Jessex's page

So resonance may not be in PF2. So whatever system winds up in PF2 may not ever be playtested. If that doesn't epitomize everything wrong with this playtest I don't what would.

I have these memories of 2008 all over again. No one at WotC listened then and it seems like Paizo didn't even set this playtest up to have a chance at succeeding.

Some people have tried to express this idea and I'm going to try and say it as clearly as I can.

Pathfinder, and the earlier versions of D&D upon which it was based, were fundamentally the generic FRPG system. They modeled, or allowed the GM's who ran games using them, any world based on that well understood "baseline" fantasy concept. The reason many of us refused to transition from 3.5 to 4e was not just because 4e was bad but because it broke that convention. 4e changed things to the point where many GM's simply could not adapt their campaigns or their views of what a FRPG should be to it.

Now Pathfinder 2 doesn't feel like it is staying true to the very reason that Pathfinder was created. Sure we haven't seen everything but from what we've seen this is a significant departure from PF1 and that baseline fantasy concept that PF should strive to allow GM's to model. I get that Paizo has said they are going to tie PF2 more closely to Golarion, not that I understand why, but between that and this steady march down a path I so unfondly remember from the 4e playtest I am starting to wonder if 5e might be worth a look.

As a GM let me make some things clear:

Item slots being removed as a formal part of PF won't remove them from a lot of campaigns. I limited PC's to a single worn magic item on each part of the body long before PF was printed and I'll continue to do so after PF2 comes out. Did PF1 go too far with its headband vs head slots and all the rest? Maybe but I think the major problem was that frequently there was multiple desirable magic items in one slot while other slots have next to nothing. A better fix would have been to spread out where the good magic items are worn more, for instance there should never have been a single item that was the sole saving throw booster no matter what slot it occupied.

Wand spam is preferable to forcing a player into the healbot role that they do not want to play. It also gives the low level wizard something useful to do and helps cut down on the 15 minute work day phenomena.

I was of the opinion that it was time for a second edition of Pathfinder. But I expected an evolution of the game not a brand new game with just the name retained.

I think RP is going to be a problem.

The low level party where they can't each buy a wand of CLW and let the available caster wield them all greatly limits the healing available and functionally forces someone back into the healbot role.

The low level wizard won't be able to buy a Wand of MM and at least plink away for 2-5 damage when he can't do anything better, and no one better recommend a light crossbow.

In the mid levels, between 5 and 10, some PC's will have enough items worn and stuff they need to activate that I think they will be up against the limit all the time.

I get that this is an attempt to constrain wealth by level but it feels forced. Let each GM make that decision for his campaign.

Correct me if I misread but a character gets no benefit from a carried shield unless they spend one action a turn on it?

I know there are arguments against sword and board fighters but they are the classic template people think of when they think of fighters in fantasy RPG's. making the archetype both bad and excessively complicated to play seems like a bad idea.

I think the supporters who effectively say "The descriptions we get of Goblins are basically written by unreliable narrators!" or "Goblin history hasn't been written by Goblins" are also on the right track.

Actually since I'm the GM of my campaign and I decide exactly what the creatures in it are like and goblins are far worse than the traditional Paizo portrayal then I know precisely what goblins are like in my campaign world, being the NE goblinoid makes them overall vicious and selfish with little regard even for each other. They are not comic relief.

The problem with Paizo putting goblins in the new CRB is that GM's like me will now be forced to ban a core race which is one of those things GM's hate doing. Goblins would be fine as an optional race somewhere just not in the new CRB.

As a GM there is literally no chance there will ever be a goblin PC in my campaign. Even in the Golarion setting this makes no sense.

Lone Wolf Development has just announced what would appear to be a new Paizo policy.

http://www.wolflair.com/blog/2017/02/06/realm-works-content-market/

Specifically that when a partner publishes a Paizo product in some new format the only way to purchase the new format product will be to buy, or to already own through Paizo, the PDF of the same product.

I have some thoughts on this.

1) Are you guys going to take steps to make buying physical copies of your books worthwhile? Specifically when bought through a FLGS? Have you considered joining http://www.bits-and-mortar.com/ or doing something similar?

2) Some of us have a substantial amount of your product dating back to a time when there were no PDF's or before portable devices became common. I bought Rise of the Runelords not long after it first came out. I then bought the anniversary hardcover from my FLGS because I wanted the hardcover and the update to PF rules was appealing. I very much want the Realm Works version to make the next time I run it even better but the prospect of buying the PDF(s) and then the RW package is more than a bit daunting.

