, and extra points invested into charisma would now effectively be meaningless.

Archives of the Seeker / Chronicles of the Deceased Boon

Once a character reaches 12th level or is marked as permanently dead, this boon may be assigned to them. List below all chronicles assigned to that character, the date the chronicle was assigned and if it was earned as a player or a game master.

If marked as a scenario played, present this boon alongside the original chronicle to the GM at least three years after the associated chronicle was initially earned. You may replay that scenario with any character that would otherwise legally be able to do so, but may only earn the gold, experience and prestige from the scenario with all boons and items being crossed out of the earned chronicle. Cross the played scenario off of this boon.

If marked as a scenario GMed, you may cross the scenario off of this boon to award the chronicle to any character that could otherwise legally acquire it. The chronicle may only contain earned gold, experience and prestige, all boons should be crossed off of the chronicle. Note that this does not not have the same three year restriction for replaying previously played adventures.

Scenario | Date Earned | Player/GM | Replayed
_____ | _____ | [ ] [ ] | _____
_____ | _____ | [ ] [ ] | _____
_____ | _____ | [ ] [ ] | _____
_____ | _____ | [ ] [ ] | _____
_____ | _____ | [ ] [ ] | _____ etc…

I'm noodling ideas on how to do this without it causing bookkeeping problems, and avoiding the idea of replaying an old scenario 4 hours after you first played it. This one hit my brain out of left field.

There are those that dislike the expansion of the allowed races beyond a certain point, claiming that it makes PFS feel like a trip to the zoo. What if we split off a third stream of the campaign and have PFS / Core / Menagerie options?

Most of the currently legal races would remain in PFS. Menagerie would open up another set of races that could only be played at tables that were formed from that group of races alone.

Would a third chance to replay be enough?

So long as those legal races included Rust Monster, Mimic & Gelatinous Cube, then I'm sold.

Starting this Friday, I may have a handful of Pathfinder gamers who are interested in running through PFS scenarios, but as a home game. These guys have never done PFS, so I very much want to give them a solid introduction. I figure at most I have 33 modules to guide them (levels 1 through 11). I know Confirmation and Wounded Wisp should be on there, but after that it's unknown to me.

All I know is that I want them to interact with a good core group of NPCs. Rather than meeting 10+ Venture Captains, I'd love it if they met 2 or 3 and had repeated interactions. Rather than continent-jumping, I'd prefer they focus on an area, or at least just a few lodges instead of going all over the place. I want their memory of locations and people to be one of the big advantages that this home game has.

Can any of you experts direct me in this? A new list would be a courtesy, but if you think one of the older lists is a perfect match then let me know and I'll check that out too. Or a modified version.

Knocked up very quickly, but should include scenarios based mostly in Absalom, and includes Blakros and Shadow Lodge story arcs, some filler and ending in Eyes of the Ten.

I like the idea of replacing the old traits document with some sort of core campaign supplement that includes languages, ethnicities, the basic wayfinder, traits and possibly some basic faction prestige awards.

Even if there's no new text, there's the problem of paizo devs having the time to compile and layout such a thing.

A Core Campaign supplement would be awesome. I could see an AP style players guide going down well, covering the background of the Pathfinder Society, factions (plus faction traits, prestige awards and talk about faction cards), languages, ethnicity, the wayfinder and traits (all mentioned above), plus supplementary mundane items in an equipment section.

Maybe throw in a guide on things to look for when building a character for PFS, the importance of various skills in the campaign, how you should make sure that you have both in and out of combat options, and that your character concept should include that your character is and wants to be a Pathfinder plus fits in with the whole 'Explore, Report, Cooperate' spiel etc. etc. There are some great guides out there, but it would be good to have that information all in one place and more easily accessible.

And please, everyone - the idea isn't "terrible" or any other insulting term. Disagree with it, but don't be a jerk.

Also seconding this. Wanting to provide a challenge to those looking for it is not a perspective that should be met with derision.

I would love to see a universal hard mode, and whilst I have my own reservations on the subject there are plenty of people beating that drum above me so let's consider the options implementing hard mode across the board.

The idea of a list of mods the GM can apply to a scenario scares me a little, especially things like playing in the higher tier. GMs choosing different options can result in hard mode being trivial or overpowering.

Updating the scenarios is a hell of a lot of work, there's 200+ of them, and if I'm generous in saying that creating a hard mode for each of these would take 2 hours, that the person working on the is being paid UK minimum wage of £7.20 /hour, with the current FX to USD that's a cost of $8,400 (ish, I'm making a lot of assumptions here). A fair bit of cost considering that this would generate no revenue.

