Sebastian Hirsch's page

I was tempted to take one of the OPs posts and dissect what I feel is wrong, but fortunately, I don't have to.

I 100% agree with Thursty's post, particularly since it matches my own experiences after several years of Organized Play participation, particularly from my perspective as an event organizer.

Very mixed feelings about this one ...

Seems like you have discovered a single item, so my suggestion would be that you only get to use that boon once.

Our current plans are to open registrations on the 30th of June, right now we are still waiting for a couple more GMs to sign up - or not as the case may be, before finalizing our offerings.

If you want to attend and have any requests or have needs that require special consideration, please let me know ASAP.

https://warhorn.net/events/ab-con-autumn-2019

Vidmaster7 wrote:

I know their are but you gotta admit its weird to have people that hate pf2 for vancian spell casting but played and enjoyed pf1.

I feel like i'm probably in this demographic. Vancian casting was also a drawback for me in PF1 but there were a few good alternative options for my favorite class (cleric) in the inquisitor or oracle. In PF2 you are forced to play a divine sorcerer or bard (for now) which aren't the best substitutions (and not a good match for my favorite race of dwarf).

I still want to see how 2nd edition turns out before making my decision but vancian casting is a big negative for me. Especially because one of the things i was looking forward to was heightening spells (on the fly) and vancian takes that away.

Unfortunately, the survey has apparently communicated to the developers that people like Vancian casting. Personally, I would have prefered an Arcanist style of casting.

Mixed feelings about lander, some of my PFS players hate him, and well he did not survive the CRPG Kingmaker in one of my runs.

Everything else looks very intriguing ^^

This came up recently in a discussion, a FAQ would be very welcome.

Boomstik101 wrote:

I feel like paizo is going for more of a "If you want to do x, play y class", sort of like they did for Starfinder. If you want to deal damage, play a soldier.

That's sort of my worry. IMO the fact that using certain options (particularly melee weapons and skills in SF's class) on the 'wrong' classes is such a laborious, unrewarding effort is one of the worst aspects of Starfinder as a system and one of the most common points of criticism I see leveled at the system.

Likewise seeing features that force certain classes to wear heavy armor to function properly seems needlessly concept restricting too.

Quote:

level 17 is the level for the PCs in the last playtest adventure.

I know, but in 2e it's probably not going to be the point at which most campaigns are played.

I could be wrong, but wasn't the first AP supposed to end at 20?

A question.

can i run scenario season 2. ?

Not before the official release date shown on the product page.

Jason and Erik did an interview at games UK Expo. The interview itself wasn't very spoiler-y, but they did flip through book pages. I took the time to capture the best frames where the lighting lets you see each part of the pages with a video editor and put them all HERE.

PS: Yes, I have a lot of free time and not a lot of sanity.

Thank you very much for taking the time, and for sharing it with the community.

I have mixed feelings about the new designs and how much space they take up, but the full-page illustrations look pretty damn gorgeous in the final book.

I have to agree with Bob, I played and ran some CORE games, but they are really hard to schedule since and also exclude a lot of players (everyone with a character that is not CORE).

Most of the CORE tables I have seen have been scheduled to get a particular item or chronicle boon or another reward.

While there is a distinct audience for a simpler game, I fear that for the purposes of organized play they are just a tiny minority.

I have talked to local players that eventually felt overwhelmed by the number of options, but short of curating the players I place at those tables, my hands are tied.

---

From an organizer's point of view, I already offer tables in two languages, for 3-4 systems and considering my limited resources, CORE is just not an option.

I like this one a lot, particularly for Organized Play it could enable players who want to try to sneak.

Paul Jackson wrote:

just poured salt into the wound.

that was a different scenario, with the army syste. ow ow ow couldn't resist ow ow ow i feel your pain...

Yes, but it made the scenario where you recruited the dwarven salt mining clan that much more important... and the whole expedition would surely have failed without the craft service table army.

NightTrace wrote:

Yeah, kinda like that. Lizardfolk are a thing in Pathfinder already but they have had very little emphasis placed on them, and in "D&D"/"TTRPG"s in general they have a tendency to be background antagonists that don't get a lot of focus outside of tribal levels normally.

