TetsujinOni's page

Hello TetsujinOni,

It looks like your recent subscription order shipped the same day as this post, so we weren't able to suspend it before it was shipped. It has a 4 to 8 business day transit to you, which means it could arrive anywhere from this Wednesday to next Wednesday. Would you be able to receive it in that timeframe? If not, please just let us know if it can't make its way to you and we can set you up with a replacement. If you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know. Thank you!

I received that one just fine, but am now at the new address and it looks like no suspend-ship was processed - the next subscription shipment email arrived today indicating the old shipping address.

I am in the process of moving cross-state and need to suspend shipment on all of my subscriptions until ready to receive at new address.

One for Jonathan Choy and one for Angie Powers, please.

Back to the PaizoCon....

If you've established a rapport with any of the Paizo staff and want a chance to break bread with them, it's a great part of the con.

This will be my first year taking a pass on the banquet, probably to hang out with TOZ and company somewhere where the seats aren't the same class of chairs we'll be gaming on all weekend. :D

I, myself, don't see why the character's background would need to be focused on when the story flow is not actually taking it into account. We do have some instances where the character does mention their own situations in passing, or directs the PC's to their significant others that are not the "Normal" man and woman relationship.

There is also the availability of magics to be the, forgive me if this offends, the wanted gender.

Miss Feathers also has some continuity problems as the character is slightly different in a later scenario than how he is presented in the first appearance.

There is no continuity problem.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

I have but one fear from this... Skill Proficiencies, they're the thing I hate the most about 4e and 5e. Please keep to a skill points system. :(

Hey, Charabdos! I recommend taking a look at the blogs on proficiencies and skills when they come out. Between the way our proficiencies system works and some of your feat options, there are some really interesting and flexible ways to customize skills built into the system. We think they do some of the great things skill ranks do without being quite as cumbersome. That said, our system might not do everything you want! But I encourage you to check it out.

See, when a designer describes the simple system that is skill ranks as "cumbersome", it makes me think that their notion of design and mine could be dangerously far apart to be looking for entertainment out of the same systems design....

Specifically in 3: They understand correctly for the "what you've found" access rule, but apparently missed the "but those are automatically unlocked when you reach certain Fame thresholds" rule?

That's not a problem with the chronicles.

Council of Five Nations turning into BNW Central would tickle me to no end. I'd have to show up for a lot more of the con than I was planning to.

Unfortunately it's two weeks after SkalCon this year, so I don't know if TOZ and Hmm are gonna be up for that much conning that soon...

rknop wrote:

what-not

Noted that the value of "what-not" is approximately 195.

193 tables of players doing things together is .... astounding to watch from the front.

This is certainly a curious side effect of providing a share-with-others boon.

I regret having financial constraints just sufficient to have competed for this one, I have two players with whom it would've been.... awesome.

TetsujinOni wrote:

It may be a strategic error, but I volunteer as Todd Morgan's Beard if he needs one to represent in Minnesota.

Hmmm...

Are you saying you are willing to stand in as Todd's champion in a Trial by Folicle?

You know the magnificent facial hair this state can produce. I applaud your loyalty; misguided as it may be.

Hmm was amused, Oni was perhaps foolhardy.

She's shorter and has purpler hair and a more nominal height-weight proportionality. pretty easy to tell us apart unless THUNDERLIPS was talking to you and you winced from the volume....

<g>

BigNorseWolf wrote:

They can sell reign of winter blankets if you're too cold

They won't let me grandmaster torch cosplay to cool off.

*Schemes to get an inflatable kiddie pool into the Sag for the wolf.*

I might need to do some wacky fog-breathing Starfinder cosplay to GM in whether I'm GMing PFS or Starfinder, so I can have a "concentrator" prop with a safe carrying system for frozen CO2 in it for personal cooling....

Actually, the Brat stand being gone was Paizo's fault....

They got that space as an adjunct sales location for Starfinder product.

