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Society games are even more likely to have characters break scenarios, that's the nature of not usually having the same play group week after week and being able to take your character anywhere. If anything, uncommon game breaking options being uncommon is more helpful for society than home games since there's not usually the negotiate your character with your GM to make sure it works with what the GM has planned aspect that many home groups engage in.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t feel I/we need to go to great lengths to incentify people to play a game. That just reeks of entitlement. It’s a game. It’s fun. Presumably the people you play it with are fun. Going to a convention has a level of ambiance that adds to the excitement of playing the game. There is inherent value to being with hundreds or thousands of other people who share your interest and having grand adventures even if they only exist in our minds. Entitlement? I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean. Beyond that, Paizo wants to incentivize people to play a game, its how they grow the game. Should Wizards of the Coast or Fantasy Flight not offer prize support for their organized play programs, afterall, why do you need to incentivize people to play a game, clearly they should just want to play it. Additionally, there's a reason for supporting convention play from Paizo's perspective. Why do you think that is? It certainly isn't because they think that conventions add to the excitement of playing the game. Paizo doesn't run demos and introductory scenarios at conventions because they think its more exciting. No, conventions are how you recruit new players. The best way to recruit and retain new players is to show them how much fun the game can be, one of the best ways to do this is by showcasing unique things that only conventions can offer. One of those things is specials, but there's so much more Paizo could and can do. Its not entitlement, its a recognition about how much opportunity there is to improve the convention experience. Call me out of touch or an old crotchety grognard, whatever but if I invited someone to a local convention and after I shared everything I’ve said above they said something to the effect of “what’s in in for me,” I’d rather they just stay home. Its actually the exact opposite, the crotchery grognard in me longs for the days when organized play at conventions felt special, it certainly felt special in Living City when I did an early form of Cosplaying with hundreds of people in a hotel ballroom with unique special missions and storylines. It certainly felt special when I played the premier of an event that influenced the plot line and perhaps had unique rewards. It felt special when I was playing Living Greyhawk and I would go to a different part of the country and play things that I couldn't play anywhere else. And despite my dislike for 5th edition, what WotC is doing with their organized play to make conventions feel special, including convention created content premiers, magic item trading posts, and author only scenarios definitely seems to make the convention experience seem more special on that side of the current gaming community. Paizo OP feels watered down compared to the convention experiences of the past. But it doesn't have to be so. Maybe those are just relics of the past, maybe organized play has become too homogenized. Maybe it is an entitlement thing (namely, that people feel entitled to access to every reward possible regardless of location.) But I've seen those things work before with as many people as every convention that isn't Gen Con gets and it makes me sad to see the state of convention play now when I know how much more special it could be, and has been, in the past.
Maybe, maybe not. I hear from a lot of people that they don't attend local conventions to play because the incentive isn't there versus their local game days and its certainly my experience. At conventions that aren't Gen Con you have, usually, a 10% chance per game of getting a boon. Beyond that, I'm not even talking about boons specifically. I've been involved in a few different organized play campaigns that made the convention experience unique in different ways as an incentive to get people to attend local conventions. I've seen very little of that with Paizo organized play. Do they have to do something? Of course not, but I definitely think they could.
That horse has left the barn. I would agree with you if we hadn’t already started a rewards program, but since we did, you cannot take it away without some people feeling like they are being punished. Wether you call it elitism or selfishness or whatever, we started rewarding people for GMing. Now it’s a thing. We cannot restrict or eliminate it without hurting local events. I’m the first to agree that it sucks, but it is what it is now. I wish more people were just altruistic too. If you want to maximize your volunteer pool, you need to provide rewards. It really is that simple. I think it goes beyond this, there's a fundamental question to be answered. What is the point of playing or running PFS/SFS at a convention? I can play every single scenario that isn't a special at my FLGS or online whenever I can gather 2 other people and a GM (or run it if I can find 3 people to play it.) What benefit is there to do this at a convention if there isn't some chance at a unique reward for doing so? I think that's this is a fundamental problem with Paizo organized play. There isn't enough reason to go to conventions to play (outside of a select few very large ones which make boons far easier to obtain.) But we want to promote conventions. Conventions are where a lot of recruitment happens, and that's hard to do if it looks like the program isn't vibrant (i.e. we need existing players to attend them.) The boons do help, but I think maybe the whole structure of what conventions can offer with regard to PFS/SFS play may need to be reevaluated.