I know you are skeptical of new mediums and have to protect your income but this policy strikes me as bad for retailers and bad for your oldest customers.

permanency plus (greater) magic fang or invisibility or a few other spells is crafting. Of course it is banned.

How aren't they? These people are trying to mount a multi table special for a good cause. They clearly have been working on this for a while and have run this convention twice before. In the other case it was one person who had a bad experience with what turned out to not even be PFS.

If they've run afoul of this new rule which has yet to actually be expressed publicly and officially where the whole community can be made aware of it and comment on it then they have a right to not only be confused but be righteously angry. This is even more the case if the RVC turned them down without explaining to them why.

The mad archetype modifies the rage class feature in two ways.
1) the rage class feature is unavailable until barbarian level 4
2) the rage class feature functions at effective barbarian level -3

unchained barbarians cannot take archetypes that modify how the rage class feature operates. Mad dog clearly modifies how the rage class feature operates. Unchained barbarians cannot take the mad dog archetype.

Making it public was the absolute right thing to do with time being short. It makes sure that the people involved will deal with it.

The RVC should have explained his denial in the first place so the organizer could correct any deficiency in the application if possible without having to ask what the problem was. Having recently found out that our local lodge has been denied all future multi table specials due to a rules change I sympathize with this organizer.

Because there already IS an absurdly large amount of freedom in PFS. And you seem determined to not take advantage of that freedom. PFS absolutely allows skill monkeys, diplomancers, combat machines, control mages, enchantment mages, etc etc etc etc to sit at the same table and have fun.

I've run and played in home campaigns for decades and I have never seen one that allows in as much material as PFS. Any player who feels excessively constrained by PFS is simply never going to be satisfied.

Because Im making pacifist characters? Sure, lets go with that. Really Im trying to make characters not murder-hobos.

So, in short you want to force entire tables to roleplay the way you prefer? Have you considered that the other players present might not like the idea of a night at the table with no fights?

Every class is quite capable of contributing. If you want to play a sorcerer or a bad play one. Just figure out how your character will contribute during each common type of scene. I just finished Eyes of the Ten, the retirement arc, with a multiclassed sorcerer who probably did more damage than any other PC in the party.

I'll be blunt, your complaints seem to be more about PFS not conforming to your play preference than about PFS scenarios being combat heavy or railroading players into certain classes. The majority of players do want combat in each scenario therefore there will be combats in each scenario.

I've now played 3 specials and GM'd one and discussed this with people who have played many more.

Some thoughts:

1) The designers need to keep in mind that these are 4 hour events. Take Stonelords for an example, the PC's could conceivably fight something in about a third of the districts as well as the big set piece fights. That is just too much. Even a well organized GM is going to be hard pressed to run all of those fights and still give the players an enjoyable rp experience.

2) Too much prep. This goes along with #1. Some of these specials call for a lot of maps and all of them call for a lot statblocks. Now consider the mountain of data a GM needs to consume to prep for more than one tier. It's too much work before hand and results in pauses at the table while the GM shuffles through his stack of maps and statblocks looking for the right ones for the encounter.

A possible fix:

Instead of every tier playing through the same scenario just with different monsters why not have 6 nearly separate scenarios, 1 for each tier, which are each connected to the same story and built around achieving the same goal. Build in sequence points or achievements so that each tables successes or failures can affect the rest. The downside would be a large increase in the total size of the overall scenario and if GM needed to prep for multiple tiers it could be overwhelming. OTOH since each tier would be different substantial replay possible exists.

"Tracking the emerald shows a deciduous tree growing in a garden, and the stars point to a location in western Andoran or eastern Cheliax."

That's the latest, that I've heard.

Your scrying gem is obviously on the fritz. When was Torch ever seen out of a tub?

You look over the different characters on the table and you discover that the one pregen is a much more solid build than any of the other 5 characters AND that the pregen in question is Harsk.

True story.

I call shenanigans! A blind monkey that doesn't know Pathfinder's rules is still likely to create a more solid build than Harsk. ;)

I discourage adding penalties for a failed aid not for rules reasons but for community growth and table culture reasons.

Being able to aid gives a player a small bit of engagement where they would otherwise have none. If they are penalized for aiding they must do nothing during a social encounter out of fear of making things worse, alternatively if they have a chance to help they can participate to a lesser degree and are more involved at the table (big fan of the 'how do you aid' question, and asking some small degree of roleplaying or narrative).