But then all of the Starfinder product they had at the show was gone be 3:30 on Thursday, and ICCLOS didn't refill the space with the Brats concession stand, in a move that left unclear but significant money on the table (or going to the food court / food trucks).

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Ourobouros, you might want to share that on the Official GenCon Feedback Thread. I agree that there were some bafflingly ill-prepared GMs at GenCon this year, and I don't get that. Why go to the big show prepared to fail?

Hmm

I've seen it every year, and I don't get that either.

Since Wei-Ji makes good points about "what is prepped enough varies between GMs", I'll point out that ANY prep is more prep than some GMs I've tried to help get from "what happens in this special I'm running next slot" to something that won't embarrass me to be wearing the same color volunteer shirt as them in the past.

Please at least be able to make a convincing Bluff check that you've tried, eh?

Ourobouros, you might want to share that on the Official GenCon Feedback Thread. I agree that there were some bafflingly ill-prepared GMs at GenCon this year, and I don't get that. Why go to the big show prepared to fail?

Hmm

I've seen it every year, and I don't get that either.

Concerns have been raised about 'token hoarding'. I raised a concern about community building and campaign relations at the meeting, but just had a sudden burst of insight on the matter and bringing it forward here as a possible suggestion for resolving the concern.

Would it be easier to simply have a log of PFS numbers of people coming up, and then once they hit a given limit, they are 'cut off', as it is logically impossible to gain coins beyond a given point?

If someone DID try to 'game' the system, it'd be really easy to tell.

Example: GenCon had 10 slots.

At initial costs, based on that number one could theoretically have played enough to get five rolls at the boon table. After five rolls on the boon table, that's it for that PFS number for that person in a given year?

Drawback: Doesn't completely eliminate hoards in place, and folks could cash in from previous years/local conventions.

Benefit: With such a limiter in place, there would be less motivation to bring piles of tokens, as the maximum would shut that down.

I took my entire Tier 1 for the con, and Tersha's Tier 1 for the con while she was still counting tickets, as one batch. At the Sunday turnin rate, that was 14 rolls.

So, your caps notion is not that great *and* adds a tracking system requirement to the already bottlenecky Boon Station..... To a benefit that I frankly don't see.

It may be a strategic error, but I volunteer as Todd Morgan's Beard if he needs one to represent in Minnesota.

Solstice Scar was super smooth at PaizoCon and fairly smooth at GenCon.

I was surprised to see how low the speed of reported successes was for Assault on Absalom. I expect that John will have adjustments in the Overseer instructions when he has time to get them injected into the layout and the scenario re-crunched into the PDF when he gets a minute to get back to it sometime this week.

(I was running the presentation side of AonA next to Ben. That was a very different way to see the room's progress and getting to trigger the text crawls and hear what Syrinscape had come up with for SFX on them was very cool, especially the player reactions to the Big Stuff I knew was in them from prepping).

Arrived yesterday and met up with Aoann, laid in the usual supply run to acquire food and breakfast goods.

Extra curricular activities so far today: visiting locations around Seattle that might have been the inspiration of several combat encounters (the SeaTac Botanical garden, the Bellevue botanical garden...)

Catching up up with the usual suspects setting up the PFS room and watching the gathering of the Paizo Fan Tribe.

Thanks Katina.

I seem to recall one of the vendors had these in past years as a booth item - am I remembering the right convention?

If so, which vendor? Or who should I be dropping in to talk to?

Whiffed! ><

See you in a couple weeks, Majuba!

Is this for level 1 characters?

True enough for the conventions. I'd just trying to see for the online community, most of us use discord organized by Jesse, could qualify for this with our regular games or not? For example i'm not able to get to a local store, most are about 30-45 minutes away, but i run 2-3 official games online a week, as do quite a few of our regular GMs. So just want to know if they qualify for this new incentive program or if online play will be disqualified.

Given the incredibly low cost of entry to conduct an online convention, I think the new program isn't tailored for the needs of the online community and that's probably OK...

There is a lot going on for one of the characters who has a through-story. Another one may have similar levels of interesting coming.

