Quishadi's page

This is magic, and so I don't understand the distinction. The item has a constant effect. It's not triggered, so it should remain while polymorphed. (BTW - it's going to be in a worn wayfinder.) And how is the wording for this item's effect any different from the wording in spells like Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, Stone Tell, Tongues or Awaken. With magic, it appears that only intelligence is needed in order to speak, not the specific ability to form sounds. I think Awaken in particular speaks to this. Is there an official ruling you can point me to?

First off, this is not a question about Druid and Wildshape.

Can a PC use the Gold Nodule Ioun Stone [This stone grants you the ability to comprehend, speak, read, and write a single language (chosen by the ioun stone's creator).] to speak while polymorphed into an animal using beast shape?

I'm sorry if this has already been asked and answered - I looked but couldn't find it. I also checked the FAQ.

If you have improved grapple, you get not only a bonus to CMB for grapple maneuvers, but also a bonus to CMD to resist such maneuvers. Given that the attempt to break a grapple can in fact be used to reverse the grapple, shouldn't it be the case that the roll is against the "grapple" CMD rather than the base CMD? I mean, it seems kind of silly that it would be easier to grapple someone by reversal than by initiating a grapple, doesn't it?

Thanks.

I'll only say that I agree with the OP - I think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

I do think that the system has been gamed in the past, especially before the strict tier rules. I know in my area there were some people running friends/family through scenarios at higher tiers to maximize wealth. I do know that it sucks to run/play with these people at the table. I think that just a few of these people can ruin games.

So I welcome the proposed change. I also think that people who are worried about mustering are exaggerating, maybe not intentionally, but still exaggerating. If people want to play this game (and I think that they do), they'll keep coming and this will wash itself out over time.

One point I think was valid - extra player options in books are also pushing the power curve up, up, up. I'm also in favor of tighter/quicker control over "broken" combos as they become known.

One thing I don't completely like is the "falling through the cracks" you get from players who don't fall into either tier. For this reason, I think that all levels in the overall range should be accounted for when listing found gold. In other words, when playing 3-7, not only should the 3-4 and 6-7 gold amounts be listed, but a 5th level gold amount should also be listed. Wealth fits on a curve, so doing this should really be a no-brainer.

One other thing I think might be needed is the institution of a "widows and orphans fund" clause that makes it possible for people to play up (for the good of the table) without being bankrupted by a bad turn of events. What I'm talking about would be something to decrease the cost of removing conditions and even death should it occur when playing out of tier - maybe on a sliding scale depending on level vs. tier played.

Summary: I like the change. Make more changes to curb power-creep - I would like that even more. In this case, add out of tier gold amounts and maybe add a fund to aid lower level players' out of tier condition removal expenses should they need to play up.

Thanks JA - I understand that MB is the coordinator of the campaign and that this is an official ruling with respect to the campaign. (I'm still not sure whether it is official for Pathfinder as a whole.) However, my point, I think, still stands: The wording of the ability is confusing. A table full of people read these rules and all separately misinterpreted RAW. We split on RAI, but still half even thought that RAI was a d6 of d6s. Further, others in this and the other thread I linked to have read the rule and misinterpreted it (though most thought they knew what it is supposed to mean).

Honestly, I looked at it and thought "it must mean +/- 1d6 ... anything else seems ridiculous." However, the table was pretty evenly split as to what each of us thought it was supposed to mean. All of us reread it and agreed that RAW = the player should roll 1d6 and that's how many fewer or extra dice (and channeling dice are d6s) the cleric should roll (So if Brock is official, we were all wrong). However half of us believed that RAI = RAW and the other half of us insisted that RAI = +/- 1d6. As it turned out, 7d6 or 2d6 were equally effective, and the cleric was actually never able to get another channel off for the rest of the adventure. But still this was not obvious to any of us. So, if we're any indication, there will be definite confusion as to what this means. In fact, follow my link and you'll see that there's already one poster who plans to make a Whimsical Channeler based on their reading of the subdomain power. I wonder how many players have already done so?

Michael Brock - am I to take what you have said to be an official ruling that it is only +/- 1d6?

Nefreet - I agree, I think you have the correct intended wording, and I would like to see it placed in the FAQ.

Thanks everyone for your input.

This is both a rules question and a PFS question.

Here are the details in a thread I started in the GM section: Player's Cleric Build.