I really encourage this especially when dealing with the 2 skill point per level classes. It is unreasonable to assume that they will have skill points in many different skills so if they role play their aiding or come up with some creative way to use the skills they do have I tend to let them have a go.

When the Wis 07 Paladin attempts to Aid the Rogue's Perception, do you apply a –2 to the Rogue for a botched roll by the Paladin?

Who allows aid on perception at all?

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

a lodge like mine that has 15+ tables of play opportunity every week, flex tables for old-timers to help them play underplayed scenarios, and over eight local conventions

What on earth are they putting in the water in Minnesota?

The issue seems to be that solid water covers the ground roughly year round up there

There are several aspects of this not getting discussed.

When fights are too short the whole party doesn't get to contribute. That isn't solely the fault of the optimizers. Paizo has made a conscious effort to increase damage per hit so that fights simply don't take as many rounds as they have in, for instance 1st or 2nd Edition D&D. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself. I don't think anyone really wants to go back to fights taking multiple hours to complete. However PFS scenarios have taken this to an extreme. The CR budget for the encounters is clearly too low. Reducing the number of encounters or increasing the budget by perhaps 1/4th would do wonders for the length of encounters and letting everyone participate.

Overpowered characters and GM's. For a GM to do a good job for the players at the table they have spent quite a bit of time immediately before the event prepping. Nothing is worse and more demotivating than to do all that work and then have a single player roflstomp the entire scenario without ever being challenged. This mind set that GM's are there to be concierges or doormats is far too prevalent in PFS. Without them and their hard work you don't get to play. Show them some consideration.

Finally overpowered characters themselves. Let's get real. A lot of stuff should never be in the AR to start with and a lot stuff in the AR should be removed. I know Paizo wants to sell books. But Paizo wants PFS to be healthy and at the rate its going it won't be for much longer. A lot of flavor options could be left in while a lot of the obvious power stuff could simply be banned. Sure the whiners will whine if stuff starts getting banned. How is that different than it is now? People whine for banned stuff to get unbanned, people demand that stuff get approved faster, people whine that AP's that should never have been sanctioned get sanctioned. Do a bunch of the worst stuff in one fell swoop like ripping off a bandage and get it over with. Make PFS more attractive to the more casual player who we're losing to D&D encounters.

Yes.. let's punish people for specializing.

They're already going to have glaring weaknesses somewhere, so exploit those instead of just capping it.

If I was designing an adventure for a group of players in a home game that is exactly what I'd do. However in PFS where scenarios are pre designed and even tactics are pre planned this isn't possible.

I don't agree with the proposal either but I would like to see some changes made to deal with players who over optimize and then don't hold back. It frustrates the GM and other players.

Majuba wrote:

Jessex wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

And my Paladin worships Rowdrosh, the Divine Herdsman, so he prioritizes targeting predatory beasts over other enemies, if given the choice.

He's not a friend of most Druids.

Though I think it'd be cool to have him adventure with a Paladin of Erastil.

Paladin of the god of hunting and paladin of the god of herding? I'm sure that would be fun.

Wait... that's a real god?

Both are real, though I always viewed Erastil more as a god of Community rather than Hunting. I guess there are multiple sects of every deity.

Ol' Deadeye? The god whose holy symbol is a bow and arrow? Whose favored weapon is the longbow? I'm guessing they could be a little more subtle with it.

GM Eazy-Earl wrote:

Ryzoken wrote:

The weight of evidence highly suggests that people in my area generally have no idea how a paladin is meant to be played

But isn't that somewhat true in all areas?

I have no evidence regarding other areas, and thus wished to cast no aspersions on those who may not be so deserving.

It has engendered a burning desire to play a 'proper' paladin, however... just gotta finalize a build.

I have to warn tables that my Paladin of Erastil will not be charging into melee and does not wear heavy armor. I often get puzzled stares back. When I patiently explain that Erastil is the God of Archery they still don't seem to get it.

Why do my characters dislike most of the VC's and upper echelons of the society? They treat the agents with contempt, send them on suicide missions and never have enough intel.

Of course that makes for easy scenario design but it makes for lousy character development.

Further, Venture Captains and other ranking members of the society have a habit of turning out to be villains so any experienced player will have a very jaundiced view of most of them. It is one thing to have evil members of the society but an entirely different thing to have many scenarios about high ranking members of the society betraying it. It colors the perception of the leadership of the player base.

given the insanely low cost of dragonhide armor some sort of sustainable harvesting of shed scales seems to be in effect.

