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Today I’ll be on Paizo’s Twitch channel at 4–5 pm PST to talk about Starfinder Society’s search for a new First Seeker from among the campaign’s PCs! This is your chance to steer the Year 3 story, first by playing the September scenario #2-07: Four for the First (by Starfinder Society developer Thurston Hillman) to meet the candidates, then by voting online. That process begins on September 25th, and you can join me for the excitement tomorrow afternoon. Payton has begun the conversation already at the Starfinder Wednesday Fan Club thread.
When I explain organized play to new folks, I often emphasize just how versatile the programs are, allowing anyone embrace the schedule that works for them. It’s the ability to play as often as they like, to take their rewarding experiences with them to the next game, and to step back when the time is right. After nearly a decade of service—as an enthusiast, a volunteer, and an organized play lead developer—I’ve determined the time is right to sign my last figurative Chronicle sheet and begin a new adventure. I signed the official paperwork last week, formally changing my role from Organized Play Lead Developer to that of Senior Developer on the Starfinder team. In that capacity, I’ll be working on a variety of products that include the upcoming hardcover books and all sorts of other wild projects (some yet to be announced, and untold numbers yet to be pitched). I’ll be with the team for several more weeks to ensure a smooth transition and help out with any post-Gen Con tasks before formally transitioning to the Starfinder team. And once that happens, let’s not assume my Pathfinder or organized play days are over; I’ll be helping out intermittently with planning society storylines and upcoming Pathfinder products, there are no doubt many products I’ll tackle as an author rather than as a developer, and I have many organized play tables to GM. But as I step away, I am confident that there are even greater days ahead for Paizo’s organized play programs—not only for the dedicated volunteer corps and great adventures ahead, but also for the incredible teammates I’ve worked with for much of my tenure. Linda, Michael, Thurston, and Tonya. Linda Zayas-Palmer has been working with me on the campaign for more than four years, and in the past two years she has shown ever greater initiative and innovation (taking on not only the most recent Pathfinder Society multi-table interactive specials, but also heading the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society). She’s poised to take all three campaigns to bold new places with both enthusiasm and experience, having received a promotion to organized play lead developer. It’s been a wild ride! Now let’s get ready to explore, report, and cooperate for many years to come.
The traditional, annual, and extraordinary after-banquet trivia contest returns in just about one week's time! Show off your (and your teammates') knowledge of Paizo-related trivia, from adventures and rules to setting lore and licensed products—a little over an hour of entertainment that could win you and your teammates exciting Paizo store rewards! If you're interested in participating, stick around after the banquet wraps up on Saturday night (and you're welcome to participate even if you missed the banquet). We take about a 20-minute break for the hotel staff to clean up the tables we're using, then we convene toward the front-center of the ballroom. That means the exact start time varies a little every year, but it'll be starting around 10–10:30 pm. If you'd like to muster a team beforehand, that's great. If you'd like to participate but don't have a team, no problem; there are usually plenty of smaller groups that are happy to welcome strangers. The trivia consists of five rounds of five questions each, and each team records its answers for the round on a sheet of paper to submit for scoring. The highest score after five rounds wins, with the possibility of tie-breakers. We'll be observing the following rules for the event:
This event is consistently one of my PaizoCon highlights. In the course of five hours, we'll make characters, learn the fairly easy rules, and then stick it to one of Golarion's gods! I'll bring all of the supplies (having a pencil is nice), and no prior experience is necessary.
Writing Pathfinder Society Scenario #1-09: Live Exploration Extreme! was a blast, and I'm so excited for its spiritual successor, Jenny Jarzabski's Starfinder Society Scenario #2-01: Pact World Warriors! You can get a sneak preview of this delightful scenario as your PCs perform daring deeds before a viewing audiences of millions! Be sure to include this in your lottery queue. Prior experience with #1-09 is lovely but not necessary. This is a Tier 1–4 Starfinder Society scenario, so it's strongly preferred that participants have a legal character in that range. If you don't have a Starfinder Society character, don't worry. We have an assortment of pregenerated characters ready to use, or you can make a Society-legal character in the meantime (there's even about a month before the show, so you might be able to play a few games beforehand). Let me know if you have any questions.
Hey folks! As a follow-up to the Starfinder Society Year 2 announcement blog, Tonya Woldridge and I will be on the Starfinder Wednesday Twitch stream this afternoon at 4 pm PST (a little under 3 hours from now). We’ll be talking about the close of Year 1, the start of Year 2, some teasers for upcoming adventures, talking about upcoming conventions, and much more. On top of that, we’ll be answering your questions and hearing your feedback. If you can’t make it to the stream, you can post your questions ahead of time over at the Starfinder Fan Club thread, and Dan’s really good about pulling questions from there for us to address. We look forward to seeing you there!