For those who don't want to follow that link, here is the wording for Whimsical Channel:

Aside from that, there is also the question of whether the wording in the Separatist Cleric Archetype allows the player to pick sub-domains as well as domains.

I don't believe that those sub-domains are for Aasimar only, but even if they are, the race is legal and with rebuild between 1st and 2nd level, it's certainly doable for this player. I do think we need a ruling on this.

Hi - I had a player at a game yesterday and some things came up that I wasn't sure how to deal with.

1. The character's build. Human Separatist Cleric of Pharasma.

Separatist

Does this wording "second domain" allow the cleric to choose any domain or *subdomain*?

2. The subdomain's power.

Whimsical Channel

Dice? Does it really add *DICE*? Not just 1d6 more or less or 1d6 + some number base on level more or less? I mean seriously, this is potentially encounter ending/breaking/destroying, especially at low levels (because there is NO scaling). Any encounter in a low tier mod, from the easy first encounter to the difficult boss fight can, on one chance roll, be ended right then and there - period. Also, there is actually no downside at all to a 1st or 2nd level cleric using this (minimum of 1d6 is always channeled). While the expected value of this does not look that impressive, given the extremely large variance and the lower limit of always channeling at least 1d6 ... well it certainly doesn't compare with the other 3 + Wis mod domain powers, that much is clear. If this really is the way that the power works, why is it allowed in PFS? I know that none of you can really tell me the answer to this, and I think it's unlikely that a Paizo rep will weigh in on it, but in case I and my players are all totally misreading this, I thought I'd ask.

BTW - the player whipped this out - brand new 1st level cleric - and rolled a 6 followed by a 6 and then did 7d6 of damage (she's a negative channeler) to all enemies. How many do you think were standing? Guess... I mean, this *is* a 1st level character right?

3. Some of the finer points of selective channeling.

(a) Can a cleric with selective channeling exclude individuals that have 100% concealment, but that she is aware of?
(b) Can a cleric with selective channeling exclude individuals she will affect with her channel but that she is otherwise totally unaware of?

Thanks.

Played it once and ran it once. Both times the Imp started out visible, but quickly went invisible. However, neither time was there really any problem dealing with it.
Related to what Spellbane said:

(Disclaimer - I played this once, but didn't face the haunt, though heard about it, and am preparing to run it at some point in the future ... which is why I was interested in this thread.)

Elephant in the room = haunts are complicated, poorly understood, inconsistently run and often lead to a bad player experiences. Argue all you want, defend them all you want, clarify them piecemeal all you want - between this thread, other threads and my own personal experience, I have no doubt that haunts have been poorly executed to the point that they cannot be consistently run.

Beyond this, I think the expectations as to the level of PC optimization and player professionalism (i.e. the degree to which the players treat this hobby like a job) have risen sharply during the third season. This is at a time when we are getting an influx of casual players from the dwindling organized play options available for 4E. I know the base has been asking for more challenge, but I don't think that pandering to the base is always a good thing. Deadly encounters (i.e. reasonable likelihood of a one shot KO or even death), especially in low tier games, don't seem like a good idea to me, and aren't likely to draw in and keep new players. I understand that not everyone can be made happy, but I think that right now the scenario writers and campaign organizers are aiming at the (at least somewhat) optimized, hard-core and vocal GMs/players.

Finally, it is obvious that thrikreed feels strongly about this - to the point that he intends to not play any more PFS. I personally know of 3 other players in my area who have made a similar vow and have so far followed through (despite my repeated invitations). I know of one other player who has made a similar vow and is in the process of trying again - but it's obvious that past experiences have "left a bad taste in his mouth."

These are just my thoughts and anecdotal observations. Take them however you want.

I've got to agree with Daniel. I knew that there was supposed to be a story to tell, but the way it was run for us, the haunts just seemed like random horrible effects messing with any of the party members who could not run away fast enough. Honestly, I have almost never had a good experience with haunts. Further, more then one GM has seemed almost gleeful in unleashing them on us - and I split my play between a fairly small group and conventions so I do get to see a variety of GMs.

Good Call on the no changing ability scores! Folks rigged their scores to take advantage of the system with a obviously OP class. They got caught and now they get to keep their scores :D

Got caught? Doing what - playing within the rules? You're not the only person who has said something like this in the posts above, and I have to say that all of it sounds rather vindictive to me.