I figure dragons must shed their hides like snakes periodically. Then they sell the whole thing. Brings in a nice chunk of change for the horde.

No way are that many dragons getting slain. Have you ever actually fought a pathfinder dragon?

Ok, you are creating a false analogy and putting words in my mouth here. GM's playing a gotcha game and trying to rack up TPK's is not setting a bad precedence. That's just simply bad GMing. And shouldn't happen no matter what the blurb says.

Creating language in the blurb just so people can either A) choose to avoid a new mechanic or B) choose to avoid for fear of having a bad GM, is what sets the bad precedence. Play a scenario if you want to play it. The mechanics inside should be relatively immaterial as long as a GM does their due diligence and creates a great atmosphere for people having fun.

If they don't do that, it doesn't matter what the blurb says or what they are told in the scenario.

That is utter nonsense.

The blurb says, in short, "this a social and rp heavy scenario" so it was reasonable to bring face type characters. Who were sidelined by the actual scenario.

If people had known this was about demonstrating the UI social combat rules, which hopefully will never ever see the light of day again, people who didn't want to deal with their rp being turned into a diced abstraction could avoid it.

I played this with a good table and one of my favorite GM's. The mechanic took over the night. I hated this scenario. This was just as bad as the library research scenario earlier this season. Single mechanics like that should not take over entire scenarios. And in the library one my character was the one the carried the party but it was still a terrible scenario.

I played it with my 2nd level swashbuckler which had next to no knowledge skills, he did have one that is used but not high enough at +4 to make any of the checks consistently, but pretty good traditional social skills. He was utterly useless after the sole combat of the night. I hated this scenario. I'm with the OP.

No rule against just hard to do in practice.

You more than likely won't want to by dead tree versions of any Paizo books. PFS characters tend to draw on lots of different sources and bringing 6 or 8 books to a game is an awful lot to haul around.

It's a lot easier to get one electronic device that can store and display PDF's and buy all the books in that format and carry them all that way.

Pricing it at 45k and forcing everyone to sell it back and re-buy would have accomplished the same thing. Virtually no PC's below seeker level would have one.

May not successfully use bluff to convince others that I have really been aroden the whole time.[/list]

This one came in handy for me recently. Always remember what Ghostbusters taught us, "If someone asks if you are a god always say yes."

No matter what make sure you take the time you need to take care of yourself. I've worked enough booths over the years to know that 4 days of dealing with gamers is enough to run anyone ragged and if you're doing it hungry, hungover and on not enough sleep it will make what could be a great time absolutely miserable.

not entirely unrelated but I hate when people role play Cayden Cailean worshipers.

Our Eyes of the Ten party includes a Cayden Cailean life oracle and he is glorious. He may be a drunk and a bit of a lech but he's always there when we need him.

After reading a good chunk of this I'm not even sure any more if what I've been doing is legal.

My -2 PC is a wizard who can cast stoneskin which has an expensive material component. I inform any martial character in my party that if they want it cast on them that they need to buy one or more doses of diamond dust. Is this the other player illegally reimbursing me for casting the spell?

Last night my seeker wizard had need of a way to reverse petrification. One of his party members used a stone salve on him. 4k g.p. even at seeker level is a steep cost and I really do want to pay him back. Now I could have my wizard cast various spells on him with pricey material components for free until the debt is paid off but wouldn't it be simpler if I could just replace his stone salve?

I don't think I've ever had a GM give me alignment. Name is pretty much a given, though. How do you justify saying to a player that just rolled their check "that looks like something that can sing and make you fall asleep, but you don't know what its name is." I've never gotten type as a freebie, either.

I've never gotten alignment, and would never dream of asking for such a "crunchy" detail, but type when it is not obvious from the name of the creature is something I do expect to get.

Being told that the ting attacking my Pc is a Flaming Fluffernutter is not in itself a useful bit of data unless I happen to have memorized all the bestiaries and other sources critters are being drawn from and can remember off the top of my head what this thing is, which is cheating anyway. But tell me its a fire devil outsider and I'll have some idea what I'm dealing with.

If we're going to really use knowledge checks to control PC's and players access to information about monsters we should really have a better set of guidelines to work from.

This touches on an annoying thing that has come up many times at PFS tables.

PFS characters are supposed to be members of the Pathfinder Society. A world spanning ancient society of explorers, archaeologists, and adventurers who under go 3 years of training before setting out on a life as professional tomb robbers and murder hoboes. These characters are supposed to have no idea what a skeleton is and that they have DR/ bludgeoning? WTF? Maybe an uneducated peasant who has never seen a troll might not know for sure that trolls regenerate and are vulnerable to fire and acid only but a trained Pathfinder Society field agent?