Deciding to put a new emphasis on a humanoid race that doesn't have a lot of existing canonical baggage within the system or historical stereotypes from other IPs makes them an engaging choice as a writer. They're not an explicit blank slate, but they're open enough to interpretation that you can make them your own. :)

But somehow also make them distinct from Nagagi, Vishkanya, and Serpentfolk. And Kobolds.

Excellent point, and after the playtest scenario and previous scenarios (where Kobolds had a hard time actually being seen in Absalom) I wonder when we will get a Kobold ancestry (apparently we got a race boon for them very late in the lifespan of PFS1).

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Also, when did lizardfolk become such a big deal? They will be one of the early playable factions, but I am pretty sure that a lot of players are looking forward to other races.

Paizo has said in interviews and things before that they recognized that Lizardfolk were one of the races that were open to get emphasis and focus akin to what they did with Goblins without running into other companies work/etc.

I think I get it, kinda like what Blizzard to some of the World of Warcraft races, though I am pretty curious how the Drow redemption efforts are going.

I just want to be the first to say :

If Paizo at some points decides it would be "interesting" to have Fola Barun have her own agenda and betray the society and her followers in pursuit of that agenda I will be very, very, very pissed off.

ESPECIALLY if the PCs aren't allowed to actually do anything about it "just because".

As in rage quit PFS upset. As in do everything I can legally and ethically do to kill PFS locally upset.

You got to do it once (over many players objections). You do NOT get to do it again.

Seems reasonable... though I think that people still remember the fallout, though I didn't like the NPC you avoided mentioning since his appearance in a very early scenario.

I very much hope that the new faction will not feel tied to any previous factions.

Tribe know longshanks search for spoilers, and tribe wants help. So tribe found!

#6: Ability Scores!
#20: Lucky Halfling!
#26: Best of Tribe (background)!
#50: Wild Empathy!
#51: Animal Shape!
#72: Arcane School!
#85: Greatest of spoilers!

We not go to longshank con, so thought - we try doing goblin con, so mighty Jason brings more spoilers!
Tribe is Pathfinder Discord, idea is of IamPageicus, Elfteiroh and I - best goblins online!

Thank you for wasting my time, this is why we can't have nice things.

The Envoy's Alliance sounds interesting, though my attachment to the leader is a bit limited (at least compared to the leaders previewed before).

Verdant Wheel, a nature faction should be a good fit for a number of characters, but personally, I am not a huge fan of their "mysterious" leader, mostly because of his description and his origins. Not entirely sure what links him to the faction, but maybe that will become apparent in scenarios.

Also, when did lizardfolk become such a big deal? They will be one of the early playable factions, but I am pretty sure that a lot of players are looking forward to other races.

Pathfinder Society members might recognize her as a slightly less windswept Janira Gavix.

Thanks, I was about to ask, so happy that she got a new picture ^^

EDIT: Just checked out the artist, and found the Artsation link, the artist is responsible for all of those neat sketches from the Kingmaker CRPG.

Artstation Klaher Baklaher

According to Mark Seifter, one over enthusiastic Dwarf fan made off with almost all of card 12, so that may wind up being a problem...

Well, that's disappointing, time to start annoying everyone that likes Dwarfs I guess ..

Assuming that secondary/tertiary are 2 stat bonus points behind.

Trained Level 2 (2+2+4) +8
Secondary: Untrained (0+0+2) +2
vs DC 15// 70% / 40%

Expert Level 5 (5+4+4) +13
Secondary: Trained (5+2+2) +9
Tertiary: Untrained (0+0+2) +2
vs DC 20// 70% / 50% / 15%
Should be easy: Trained DC 10// 100+% / 100% / 65%

Master Level 11 (11+6+5) +22
Secondary: Expert (11+4+3) +18
Tertiary: Trained (11+2+3) +16
vs DC 30// 65% / 45% / 35%
Should be easy: Expert DC 20// 100+% / 95% / 80%

Legendary Level 17 (17+8+6) +31
Secondary: Master (17+6+4) +27
Tertiary: Expert (17+4+4) +25
vs. DC 40// 60% / 40% / 30%
Should be easy: Master DC 30// 100+% / 85% / 30%

On these basis, I'd say they hit a pretty good sweet spot between challenge and auto-success. And any buff or equipment bonus still has a bit of wiggle room to work with.