I personally want the broken archetypes, features, etc done away with in PFS, and I think that this is a good first step. At the same time, Paizo and the campaign organizers need to realize that when Paizo publishes something and then PFS gives it the thumbs up, players expect that they are doing nothing wrong when they decide to play these twice-vetted characters. Yes, the Synthesist Summoner is OP - but it was OP the second it was available, and it didn't take a genius to figure that out. And I think if you look on these very boards, you will see that this was pointed out and complained about time and again. (As a side note: I do not have a Synthesist Summoner.)

The described remedy, while gracious, does not speak to the specifics of this build's problems. One of the bigger problems with this build is that it begs for stat dumping - you get to overlay a suit of living armor that entirely makes up for all of your deficiencies. This is further heightened by the fact that the character is built with spell-caster stats, but aimed at melee combat, often multi-classed with levels in other melee combat classes. So now, with this remedy they are stuck with levels in a melee class that cannot be changed (because they are unaffected by the ruling) and stats that do not in any way support that class.

Again - I don't have a Synthesist, and further I want broken stuff out of the campaign, but this feels wrong. By so narrowly defining these rebuild rules, it feels almost punitive.

Thank you all for your answers.

Doesn't anyone know the answer to this? I honestly cannot find an actual definition for "magical light source"!

Simple case: I cast elemental body IV (7th level wiz/sor spell). Am I now a 7th level magical light source able to shine brightly in an area of deeper darkness, or because the spell does not have the *light* key-word, does it do nothing to the deeper darkness?

Hi I just want a clarification to make sure that I'm understanding light and darkness in Pathfinder correctly.

For a source to be considered a "Magical" light source, does it need to be a spell or magical effect with the "light" key-word or that is described specifically as a "magical light source"?

I just want to make sure that effects that clearly produce light, such as fire or lightning spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities, but that are neither given the "light" key-word nor described as being a magical light source, are in fact NOT magical light sources. The light they shed is instead treated as incidental environmental effects that cannot affect magical darkness.

So do I have that right? Or would something like a firewall (or a admixtured lightning wall) or an elemental body (I'm specifically thinking of a fire elemental) be considered a magical light source and therefore affect the level of light if within the area of effect of a Darkness or Deeper Darkness spell?

Thanks.

Midnight_Angel beat me to it! One level of Heavens Oracle is all you need. Not sure about the research point.

The saving throw is the saving throw --- you don't take off levels and recalculate them because of the Awesome Display ability. It's just that if a saving throw is failed, then what is the effect? That's when you decrease the HD of each creature affected by the spell.

Color Spray forever! ... or at least it seems that way ;-). And as many bads as you can cram in your hypnotic or rainbow pattern's area of effect ... most likely, you'll be able to fascinate them all!

I'm having trouble with this: I'm thinking about a necromancer, and I'm wondering what buff spells actually work on undead. I know desecrate buffs them, but what about other spells? I was looking at Bull's Strength, but a friend told me it won't work. I can't see why not, but I suspect he may be right. (Knowing me I read right over the reason and just kept going.) So exactly which spells can be used to buff a necromancer's undead minions?
Thanks
Q

I've been searching through the messageboard postings and I'm still confused on this.

My understanding from what I've read is that Augment Summoning has been specifically addressed by one of the developers and it can be used to modify the monsters summoned by the Summoner's SLA. However, I'm unclear as to whether other spell modifying non-meta-magic feats also affect this SLA. Specifically I'm interested to know whether or not the Superior Summoning feat will also work with this SLA. Ultimately, it would be nice to have an FAQ entry that makes this iron-clad: All spell modifying non-meta-magic feats, only Augment Summoning or something in between.

Thanks

Q

Thanks everyone for the discussion. I have some ideas now.

Our group clearly cannot maintain even the once a week pace we were trying to set, and could never approach the 3-4 times a week pace we were able to set with LFR. We will cut back to every other week and supplement scenarios with modules and see where that gets us.

Truth is, I respect all of you and your opinions, and it's been interesting to hear about the different experiences each of you have had and how in many cases they are very different from my own. I have only played in the one other living campaign (LFR), and clearly living campaigns are not all the same. I don't have the LC or LG experience to draw on for comparison that many of you have, and it's clear that you guys have put a lot of thought and effort into crafting and maintaining this campaign. I may not agree with every decision, but I like PF and PFS both enough that I'm going to tough it out and try to stick with it.

Keep on talking about this if you want, but I for one have vented my frustration, heard some interesting responses, and am satisfied. I also do understand a little better where you're coming from.

Have a good one.