In short at some point it is just ridiculous to even require knowledge checks for the most common sorts of monsters. PFS PC's should simply know all about them. Or make the DC so low only terribly unprepared parties could fail the check.

Corvus Cailean wrote:

Jeff Hazuka wrote:

Since when are 'best' and 'most graceful' equivalent?

Aside: Personally, I can't agree with a claim that someone who needed a moonrock to become a god is the 'best god.'

How do you know he even used the moonrock? Perhaps his drunken stupor was so perfect he ascended on his own while kicking the moonrock's butt?

You'd need the rumormonger talent and a week if you want me to believe that.

Really? Did you see the most holy one lay his hands on the starstone? Is it not far more likely that he achieved a state of drunkenness so profound that if actually resulted in enlightenment so great that he bent the very fabric of reality and transcended mortality itself?

I'd play what you want. Each style has plenty going for it.

I really don't think seeker level play should ever be pick up games at cons. The GM really should have time to prep for the specific party he will be dealing with. Knowing to expect a grapple fighter or a what specific flavor of caster will let the GM figure out how to have the NPC's act in combat because honestly there is little chance that any pre written tactics can hope to survive contact with 5 or 6 12th+ level PFS characters.

This is just another reason not use enchanted ammo

Deciemverate: Go forth and clear the demons out of the ruins, so that we can study them!

Paladins of the Society: CHARGE! KILL THE DEMONS! Smite smite smite SMITE smite smite smite SMITE

Deciemverate: Ok guys, they're back far enough that we can get into the ruins now, come on back....

Paladins of the Society: CHARGE! KILL THE DEMONS! Smite smite smite SMITE smite smite smite SMITE

Deciemverate: Godsdammit they don't leave that mode once they get into it do they...

Paladins of the Society: CHARGE! KILL THE DEMONS! Smite smite smite SMITE smite smite smite SMITE

I think the guys in the elaborate hats best let the paladins exhaust their smites somewhere far away from the Grand Lodge...

Bruno, a handsome and beautiful Tetori monk, realize combat can be chaotic. Bruno make helpful flowchart!

I'm a little concerned about the right side of the chart.

I think there is more than a bit of difference between a character using poison and a character being poisonous.

MadScientistWorking wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Ryzoken wrote:

Question: did the player attempt skill checks out of combat?

Thats.. really not enough of a contribution these days.

These days its pretty much the easiest way to avoid a TPK, getting arrested, and actually being able to do anything in the entire scenario.

Its far too easy for just about anyone else to have skills in the party.

The reason I built my empiricist was because I kept getting into games where none of the local murderhobos had any of the skills the scenario called for. He's carried several skill heavy scenarios basically solo, including one season 7 that I'm pretty sure the table would have failed without him.

Pathfinder is not simply and strictly a tactical miniatures game. It is supposed to be a role playing game. What goes on outside of combat and the challenges faced without drawing weapons should matter just as much as the rest.

Why not play Pathfinder outside of PFS? I know this might shock some people but that can be fun and with people that dedicated to playing surely you can get a couple of tables for ongoing campaigns.

A good PFS scenario contains something for, most, every PC while still being easy to prep and run. From last season the Sharrowsmith series were very good IMO.

Scenarios fail when they rely too heavily on one thing be it a skill or having a feat or spell or anything. Or if it is simply too complicated to prep easily or too long to run in 4 hours. You can easily check the reviews to find which ones don't work.

As a side note, I've never had any problems with any GM's at any tables, even with HeroLab running on my iPad... even at the table of one of the anti-Herolabers from this thread.

Well... there was this one time that TOZ killed my 10 year old...

That's generally considered more than a problem. Even assuming you didn't like the kid very much his mother probably did.

Jessex wrote:

I use HL all the
Any GM is welcome to audit me but that will entail handling the same hardware that HL is on, since that is where all my PDF's live. Which has always been the fundamentally strange part of the ruling about GM's not handling player's hardware. But kick me from a game on spec because I use HL? I think I'll be having a chat with the nearest VO.

This is where you and I differ - this is one of the reasons a physical character sheet is required. If you hand off your iPad or tablet to the GM and he or she drops it, who is responsible for the damage?

You're missing/ignoring a key issue. Any time a GM wants to audit most any PFS player it will entail handling some device because most of us have most of our books on PDF now. It is simply cheaper and lighter.