I mean ideally people wouldn't need anything in return for 'volunteering' I put volunteering in scare quotes because GMing for PFS is only volunteering in the loosest sense when you're talking about doing so in a convention setting (especially larger conventions). GMing for organized play is not a charitable endeavor. Sure you are providing the ability for others to play games, but in many cases they paid money to do so (especially at conventions.) Beyond that, legal fiction aside, Paizo organized play is a marketing tool for Paizo, people playing PFS/SFS helps get brand exposure and it helps move product, 'volunteers' are necessary for this process to function because Paizo doesn't have the staff or the resources to make it work out for them at a reasonable cost otherwise. Because of this arrangement, people recognize what they really are, cogs in a system where they are only a volunteer in the sense that they aren't getting a paycheck for what they do. That doesn't mean that people should be expected to be part of Paizo's marketing efforts out of the kindness of their hearts. Some people will view the compensation they receive as adequate for them to continue to be cogs in this system and others will not. I personally think its well worth it to volunteer at conventions because I value the boon (and/or other rewards) that I receive as worth the commitment of time to do something that I largely enjoy. Others have different calculations but it is certainly a decision everyone makes on their own and its definitely something where compensation factors in to people's decisions to volunteer in a lot of cases. Put simply, how many people do you think Paizo would get to GM at Gen Con if there was no reward for doing so? Maybe a few, but it certainly wouldn't be as many as they need to provide the experience desired for the number of players who want to play.
Could I perchance get a further hint, in spoiler form, on what part of Aeon Throne this correlates with? I plan to GM the AP around the time this comes out and I'd love to work it for my PCs to experience it in a good order. Spoiler: While I have no way of knowing for sure at this point, it would shock me a lot if the space station in question in this scenario was not Outpost Zed.
I'm pretty sure the restriction on humanoid or animal isn't a restriction on the final form has to being humanoid but that the form you are taking on if you're using an existing form has to be a humanoid or animal, so you can't use level 1 polymorph to transform into an assembly ooze. Obviously any special abilities you want to mimic are subject to GM discretion if you're not mimicing a specific thing.
what bonous does target traking give the Torpedo Technicians? The stats dont give its base BaB. Target tracking for NPCs is always +2. Per the Mechanic Class Graft in Alien Archive. Target Tracking (Ex): As a move action, this NPC can designate and track a single foe, gaining a +2 bonus to attack rolls against that target. Use this same bonus for twin tracking and quad tracking.
or gets it, but is actively ignoring it in favor of their own interpretation? Is this not allowed? Just because one person thinks a rule works a certain way doesn't mean that person is right. Especially when that person is not a member of the design team making an authoritative FAQ/errata and when that person has no greater rules insight than anyone else in the thread. I'm not sure why ignoring one individual's interpretation in favor of my own (or someone else's) is a problem. I think that interpretation is not correct, not consistent with how I read the rules, and leads to absurd results if applied in certain situations unless you then make another logical leap which is not explicit in the rules (namely it may pass through if you completely destroy it. See previous discussion regarding a door being different than a table flipped over based on what is around but outside the area of effect). Like BNW, I interpret the rules thusly: Line weapons do not interact with or alter the rules for line of effect anymore than non-line weapons do (if they did, it would explicitly state that). All they do is let you attack multiple targets when you otherwise would not be able to. The line of effect rules allow for plenty of wiggle room as to whether or not you need to apply them. For one the line of effect rules have a specific caveat that when they apply is subject to GM discretion, "...it normally requires that you (or whoever or whatever is using the ability) have a line of effect to the target to be effective (subject to GM discretion)." and 2) they specifically say, "[a] line of effect is blocked by a solid barrier that can stop the effect in question (such as a wall, for most effects)" which is open to wide interpretation since it specifically says it doesn't apply to all effects. What is a solid barrier that can stop the effect in question for something that specifically says it can travel through objects provided that it breaches their hardness/DR? That's up to the GM. Some people think that those objects don't stop line of effect once they're hardness is breached and some people think they do. More people than not seem to think penetrated objects don't stop lines of effect or that the line of effect rules don't apply at all, the latter of which they are free to do because of caveat one to the line of effect rules which make them GM discretion. None of this makes either side right, there can be debates that don't have clear answers where different people rule differently.