Q

Dragon - I obviously didn't read those threads ... just too huge. (I shudder to think that this thread might be headed in that direction.)

I did read your post about the day you quit LFR. Definitely I saw stuff like that. I never ran like that or for those sorts of people ... but I did see it. But that's beside the point. I can only say that in the area where I play I've found scheduling PFS games so that a group of people (not just our group) can all play together to be difficult.

I will also say that I've played LFR and PFS at DexCon, Dreamation, and PFS at Mepacon, and LFR always starts on time and the game that is scheduled always gets run, but not PFS. Maybe it's just those three cons, but things never start on time, and sometimes the scheduled game doesn't even run. People sign up that can't play. People that didn't sign up show up. They're all hoping that enough people will have done the same in order to spin off a table they can play on. I've seen tables delayed by as much as an hour while things are sorted out. If you don't think that leads to some sloppy sessions when 4 hours turns into 3.5 or 3, your crazy.

LFR had/has it problems, and replay may well add to them, but knowing why I and many of my friends quit, replay was far from topping the list. (If you even care to know, it was powercreep [on steriods], free rewrites [to take advantage of powercreep], and rampant cheezing ... it became impossible to challenge the players without being a jerk at the same time. My wife and daughter will only play/run heroic tier for this reason. Aside from the item cherry picking that one other person mentioned, replay has very little to do with any of that.)

There are challenges in running PFS, and while you may not want to admit it, no-replay is one of them. For organizers, VCs and the like that mostly DM, you might not see it that way, but when the heavy players in my area get together, like at a con, seating a table can be frustrating and it wastes time. When things are known to be tightly scheduled, people who can't seat a legal character just don't come. I've even seen fudging the replay for no credit thing people have talked about ... I just didn't realize everyone was so open about it.

And that's the thing I find strange: most of you don't seem to care if things are replayed anyway (rules or no) ... just not for credit. I really don't get that.

Im aware of what the rule says, but to answer your further question, the rules do not say you cannot replay as often as you like, as long as you replaying is 1) Okayed by the GM of the scenario in question, and 2)You are replaying for the purpose of filling the table. Personally, I add another condition to it, being 3) That you are willing to take a back seat, and let the people who are actually playing the scenario the first time do the roleplay work.

As long as you stick to those, it's fine.

If you and your group dont want to run or play without receiving credit, that's fine. It's your own business, but that unwillingness is part of what is causing your problem.

With 6 in our group, under #2 we cannot replay. Even if that were not the case, I freely admit that there would be reluctance, but not complete unwillingness. At the same time, should one or more of us be expected to play for weeks on end with no credit? Is it right that one person always has to run because there is nothing left that he can play (without repeating)? I also know that for a lot of our old LFR friends, no replay is a non-starter, and for some that tried, it was a constant source of complaint.

Are there alternatives? Yes, we can split up and at least one of us go off to another group (if one can be found), and the rest of us play as you suggest. But is that right? I don't see how this doesn't speak to some level of deficiency or flaw in the campaign design.

godsDMit - The rules actually say:

You are free to replay a scenario in order to meet the minimum legal table size (see Chapter 7).

Even in this case, the rules also say that it's up the the DM as to whether or not you can actually do this. Beyond that and some other more extreme cases, you are not supposed to repeat play at all, and can never have more then two chronicle sheets for a scenario: one for playing and one from DMing.

In reading the posts above, it seems that these rules are largely (except for the two chronicle sheet part of the rules), and quietly ignored. But yes, even beyond this, the players and potential DMs in my area are not very willing to play a non-home-game with no chance for character advancement. At that point it is a social thing, which from my point of view isn't terrible, but from experience is also not something that can sustain *our* gamers' interests. (As I said before we all have home games ... computers ... and other distractions.)

I'm interested though ... If so many of you seem to think it's perfectly alright to replay as often as you want, just not for credit, what is the rationale for not replaying for credit. I'm starting to realize that most of you are not actually following the rules in your approach to the campaign, but I'm wondering: Why do you support the rules?

Michael - Our previous DM set up an event for us to use, but we haven't connected in weeks for him to enter the sessions. Our group has 5 outstanding sessions that need to be entered right now. I've been trying to avoid changing the chronicle sheets to use a different event and event code, but I may have to. He's supposed to stop by at our game this Sunday, but if he doesn't, I guess I'll have to break down and take matters into my own hands....