I strongly recommend play them in order, as soon as you can. And PM me if you're curious who I think has that much strength of continuity.

The Additional Resources entry for the Advanced Player Guide:

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player's Guide
All playtest versions of the six new base classes from this book are no longer legal for play as of 8/3/10. Anyone playing the playtest version of one of the six new base classes must have updated his or her character as of 8/3/10. Updating your character means adjusting only the things that have changed, but not rebuilding the character.

As of 4/27/15 the summoner class in this book is no longer legal for play. A summoner character that has played at least once at level 2 or higher by this date qualfies to continue using this version of the class. Otherwise, only the summoner in Pathfinder RPG Pathfinder Unchained is legal for play.

The following parts of the Advanced Player's Guide are NOT legal for play: craftsman alternate Dwarven racial trait, practicality alternate Halfling racial trait, heart of the fields alternate Human racial trait, Alchemist's Brew Potion class ability (he receives Extra Bombs instead as a bonus feat), Cavalier's Expert Trainer class ability (he receives Skill Focus [Handle Animal] instead as a bonus feat), Witch's Cauldron hex, Antipaladin alternate class, Cooperative Crafting feat, all cursed magic items and artifacts, the Hero Point new rule and associated feats, spells, and magic items
As of March 30, 2016, the philter of love is no longer legal for play.
Note: The nature oracle replaces awaken with animal growth

Alchemical Allocation is really not so overpowering as you're concerned of, as long as you actually pay attention to the action economy requirements of potions or doubled-up extracts.

No, that's never an appropriate profession.

Pathfinder agents are sometimes negotiators, sometimes hostage rescue team, sometimes smugglers, sometimes saviors, and once in a while just plain in the wrong and have to avoid a misguided colleague from burning down the <redacted>.

Flutter wrote:

Fromper wrote:

Or there's the occasional possibility of using non-social skills to avoid a combat. I once skipped two encounters in a PFS adventure with a really good profession: sailor roll.

It's amazing how much damage to the local flora and fauna can be prevented with a tasty snack.

And to pathfinders too.

I didn't want to run that encounter anyway...

You *did* run that encounter.... ish.

Glad I talked myself into joining that table, sleep deprivation be damned.

Jeff Hazuka wrote:

Blackbot wrote:

Sure, not every character get Min-Maxed to hell, but as long as you don't turn up with a Wizard 1/Fighter 1/Cleric 1/Ranger 1 equipped with a dagger and nothing else you should be fine.

Challenge Accepted.

I'm not sure if there's a way to get a viable PC like that. Now, if you were allowed 2 daggers, then you'd be on to something.

Archetypes OK? I see a ton of potential in those four classes feeding into a ranged combatant/trapsmith out of Trapper (because who needs ranger spells on wands when you can have Clr and Wiz?)....

(Separatist) Cleric of Iomedae (venerates her dead former patron, through her)

Foresight Wizard?

Double dipping bonus feats from Fighter and Ranger is tasty...

Ranger the rest of the progression (if a combat feat is needed, dipping the second level of Fighter, obviously)? The first three levels might feel awkward as hell because of trying to get frontloaded class abilities online...

Thinking about it, this seems like a really strong arcane archery build start, that just won't get rolling as fast as PFS' 11-level normal character arcs want to trade in to shine.

Those are some general tips, but many of them are not related to the Pathfinder Society Campaign. The limitations are major. You cannot sleep to regain spells/special abilities(by choice), run away from encounters, use diplomacy to avoid fights or acquire loot permanenetly.

Thats why its railroading.

Why is it that you believe these things? A notion of what scenario's you've played, and what leads you to these beliefs, might help us seem like we're listening to your concerns rather than dismissing them.

I will say that the last one is definitely both true.... and false. And part of the organized play abstraction that some "bad old days" explanation can clear up.

OK, let's kill this by looking at the question from another angle:

What does "Emulate a class feature" do?

Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature. If the class whose feature you are emulating has an alignment requirement, you must meet it, either honestly or by emulating an appropriate alignment with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).