Its not circular, its logical with how things would actually happen. Think about it this way, say you do have line of effect to the whole line, there's no walls, just a series of 10 statues. You shoot the first statue, you do enough damage to go through its hardness but not destroy it, the line then moves onto the next statue. To say the line would do anything besides punch through the statue if it hit it would be to say that the line, while doing hit point damage to the statute, went around the statue to move onto the next target. That doesn't make any sense, if that was how it happened why does it matter if you did hit point damage to the previous target at all? If the designers intended for the line to attempt to hit all targets in the line regardless of what happened to the previous target, that might make sense but the fact that hardness of objects matters for what happens to the line moving forward when objects are hit that tells me they likely intended it to represent punching through the previous thing to move past it (or miss it completely).
The general consensus, if you want to go with that is that you don't need line of effect to things you use your line weapon against provided that you beat the hardness of the thing between you and the next target. Only BNW and perhaps 1-2 other people in this thread of at least a dozen people think otherwise. People have disagreed about what kind of cover/concealment those creatures behind the walls have, but for the most part the majority believes you can go through walls with line weapons. If you're looking for a way to not let certain line shenanigans happen its page 409: "Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. Most low-level melee weapons have little effect on metal walls and doors. Certain pieces of equipment are designed to cut through metal, however."
Its both, potentially, "If a weapon, spell, ability, or item requires an attack roll and has a range measured in feet, it normally requires that you (or whoever or whatever is using the ability) have a line of effect to the target to be effective (subject to GM discretion)." What is subject to line of effect (or even what blocks line of effect) is GM discretion. All we have is "such as a wall." What is subject to line of effect at all is subject to GM discretion, per the above.
or completely destroy the door? They're not the same thing and you can model them different ways. Very clearly just penetrating hardness does not destroy an object, thats why it has hardness and hit points. A door with a bullet hole in it is still a door. Its also incredibly clear you don't have to destroy an object for a line to get through it, but you're not willing to accept that line of reasoning (and direct rules citation) so here we are. does a door with a bullet hole in it block line of effect to a line weapon that shoots through that bullet hole?
Sure, but then you're open to the idea of ignoring what line weapons say, which is that you only have to get through hardness to get to the next target, you're well into 'this is how I think the rules should work' versus 'what the rules say' territory.
Why do you know that, he is completely behind the table, his mohawk is not sticking out, his ankles are not sticking out. You no more know that Iseph is behind the table than you know that Iseph is behind the door, that's the whole point. When you're shooting through a door at Ipseth you DON"T know where he is. You're going to have to put the bullets EVERYWHERE to get rid of the door and try to hit him and in that process you're probably going to destroy the door and NEXT round you can shoot him. you need to blow through the entire 5 by 5 wall and thats going to soak up more bullets. Again, why do you know where he is when you shoot through a table when you can't see him on the other side any more than you know where he is when you shoot through a door, both are solid objects, both completely obscure the target. What if its not Iseph but instead a diminutive stellifera, do you still know where they are behind the table but not the door, afterall their space is only 1 foot but the table is 5 feet. I'm not why you've decided a door is somehow this magical construct that blocks line of effect when other objects of the same composition and size do not relative to what they are obscuring. The rules certainly don't say it. The rule specifically says "such as a wall, for most effects." what makes a table less of a wall than a door?
