Is there currently any method of bringing back a character who got disintegrated? As written, raise dead doesn't work on a pile of ash.
The official response from Alex Speidel is that the Body Recovery boon meets the complete body requirement, gathering all the ash and reconstructing it enough for a for a Raise Dead to work. (I have put in a request for this to be added to the FAQ.)
The change log linked in the post above has the full list of changes, the following are the most significant:
* playable species updated for season 6
* rules for Replays added (aligned with AcP & annual granted Replays)
* specify that when a chronicle is applied, PCs earn credits (for doing the mission), then complete Downtime, then earn XP
* Permanent Blindness / Deafness no longer forces a character to retire.
A few other, less central ones:
* "minor" and "major" factions aren't distinguished anymore
* removed Playtests >> Removing Conditions
* Pregens get a fixed discount to Removing Conditions after an adventure (rather than having to sell back gear after the player has spent a certain amount of credits.)
* "Dead" characters get a normal chronicle, instead of a blank one with everything crossed off.
* removed Faction boon slot
* specified that 64-page adventures count the same as AP volumes for unlocking boons with checkboxes
* defined "table credits" as the thing GMs earn for running adventures; rules are not changed
* (re-)added details on 5-Nova evaluations from older blog post
Welcome to the Year 6 re-launch of the Starfinder Society Guide to Organized Play!
The Guide was restructured for Season 6 to better serve the community. We streamlined or removed rules that were needlessly complex or outdated and consolidated rules that were previously separated across multiple pages into a smaller set of more accessible pages.
Along with the typical revisions, the Guide is now divided into five sections:
* Guide: the core Society play rules all players need
* Player Options and Tools: additional options and rewards which add flavor and flexibility
* Game Master Options and Tools: additional advice, tools, and rewards for GMs
* Starships: stat blocks for Society starships
* Supplemental Materials: lists supplemental documents related to but not included in the Guide, along with the link to the single page version of the Guide.
Why divide the Guide?
* Separate out just the Society rules players absolutely must know
* Make those core Society rules (the Core Guide section) shorter and clearer
* Better group related rules in one place
* Make rules for running games more visible to players
As long as you keep the number one rule for society play in mind you should be ok.
Oh the rule, don't be a jerk.
For reference, that is not a rule in PFS.
1. It is too easily weaponized. The moment you invoke that rule, you are in effect calling someone a derogatory name. Which means you are violating PFS rules.
2. It is to low a bar. No one wants a campaign where people stop just short of being jerks.
The rules you want are:
"Create a welcoming environment."
"Remember, your character is a member of the Pathfinder Society first and foremost, and as such, your character should be able to work with any other Pathfinder, and abide by the Society’s Motto – “Explore, Report, Cooperate”."
"Participants are expected to respect their fellow players and work together to create positive and memorable experiences."
As for the question, it’s actually in the Guide 10.0 page 24
Quote:
It is possible for a player character to spend her Prestige Points even if the character in question is dead, petrified, or otherwise out of commission in the context of the current adventure. In essence, this represents the PC having made prior arrangements with the Pathfinder Society or her faction to perform certain actions on her behalf, such as recovering her dead body and returning it to a specific location or having it raised from the dead. In this event, the PC’s actual location does not impact the Prestige Point cost. This cost also includes recovery of a character’s lost equipment or the need to hunt down and kill a character’s undead body before recovering it and bringing it back to life.
(bolding mine)
Thanks for point out this. We used to interpret this para. as how to raise dead only.
So "otherwise out of commission" includes Imprisoned and other unplayable (but not dead) condition and GM can ask for any reasonable solution, including body recovered. It is an RAW evidence.
Correct. Body recovery brings You and / or your gear back to the grand lodge. You still need to clear other conditions (using raise dead or other resources.)
The only situation in which you can't use body recovery is if the scenario specifies an alternative mechanic, or if you gave up your gear in trade. (No paying off the green dragon with your holy shield to let you pass and then sending the society to steal it back for you...)
I think the idea is to prevent Dragonkin from just having a "floating" bond that they can lock onto a different character every game. But I will see if I can get a more concrete answer for you.
• The Core Rulebook now allows all characters to take two free ability boosts instead of the printed options for their ancestry. Newly created characters in Pathfinder Society may use this rule; previously built characters may not unless they rebuild the character from scratch with a boon.
• However, to retain the legality of numerous existing characters, the Pathfinder Society campaign will continue to offer the Voluntary Flaws optional ruleset and retain the text within the Guide to Organized Play.