Hey folks, I'll be appearing on the Paizo Friday Twitch stream at 4 pm PST (00:00 UTC, a little over an hour from now) today to talk about Pathfinder Society, Starfinder Society, and the Adventure Card Guild campaigns. That includes revealing upcoming scenarios, discussing the Season 10 finale adventures, talking about some of the team's decisions about the Second Edition campaign, and taking your questions. We'll be covering a lot of this in the coming months, but consider this your sneak peek, chance to ask questions, and opportunity to voice if you'd like to see more org play streamed content. A little last minute, but exciting nonetheless!
Hey folks, I'll be appearing on the Paizo Friday Twitch stream at 4 pm PST (00:00 UTC, a little over an hour from now) today to talk about Pathfinder Society, Starfinder Society, and the Adventure Card Guild campaigns. That includes revealing upcoming scenarios, discussing the Season 10 finale adventures, talking about some of the team's decisions about the Second Edition campaign, and taking your questions. We'll be covering a lot of this in the coming months, but consider this your sneak peek, chance to ask questions, and opportunity to voice if you'd like to see more org play streamed content. A little last minute, but exciting nonetheless!
Tomorrow on November 7th from 6–8 pm PST (I believe that's Nov 8, 02:00–04:00 UTC), Tonya Woldridge and I will be on the Know Direction podcast discussing the future of Pathfinder Society, such as the end of Season 10 and how the Second Edition campaign is shaping up. Although we'll no doubt highlight some information that we've also covered in blog, we also expect to cover new ground, dig down on some topics, and take questions. We look forward to having you join us! You'll be able to watch us live on Twitch.
In May 2017, the organized play team tried something new: we released the first three parts of a new multi-table interactive special called Pathfinder Society Special #8-99A: The Solstice Scar, which included three chapters of 90 minutes each (Parts 1, 2, and 3). The idea was to release an new version twice a year, each time removing one of the parts and replace it with the next piece of the story. In May 2018 we released Version C (includes Parts 3, 4, and 5), and the story is set to conclude in January 2019 with Version D (Parts 4, 5, and 6). There’s just one big complication: the format of this adventure has room for improvement. When I first proposed this idea, 90-minute chapters seemed like a good idea. In practice, they’ve been pretty choppy because there’s some much story we’re trying to fit into that time period. We’ve also seen really good results with slightly shorter multi-table interactive specials; participants’ energy levels during that fifth hour tend to fade dramatically, whereas Starfinder Society and Pathfinder Society both released their most recent specials that both run a little over 4 hours each. Finally, there’s the ongoing critique that replacing only 1/3 of the content with each version isn’t quite enough to keep the story fresh. We want to finish out the story, but we’d rather do so in a way that evolves the format, tests new possibilities (in the event we try something like this again), and hopefully delivers a better play experience overall. That means I'm implementing one big change: Version D is expected to include only two parts, not three. What are your thoughts? In addition to this structural change, I'd like to make any tweaks necessary to Part 5. Expect to see some modification of a somewhat infamous encounter with immense creatures. If you know of any other changes that would be good to make, please post those here or link me back to an earlier post that I should be considering. From here on, assume that there might be some adventure spoilers regarding Part 5, in the event you're reading this but haven't yet experienced the latest version of The Solstice Scar. Thanks!
———Rules for Building a 1st-Level Playtest Character———
Ability Scores: Use the ability score generation process described on pages 18–20 of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook. The Pathfinder Society Playtest does not use the optional systems for rolling ability scores or voluntary flaws. Ancestries: Choose one of the ancestries that appear in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook. Backgrounds: Choose either one of the backgrounds that appears in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook or one that appears on page 3 of Pathfinder Playtest: Doomsday Dawn. Classes: Choose one of the classes that appears in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook. Feats: All of the feats are available for use. Gear and Wealth: Your character begins with 150 silver pieces (sp) to spend as you like. Items with uncommon or rare rarities are not available unless you gain access to them with a character ability (for example, an elf with Weapon Familiarity gains access to uncommon elf weapons). Spells: Choose any spells that have a common rarity. Spells with uncommon or rare rarities are not available unless you gain access to them with a character ability (for example, a sorcerer with the draconic bloodline would still receive the power dragon claws as a bloodline power).