Thank you for taking the time, that looks very promising ^^

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Robert Hetherington wrote:

Gold could be determined by character level and not scenario dependent.

That might be a good idea. It could vastly simplify the rules for assigning pregen credit to lower level characters and holding chronicles.

Also, the current beancounter approach seems to be accounting for the sake of accounting. All scenarios of the same tier end up within 5% of each other for gold, so why even bother with the difference? And why care if the exact value of a hoard is correct to the last gold piece? Instead of saying "do this encounter or lose 513GP" just make it "do this or lose 500GP" in nice even chunks.

It would also make writing/developement of scenarios easier

I would personally appreciate no longer having to mention loot that just seems to be there to fill a quota, so I am also pretty happy with the change.

Screw versimilitude and the nice fuzzy feeling that reality fits neat little boxes in your brain you've made for yourself. And that those boxes are nice and orderly. Oh and your boxes are the same as the boxes over there.

It's a game, opponents are supposed to be challenging, encounters are supposed to be interesting. I don't care if my PC could potentially do the same things the Gladiator NPC can do, I want it to be a tough cookie I can fight and have satisfaction from winning. Pretty much nothing else matters.

My opinions about that changed over the years because too often the desire for realism/verisimilitude conflicted with me having fun.

It does seem to be a current trend, and I am fine with that, I really like the Starfinder NPCs most of the time.

Pretty happy about the rage change personally, that was just a bit too ridiculous for me.

I think most venture critters have been in or run enough games to have some idea of what a normal, abnormally small, or abnormally large amount of scanning through the rules is.

Yeah.... honestly, the really bad and really good tables tend to be hard to forget ^^

Kate Baker wrote:

Achievement points shouldn't be tracked on the chronicle sheet, as I understand them. Your Achievement Points earned by each of your characters would all go into the same pool, as would Achievement Points that don't have an associated chronicle (such as for GMing a scenario for the second time).

Maybe the chronicle could have a space to write how much you earned, but there should really be a separate piece of paper for tracking Achievement Point totals.

I don't even think it's worth spending the space to track what was earned because it's an OOC currency that is different based on how and where you played: player, routine GM, RSP GM, local convention GM. special convention GM (and possibly a sliding scale, that's unclear). A hand written mistake by a rushed GM could create a lot of frustration/confusion by the recipient.

Let the software where you spend it do the tracking.

You never need to know how many achievement points were earned in that moment, only how, where, and when you played.

Also if the table is not reported you didn't actually earn any, personally I see this as an advantage.

Blog wrote:

Fans of past Pathfinder Tales novels will be happy to know that we've gotten some of our most prolific authors to return for this series, so stay tuned!

EXCITEMENT INTENSIFIES

SIMILAR LEVELS OF EXCITEMENT; have been collecting quite a number of Audible credits for more novels ^^

Welcome Liz ^^

PrC archetypes are a lovely idea, the first one is really tempting^^

It's a complicated issue, so expect some table variation.

Personally, since so many chronicle sheets include rewards that are only useful in the right character I don't mind, though I would prefer players not getting spoilered about the contents of the scenario.

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

That's a weird stance to take. It's bad to incentivize players to support both editions?

No, it's not.

What do 2e players get by player 1e?

The same people are gaining right now, plenty of backlogs, experienced players and GMs, and frankly I have boxed of printed maps and handouts I tend to give to GMs.

PFS1 is a well-supported system, chances are that if you are interested in a topic or have a character idea, PFS1 might be able to accommodate your wishes.

PFS2 will be interesting for those that are actively looking for a simpler system, but we all know that it will take a couple of books for PFS2 to become attractive to some parts of our community.