OK. So we have THREE options for new PCs:
1. Vanilla ability boosts as printed
2. 2 free boosts and no flaws, any ancestry
3. Old optional flaw system
Is this correct?
Four Options (at least as I understand it.)
1. Vanilla ability boosts as printed
2. 2 free boosts and no flaws, any ancestry
3. Vanilla ability boosts + Old Optional Flaw System
4. 2 free boosts + Old Optional Flaw System, any ancestry
Added the old Voluntary Flaws text to the guide so that people don't lose it if they update their PDF. (not a full guide update as I am preparing for a Con, but didn't want the info to get lost.)
I do think though that the spell cards should count as a rules reference, but maybe they don't count because they are only for spells?
They count as a Rules Reference for "Accessory Perks" Boons.
They do not count as Proof of Ownership.
The have not been defined as counting as "A copy of the rules" for the spell (the prd, the page from the rule book, a print out of the page, or a copy of the page.)
Reading through the guide I have found out that nowhere in the guide it says you can't pass/trade wealth in form of items or gold permanently between players. SFS have this line:
Group Purchases
In Starfinder Society play, you can never buy, sell, or trade items with another player, but you may allow another player to borrow an item for the duration of an adventure.
But for Pathfinder Society there is nothing in the guide says you can't do that.
This is already causes a divide between new and old players in our local community.
Can this issue be addressed, please?
We are currently looking at how and where to add this language. In the mean time, the same rule does apply. You can never buy, sell, or trade items with another player, but you may allow another player to borrow an item for the duration of an adventure.
That's interesting. So that's still more 'in-world' calculation than real-world PFS decision?
Correct
Errenor wrote:
I did look at Spellcasting services, but there's only spell-casting costs which gives 80g for 5th level spell and doesn't explain the amount. I can't find any reference how to calculate full-day casting for a n-th level NPC. :) Maybe in Gamemastery? Don't know this book very well.
"Spells that take a long time to cast (over 1 minute) usually cost 25% more."
Probably all day should be *even* more, but someone decided to be generous.
For secondary casters the decision was made to assume that they cost half as much as the primary caster. (It doesn't really spell out how much they cost.)
Actually, the spells are being cast at a quite substantial discount as: "uncommon spells typically cost at least 100% more, if you can find someone who knows them at all."
So really "in world" the base costs should be closer to 400 gp or more.
Why is it so high? (Not the in-world reasons, these are imaginable.) Base ritual costs are 75xlvl, but PFS costs are 75xlvl+125 for the first levels range. It's about 4x character wealth at the 3rd level! What's the point?
I am guessing you are asking (specifically) about how the prices in the Spellcasting Services Cost sheet were calculated?
The "Cost" in the spell/ritual entry is the cost of the Material Component for the spell. You *also* have to pay the person who casts the spell (See spellcasting services in core rule book, page 294.)
More on how this is calculated:
Note that the chart there starts at level 0 (not level 1) since there is a boon that allows you to purchase those spellcasting services as if the target was 1 level lower.
So, you can see that the base "Resurrect" spell, which requires 1 (9th level) primary caster, 2 secondary casters (each competent enough to reliably succeed on a DC 27 skill check), and a full day to cast costs 200 gp, in addition to the Material Component Cost.
(This is part of the reason why the price jumps *dramatically* at 11th, 13th, 15th, etc level, as those are the levels where the spellcaster has to be a higher level as well, and the ritual requires *more* secondary casters, and thus the spell casting services cost as well as the material costs increase.)
That extremely high cost is why there exist ways other than gold to bring characters back (essentially "calling in favors" from the pathfinder society to offset the gold cost.)
In terms of Treasure Bundles, Resurrection starts being feasible at about 9th level (which makes sense as it is a 5th level ritual.) Starting at level 9, Resurrect costs between 15 and 20 Treasure Bundles. (Or spread across a table of 5, about 3-4 TB per PC.)
If you have a member of the Envoy's Alliance at the table, with the "Bring them Back Alive" boon, that drops to closer to 10-15 TB (starting at 10th level) Or 2-3 TB.
So I would spend that 8+4 or 8+8+8 back to back, but then would need a session to be able to gain and use more?
Yes. Or more accurately, you would need to use it all before you entered your next session.
Note that for a field commission, in an AP, you would actually apply *6* downtime units: 8+4 | 8+4 | 8+4 (at each of the | you would apply 4 XP as well, and check to see it you had leveled up.)