So it would have to be a sanctioned community effort, and while such a thing would certainly rub me up the right way, I don't see that happening. But how awesome would that be? 4 & 5 star GMs and VOs coming together trawling through the archives of the past 8 years of scenarios to think of new ways to test their players mettle. I'd jump on that.

So, for a bit of fun-

Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I'm assuming there has been a change to language of the Fencing Grace in Ultimate Intrigue.

Until an FAQ or Errata is issued, or Ultimate Intrigue is added to the PRD, there are going to be groups out there that do not have access to Ultimate Intrigue and unaware of the change or not have visibility of the updated language.

Is the feat going to be added to the 'lets be clear' document, or is an update going to be included on additional resources under Advanced Class Origins to clarify that the feat has been updated in UI and to use that version?

In the mean time, how should groups without access to UI deal with the change to the way Fencing Grace works?

Now would be the time to set up a dancing school though, as I sense a great influx magi looking to learn such a valuable skill.

I was disappointed that VMC didn't make it into PFS legality. Trading feats for class abilities doesn't seem like much of a power shift, and it's something that opens up new options for characters to bring imagined roles into light in a new way.

And I was super disappointed the stamina system wasn't allowed in any way for martial characters--that would have helped a lot with the martial/caster disparity.

I'd love to see VMC made legal in PFS.

Stamina would also be a good addition, though I would assume that it could only come from the Combat Stamina feat, as the other option presented in Unchained would change the base fighter.

The best way to increase the difficulty offered by PFS in a home game environment, would be to agree on some character creation restrictions and keep everything legal so you can sanction your games.

e.g. No dump stats, or every character must be a gnome. ;)

Jack. Yeah, but they can't hit anything.

Let's assume I want a level 1 rogue, 1 alchemist, 1 (normal) monk, 1 etc etc etc of the 3/4th classes up until level 12.

That's 12 * 3 / 4 = + 9 BAB .. vs 0 BAB...

True enough, but perhaps if I spent my adventuring career jumping from one skill set to another, I may also never have never learnt how to move and draw my sword at the same time.

I think that there is an argument to be made for using fractional BAB, but some better examples than Mr. Dippy need to be presented to show that the existing system is perhaps stifling character creativity.

The most notable example I can think of is an average BAB class taking an average BAB prestige class as their 6th character level. Rogue 5/Shadowdancer 1, or Cleric 5/Evangelist 1 for example only have a BAB of +3. It's subtler, but for BAB optimisation, you would actually want to enter these PrCs at 9th level, which means you'd only get to use that class for 3-4 levels of your PFS career.

And even then, I wouldn't want to be in whoever's shoes when they have to explain that all pre-existing multiclass characters will have to recalculate their BAB and Saves.

We all have our bugbears with the system, but that is the price we pay to enjoy an organised play system as good as this one.

It was printed in Pathfinder Unchained. While I agree that fractional base bonuses are a better system, making that change 8 years into the campaign would be a complete headache.

If it was a global change, not everyone has access to the content, and while I could see it being a choice that every character could make at level 1, that would mean we're inconsistent with the base rules we use to play the game from character to character.

In the mean time, you'll just have to be happy that your sorc 1, rogue 1, arcanist 1, wizard 1 has a +6 base will save to compensate their lack of BAB.

Hi Eric,

When you say "bi-weekly", is this twice a week or every two weeks?

My first thought if you're looking to run something with campaign continuity that conventions cannot offer, would be to look at running a sanctioned adventure path or deluxe module in campaign mode.

If you're aiming for the absolute minimum, you probably won't get support. If you actually try to make a decent effort you could probably have more than 15 actual sessions and have Boons!

I see you organise games in Colchester? That's only 1/1.5 hour from either London or Cambridge right? You should contact one of the UK venture officers to see what's possible.

I'm actually attending 3XP in Cambridgeshire in a few weeks time to get a feel for what a PFS convention is like before running one here, and when I do run one, naturally I'll make a real go of it.

My posts above are mainly theorycrafting event structure, and what constitutes a convention in terms of support as I cannot find a clear definition anywhere other than '15 tables'. A good size event for our FLGS would probably be 4 tables, with 2-3 sessions being run at each of these tables over 2 days. That's roughly where I'd like to be for a first con anyway.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but to qualify for convention support, all that needs to be done is run 15 tables over an undefined length of time.

I think the real challenge is when you start with a three player table, and two players leave ;)

I'd like to hear an official ruling on this, but in a pinch, I would:

1. Recalculate the new party APL, and adjust the difficulty of the upcoming encounters based on the new APL and party size.
2. In table of now 3 players, I would have a pregen join the the group.
3. In a table of now 2 players, I would probably allow each remaining player to choose a pregen for them to control and take it from there (this actually happened to me once during a game of We Be Goblins Too!).