The proud tradition of post-banquet trivia continues this year, including great questions about all things Paizo. This is a team event , that involves five rounds of five questions each, with answers submitted and scored after each round. As usual, there will be a short break of about 15–20 minutes after the banquet on Saturday evening to provide hotel staff time to clear some of our tables, after which we'll convene to begin the contest. You can assemble a team beforehand, or you can hang out after the banquet and create a team on the spot. We'll have basic pens and paper available, but you can also bring your own writing tools. There are several basic rules that I'll also review at the beginning of the event. We look forward to seeing you there, reading your inspired answers, and handing out prizes!
The Additional Resources and Campaign Clarifications updates are now live, and we have numerous FAQs that should also be appearing shortly. These updates include all of the November products, including Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness, for which you should also see the Ultimate Wilderness FAQs. Most notably, though, these updates address two prevalent character options: the ring of seven lovely colors and the spell snowball. The Ring of Seven Lovely Colors: This ring is sacred to Shelyn, functions as a ring of protection +1 (a 2,000 gp value), and allows the user to transform into songbird seven times a day (somewhere between 20,000–70,000 gp in value, depending on how you do the math) for the low price of 4,000 gp. In practice, we’ve seen several issues. The first is that the ring’s price is overall too low for its benefits. Second, the ring inadvertently facilitates combat, which has spun into hyper-agile “songbird of death” builds that frequently shut down combats single-handed—particularly jarring given a relic of Shelyn (goddess of love, art, and beauty) has turned into an offensive tool. The Campaign Clarifications document has made several changes to this ring. First, the price has been increased to 7,000 gp. Second, the referenced spell is now beast shape II instead of beast shape IV; this has no mechanical effect but merely better represents the ring’s price and functions. Third, the ring now includes the following text:
The ring’s magic shares Shelyn’s preference for mercy and peace over violence. If its wearer willingly makes an attack while in songbird form, the polymorph effect ends immediately and the rings’s songbird transformation ability deactivates for 1 week. If the wearer is forced to make an attack against her will (such as from the effects of confusion), the songbird form does not deactivate. Resolving the Ring: We understand that there are many people who have purchased this ring. Follow these steps. Snowball: The spell snowball appears in Ultimate Wilderness, having undergone several more design passes as part of the development process for that book. The result is that the spell has changed school (evocation rather than conjuration), does not ignore spell resistance, and no longer staggers the target. While these changes bring the spell in line with 1st-level spell benchmarks, they may also impact characters who invested in maximizing the spell’s effects. Resolving Snowball: Take the following steps.
Finally: We’re providing these rebuild steps in recognition that these changes affect many people and were significant components of character builds. Kindly act in good faith in any rebuilds above, including your assessment of whether these rebuilds apply to your character.
Hi folks, I'm working on Version B of Pathfinder Society Special #8–99: The Solstice Scar. Remember that each version replaces one part of the previous version with a new section, telling an evolving story. Version A consists of Parts 1, 2, and 3. The most coherent story choice for Version B involves replacing Part 2, so this version would involve Parts 1, 3, and 4. The bulk of my work involves developing Part 4 and adjusting any language in earlier parts to make sure the transitions and mechanics are coherent. However, this is also a good opportunity for me to make some modest adjustments to Parts 1 and 3 to improve the play experience. That's where you can help out. Please help me identify areas of improvement for these two parts that I can correct without performing any major overhauls, particularly if you've had a chance to see these concerns in action. Here are some (not exclusive) examples of good corrections:
I'm also open to hearing why you found several specific encounters particularly fun or unpleasant, as that might help me play up or scale back those features in upcoming #8–99 versions. I'll be working on various pieces of this over the next two weeks or so, and I might be able to incorporate smaller changes as late as mid December.
The Chronicle sheet for the upcoming Pathfinder Society Scenario #9–07: Salvation of the Sages invites certain players to chronicle key information in this thread. Please refrain from posting here except for the reasons listed in the spoiler below. Spoiler: Please post here using the following format (feel free to borrow the text styling by hitting "Reply") for the basic information.
Name: Flim-Flam the Fictional
My wrikreechees! In the wild! Some of the wrikreechee origin story: When we were planning out Alien Archive, one of the brainstorming exercises involved naming weird alien physiology. Terms like "mouth tubules" and "external stomaches" flew about the room, but apparently my suggestion of "arm baleen" was what caught James Sutter by surprise. Creating a creature with arm baleen sorta became a dare during that meeting, and as we closed up the session, I accepted the challenge and began devising a world in which they might arise. I find the final result quite charming. We need more classy invertebrate filter feeder PC races.