Ravingdork wrote:
Nothing carries over past said session, whether or not it's used?
In general, that is correct, the only things that carry over are gold, XP, reputation, and things you have bought / used.
Ravingdork wrote:
Does that unit grouping apply anywhere else on a chronicle, such as with gold?
Are you asking if you lose unspent gold from treasure bundles? No, you keep all the gold you earn (at least until you spend it.) But you could not (for example) bank treasure bundles and wait to convert them to gold at a higher level.
Adventure Mode is used for adventures not published for society play, and allows the GM more freedom to adapt those adventures, including running the adventure in Pathfinder using GM house rules, and the ability to alter encounters and statistics found in the adventure.
Per clarification from leadership that means it must pass 3 tests:
It must be
Recognizably Pathfinder.
Recognizably the same story.
Recognizably the same setting.
As long as those are all met, you can earn ACP each time and 1 chronicle for GMing, and 1 chronicle for playing.
(Starfinder is governed by essentially identical rules, however replace "Pathfinder" with "Starfinder"
The Pine Leshy boon from Pathfinder #176: Lost Mammoth Valley is required to unlock Defensive Needles (as it is a limited option)
It not only unlocks the "limited" restriction, it *also* grants access.
"access to this additional heritage, the other uncommon leshy feats on page 77, and any common-rarity options with the leshy trait available in the campaign, "
As such, the boon can be applied to a cactus leshy to grant them access to Defensive Needles.
(This has been confirmed as permitted by Alex Speidel)
No. That language was very intentionally written. It applies only to the contents of adventures. Not rulebooks.
Though I do have to say that Additional Resources: Character Options are not written very clearly and aren't very easy to understand. I think there should be a sentence which explicitly says that to use an option you need both 'access' and 'Resource Ownership'. That 'access' is a term inside rules system which only deals with rarity, Availability and level restrictions sometimes. And resource ownership is another deal.
Because I have trouble explaining all this. And not to a novice at all. I have almost nothing to quote and sentences like this: "Access: Players can access uncommon or rare options via access points built into the campaign. If you satisfy the access condition specified in that option, then that option is freely available to you, and you can purchase it or take it at character level up/creation" don't help (that's from the organized play guide). The sentence reads as if you need only access and if you have it, you need nothing else.
Also, boons from specials, which are only useful when you have that one book, are a little sad. But that's another matter.
The section in the guide is just a quick summary of the rules. And ends with a link to the full rules on using options from other books. Since you need to go to that link to see if an option from another book is even legal, we don't duplicate the full rules in the guide.
Quote:
Character Options: All of the ancestries, backgrounds, and classes from the Core Rulebook are available to you when creating a character. You might need to spend Achievement Points to access some ancestries and options from other books before you can use them in organized play. More information on approved resources can be found in the Character Options Document
Rarity: Some options within the game have a rarity trait of uncommon, rare, or unique. Options without a rarity trait are considered common. Rarity is described on page 13 of the Core Rulebook.
Access: Players can access uncommon or rare options via access points built into the campaign. If you satisfy the access condition specified in that option, then that option is freely available to you, and you can purchase it or take it at character level up/creation, but it does not become common. Pathfinder Society characters are enrolled members of the Pathfinder Society organization in the world of Golarion, so they gain access to all options requiring membership in the Pathfinder Society.
If you follow that link, you get the full rules on access and ownership, including the following.
Quote:
Using Options: Resource Ownership
Using Options From Other Sources
To use an option from any source other than those discussed above in Pathfinder Society play, you must bring any one of the following to your game table:
A physical copy of the book you wish to use
A name-watermarked PDF copy of the book
Name-watermarked printouts of all relevant pages you wish to use from the PDF
Access to the rules you wish to use in the form of either electronic access to the Pathfinder Reference Document (paizo.com/prd) or a photocopy of the relevant pages, along with proof of purchase, such as a receipt from a game store or a screenshot of your My Downloads page on paizo.com.
The following do not satisfy this requirement:
A photocopy of a physical book with no proof of purchase
Printouts from electronic character builders such as Hero Lab
Content reproduced in other sources under the Open Gaming License (such as an online reference document or a homemade omnibus)
In addition to the copy of the rules themselves, you must be able to provide a digital or physical copy of the below Additional Resources page for that source to show that the options you have selected for your character are legal for play.
"Ownership of Adventures or Adventure Path volumes is not required to use Character Options printed on Chronicle Sheets in the Pathfinder Society campaign, as long as option rules are referenced from the official Pathfinder Resource Document (prd)."