If possible, I'd try to make the addition of Prengens as seamless as possible, but it would probably end up as something like "We're here because [insert relevant VC here] thought you could use some help, and it looks like they were right!"

I'm thinking about picking up some of the Reaper Miniatures iconic metal minis for use at our local lodge for when players need or would like to play a pregenerated character.

If time and money were limitless, I would like to have a mini for each of the pregens, for the sake of completion if nothing else. However I'll most likely be choosing the 6 pregens that are likely to see the most use & who contribute the most during PFS scenarios.

So I thought the best thing to do would be try and create a team of 6 pregens that a effective at each level of play, so that there is always a pregen best able to fill any given role. My party of pregens so far is:

Enora - Arcanist: Well built arcane caster, with access to all knowledge skills at 4th+.
Crowe - Bloodrager: Hits hard, tough, and fun to play.
Adowyn - Hunter: While not an optimal ranged character, she's certainly good enough at it. Oh yeah, there's also Leryn & she's a spellcaster.
Zadim - Slayer: While I personally wouldn't build a slayer this way, the dual-wielding rogue is a popular character type, and Zadim certainly does a good enough job of this.
Oloch - Warpriest: Hard hitting prepared caster that can also heal in a pinch.
Lem - Bard: My default GMPC :D

I'm very curious to hear what others favourite pregens are, and why, and what your party of pregens would look like?

Whenever I look to do anything that might feel a little sketchy in PFS, I ask myself two questions.

1. Is what I'm doing legal, and obviously so?
2. Will what I'm doing negatively impact the fun of anyone else at the table?

If the answer to those questions is yes then no (which in this case it is), I'd say go ahead, have fun, enjoy your character from 1st level.

20th July 3015 is a Thursday. I believe we still have another 1,000 and a bit years on this playtest.

I believe you can achieve this as a Zealot with the Animal domain, so a talent that gives you an AC at EDL-4 wouldn't be unreasonable.

Characters used in this playtest can be found here: Character Sheets
0 XP, 150gp characters for PFS playing through Master of the Fallen Fortress

The players grappling hook up to the second floor.

Bukka disable the javelin trap in room five

Bukka picks the lock to room 7.

Duskade pockets the scrolls of Shatter and Shield Other
Bukka notices and picks the door to area 6

Alchemist fires are thrown against the bat swarm and a readily dispatched. Hskori does take 4 points of damage from the swarm, casuing Duskade to use infernal healing to bring her up to full hp.

Hskori holds onto the potion of cure light wounds that was found.

Up to the 4th floor, the fight on this floor against the giant frog is much of the same. One young trog fled upstairs after the first one was defeated and the other went for Tulok’s help. When Tulok joined the fight, he ate a colour spray along with the remaining trog, ending the fight. Balenar’s gear is returned to him and he joins the party and heals everybody’s wounds.

Post-game thoughts
The dice were certainly rolling hot for the players throughout this session as it was pretty much breezed through.
While this kind of dungeon crawl scenario is probably not the best to showcase the abilities of the Vigilante, it was a good chance to look at each of the specializations combat effectiveness.
Avenger Was like a fighter with better saves and more skill ranks but down a feat. Strong characters with great weapons can dominate low level play and the Avenger is no exception here. Assault training did allow the character to qualify for power attack at first level, but this didn’t allow the character to feel unique.
Stalker Was worse than a rogue. Fewer skill ranks, weaker sneak attack, and no trapfinding.
Warlock A lot of fun to play with and some real incentive to stick with the character. A varied character though somewhat bard-esqe without the songs. Arcane spell failure in light armour felt unnecessary, and there were concerns that it wouldn’t be possible to explore variety of options as most talents would need to go toward arcane training.
Zealot Felt like any level 1 cleric or inquisitor without any of the other class features.
Dual identity & Social Grace are both great class features thematically, however, they have very little use in a practical setting and shouldn’t be taking the place of other class features but instead should have something that works alongside them. Alternatively, each specializations 1st level class feature needs more to it.

Thanks DragoDorn for the link. Are the any details on the content for the Temple of Stonekeep session?

This is awesome! It'd be great to see the list of what was run.

While I like the separation of the Vigilante into four different specializations thematically as a way to have traditional party of four filling each of the traditional roles, I feel that mechanically, it is unnecessarily restrictive to have a separate pool of talents based on specialization. The is no reason why Armor Silence & Armor Skin should not be available to Stalkers.