We won't be getting new scenarios for PFS1 because Paizo wants to support their new product, the OPFs is not really involved.

..... so when can we order pins to show some faction pride? ^^

I don't get to write this anywhere near as often as I like, but I am 100% happy with those factions. After having to explain the various factions to new players quite a number of time, the quick sales pitch is essential and these will work great.

Horizon Hunters: Calisro Benarry as faction leader is a great choice locally she is well-liked and more importantly, she is doesn't have any negative baggage ^^
The factions goals are broad enough so that a lot of character could feel drawn to it, while still being distinct enough that I am very much looking forward to their missions.
Not sure what my first Horizon Hunter will be but I have a couple of ideas for PF2 characters and quite a number should be a great fit.

Radiant Oath: I loved championing the cause of the Silver Crusade, but this really is a great improvement. Valais Durant is one of my top 5 characters in all of PFS so it is absolutely amazing to have her as a faction leader.
Even if their status as a minor faction means that they will not get a lot of missions that focus on them, I am very much looking forward to joining that faction several times now that Champion has 3 distinct flavours of goodness ^^

----

New factions: I think this was the right call to make, while it might be sad to lose some of the old factions, this is the exciting start of something new and I am looking forward to making new amazing memories playing with the new factions.

Right now I have on a character with an archetype and I already made a couple of sub-optimal choices with her (melee mystic... yeah, but I am having fun).

I have toyed with other concepts, but for a lot of classes quite a number of archetypes just eat up too many of my class granted choices.

It really depends on what you want and how relevant the action economy and choices are to you.

I will add my voice to the chorus asking for three lines for faction reputation! Three lines is very clear. Two lines is confusing, and it's common in my area for people to just write all three numbers (starting, added, and total) over the two lines anyway.

Yeah, right now the rep calculation is the only one where it does not list it like: starting value/addition/new value.

I love the idea of a brief adventure summary! For scenarios where there is an important decision, will there perhaps be a line to fill in what the group decided? When it's been a couple years and you're playing the follow-up scenario, sometimes it's hard to remember what you did!

Good idea, though I am coming to the conclusion that bothering to print lines on the back of chronicles might be a neat idea.

What concerns me about this is the Common/Uncommon/Rare setup. While I have no problem with the method for items...if I get access to a cool item that I want I just ditch the current one and add the new one.

What worries me is the powers/feats/spells, there is no mention of retraining, which means kind of like Starfinder your first and even possibly second character are going to be generic, with only common abilities, until you can earn points to get an uncommon one.

It seems like that could be fixed by a retraining system that allowed you to switch out powers/feats/spells, even if it is just one a level or something. PF2 may have that in it, but I do not remember it from the playtest.

It could also be handled by speed of point earning vs. cost of uncommon powers.

It also may only be a short term problem, as more source material comes out and more options become generally available, but it will be one at the beginning of the campaign, unless they pretty much made everything there common.

The playtest had retraining in it, which cost downtime, and we already see downtime as part of the scenario rewards so I would not be too worried about that.

That said, since ancestries take quite a bit of word count in PF2 and the Bestiary will not include anything like that, it will take at least a bit of time for those to come out.

In general, there is nothing wrong with the Core Races, particularly since a lot of players are already looking forward to having fun playing Goblins, while others are keen to check out if the new ancestry feats manage to make Elves feel fresh again ... just kidding I will build some Elves, either way, ^^

If you have just reached level 5, maybe consider signing up for Soldier just in case.

Unless I am misinformed, they are going to offer the preview version of 10-98 at Paizocon so we can expect some feedback to come from there, but for someone who does not literally have 1000s of hours of PFS experience hard mode is likely not a great fit.

I am also very keen on some reveals ^^ particularly how they managed to solve some of the concerns/problems from the playtest.

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Chronicle Sheet: Can we still track items sold etc. on an ITS sheet, and just list the value of items sold and bought? Sometimes you buy a lot of items, and for a lot of us the space on the chronicle sheets is pretty limited and/or we buy stuff during the scenario and want to add it to some permanent list immediately.