No I'm hung up on the idea that if I do enough damage to bypass hardness and completely destroy a door it does not continue and hit the person behind it because I didn't have line of effect to the person behind it when I shot my line, but if that same situation happens with a table the bullet passes through and hits them. I can't support a ruling that leads to that result because its absurd, wood is wood, and what happens to things behind wood should not be different based on what is around the wood outside of the area of effect. I've even conceded your hardness + HP argument here(even though line effects only state they have to bypass hardness to move on to the next target) and even granting that the result becomes absurd.
BNW, you're preferred ruling relies on the idea that it is impossible to shoot through a vertical object with a vertical object behind it provided that there are two other vertical objects next to that object that are not even in the area of effect. But, on the other hand, it is possible to shoot through a horizontal object with a horizontal object behind it, provided there are not two horizontal or vertical objects next to it, which, again, are not in its area of effect. (because then it turns from an table to a doorway.) I'm sorry but the idea that something that is 5 feet wide behaves differently based on the things next to that 5 foot line (objects which it doesn't affect because its a 5 foot line and couldn't go around in any case, since, again, 5 foot line) and whether they are vertical or horizontal is not a ruling that I can get behind in the slightest. In other words, you're asking us to rule that wooden doors work differently than wooden tables. Given the choice between a ruling that doesn't lead to an absurd result, you can shoot through a wooden table but not a wooden door. And one that does lead to an absurd result, you can equally shoot through a wooden table and a wooden door. Why would I pick the ruling that results in something absurd?
You are still a 5 by 5 square behind a mountain as well. I'm not really sure how that's responsive. If you want say the table is 6 feet tall when flipped on its side, same result?
I agree with Vexies. Beyond that, the mountain argument appears to be a strawman. I'm not sure why it keeps getting brought up. Lets take a more realistic example. The mentioned table. Flip a table on its side, drop prone behind it. If you fire a gun you do not have line of effect to the prone person behind the table. Under the theory that line weapons can't target things they don't have line of effect to this would mean that as soon as you get to the table the line weapon stops, despite specifically saying it can go through objects if it damages them. This is true even if you go through its hardness and even if you do enough damage to completely destroy the table. If the counterargument is, well, I'd let it work through the flipped table but not the mountain because of some sort of appeal to verisimilitude, I just don't buy it, why are we trying to apply real world 20th century verisimilitude to a futuristic game with futuristic weapons that the book specifically tells us usually have at least a bit of magic in them. "The mountain has too many hit points to penetrate" isn't a counterargument to the line of effect portion of this debate.
Honestly, if you're this pissed off I would sue, they've lied enough times that you can make the case that they screwed you out of recourse (a charge back) through fraud.
I mean seriously, their latest update was there's a delay because they ran out of bubblewrap. You know, because that's not available in every single big box store in America or anything, its super hard to get and is a reason to delay shipping by days. On the plus side, we know that Paizo is as pissed off (probably more so) than the rest of us. They even are delaying another one of their projects (Super Dungeon Legends) which was funded years before Starfinder to fulfill their Starfinder obligations. This is probably because Paizo is big enough in the game industry that they can exert that kind of pressure (and there's probably some sort of contract between Ninja Division and Paizo that would make not fulfilling the Starfinder kickstarter really bad for Ninja Division.)