So, if the DC to activate a scroll is 20+CasterLevel, and the DC to have the Spells class feature of (Class that wrote the spell) at CasterLevel is also 20+CasterLevel....

I read the Read a Scroll text such that this is equivalent in meaning:

Use a Scroll: Normally, to cast a spell from a scroll, you must have the scroll's spell on your class spell list. Use Magic Device allows you to emulate the Spells class feature as above - remember that the DC is equal to 20 + the caster level of the spell you are trying to cast from the scroll. In addition, casting a spell from a scroll requires a minimum score (10 + spell level) in the appropriate ability. If you don't have a sufficient score in that ability, you must emulate the ability score with a separate Use Magic Device check.

That makes it one check for the class feature and one possibly skipped check for the ability score.

I certainly see no cause to interpret that as two checks at the same high DC for every activation.

I have a question about what's legal to post on PFSPrep, based on Paizo's community usage policies.

I sometimes copy and paste maps from scenarios into jpg files, and edit them to make them the right size and printer friendly. That way, I can print them on plain 8.5x11 paper to use them with 1 inch squares at the gaming table.

Am I allowed to share those? Or does the fact that I'm copying Paizo's "pictures" prevent that?

As a historical note, cleaning up posts of the extracted map images in the google drive share which was the original form of PFS Prep was part of why we moved to the forum configuration.

No, that is expressly forbidden by the terms of the CUP and OGL combination which lets PFSPrep share what it does.

Full-up recreation of the maps using you own carto and cleared art assets is AWESOME, a TON of work, and welcome, though. I've seen a couple of sharable VTT maps (Feast of Sigils leaps to mind as one of the best) which were created using the carto in the scenario as inspiration... or the full-texture Bonekeep maps my wife made are around somewhere or other public, too.

The maps in the scenarios are extractable by you, for you, but cannot be shared. Link to the last official comment on this here

They're both amazing adventures / caper flicks / cut scenes of the campaign.

If you think of them as caper movies where the details of the caper are less important than the details of how I see the teams have interacted on my runs, Serpents Rise is kinda Oceans 11....

and Serpent's Ire is kinda Ronin.

Enjoy them!

As a GM of both: there are SERIOUS spoilers in playing it out of order.

I'd feel disappointed learning the Ire information before Rise, and the GM of Ire will have a lot less ability to tie things back to events for you.

I had a long post written up that I just ate.

The improvements I find in the new schedule compared to my Tier 1 experience every year back to 2012 is: this is the best schedule we've had, and it was worth it. I ran every evening special and Serpents Ire again Sunday morning this year, and 7 of my 8 fired.

Cooling is finally sufficient to overcome the heavy heat and humidity we had outside this year, and I'd far rather have people chilly and looking for a hot drink than sweaty and funky and me overheating and hitting the point where my brain loses the top quarter of my IQ and most of my empathy... (My players probably appreciate that last too!)

Amanda Plageman wrote:

Eric Ives wrote:

Only the Summoner will be unchained, per the PFS seminar at Paizo Con.

Sadness. Oh, well. That means I only have 3 missing pregens to pester poor John and Company about.

Challenge accepted! :-)

It might be wise to consider that there will be a *lot* of things going on at Gen Con, and beating on a topic that's already been mentioned to be on the list of things to be done might be a poor social interaction decision?

#unchainMerisiel

the plane of air appears to have the same moving reference frame and relative velocity problems as space combat simulations do, only moreso because of subjective variable gravity...

Note that on your Download page, 7-99 is at the top of your season 7 list, instead of coming after -98 where is should be. Someone (like me) who fails their perception check may think it is missing when it is actually there.

The dreaded hyphen-not-en-or-em-dash problem....

I would suggest that ya'll stop arguing, hit FAQ, and move on for now (expecting table variation, which won't occur in PFS because not open). Editing oversight, freelancers paid by the word for supplements, not necessarily reviewed by design team to catch things like the "does this ignore prereqs or not".