Skills
6 + Int mod skill ranks per level is spot on. Separating class skills by specialization is certainly interesting, but like talents, it unnecessarily restricts the creativity in building Vilgilante. I would broaden the default skill list to at least: Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (local) (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis) and Swim (Str).

Dual Identity
I’m happy with this, it’s unique and probably the main appeal of the class.

The Odd Level Class Features
Social Grace, Renown, Startling Appearance, Loyal Aid, Many Guises, Frightening Appearance, Quick Change, Stunning Appearance, Everyman. My suggestion for these class features would be to instead have a 'Social Talent' class feature at 3rd level with an additional Talent at each additional odd numbered level. Players could then craft a worthwhile social persona for their character that is as varied as their Vigilante persona could be in combat.

Vigilante Specialization
While I don’t like that slayer talents are grouped by your choice of specialization, I like the idea of the specialization themselves. In this case, I would like to see a little more powerful and to have them scale. I dislike the talent tax for casting, and will be basing my ideas for power based on Warlock’s and Zealots receiving normal 2/3rds casting.
Avenger Specialization: Full BAB, and +1 hp per level. A +1 bonus to AC and all saves at 5th, increasing by +1 at 10th, 15th & 20th, and can grant these as a bonus to an ally within a certain range as an immediate action for a round, losing the ability itself in the meantime. Whenever an enemy damages you or an ally, you gain a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against them for one round. This improves by +1 at 5th, 10th, 15th & 20th for a +6 to attack & damage rolls at 20th level. The idea of these features is to make the Avenger feel like both its namesake, and as a protector of its allies
Stalker Specialization: It should certainly have the Unchained Rogues sneak attack instead of Hidden Strike. It could also have the Unchained Rogue’s Finesse Training class feature as I'm sure most stalkers will want to be dex based and shouldn't really need to go through the hassle of finesse, focus and grace feats.
Warlock & Zealot Specialization: Give each a normal 2/3rds spell progression and get rid of the unnecessary Arcane Training & Divine Training talents. The Warlock should also be able to cast in some armours without arcane spell failure.

Vigilante Talents
A lot of these are fine except for being specific to any given specialization and should be open to most Vigilantes. I could see there being exceptions, such as Mystic Bolt having the prerequisite of being a level 4 warlock, or the talents marked with asterisk requiring sneak attack (not necessarily from Vigilante). Also, if talents remain at this power level, then an Extra Talent feat is certainly viable.

I’m hoping to get a chance to play a Vigilante soon (or at least GM for some Vigilantes), and I’ll try to provide some in game feedback on the class then.

The execution of surrendered and unconscious foes is lawful good to some Paladins out there.

Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.

I have yet to run/play any of season 6, but I though I have a crack at this in preparation.

The season 0/1 scenarios used are pretty much the left overs from the OP, so they may not be completely ideal.

Hi All,

Passing thought. Has it been considered at any point to convert the BBBD into quests, with a chronicle similar to what is awarded for silverhex. Something like:

Quests | GP | XP | PP | Other
1 | 125| 1 | 1 |
2 | 250| 1 | 1 |
3 | 375| 1 | 2 |
4 | 500| 1 | 2 | Initiate of the Society

[ ] Relics
[ ] Ruins
[ ] Terrors
[ ] Tomes

[ ] Initiate of the Society: Does something flashy one time.

Couldn't hurt to get more quests out there, and another evergreen and a decent link for beginners into organised play.

I can hope to one day join the ranks of all you awesome folk. :D

I am in favour of this proposal. I ran this not too long ago, and it was a great introductory scenario but I'm put off running it again due to the 1 PP limit.

I'm less fussed about it moving from 2 to 1 table of credit, or how else am I going to catch up to the PFS veterans ;) (although seriously, I would like to see this give one table credit for fairness sake).

I agree with Woran that this could be retired as a free RPG day module and instead made into a replayable scenario.

Hi All,

I have a few players at our local lodge looking to start GMing, but naturally they would like to start out GMing for players they know to help build confidence.

For this, I was thinking of running a session in which six of us all play six parts of the Silverhex Chronicles, each part being run by a different GM who will also play the other five parts.

Is it a good idea to introduce players to GMing this way? They each get a bite size session with less to prep for and don't have to worry about PCs with exotic abilities. Or is it better to ask someone looking to GM to run a whole scenario? More daunting, but potentially more rewarding.

My other question regards reporting for the Silverhex Chronicles. I had a quick look at reporting and I expected it to appear as a multi-part session, however, it appears as any other scenario. When it comes to actually reporting it, should I just report the session six times, changing the GM for each entry?