Does this or something else allow not having rulebooks, when options from them are printed on Chronicle Sheets?
For example, Deathtouched Explorer and Book of the Dead:
** spoiler omitted **
No. That language was very intentionally written. It applies only to the contents of adventures. Not rulebooks.
There are a small number of options published in adventures that are themselves inside a rulebook. (I believe there is one in Book of the Dead.) Options from those adventures, granted by the chronicles from those adventures, do not require the rulebook.
That same section on Downtime Activities tells us "Only one crafting project may be started during a Downtime Unit". A "Downtime Unit" is 8 Days.
So if you spent your usual 4 Days preparing to Craft something (or 2 Days if you have that Boon that I can't recall right now), but you failed at your Crafting check, you'd have to find something else to do with your remaining 4 (or 6) Days.
I've noticed that GMs tend to allow a second attempt at the crafting if the first one fails. Sometimes it's because this is the SAME project so it still counts as 'only one crafting project during this downtime unit'. Or sometimes because the failure result of the crafting activity seems to explicitly allow you to start over. Sometimes that phrase is even thought to mean something entirely different, about starting a second crafting project before the first one is complete. You or I might not agree with either of those interpretations, but they're common.
The relevant rule is actually higher up the page:
Quote:
Downtime
Downtime is spent in Downtime Units of up to 8 days at a time. If a character earns 8 days or fewer of downtime, it is spent in a single unit. If they earn more than 8 days, the character spends units of 8 days, one at a time, until 8 or fewer days remain, then spends the remaining days as a single unit. Multiple different activities can occur in a single downtime unit, but you can only ever roll once for a given activity in any given unit.
the "Only one crafting project may be started during a Downtime Unit." is just an amplification of that rule.
Broadened the ability to receive harm in place of heal and oils of unlife in place of healing potions as starting consumables to apply to *any* time you would receive one of those from the society and it's allies. (For example, if your character relies on Negative Healing and you receive healing potions during a briefing, or on reporting back part way through a mission, you can request and receive an oil of unlife of the same level instead.)
Starfinder Society is a series of 4 hour adventures called Scenarios. Each scenario gives 1 XP, 2 Reputation. After ever 3 adventures. the character goes up a level.
Attack of the Swarm is an Adventure Path. It is not explicitly designed for Society Play, you can play the adventure without filling out anything. But if you like, you *can* fill out the chronicles and give some credit to your society PCs.
Each player can get an ID by visiting paizo.com/organizedplay and click on the “New Players Create an Account” button.
That will give the player an ID. They will also need to chose a character to assign the credit to. This will probably be their first character -701. (Starfinder character numbers start at 701 and go up from there.
AP chronicles give 3 XP (The same as 3 scenarios, and enough to take you up one level.) They give 5 reputation. (Slightly less than 3 scenarios that were all fully successful.)
Achievement Points will be awarded automatically by the system when you report the adventure online.
To report the game, you log into your account, go to the link above, and go to the "GM/Event coordinator" tag and create a new event.
(More on this later, but I have to go pick up a kid from school.)
SAME NAME: "cannot select multiples of the same boon"
This is ultimately the clause I came here to ask about. Originally, there was only one Basic Hireling. So, clearly, you could not "select multiple" Basic Hirelings to slot.
But that has since changed, with the Boons going online. There are now 4 different Basic Hireling Boons. They are each their own download. Different files. Different names.
The change seems intentional to me, but I've been burned so many times in the past making basic assumptions that I feel the need to get my ducks in a row before doing anything these days.
Circling back to this: Official word from Leadership is that those are all the same boon (Basic Hireling.) Separating the 4 flavors of Basic Hireling is purely for tracking and convenience.
Most of the changes are minor clarifications (No, you can't start a harmful emanation and then walk over to your fellow PCs unless you get their consent first. No, you can't leave the table "early" after playing a scenario for 12 hours and get 12 XP from a 4 XP scenario.)
The new Season of Shattered Sanctuary backgrounds have been added under Legacy Backgrounds
The Promotional Boons have been updated on the Player Rewards page. While Vestments and Campaign Service Coin are largely unchanged, (Vestments now covers a much wider array of apparel, but the effect is unchanged) Accessories has now been expanded into 3 different categories (Worn Accessory, Rules Reference, Other Item) and has (correspondingly) 3 new effects.