I have different but similar concerns when it comes to the faction rep list, in SFS some of my characters already have gained too much rep with various factions, though if this is just to not what you earn on that chronicle it should be enough. Giving us an ITS to allow us to track all of our rep would be a neat idea, maybe with some space for notes or faction specific boons.

Not going to lie, I HATE ITS sheets. I'd rather there be as little paperwork as possible in relation to PFS, so the idea of there being multiple different ITS sheets makes me (metaphorically) weep. I think it would be good to have a backup sheet template available for when there isn't enough space on the chronicle, but a definite hard pass from me on there being a (mandatory) separate ITS, for faction related stuff or otherwise.

I personally find it helps me control my own tendency to create a mess and write stuff on several different pages, it was actually a bit of a problem in the last campaign mode I have played.

Of course, that approach just happens to work for me, I have seen players using notebooks to not this kind of data. It is also worth noticing that not all characters buy the same amount of things, I have PF1 characters that have pages of ITS sheets for consumables... though I think I managed to drop that nasty habit in SFS.

I guess it might be a decent idea to print some lines on the back of chronicle sheets to allow players to keep notes.

Okay, for the people that are *not* on HeroLab Online, will their chronicle sheets still be legal?

Unless I am misunderstanding the approach, a unique number attached to each chronicle sheet should enable the player to import the sheet into Herolab.

I have no doubt that this will not affect anyone who does not use Herolab negatively.

zer0darkfire wrote:

Blake's Tiger wrote:

If that was your *only* way if earning PFS1 replays, yes, but it's *not.*

You get *all* the old ways (GM stars, recharges, boons) plus a scaled number of bonus replays based on games played (more played = more replays).

If you play PFS2 and choose to, you can buy PFS1 replays.

I'm off the mind that that fact is irrelevant. Earning replays without these 2e point buys is going to be far too limited for the people that actually want or need replays to keep the system alive. I know paizo would love everyone to love and play their new system, but this is pushing to far and will be the slow death of its 1e campaign, which I can't help but feel is what they actually want and are simply masking it very well with these options.

For months, all we've known is the scaled replays as the only solution.

Here they announce an *extra* way and that's bad?

Sure, people can want more replays, people will always want more, but that's separate from 2e earning 1e replays.

I agree with the Tiger^^

From my point of view getting some replays for your PF2 tables could be welcome for a group of players, of course, this is not for everyone.

If you attend local game days or conventions that offer a mix of systems, chances are that sometimes your planned table of PFS1 won't work out like you planned and you have some time to kill. Even if you are not a huge fan of PF2, it is still the same organized play team, and chances are good that they will have an interesting story to tell .
Seems perfectly fine to offer you a chance to cash out your points for another replay.

---

I suspect that this is just a bonus/incentive to give the new system a chance and not something they expect everyone to do.

Chronicle Sheet: Can we still track items sold etc. on an ITS sheet, and just list the value of items sold and bought? Sometimes you buy a lot of items, and for a lot of us the space on the chronicle sheets is pretty limited and/or we buy stuff during the scenario and want to add it to some permanent list immediately.

I have different but similar concerns when it comes to the faction rep list, in SFS some of my characters already have gained too much rep with various factions, though if this is just to not what you earn on that chronicle it should be enough. Giving us an ITS to allow us to track all of our rep would be a neat idea, maybe with some space for notes or faction specific boons.

Not sure if and how we change our process when it comes to GMs filling out their part, but it might be worthwhile to colour code the "XP Gained" and "GP Gained boxes" and maybe add a "+" and "-" in front of the earned and spend, just to make it harder for a busy convention GM to fill in the wrong box.

In general, I like it, the adventure summary should help some players remember what happened, or at least what was supposed to happen before things got off track ^^

If the Herolab code means what I think it means, that would be a very welcome change.

Rarity and Item Access:

I have gotten used to item level in Starfinder, and while sometimes a level +2 armor on a chronicle sheet feels a bit strong, I really like the fact, that the loot you find in a scenario (and get on your chronicle sheet) is something you actually want to use. Finding 20 masterwork and 2 +1 handaxes is the kind of loot my players really disliked when I ran Kingmaker years ago, and I have been changing AP loot ever since.

