Toby Determined's page

Looking to split this conversation off from the Mythic discussion. While it was stated that Mythic would be over powering for PFS as a whole, I sincerely believe that difficulty in the Pathfinder society as a whole is almost completely a non-issue.

For this discussion, please note that there are a few outliers to these points which I hopefully will address in this point.

The following are some observations as to why difficulty is practically a non-issue in PFS.

1.) Scenarios as of late are extremely binary.

By this I mean that many scenarios recently have their difficulty based around one specific threat. For example: Can someone in your party deal with sudden darkness? Can your party make a certain check? If your party can deal with the threat, then it's a cake walk. If not, then you might be in trouble. But often times the threats are fairly common threats.

2.) Enemy creatures are simply outnumbered in combats.

While this has been getting better as of late, anything other than an even number of enemies suddenly puts the NPC encounter at a major disadvantage. Let's assume that the big bad can throw out a pretty hefty spell such as fireball or disintegrate. Worst case scenario, a party member might die. But then the other three to five party members will proceed to demolish the heavy hitter. And with at least 3-5 attacks compared to their one, it doesn't bode well for the creature.

More enemies isn't always the answer either, as it means their individual CR has likely been reduced for parity. But as anyone who's ever played with a Barbarian at level 1 knows, a baddie with 4 HP just doesn't stand a chance against a power attack.

3.) NPC's wealth isn't at parity.

For this and the next issue, I can't say what the policy for Season 6 and 7 has been, but for past scenarios when an NPC has a PC wealth their CR increases. This means that at the same level, an enemy NPC is already outclassed. Where a PC might already have a +2 or +3 weapon, the NPC's they are facing may only have the wealth for a +1 weapon and potentially +1 armor before looking at increasing their versatility with potions or scrolls.

If you up the wealth of a NPC, the CR goes up and then reaches the cap for the scenario. Which is then a tough spot. Does the party increase a similar level but equal CR creature, but then leaving out lesser creatures to annoy the party? Or do they just fight a higher leveled but equally geared NPC? Either way, that lowers the amount of creatures that a party fights.

4.) NPC stats are not on a 20 point buy.

Again, this is only going from past scenarios as I can't say what the policy is for Season 6 or 7. But in past scenarios, when an NPC has not been on a 15 point buy, their CR has increased. But when their CR increases, they have fewer creatures in the encounter. Adding to that, even if their CR increases by stat parity, their wealth has not. So you can either have a NPC with equal stats or a NPC with equal wealth. But even with that addition, that would mean that an NPC with equal stats and wealth to one PC would have an increase of at least 2 CR, meaning that while they may be on par with one PC, they would still be completely outnumbered by the party.

This turned out to be longer than I had intended, but I will end this post here before getting into items that are making scenarios much easier. And obviously, there does need to be some guide bar. Subtier 1-2 shouldn't be facing fireballs or getting disintegrated. Or facing Pit Fiends. But there has to be something that can be done in order to normalize difficulty a bit.

Since it's not certain if there is a backlog on the additional resources at the moment or not, is there any intention of making any of Distant Shores legal for PFS?

If there is anything from Distant Shores that will be legal, two follow up questions:

1.) As it stands now, is the Pact Servant trait likely going to be legal?

2.) If Pact Servant will be legal, will the trait allow for Asmodean paladins?

I like the idea behind this character and I'm currently creating concepts for the character.

I'd like to see how far I should go in the concept phase for this character before any actual work gets done on it :)

I'm not sure if this has been covered or not in the recent Pathfinder unchained discussion.

If there is a printed scenario that has either a Rogue, Barbarian, Summoner, or Monk do we rebuild them as the Unchained versions or do we play them as printed?

There have been other threads on proposed rule changes but the threads seem to have been derailed a bit, so I wanted to request that a change in language be made allowing parties that hit exactly the float level (3,5,7,9) can choose to play up if they desire.

What I have noticed happening quite frequently lately is that at tables of four players have three players that would fit in the higher tier, but because of one lower level player they fall exactly in the middle and then have to play down.