The Sticky first post is by Alex Spiedel. That was intended to allow him to update it as needed. But I probably need to remind him to update those links. (ETAS: It looks like one of those is being proxied, but the proxy itself is not *quite* right. I should be able to put a fix in on the OPF site to make those links take you to the correct pages, at least as a temp patch until I can get Alex's post fixed.)
Thanks for that. The strange thing is, I can find it with your link, but I can't "reverse engineer" where you found that. Looking under Player Basics, etc., this information just isn't on there.
It should be shortly after "After the game"
If you still can't find it
Please contact me at:
Spoiler:
Discord: FLite#7088
Or
Email: jared@thalernet.com
So we can figure out why it isn't showing up on your device.
We are working on figuring out a way to let players/gms look up the text of those boons using the chronicle id code. (As especially for Adventures, GMs and players might want to decide what character to assign the chronicle to based on the boon text.)
But there are non trivial manpower and technical hurdles.
One of the technical constraints is that whatever methodology we use should not show the text of the boons unless the person has entered the correct id code, and boons should appear in searches (either by the site itself or by search engines.)
The man power constraints rely on having one or more people who can regularly add boons as they are issued *and* update them as they are changed.
I'm kind of afraid to ask, but how does this affect things like the granted access to weapons in the FAQ? Someone from Tian-Xia still has access to Katana, but it's no longer Common for them? Am I interpreting that correctly? I think there are a few corner cases where that might matter (like Tengu from Brevoy getting proficiency with the Aldori Dueling Sword from Tengu Weapon Familiarity).
Not specifically relevant to this thread, so you might want to bring it over to the May update thread where it will be more visible.
Tengu from the Broken Lands and Aldori Dueling Sword / Tengu Weapon Familiarity was *specifically* one of the examples I asked about when ironing out the language.
The answer was that no, having *access* to the sword (or any other option) does not make it common, unless a rule in a book says otherwise.
For an example of when access *would* make something common, see the "Hook Sword"
"Access If the player character come from a region in Tian Xia, this weapon is common"
So, now that everything is nailed down and worked out, I wanted to come back and follow up on this.
Due to the strange interactions making things common had with various components of the system, PFS is going back to rarities never changing.
This means that if you have access to a scroll of an uncommon spell, the spell is still uncommon. If you have access to the scroll *and* possess the scroll, you can learn the spell from the scroll. After you have done so, you can prepare and cast the spell. (Though the spell itself remains uncommon.)
Finally, PVP combat is not permitted in Paizo Organized Play. Previously, engaging in PVP combat would earn Infamy, but Infamy is not meant to be a consequence for out-of-game behavior. You may not fight other players’ characters unless the scenario calls for it for some extremely specific reason.
Can't find it super well on the guide at the moment Obviously this is a good rule to have in place, but my mind goes to very fringe circumstances (like dominate or knocking out a dominated PC to prevent bad stuff). I'm sure what's here is a super brief overview, but that's just what came to my mind.
the guide wrote:
No Character-versus-Character Combat
In keeping with the “Cooperate” theme of the Starfinder Society, engaging in non-consensual character-versus-character conflict is prohibited. While accidental friendly fire happens due to missed attack rolls or other factors, players must obtain the consent of other players before deliberately including fellow PCs in damaging effects. This rule does not apply in situations where a character is not acting of their own free will, such as if they’re being mind-controlled by an NPC and forced to attack a fellow Starfinder.
The PFS language is more or less identical. (just replace starfinder with pathfinder)
Did the table of consumables change sometime? I remember the Generalist getting access to a little more healing than the default option, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
So... Funny thing. With the exception of one level, the generalist's healing option was *always* better than the "Default" option, such that there was no reason a generalist would ever take the default option over the generalists healing. (There is one level where they get to pick between 2 minor potions or one lesser, IIRC so which is better is kind of situational.)
So we just made the generalists healing option their default.
If you compare the generalists "default" column, to everyone else's "Default" column, you will see that it is *slightly* better.
It isn't incorrect. Just incomplete, I think, for what you are asking. When you gain Access to something Uncommon, you treat that thing as Common. So in an example like JTT talked about, where a boon grants Access to a spell, you can go right ahead and prepare it, add it to your repertoire (via level up or retraining), etc.
When the Uncommon thing on a chronicle is a scroll, that means you treat that scroll as Common. There isn't any "once the scroll is Common, automatically treat the spell on it as Common and don't bother Learning the Spell" rule.
This. I am 99% sure I know the answer. I am waiting to get that last 1% nailed down before I post definitively in my guide persona.
I have the answer to this now, working on making sure the language is correct, then I will post it.