Like I said, we all have home games. The three of us (wife, daughter and myself) play in a Jade Reagent game every other Monday (my wife actually runs). But this was supposed to be our Organized Play fix. We like the OP format a lot ... the games are episodic ... people can show up if they're able. Or at least that's the way we were approaching it. It worked well with LFR, but apparently PFS requires more discipline. For us, home games are like a meal, but OP was supposed to be like a fluffy dessert ;-). Again, we may just be looking at this all wrong.

deusvult - I personally think that the once-per-faction rule that used to part of PPP was reasonable ... but I guess it was causing some other issues? I'm not going to go hunting through messageboard archives to find out, but the organizers must have thought they were protecting the campaign from something by eliminating it.

To what you said about the 1st level adventures: Do you really think that playing the same few "adventures" (what are there 2 "paths" that will take you from 1st to 2nd level?) over and over again is an answer? If there is worry that replaying modules will lead to cheating? ... less enjoyment? ... maybe a more mechanical approach to the game? ... then what does that say about these modules? It seems to me that as the *only* replay options, they will quickly become stale. At the same time, their existence, while understandable from the point of view of trying to be new-player-friendly, also seems hypocritical. I also think, from our experience, as a group trying to play together, but also trying to be open to new members, that it is ... a sham. We just got the new player I spoke of above, and beyond one of those gateway "paths," I don't know how we continue to include him ... and continue to play as a group ... and go to conventions and play with other people we see only rarely or have never met before. I just don't see how *we* do that. I get it. It's working for some ... maybe even most of you. Not so much for us.

Honestly, the rules as written = play PFS less. If that's the goal, then that's the goal. We just have to live with it.

Robert - Thanks for the clarification ... and for the example.

The general consensus was if you played twice a month then this problem pretty much went away.

Okay ... so I guess the consensus is less PF, not more. But at the same time, I don't think that this takes into account people who go to conventions. It seems to me that PFS can easily support someone who primarily games at conventions, or someone who games with a regular group at a home or local game store, but not an intersection of the two.

Purple - I am running almost all the games now (I think I'm up to 9), which means that our old DM can't play with us (either for credit or legally) anymore ... he's played all of the low level mods already.

New development - we have a new-to-PFS player, and we're pretty much out of mods we can run through. ... I know - the 1st level path, right? But what after that? I guess we can invite our old DM back and run two tables of three ... but then we're not playing together anymore. I just don't think that this is going to work the way we want it to.

I know that many of you think that I am exaggerating or that there is some fudging going on, but there isn't. We have a spreadsheet of all the scenarios out there, and all of us. We are trying to follow the rules. It's just not working very well for us.

Andrew - I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I have been playing for a long time, it's true, but I pretty much skipped 3/3.5 and went straight to 4, then back-tracked to PF (or went forward depending on who you talk to). I still remember the TSR modules with the level range (e.g. 4-7) listed in the top right corner. That's the first thing I thought of when I heard starting level. I assumed that starting level meant the first level in a range of levels. (The word starting implies that there are other levels in a range or list, does it not?) When I looked at the chronicle sheets for a few of the modules, I thought my suspicions were confirmed ... I saw ranges. I have actually never held a Paizo module in my hands. I've seen an adventure path module and inside it said something like this module will take you from 1st to 4th level ... again a range of levels. I did not realize that Paizo modules have a single level associated with them. Sorry.

Natertot - The gamestore was organizing via warhorn, but stopped because of low turn-out (and maybe laziness). Now that it's fallen to me, I have a list of people who have played in the past and I blast out an email once a week to see who can play. Based on that and the email, I suggest scenarios. It's just getting harder and harder to find scenarios everyone can play. The 3-7 scenarios from season 3 are welcome, but like I said ... those are off limits because of the Con.

(And it would be unfair to say that the no-repeat rule shouldn't affect anything and then at the same time discount this "con" problem that I'm having. Whether you want to believe it or not, repeating is on people's minds.)

nosig - sounds like you have critical mass! Still, even with the flexibility of more tables, I probably wouldn't be able to play with my wife and my friend with his girl ... we'd be at the big person table.

sveden - OP means organized play.

Thanks all for the advice.

To those who marvel at the number of scenarios "I've played," know that I am not talking about all scenarios, just mostly the lower level ones, and not just ones I've played, but ones at least three people have played. (BTW, I have 5 characters: 9, 8, 4, 4, 1.) I want to play with my wife who only has 2 low level characters. Our friend wants to play with his girl friend who also only has one low level character. We can't do that easily. Think about it. I've played games. The guy with the girl friend has played games. There's a third guy who has played and run about as many games as I have (9, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1). Throw in the other occasional person who has played now and then, and you can see that it gets tough. We have a spreadsheet of who has played and DMed what for the 7 or so regulars.