Only if there is their own project and they have no inventory. Maybe if they declare bankruptcy, but even then you're an unsecured creditor since they do have an obligation to fulfill their promise of your pledge. It's not a preorder but it is a contract in the strictest sense. From the Kickstarter Terms of Use: "Kickstarter provides a funding platform for creative projects. When a creator posts a project on Kickstarter, they’re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who backs a project is accepting the creator’s offer, and forming that contract. Kickstarter is not a part of this contract — the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and their backers. Here are the terms that govern that agreement: ..When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers. Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers must understand that when they back a project, they’re helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised. If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if: they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned; they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers; they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised; they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form." Ninja Division is in violation of the bolded provision at the very least. Honestly, as the days tick by I'm more and more convinced that the best way to make sure Soda Pop/Ninja Division really stop scamming people is to sue them out of existence. It's pretty clear to me that their kickstarters are used as a way to fund their other projects and then when it comes to fulfilling the Kickstarters they don't have any money, its obviously a sort of ponzi scheme. It hasn't gotten that far with this project yet, but I'm sure their claim of this week shipping wave one is going to be another broken promise.
The only time pre-gens were required explicitly for quests for SFS was on Thursday at Gen Con 2017. The characters that are available to be used are spelled out in each quest pack, for instance this is what Into the Unknown says, "Each player must use one of the 1st-level Starfinder Society pregenerated characters, which are available at paizo.com/ StarfinderSociety/GMResources, or a 1st-level character of the player’s own creation, using the rules set forth in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide." Here's what Dreaming of the Future says, "Each player must use one of the 1st-level or 4th-level Starfinder Society pregenerated characters, which are available at paizo. com/StarfinderSociety/GMResources, or a 1st through 4th-level character of the player’s own creation using the rules set forth in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide." Of note, 1-12, Ashes of Discovery is not a quest pack and does not have the above language. You cannot play Into the Unknown with a character that is not level 1, and you cannot apply credit from a lower level pre-gen to a higher level character, so there's no conflict here. For Dreaming of the Future it works like any other 1-4 scenario. As far as I'm aware a GM cannot prevent a player from bringing a legal character to a public SFS event, the only reason for denying someone the ability to play a character at a public event is if they are deemed to be invalid in some way (lack of chronicle backup for items they use, lack of proof of ownership or resources, etc.) not because they only want to run a game for pre-gens. I believe GMs have more leeway with private events as to what they may and may not allow since effectively they can say no to someone wanting to play in the first place.
CHRONICLE INFORMATION: Player Name: Shaudius
Information for this chronicle sheet: Number of this Chronicle: 12
Day Job total: Reroll Day Job: , 78 Credits
We don't generally release errata for APs. Can you please revisit this policy for Starfinder. While it makes some level of sense for Pathfinder which has multiple lines in which rules are releasing including the Player Companion and Campaign Setting Lines in addition to APs, for Starfinder it is just the APs and hardcovers currently. That means that a lot of additional rules being released in APs. To forclose errata for, not half, but a large section of where rules are coming from currently seems ill-advised. If its because the APs don't receive the same level of design team involvement as the hardcover releases, please don't repeat the mistake of Pathfinder having two different editorial and design standards for your official products, the Starfinder material just isn't enough to justify that sort of thing.
This is the best one, especially by value, but I am doubtful it will end up being SFS legal so I haven't concerned myself with it really.
"Part of this discussion revolves around delivery options. The big question at this point revolves around the feasibility of supporting a living document that resides online with print options. This would allow for faster updates and more integration between the guide, campaign clarifications, additional resources, and FAQ. " If this means that this document wouldn't need to involve any other teams at Paizo, I am all for it. I think there needs to be a way for the organized play team to not have to rely on other teams with many other competing priorities before documents go live. I can't see any value in things like the AR, which is effectively simply a document of the organized play team's stance on published items or the Society Guide which is exclusive to organized play, having any people besides those who approve the items being involved at all. When the AR or guide is done it should just be able to be posted somewhere, it shouldn't take weeks or months for it get through a queue of other web postings. If, in the alternative, this simply means putting the society guide on the paizo website like the AR and FAQ etc already are, I'm not really sure that there's any real value there.
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