Kildopan's page

Dear Paizo Leaders,

I am worried about the future of your marvelous company. I was recently at a convention, the amazing Scarefest in Montreat NC and noticed that v2 playtests were not get people excited and many tables did not make. I am one of the people that are not excited. The players at the PFS tables where talking about how next year will be is the last Scarefest we will be playing PFS v1.

When I got home, I had a package on my doorstep from Paizo with the products from my various Paizo subscriptions. I was excited, but immediately a thought came to mind. "I am not sure if I am going to play v2. I had better cancel my subscriptions after GenCon" What worries me is, I am not alone. This is a thought that many other players are going to have. I may sign up again but not until I am sure I want to play v2.

My question/concern for Paizo as a company is "Are you ready?"

Are you ready and prepared for a potentially significant drop in the number of people who are signed up for subscriptions? Is the year or so it can take for people to decide if they want to play the official v2 release and then start to invest in it going to cause a finical decline you may not recover from?

I hope this is not true and that the answer to the questions is you are ready and prepared. I do not want to see Paizo and Pathfinder disappear.

Thank you Tonya for all of your help.

I hope that everyone involved sees how great this community and Paizo is. Let's all do our best to make PFS great and continue to have as much fun as we can.

Kildopan wrote:

The Raleigh-Durham VC Michael Eshleman was removed from his position by Del Collins the RVC on April 30th. Over the last month, our local attendance has gone from 8 - 10 tables a week to 2 - 4 tables a week. When this happened, we lost all of our local leadership as our VA stepped down in support of Michael. We have a major convention in the area called SuperCon in July that we were looking to start supporting in addition to future AtomiCons. Unfortunately without local leadership and support the future of the areas PFS and conventions is starting to look grim.

Speaking for myself I appreciate your sincere inquiry, unfortunately however, I cannot comment on the matter of the dismissals. I understand the rumor mill is in full force. I do understand how difficult a change like this can be on people and do apologize for any inconveniences you may experience. I promise that everyone within the VO ranks of the area are highly committed to delivering the same great experience that has existed for you under Mr. Eshleman's leadership. I can say that it is possible you could see Mr. Eshleman and Mr. Winz return to the ranks of the VO one day. But at this time the area has been turned over to Landon Hatfield and he is committed to continuing to further develop the area and to continue to ensure the same high quality you have become accustomed to. I would ask that you bear with him as he takes on the task and picks up the leadership responsibilities within the area. He will be in need of people with the interest and experience willing to help him through the transition.

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Delbert. I would like to start by thanking you for volunteering to be the Regional Venture-Captain for the SouthEast and all of your hard work over the years. All volunteer officers of the pathfinder society deserve PFS players gratitude and appreciation for the work they do.

I understand that you can not talk about what lead to Michael Eshleman's removal as the VC of our area. We all appreciate you taking time to set straight some the rumors float around and offer your side. We would appreciate it if you would be willing to answer some quick questions. I think they will help everyone involved move forward.

1. Do you feel that Michael Eshleman is an exceptional Pathfinder Society volunteer?

2. Did you consider other options other than removing him from his position before making this judgment? After seeing the effect that it has had on our area would it be possible to visit alternatives to his removal that would allow him to continue to volunteer as a member of local leadership possibly in a different capacity.

3. What can Raleigh area do to hasten his return to local leadership?

Landon Hatfield is an excellent VC and extremely well liked by all of us in the area. We are grateful to him for stepping up to help us. He has done excellent work in Charlotte NC and the surrounding areas. It is a lot to ask him to manage both Charlotte and Raleigh plus all the surrounding areas. Big shout out to Landon the help he provides will be amazing and very appreciated.

4. I personally do not know much about you. How long have you volunteered as our RVC?

5. Based on your previous posts it sounds like you are doing your best to foster Pathfinder Society throughout the region you oversee. Can you take a few moments to tell us some of the work you have done this year to promote growth in the region?

6. Do you have any recommendation as to what the Raleigh area can do to help stop the decline we are seeing?

7. Is there any help that you can provide the area as our RVC?

(I know there are a lot of questions here so I numbered them to help make replies easier)

That is something else I've noticed - whenever there's a pot-stirring drama thread, they always get posted at the beginning of a holiday weekend or a major convention when the people whose job it actually is to deal with these things will be publicly known to not be in the office. It's really starting to look like the timing is intentional on these things, and it's starting to color the intent of the threads themselves as well - it looks like these types of threads are specifically intended just to cause drama among the community, not to resolve an issue with the help of leadership.

The Raleigh-Durham VC Michael Eshleman was removed from his position by Del Collins the RVC on April 30th. Over the last month, our local attendance has gone from 8 - 10 tables a week to 2 - 4 tables a week. When this happened, we lost all of our local leadership as our VA stepped down in support of Michael. We have a major convention in the area called SuperCon in July that we were looking to start supporting in addition to future AtomiCons. Unfortunately without local leadership and support the future of the areas PFS and conventions is starting to look grim.

While it is inconvenient that the decline has happened while Tonya is traveling from convention to convention, it is not the reason for the timing. I greatly appreciate all of the work that Tonya does to support Pathfinder Society. In most companies that I have worked for people are responsible for their other job functions while traveling. Common courtesy is to provide understanding for the increase pressures traveling, and event organizing creates and gives that person additional time to respond, not to put an issue on hold. I hope that these facts and statements help to provide you with a better understanding of what has prompted all of this.