We are looking at the modules (not scenarios), but we don't have a long enough time block to run them. Also, many of the season three mods are off limits because of the upcoming Con. (People want to play those at the con, not at the game store.) We have fun ... a lot of fun, and we're always looking to recruit, but it's just not easy and its getting harder. I agree, if we had more players we would have more flexibility but we just don't have them on a regular basis. We have to play with the people we have or not at all.

The most frustrating thing is that we are trying to share this hobby with others and the OP rules don't seem to want us to ... at least not and play with those people at the same time ... they can go off by themselves and play.

Andrew - I have played almost all of the adventures that are "lower level". As I said, this group is mostly starting out, with newer players so I'm running. Our DM has played all of the lower level stuff and cannot join us any longer (until we are all high enough level to play together again). Two other players have played more, one almost as much as I have. All together we are having trouble finding lower level games we can play together.

sveden - We do other fun things together ... including home games. Just not OP anymore.

Matt - you mean 4.1, right?

Michael - Thanks for weighing in. I have only played in two OP campaigns, LFR and PFS. LFR is dying ... it's already dead where we play, but I know it wasn't because of replay. (Honestly, if LFR had a DM reward program like PFS, I think it might still be going. Well, with Essentials and a BOOK full of errata, maybe not ... but I think it would have lasted longer.) At the same time PFS can't seem to get off the ground, and I know it is largely because of replay. I can only tell you what I know personally. My experience certainly isn't as far-reaching and varied as yours.

But ... since I've got you "on the line" and you mentioned all of the modules that are available. One related problem I'm having - I can't get the con regulars to play much at all, especially the newer mods. They don't want to waste their one shot at playing those mods at a game store rather than a convention. Right now we have a local con scheduled for Fed 23-26 that's running the seven most recent season 3 mods, so no one wants me to schedule those. On occasion, those players will show up to play a mod they're missing, but that certainly doesn't feel like community...

nosig - different experiences I guess. For us, the LFR replay rules meant that we could get together and spin off extra tables as needed, or even play on a moments notice. These were all people driving long distances to play ... coming in from NYC, south Jersey ... all over. The store owner tried to get PFS going with something even resembling the same turnout, but with no luck. I decided to try and carry the torch, but I'm getting frustrated. These players don't want to hassle with traffic for a game they're not getting credit for. They'd rather engage in the empty "shared" experience of an MMORPG [shudder].

Honestly, If I could get enough people for multiple tables, I think we would actually be better off. We might have the flexibility to deal with the scheduling problems we're having now. I mean, we have to keep a spreadsheet just to know who can play what (for credit)! But right now, I can't get enough people to play one table on a regular basis.

Your experience is that replay doesn't affect the size of the group, but that's not my experience. I'm getting a lot of direct negative feedback regarding this specific issue.

Enevhar - I think this was loosened a bit. Now you only require DM approval, and they are encouraged to allow it in the case where you'd be needed to make a legal table. So replaying without credit should be fairly easy most of the time.

W. Kristoph - No, like I said, coming from LFR, with unlimited replay, the play once for credit is kind of foreign to us. Most of the old LFR crowd doesn't want to make the trip out to the store to play if they're going to have nothing (except warm feelings) to show for it. (Maybe it's an east coast thing.) My daughter still comes with us, but she does homework. It's kind of a silent protest.

nosig - right now, the old DM who got us started wants to run 06 for me this Sunday because I've never played it. Only three other players are available, and one of them has already played it. He doesn't want to make the 45 minute trip so that the other three of us can play (and he's kind of miffed that we would even consider playing a game he "can't" participate in ... and he's not an LFR player, like most of you, he's a 3.5 to PF kind of guy). We are looking for something else that he "can" play.

I also find that some people will say they'll play again to be part of the group, but then, when it come to time, they have something else to do.

Like I said, this is as much about how people feel about what they're getting as it is about what they're actually getting.

nosig - like you, I can only speak to my own experiences. Our LFR community was much more active and robust - nearly everyone was there nearly every time. 1-3 tables every Thursday night and 2-4 tables twice on Sundays (no exaggeration). The PFS group picks and chooses and has never gotten over one table per Sunday. While people really like the DM for credit rule (and wish we'd had something like that in LFR), they really, really hate the play once for credit rule.

lastknightleft - you can only play once for credit, that is the rule.