Thanks in advance for any input. :D

If leadership were made legal, I would expect to see something along these lines.

A cohort is considered an animal companion for the purposes of counting combat and noncombat animals.

Followers are considered noncombat animals, and follow the same restrictions.

A characters leadership score is not modified by the leader's reputation (or the two tables that follow it if they don't count as part of the leader's reputation calculation). The leadership score can still be modified by other sources, such as the battle herald's improved leadership class feature.

Your cohort is not a permanent companion, but instead chosen at the start of a scenario. The cohort is chosen from the NPC Codex from the NPC classes chapter with a character level equal to or lower than your leadership score (to a maximum of your class level -2).

Followers are chosen from the same selection, but are permanent additions and not chosen at the start of a scenario.

A cohort comes with the gear listed in their entry, except they always have 0 gold (and 0 platinum, silver and copper for clarification), and always carry a Wayfinder. The gear they come with cannot be sold. They may be given gear at the start of, or during a scenario, which is returned to the player at the end (the same as if an item was leant to another player).

The selected cohorts alignment is changed to match your own, and is considered to be a member of the Pathfinder Society and also shares your faction. A cohort is controlled by the player (GMs have enough to do).

And for some possible extra disincentive...
Should a cohort die during the course of a scenario and not be brought back to life, they PCs reputation is damaged. Any prestige points awarded to that player at the end of the scenario are reduced by one.

And a couple of examples of some possible variations to the above for a little fun.
A 9th level lawful good divine caster with a lawful good deity and a leadership score of 7 or higher may enlist the aid of a Hound Arhcon for a scenario at the cost of 1 prestige point.

A 10th level chaotic good female human, half-elf or elf with a leadership score of 8 or higher may enlist the aid of a Unicorn for a scenario at the cost of 1 prestige point.

Justin, I must assume that you are investigator in real life also.

Honestly... Cavaliers. I'm a sucker for Cavalier 4 & the Horse Master feat on martial characters.

One of our local games has two players that are both relatively new. They are both well-liked and we all hope to retain them in PFS. The problem is that due to outside forces they must leave each week about halfway through the scenario

I feel that some of the comments suggesting that these players shouldn't be allowed a seat are not taking into consideration the initial point of this thread which is retain these players in PFS. I am assuming these players are young (hence the curfew, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but appear to be committed to PFS or else they wouldn't keep coming back every week.

PFS to my mind should be a wholy inclusive environment, and any efforts where possible should be made to help facilitate these players. Turning real life human beings away from the community to preserve XP:gold ratios or survivability of a group for the fictional characters we play during an adventure is wholly unacceptable, and not in the spirit of this community.

Rant over... sorry about that.

I would (and this may not work for people in your area) ask if there are any GMs & players that would be willing to play through a series of modules. Assuming everyone starts at level 1 (maybe with 1 XP after having completed the quests). Looking at it (and having not played any of them), you can go from levels 1 - 11 and beyond quite comfortably in shorter sessions this way.

Level 1: The Godsmouth Heresy, Tier 1-2
Level 2: Murder's Mark, Tier 1-2
Level 3: Feast of Ravenmoor, Tier 2-4
Level 4: Fangwood Keep, Tier 3-5
Level 5: Carrion Hill, Tier 4-6
Level 6: Broken Chains, Tier 5-7
Level 7: Realm of the Fellnight Queen, Tier 6-8
Level 8: Cult of the Ebon Destroyers, Tier 7-9
Level 9: Doom Comes to Dustpawn, Tier 8-10
Level 10: Curse of the Riven Sky, Tier 9-11
Level 11: Ruby Phoenix Tournament, Tier 10-12
Then retire with Wardens of the Reborn Forge.

Maybe by the time all of that has been ploughed through, the timing issue will have been solved and this way they can keep on earning XP and gold and wont fall behind in terms of level appropriate gear, setting them up to be able to attend future games days or conventions without having to play Harsk.

And that is ultimately what all of this about, fostering a strong local community where nobody has to play Harsk.

If you're looking to play a switch hitter, I would focus ranger levels choosing the archery combat style allowing you to take rapid shot and manyshot without needing to spend a feat on point blank shot or meet the Dex 17 requirement on manyshot.

So... barbarian 1, for the extra HP at 1st, rage and fast movement and then ranger the rest of the way, probably looking to take power attack, combat reflexes and quick draw early on and using a two-handed weapon.

If there was a rage power that you wanted, take a 2nd level of barbarian at some point (probably after 4th level) and pick up uncanny dodge at the same time, but keep in mind that you lose the advantage of the barbs improved hit dice due to the loss of favoured class bonus, and delay growth of your will save.