The rules discussion required for "is this ignoring prereqs or not" would be sufficient reason to not open the content until the FAQ is FAQd, I think.

Version 1.1 is live and includes more guidance on when to use the 4 player adjustments.

So, there have been repeated complaints that the calculation of subtiers is complicated. Some ideas were kicked around for how to make it easier to understand in the Roleplaying Guild Guide... and one of them was "why hasn't someone made an app?"

Let me help you with that: Subtierranean is available to do just that task.

I'm after a cheeky favour from someone who's run Serpents Ire.

I'm running it at Paizocon UK in 5 weeks time, and fancy building some 3D terrain as my players love it.

some of my previous work
images
images
images

However, we dont yet have the scenario added to our downloads
I know there is a custom map, and i'm after a copy so i can start on the terrain.

Chris, reach out to Tersha at GMail and talk, she's already extracted the map (and there's some FUNKY stuff with doing it for 3d!)

And hit me up at oni@tetsujinlabs.com too, this is another good one for 3ding the end fight.

Its actually alot more limited than you would think,

1. Modules dont permit day job checks hence you wouldnt be able to pay prestige to get the item after doing a module or GMing a scenario, you also wouldnt technically obtain the item if you play a mod after paying the PP to purchase it you would have to wait till you next complete a scenario that allows a day job roll.

2. you have to wait at least 1 scenario (see part 1) to recieve the item (you commission the group and pay the PP after scenario X and they return at the end of scenario X+1 with the relic).

For those who are reading this thread in Season 7 or later (Year of the Serpent or later), please consult your current Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide or its current equivalent. The use of this boon would qualify as a Downtime Activity and Caderyn's interpretation is no longer correct as of Season 7.

I'm GMing one of the Fri AM slots and if the rest of the table is OK with it, I'll run this with 7 if it makes things work.

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Because the HQ staff do not have the time off between slots to leave the room (that is our busiest time) we rotate breaks throughout the day to allow some time to relax, use the restroom, and get food/drink. Don't let the long day intimidate you. We won't let you go hungry :-)

I was worried, because I get dizzy if I don't eat or drink something other than water every two hours. Sugar based items won't help. Need something with protein. Btw, is there a grocery store near by?

I will make sure that HQ has some protein (animal based) bars and nuts available as well this year. At least two of the anchor volunteers will know where the non-candy stash is.

Another year, another Tier 1.

All snakes, almost all the time!

And also "I have to pack the Foster Library set! Sweet!"

Slot 1, Thursday AM: 6-98 Special: Serpent’s Rise
Slot 2, Thursday MID: 6-98 Special: Serpent’s Rise
Slot 3, Thursday PM: 7-98 Special: Serpent’s Ire
Slot 4, Friday AM: 7-28 Ageless Ambitions
Slot 5, Friday MID: OFF
Slot 6, Friday PM: 8-00 Special: The Cosmic Captive (Tier 10-11)*
Slot 7, Saturday AM: OFF
Slot 8, Saturday MID: 7-28 Ageless Ambitions
Slot 9, Saturday PM: 7-99 Special: Through Maelstrom Rift
Slot 10, Sunday AM: 7-98 Special: Serpent’s Ire

One for me and one for Aoann, with the stipulation that I'm skippable like Daigle.

So, I see that the Renton AFK Elixirs and Eatery closed in December...

Is there someplace outside the Doubletree we should forewarn of a descending horde of PaizoConians on Thursday?

Rusty Ironpants wrote:

TetsujinOni wrote:

Majuba, didn't you used ta hail from Texas and you're recommending Taco Bell over someplace?

*shudder*

It's a lesser of two evils situation, methinks.

If Taco HBell is the lesser of two evils then maybe tex-mex is off the table this trip.

Lots of good choices for Pho and dim sum in the area....

Good steakhouse / whiskey venue, too.

If you muster a table of players who want to play Core, the scenarios don't change at all, and the GM at the table can issue Core chronicles.

Scheduling Core tables makes the scheduling pretty chaotic, and isn't needed from a GM scheduling perspective.