Mattastrophic - I can't think of a reason to have a one-time-play for credit rule except to discourage repeat play. If not, what is it for? Regardless of intention, it does discourage repeat play. Having seen the evolution of the guide, at first it was kind of loose (I think you could replay with a different faction for credit under the PPP rule), but then it changed. I had just started playing when it changed. I know that the old LFR players (who do like PF, but are having trouble liking PFS) have this attitude like they don't want to waste their time in an OP situation without the OP upside (a character that's advancing toward something). We all have home games, and lives, and other things we could be doing, and we all travel a long way to play (most of us about 30-45 minutes, but some more than an hour).

All this information is found on page 23 in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Where do you think I got the quote from?

2) I don't understand the question. Modules only allow you to play a character within one level of the starting level of the module. Remember, the term "starting level" does not include the levels given for the range. The starting level is the level listed on the cover of the module. The range is extrapolated from the starting level.

The phrase "starting level" appears only once in the guide, and it is never explained. I looked at the chronicle sheets for some of the modules and saw level ranges (a starting and an ending level). If a module has one associated level (as Pygon and WalterGM were saying) why use wording that would indicate a range of levels. (Starting must mean that there is an ending also - no?)

Like I said before, when I read this section of the guide, I felt like I had walked in on a conversation in progress. Clearly this has been discussed before, and at least for those who were part of that discussion, the term "starting level" already has a well defined meaning. For a noob like myself, it did not.

But thank you all for your responses. I think I've got it now.

BTW - I think it would have been easier to just say "Each module has an associated chronicle sheet. A PC has to be in the level range specified on that sheet in order to play in the module."

Ok ... here's my story.

I *AM* a hardcore gamer, and have been since I was 11. I got lucky and married a girl who got into gaming also, though she's not nearly as hardcore as I am. However, from about 97 to 07 we were not able to game much and I subsisted on CRPGs (she read books ... a lot of books). So we missed the tail end of 2E, most of 3/3.5 and got back just in time for 4E. We had never done OP, and both kind of looked down on it. In my rush to get back into things, I started playing LFR at a local game shop ... and surprisingly had a lot of fun. There was this great sense of community. And then I got my wife into it ... and then our youngest daughter. (My oldest plays also, but with a different group, and not OP.) All was good with the world, and we had a lot of fun. We played and ran mods in a huge community of gamers on the east coast ... about 3 slots a week for a couple of years! But then spammed supplements killed 4E and the cheeze weezles killed LFR, and I went looking for something else. I found PFS, and I liked it. I tried to get my wife and daughter into it also, but ran into several problems that have hampered my efforts.

1. I can't replay modules, and if the table is legal, I'm not even supposed to go along for the ride. So since I've played a lot of modules (hardcore, remember), I pretty much can't play at their table.

2. They've each had bad experiences with less than fun DMs in PFS play, and they hate the fact that they can't replay with a different character and a different DM and hopefully a better experience. Because of a particularly bad experience, my daughter absolutely refuses to play PFS anymore. She's almost 17 now, and thinks it's a waste of her time to do something that might suck, with no chance of correcting it.

3. My wife will play now and then, and we're trying to get some of our old LFR friends into PFS, but #1 makes this really hard. I've started running the mods so that I can participate, but because the new players trickle in, it's hard to plan our sessions. We also want this to be the sort of community that we had with LFR, and so have been willing to let all comers join, but this has only made things worse. There is one guy with almost as many mods as I have, and he pretty much kills the number of open mods we have to work with. Another problem is that people who miss a couple sessions just don't come back. They feel like they can't catch up. And no one wants to use the slow play option - they all feel like they're getting cheated. (I know that this isn't really true, but we're dealing as much with how people feel about the situation as we are with the facts of the situation.)

4. We actually are friends with our local area Venture Captain (we play at a couple home games with him ... one is PF, one is not), and I think he's sick of our questions. We've heard the argument that replaying will mean that games get ruined by players who reveal plot, but that doesn't really fly with us. There was free replay in LFR. (And before you say anything, that is *NOT* what killed it. No, it was overall powercreep, free character rewrites, rampant cheezing, and no reward system for DMs that killed LFR.) If anything, people went out of their way to police themselves and not use out of character knowledge in game ... often in modules they had played many, many times. We rarely had a bad experience with people revealing plot, and in the rare cases where we did, a simple word was all it took. And it doesn't fly for one other reason: PFS allows it also ... without credit under PPP, and for credit in the 1st level games like We Be Goblins, etc. This alone destroys that argument.