Since I don't know what kind of option will be common or uncommon, and while it should be great to unlock the specific uncommon options we actually want via spending points, I am slightly worried by the assumption that all common items will be legal. I guess we will see how many common/uncommon etc. items will appear in other releases. I do like that anything that is rare or unique is by default not legal unless unlocked somehow. That has the potential for some really neat chronicle sheet rewards.

Replay:

Honestly, this works for me as an organizer, but to be fair I hardly ever play PFS1 these days, I find it challenging enough to keep up with playing SFS scenarios - though I have run some of them several times.
From my perspective, having replays will allow us to schedule some of the best PFS1 has to offer over the next couple of months, while also offering the new SFS and PFS2 releases. I am very much looking forward to the new stories and getting a fresh start.

Tags:

They look good but considering some experiments like SFS 2-00 it might be a good idea to add a Tag that means more or less "read the description carefully" if players need to plan something or bring more characters.

Considering that the concept of qualitative rankings was not met with enthusiastic support I'm sure it would be helpful.

Apparently, survey participants want the 5 "things" to mean something, of course, how high the barrier to entry should be is subject to discussion.

- requirements are too low
- all of our very dedicated GMs are also excellent
- our evaluation process needs work
- trying to measure subjective GM quality is a lost cause, since what one person describes as an awesome GM, can still deliver a subjectively terrible table to a player if the GM has a bad day, or the GM/play styles just clash

Personally, I think the quantitative requirements are worth celebrating for the service they have done to their community (less so if all or most of them have been private tables YMMV).
When it comes to GM quality, having something to measure yourself against should be useful for GMs trying to improve, I doubt that it will be relevant to most players.

If a GM is wrong about something, the number of symbols after their forum handle really does not matter, and if he is right, they still don't.
Sometimes things are not clear cut and the GM needs to make a ruling, the experience can help, but we are all shaped by experiences and no number of stars increases the chance that the player will be happy about the ruling.

I ran it on Saturday, it went relatively quick, my first impression is that it is a better replayable than it is as a standalone scenario (but that is usually how good replayables work - I have pretty much the exact opposite problem with 1-01 which is a good scenario but a bad replay experience).

This is getting a proper review, there are some areas where I would have wanted a bit more, others where I was not super happy with the effects of success and there is one dignitary I would personally never ever chose or want to have at a table where I play that scenario.

I am curious about the adventure, I heard rumours that it is supposed to use the 1.0 Playtest rules, and I have doubts if it is not better for me locally to just wait for the final rules and not teach players rules they will never use again.

That said, for those locations that want to offer it, it should be able to award playtest points.

Regarding PF2 sanctioning, I wonder if it would be possible to do an update for that product, to prevent players from learned no longer correct rules from the pregens.

Pathfinder Second Edition Backgrounds—Future River Regent and River Pirate: In Pathfinder Second Edition, choosing a background is a key part of building your character, granting unique flavor and providing two ability score boosts, training in a specific skill, Lore skill training, and a specific skill feat. This bonus unlocks two new backgrounds for you, tied to the River Kingdoms. These will be delivered in mid-July to backers paizo.com accounts.

Is it currently planned to include both of those backgrounds in the books that are currently being crowdfunded, or will these stay exclusive to backers for this project? Is this early access to those options or exclusive access?

I kinda hope that there will be a way for future players to access any material like that.

And while Silverhex Chronicles does fit the region, it is currently listed as a free scenario, which makes it a good way for players and GM that are unfamiliar with the region to read something about it and check out PFS ^^

I have been looking forward to these ^^

Envoy is a wonderful class! I've gotten such a kick out of Charli, my -701!

Hmm

The amount if fun I had with my Envoy and separate from that, the Icon theme, is really quite astounding.

I am so very curious what cool now things we will get in the next hardcover.

Congratulation to all the new 5 Star GMs and the new campaign coin recipient.