Additional Resources and Campaign Clarifications should be going live this week, including updates for June, July, and August products. There are also several bookkeeping updates to the Additional Resources document, including some grammatical and formatting tweaks as suggested in the Additional Resources Updates thread. We’ve also opened up catfolk options in the Advanced Race Guide now that catfolk are a more widely playable race. You’ll also likely see a few curiosities among the updates, so I’d like to highlight a few of those and head off some anticipated questions. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures
Pathfinder Player Companion: Adventurer’s Armory 2
Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Sea
September and Beyond
This is a continuation of a recent thread reposted to get more visibility. We have a preliminary write-up of how we're handling rules updates, including more permissive options for rebuilding in cases where the baseline rules update policy would be insufficient. If there is a special dispensation that you believe is necessary based on the recent Additional Resources update, let me know here. Based on the history of rules update threads, it would be helpful to stick to the specifics of how the issue affects your character. It's harder to build policy around broad statements of disapproval. For example:
This should be a lot of fun! Last year I gave Pathfinder Society Scenario #23: Tide of Morning a tune-up and rediscovered what a delightful gem it is. This year I'm happy to run that adventure or just about any other Season 0 non-retired adventure. As in past years, this involves updating stat blocks, making minor changes as needed to match current style standards, and providing a new Chronicle sheet with some enticing gear and boons. For this special event only, you're also able to replay the adventure for credit (just not with a character who already has a Chronicle sheet for the scenario). If you secure a seat for this event, please list your preferences for which adventure we should run. Any of the following information is helpful: We can discuss our options here. Within a week of the lottery assignments being finalized, I'd love to have 2–3 promising scenarios that I can choose from, then I'll announce the final choice shortly after that. Remember, this is a sanctioned Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild game, so I do expect you to have a legal character with any Chronicle sheet records. If you're unfamiliar with the organized play campaign, don't worry; we have a wealth of pregenerated characters available, and we can direct folks to resources for building a 1st-level character if we do a lower level game.
The blog speaks truth! I’m participating with Jason Bulmahn and Amanda Hamon Kunz in a marathon session to raise money for Seattle Children’s Hospital, and you can follow along on Twitch tomorrow from 8 am to 8 pm Pacific Standard Time (I believe that’s a 15:00 UTC start time). Not only can your donations help children and win the cool prizes we and the rest of the ZodgePodge team have gathered, but you can also donate money during the game to grant the players benefits and drawbacks. Were you impressed by a recent Campaign Setting book? You can secure dice re-rolls for Amanda. Are you irked that one of your favorite new character options didn’t make it into the Additional Resources? Your donation can buy my tears. As a special incentive, I’m bringing in a copy of each of this year’s charity boons: the Thaneguard Mantle (a scaling magic item that lends you the Ulfen strength that stood against Baba Yaga herself) and the Memory of Eshiro (a scaling magic item that houses the spirit of a kodama kami, granting you special influence over natural spirits and plants). I’ll be giving those away over the course of the event, so if you haven’t had a chance to win one before, now is the time! Please visit Jason’s fundraising page, Amanda’s fundraising page, my fundraising page, and our team’s page. We’ll see you on Twitch tomorrow! Spread the Word!
I have posted on each of the upcoming Gen Con adventures’ product pages—both for Season 7 and Season 8 adventures—with a list of what existing map products each one uses. I am also posting that information here in its entirety. If you are a Gen Con GM running one or more of these upcoming adventures, please check the respective spoiler for map information. Also note the following: — The Honor’s Echo quest tables at Gen Con will have maps provided by Paizo. — With the exception of Honor’s Echo, Angels’ Flight, and The Cosmic Captive, each of the adventures has a custom map component. Maps Appearing in #7–27: Beyond Azlant Ridge:
The adventure also makes use of the Azlant Ridge map from Pathfinder Society Scenario #2–02. Maps Appearing in #7–28: Ageless Ambitions:
Maps Appearing in #7–29: Serpents Fall:
Maps Appearing in #7–99: Through Maelstrom Rift:
Maps Appearing in #8–00: The Cosmic Captive:
Maps Appearing in #8–01: Portent’s Peril:
Maps Appearing in #8–02: Ward Asunder:
This adventure features only a custom, full-page map. Maps Appearing in #8–03: Captives of Toil:
Maps Appearing in Pathfinder Quest: Honor’s Echo:
Maps Appearing in Pathfinder Academy: Angels’ Flight:
A second printing of Ultimate Equipment is just hitting the shelves, and the errata/updates document is just hitting paizo.com. While many of the changes are minor, editorial updates, I expect a handful of others will have a noticeable impact on some PCs. Page 29 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide addresses how to handle those items that saw a price adjustment—most noticeably four-mirror armor, the benevolent armor enhancement, and a handful of magical staves: sell back the item at its original full market price, and so long as you have enough gp and Fame, you can purchase it back at the updated cost. The design team has revised how several items function. In some cases, this means the Pathfinder Society team will revisit that item’s status on the Additional Resources page and will likely add them to the list in the next update we compile. In other cases the item may not provide the same benefits; knowing this might have an impact on certain character builds, we’re providing the following special guidelines for handling these updates.
