Steve Holley's page

John,

Thanks for clearing that up! I know that was going to come up tomorrow with one of the locals.

-=- Steve

...and I was getting clarification as to whether the default option of applying the credit to an uncreated character was still available.

If I'm reading the chronicle sheet right, I fear that's not possible:

"The decision of which character to apply credit to must be made when the Chronicle sheet is received and signed by the GM."

It sounds like this chronicle sheet isn't one that can be saved. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please. I've got to run this tomorrow and want to make sure I've got everything straight. Thanks!

Very good, Chris! :) I can see something like that happening.

In Sewer Dragons, Yippitok is listed as having a neutralize poison potion in his stat block, but the chronicle sheet has a delay poison potion instead. Is this a mistake? Which is the correct one if it is a typo?

Thanks for the suggestions Jiggy and Nickademus42. I'll pass those along as suggestions.

Thanks to all for helping me make sure I understood this correctly!

Enevhar Aldarion wrote:

One other thing you are off on, the folks in charge have said that the Fame table was worded poorly and should not say "4 or less". You have to have at least 4 to make any purchases that are not always available and up to a max of 500 gold and at least 9 to make those 1500 gold purchases.

This answers a question that I had no yet asked. Any chance on a link to where this was stated?

Seconded. Since the first line says "up to 4" I take the rest of the chart to mean "up to N" and not "N or more". If I'm wrong, please let me know.

But isn't it a bit hard to get +2 weapons since fame 22 (best case last part of level 3 if I did the math right) is the first chance to afford a 8000 GP magic item like a +2 weapon. Well, maybe not even then since that magic weapon will cost more than 8000 GP when the masterwork and base cost are added, and the max able to be spent is only 8000 GP. So really it's fame 27 (and last part of level 4) before a generic +2 weapon could be purchased. Is that right?

It's a good thing that good magic items are on the chronicle sheets.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

FYI, no need to worry about fame for +1 weapons or armor,

Yeah, that's a goof up in my example. I knew that. I was trying to force a fame restricted purchase into the example and goofed that up. Thanks to all for mentioning that without ripping on me. It was odd that I followed that sentence up with "Romana can buy magic armour".

Here is a reference sheet that might help, all the rules come from the guide to organized play.

I've got just that reference sheet printed out a bunch of times to give out to everyone. It's the best I've found so far and makes things easy to understand, at least for a one time purchase.

I was just trying to think of how the players can stay alive as the dangers ramp up if they are always spending their gold on basic items and potions, and not saving it up for the more powerful magic items. I don't always have a balanced party so it'd be pretty easy for the party to make up for this imbalance by purchasing 1st level potions.

I need a tiny bit of help with how purchasing works within Society play. I've looked and I can't find a clear example in other messages. I'd love to see an example of chronicle awards across multiple scenarios and what the players do with their gold and prestige, just like the sample adventure on page 13 of the Core Rulebook.

For the sake of this discussion please assume all players spend every dime of their starting 150 GP. So here's what has happened.

The party runs through Silent Tide and they earn max gold (453). Everyone elects to save the gold at the end of the adventure.

Hydra's Fang is played the next week. Before the party leaves Absalom, Cedric the Cleric buys 2 potions of Cure Light and Fred the Fighter upgrades from Scale mail (sells it for 25 GP) to Banded mail (buys it for 250 GP). So these two have a little less cash on their chronicle sheets but more gear. During the adventure Fred also buys food and drink (2 GP) at the local Pub for all of them. Romana the Rogue elects to save her money. The party earns max gold (456) for the Hydra's Fang. So Cedric has 453 - 2*50 + 456 = 809, Fred has 453 + 25 - 250 - 2 + 456 = 682, and frugal Romana has 453 + 456 = 909.

Murder on the Silken Caravan is next. Again, Cedric buys two more potions of cure light and Fred thinks the Oil of Invisibility that's now available may prove useful. The party earns 454 gold from the Caravan. Now Cedric has 809 - 2*50 + 454 = 1163. Fred has 682 - 300 + 454 = 836. Romana has 453 + 456 + 454 = 1363.

At this point all three are level 2 with a fame of 6. Now the most expensive item they can purchase within the limits of their fame is 1500 GP. No one can buy a +1 weapon yet due to the fame limits. Thanks to their past purchases only Romana can afford to buy any magical armor. So purchasing scrolls/potions and higher quality mundane items is about the best they can hope for right now.

So, using all of this as an example, am I running the purchasing part of Society scenarios correctly? After three runs the party doesn't seem to have had an opportunity to greatly improve their gear.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Have you considered that they are doing this because they are releasing a new system soon?

Yes, I think we all have thought of that. Even WotC has thought of that. WotC in their podcasts says pretty clearly that this is the reason for the publication of this book. In the podcast they said they wanted to provide one last big book to help people keep playing 3.5 because they knew that a lot of people either will not switch at all or won't be able to switch until their campaigns are over. For me, I would rather have this one book with nearly all the rules (and revisions published on-line or in print) in one place, just for the reasons you mention in your second post.

It's bad enough that they had to publish non-sense complicating rules system in 3.5. Now they are admitting that they screwed up the works AND CHARGING YOU FOR IT.

Comments about your views of 3.5 aside, providing a summary of the latest rules in one place is a good thing and a product that a lot of people will want, again just for the reasons you make in your second post.

Would I still buy it if 4.0 wasn't on it's way? Definitely. Will I buy it with 4.0 on it's way? Maybe not but only due to me not running a game right now. If that changes I'll be buying this book. My bag is heavy enough as is and anything to make it easier to find a rule I'll buy.

I do wish I could post a review on this book, maybe mention the quality (or lack thereof), the index and how helpful it is (or is not), how good the background stories are (or aren't). But I don't have it and really can't post a review of it. So whoever gets it first, please post a review to let us know what you think. Thanks!