I guess what I'm saying is that we like PF ... we know we CAN have fun with PFS ... but we're struggling to make it work because the one-time-play rules are so restrictive. We just can't recreate that sense of community that we had with LFR. The players come and go depending on what is being run - there are only a few regulars. Heck, the guy that got me into PFS doesn't even come around anymore ... he'll run without credit, but he has better things to do than play without credit.

Having played both LFR and PFS, I don't think you PFS people know what you're missing. I have played at cons, at game stores, at friend's house, but I have yet to experience that same sense of community that I had with LFR. The truth is that some loosening of the OTP rules coupled with your already existing reward system for DMing would make PFS the best of both worlds.

I know that this is a dead horse. I don't expect that this will do anything, but I still wanted to say it.

If possible, all players must use an existing Pathfinder Society character (without modification) within 1 level of the module’s starting level.

Each of these modules has a chronicle sheet that includes a level range. For example, the range might be 4-6. Here are my questions:

• If a player *DOES* have a character that is within 1 level of the module's starting level, but also has a character that is still in the level range but more than 1 level above the starting level, is he allowed to pick or does this statement make the decision for him?

• Does this statement actually adjust the range? Continuing the example, does the 4-6 range actually become 3-6? (BTW - if so, why not just extend the range on the chronicle sheets?) Or is this statement only meant to preference the lower levels? Again, continuing the example above, does it mean that characters of level 4 and 5 are preferred?
  

I have a feeling that I'm coming into a discussion that has been ongoing and that these rules were meant to address specific cases that are not clear to me. Can anyone clarify?

Dragnmoon - I know that craft skills are used in missions, and in all honesty, what you and LazarX said is what I assumed/hoped they meant. However that is *NOT* what is written. I know that the organizers are trying to limit the size of the document, but clarity should win out over brevity every time. And seriously, the the phrase "the Craft skill is not legal for play" should not have appeared anywhere in that document. That *IS* a clear statement, but apparently it is not at all what was intended.

Thank you.

...Additionally, except for specific examples cited in this guide or the Pathfinder Society FAQ, the Craft skill is not legal for play and crafting of mundane items is not allowed in Pathfinder Society....

After searching the new 4.1 guidelines and the FAQ I can find only 3 specific examples: Latern Lodge member with the Meticulous Artisan trait, Alchemist (craft alchemy), Rogue with Poisoner Archtype (craft alchemy).

Is it really the organizers' intention that these are the only PCs who can legally train a craft skill? Under "Day Job" a "trained craft" is mentioned, but by my reading, only three not many PCs can even train it?

I have a series of questions regarding the Sorcerer Undead Bloodline, specifically the in-game ramifications of its Bloodline Arcana:

• What affect can color spray have on a humanoid corporal undead when cast by a Sorcerer with the Undead Bloodline?
• Does the first sentence of the Bloodline Arcana (Some undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells) specify an absolute limit or only an example?
• Or is the second sentence of the Bloodline Arcana (Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them) really as wide open as it sounds?
• If the first sentence does describe the only way in which the rules change for this bloodline, then what of spells like color spray that are mind-affecting, but whose effects on the mind are phrased in terms of other in-game key words (in this case stun, blind and unconscious)?

That is what I assumed and what I have been told most often, but unfortunately not every DM has ruled this way. With the oracle having such a limited number of known spells, it's important to make every one of them count. I'd really like to get my hands on something definitive just so that I know for certain. If you remember where you read that, please let me know.

Hi all - I know that this has been pointed out before, but some spells that an oracle can cast are based on Wisdom [e.g. spiritual weapon], and some have two stats listed but don't explicitly mention oracle [e.g. telekinesis]. Has there been any official ruling regarding these spells and how they interact with the oracle class?

I know that this will largely be up to individual DMs, and I respect that, but I also think something official from Paizo or the PFS organizers would be really helpful for organized play. As it is, whenever I play my oracle, I have to ask how the DM at the table will handle it ... and as you might expect, there is no single answer.

Maybe I missed something in a FAQ somewhere or there's been an errata? That would be nice. Otherwise, Paizo ... please don't leave us hanging.

Thanks.