Staff of the Master: You may sell this item back at its full market price. Whether you keep or sell this item, you may also retrain any of your metamagic feats or class features that granted you bonus metamagic feats. Mnemonic Vestment: If you have more than one of this item, you may sell back any duplicates at their full market price. Cap of the Free Thinker, Feather Step Slippers, Gloves of Reconnaissance, Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier, Ring of Continuation, Ring of Ferocious Action, Ring of Inner Fortitude, Ring of Revelation, Ring of Sundering Metals (from Inner Sea Gods) and Tremor Boots: You may sell any of these items back at their full market price. Brawling armor: Normally this would just follow the guidelines on page 29 of the Guide, but I get the concern that a key item for unconventional unarmed strikers might now be inaccessible—not because it’s expensive but because one’s character wealth is tied up in other recent purchases. It might be that we need to revisit the exact policy in the Guide, so let’s use brawling as a test-run of a slightly different model. You may sell back your character’s most recent purchases at full market price, but only enough to afford +1 brawling armor at its new price; you must still have enough Fame to qualify for this purchase. Mistmail: You may sell this item back at its full market price. If you do so, you may also sell back other items that grant you an armor bonus, such as bracers of armor, a wand of mage armor (calculate cost based on charges remaining), or a pearl of power (assuming that it was, in fact, for facilitating mage armor or the like—kindly use your best judgment here). Scorpion Whip: We’re bringing the scorpion whip in line with the FAQ from May 2015, which is now reflected in the second printing of Ultimate Equipment. Using a scorpion whip to its full potential now requires two different proficiencies: whip and scorpion whip. If someone were using a scorpion whip, we’re providing a choice between two forms of rebuild. First, a PC can sell back any scorpion whips at full price (ostensibly in order to buy a normal whip with equivalent enhancements, but that’s not mandatory). Second, a PC can choose to retrain a single feat in order to take either Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip) or Exotic Weapon Proficiency (scorpion whip)—whichever he lacks. You may, of course, take no action and just choose to use a scorpion whip as a light performance weapon. To the best of our ability, we’ll be updating the Additional Resources page and/or Campaign Clarifications to reflect these changes, including where two sources’ depictions of the items now vary.
For those participating in this event, please let me know which of the not-retired Season 0 scenarios you would like to play. Remember that you're able to replay this once for credit, so even a past favorite of yours is a possibility. Please list up to five adventures that might interest you. You can prioritize them if you like, Also, if you're fairly new to the organized play campaign, consider letting me know here or by emailing me at john.compton@paizo.com; if there are several newer players, I'd be inclined to adapt a lower-level adventure. I look forward to seeing everyone there.
Approximately 24 hours from now, Tonya and I will appear on the Know Direction podcast, hosted by Ryan Costello, Jr and Jefferson Jay Thacker (aka Perram). We'll be discussing upcoming conventions from now through Gen Con and PAX West. We'll also tell you about the upcoming seeker-level trilogy and the special event debuting at PaizoCon. In addition, I anticipate having time to take questions from the audience about the organized play program, Pathfinder Society scenarios, the upcoming Pathfinder Society Pawns, and anything else you care to ask. Watch the event live tomorrow on the Know Direction Twitch channel. Also, be sure to let us know you're interested in attending the event on the event's Facebook page and through your other social media. We look forward to sharing exciting news and hearing from the audience!
I'm working on a few sanctioning and scenario projects, and I'm seeing a few really fun opportunities on the horizon to include evil-themed boons; these are boons that reference a PC accepting some reward from an evil or otherwise suspicious source, often accompanied by a drawback. I've included at least one of these one a Chronicle sheet before, and I know of a few others that preceded my employment at Paizo. Tier 7–11, Season 4:
There are several evil brands and other tokens that grant the PC power but carry some drawback or impose an alignment shift. Wardens of the Reborn Forge:
There are two Haagenti-themed boons that grant some special abilities but have fairly significant drawbacks. The first offers some power, and the second builds off the first. Thanks for your feedback. Please take care not to spoil the adventures for others, so use the spoiler tag function (see the "How to format your text" button below the text box) when discussing any specifics.
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