No. He is not banned. Only removed from his position as a Venture Captain.

Whatever happened to cause this to transpired was between him and the Regional Venture Captain in regards to some Venture Office business.

I do not know the Regional Venture Captain. I know that some people have opinions about him. I ask that their opinions and feelings not be brought into this thread. Please try and keep the focus here on the good that Michael has done.

Paizo and Pathfinder Society are great organizations that have created content and communities that have generated a countless amount of joy for so many people. There are very few companies in the world that can say this. It is important that everyone involved remembers this and continues to support both groups.

If the ruling stands. I personally will work hard to help minimize the impact it has on Atomic PFS and encourage my fellow gamers to do the same. Most importantly it is my hope that Michael knows that he has had such a positive impact on Pathfinder as a whole and so many people support him and appreciate it.

While Michael's community contributions are significate. We are asking that someone who has volunteered significantly more time than most people, deserves a slightly more extensive review of the situation. One that takes the impact that the removal of his presence has on our state-wide program, the local retailers' revenue and all of the players into consideration when determines what if any the proper course of action that needs to be taken is.

Let's put some conservative numbers behind this so it doesn't sound like an opinion:

2,600 volunteer hours = [650 games * average of 4 hours a game]
this extremely conservative number does not take any of his non-GM volunteer time into account or the fact that he has GM's more than 650 games for PFS and no Starfinder, AP and Pathfinder Card Game hours are included. It would be reasonable to add another 500 hours minimum to this number

178 members of Atomic PFS group

112 people signed a petition and feel that this has some level of impact on them (there is overlap with the previous number)

4 Conventions yearly - organized by Michael

4 Local Retailers - that are involved with the area that Michael VC PFS

It is my hope that all Society Volunteers that have an impact like this on so many, deserve slightly more consideration when it comes to them and receive it.

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To the community: Please try and keep your comments constructive and positive if possible - Thank you

Let's start with the basics.

Until recently he was the Venture Officer for the Raleigh-Durham area with 5 years of service as a venture officer (2 as a Venture-Lieutenant, 3 as a Venture-Captain).

Michael is an exceptional 5 star GM who goes out of his way to support and help both new and veteran players of Pathfinder and Paizo products. He treats everyone fairly and goes out of his way to make sure everyone is having a good time. Eshleman is welcoming to new players and takes time to explain the rules of the game. He organizes and runs AtomiCon twice a year, AtomiCon Mini twice a year and has worked hard to foster the growth of Pathfinder Society, Card Game and Starfinder in Raleigh NC. He also volunteers at countless conventions all over the place.

Here are some extraordinary things about Michael you probably didn't know:

• GM'ed 650+ Pathfinder Society games (that's almost a 5 star GM 3 times over)
  
• An active member of these Paizo forums where he helps all player with 2,883 posts and climbing (handle: GreySector)
  
• Has been published in numerous 3rd Party resources
  
• Loves organization and spreadsheets and freely shares them. Here is a link to my personal favorite: Flip Mats & Map Packs Used in PFS & SFS Scenarios (yes it is updated frequently)
  

If you want to learn more check out his paizo people profile, look at his posts on the forums.

Please share some of the countless amazing things he has done in this thread. Let's show Paizo and all of the players why he is so important.

If you feel like some who has done all of these amazing things and more is a valuable member of the Pathfinder Society

Sign the petition to get him reinstated

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To the forum moderator: Please note this information can all be found on Michael's public Paizo forum profile GreySector http://paizo.com/people/greysector/profile
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To the community: Keep your posts positive. It's important that they remain up and thread active.
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Hello,

My recent Order # 4745817 includes

Pathfinder Society Scenario #9–14: Down the Verdant Path PDF
Pathfinder Society Scenario #9–15: The Bloodcove Blockade PDF

Neither of these are showing up in my downloads. The big deal about this is I am set to GM both of these scenerios at AtomicCon tomorrow. I have very little time to prep. Anything you can do to get me these PDFs ASAP would be greatly appreciated.

Can wizard with: Alchemical Affinity use a Formula Alembic to copy spells into his spellbook from a potion as long as it is on the Wizard spell list?

Alchemical Affinity: Whenever you cast a spell that appears on both the wizard and alchemist spell lists, you treat your caster level as 1 higher than normal and the save DC of such spells increases by 1. Additionally, **you may copy spells from an alchemist’s formula book into your spellbook just as you could with another wizard’s spellbook.**

Formula Alembic: This magically-augmented alchemical device distills a potion or alchemist extract into the **knowledge needed to create its formula.** By gently heating a potion or extract in the alembic for 1 hour, the device creates a few drops of magical liquid. If consumed by an alchemist, this liquid gives him knowledge of the potion’s or extract’s formula, as if it were an extract he recorded in his formula book. This knowledge lasts for 24 hours. **He may scribe this formula in his formula book in the normal fashion.**

Using the alembic does not harm the potion, but the process makes it nearly boiling hot (it cools normally). The alembic can only distill the knowledge of formulas on the alchemist extract list (for example, it cannot turn a potion of a cleric-only spell into something an alchemist can learn).