Examples:

In a 1-5 scenario, four level 3 characters and one level 1 character puts the APL at 3.25. That means that their average APL is 3 and they play down. The same applies for 3-7 scenarios with three level 6's and one level 3 (APL 5.25), 5-9 scenarios with three level 8's and one level 5 (APL 7.25) and 7-11 scenarios with three level 10's and one level 7 (APL 9.25).

By the current rule, that party must play the lower tier, yet the three other players are two levels higher than the sub tier was written for. So obviously, the party crushes the scenario and gains out of tier gold. But often times the players themselves feel let down, since they were able to annihilate everything in their path. And some times, the players even feel cheated because the higher tier players could have gotten full high tier gold instead.

For the reasons listed above I propose that the rule be amended to let let people exactly at the float/middle level play up in a sub tier calculation if they choose.

In the additional resources, Irez is listed as not legal for play. The likely assumption for this is because of her relationship to the Harrow deck.

With most things Harrowing legal for society play, is there any chance that Irez might be join the rest of the Harrow deck as well?

In a recent PFS game night, it came up that the Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents is legal for PFS, even though the consensus was that it is incredibly under costed for its a abilities.

There are have been concerns brought up about other items from Inner Sea Gods, should this one be placed under reconsideration as well? At will magic missiles (at 2 missiles per use) for any class at a cost of 5,050 gp seems very OP.

This question revolves around the chronicle sheet from Destiny of the Sands Part 3. Super Spoilers ahead.

I've searched on the forums, but I haven't been able to find anything on this boon.

So, we're getting to the point where about 2-3 times a week on the forums someone is talking about scenario difficulty and how it's too easy. I think it's safe to assume that at this point in time it's not just power gamers and over optimizers that are creating these issues. It seems like it would be productive to talk about what we think the potential issues are and what good resolutions to them would be.

Note: The intention behind this thread is to have a constructive discussion about difficulty in scenarios, not to just to complain about the issue. Some examples of areas that can be improved are listed below:

1.) Initiatives. It's pretty safe to say that it's not hard to get player initiatives easily to +10 to +20 with minimal investment and little to no impact on combat effectiveness. If enemies in scenarios have an initiative modifier, it's usually around +2 to +4.

2.) Number of enemies in encounters. This ties in with #1, but high player initiatives may not be as much of an issue if there are more enemies in encounters. Most encounters have the enemies vastly outnumbered, regardless if they are scenarios built for 4 players or for 6 . Adding more baddies may be a good solution for future scenarios.

3.) Feats/spells/abilities. There are tons of player options available for players in Pathfinder Society. Are there some that seem to keep appearing over and over even though there are other options? Example: Recently there's been a lot of discussion about the problems planar binding has been causing in scenarios. Does that spell need to go?

These are but a few potential improvement areas. Are there any other areas that need improvement more so than these? And what could be implemented to help these areas or others?

When reporting older Season 5 scenarios (Such as Glass River Rescue) does it still matter if we report A,B,C, or D? While for newer scenarios I understand that those boxes are important, once the decision has been made to go with one of these choices does that info still need to be reported?

Ok, it's a question that's got to be asked:

Why is the savage dirty trick legal for PFS while dirty trick master isn't? Dirty trick master has the requirement of two other feats and a BAB of 11, so there is the cost of it being a high level feat along with two other feats before being able to take the feat.

Savage dirty trick can be taken at level 6 with no requirements and has basically the same effects for a shorter duration. On top of that, savage dirty trick essentially gives Barbarians access to multiple Improved feats, since the combat maneuver doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. Not only does it give a free feat, but if the attack is successful the enemy takes damage equal to the barbarian's strength mod.

While there is a save before the effects take place, the DC is strength based and since the barbarian is raging the DC will be higher.

I appreciate any assistance or insight that can be provided!

I've done some searching on the forums for this and while the issue has been brought up a little bit, I'm not sure that there's been an official statement on this.

In the Additional Resources for Ultimate Equipment says that both the Celestial and Elysian shield specifically are stated as not legal for play, but under the Advanced Race Guide they are still listed as legal. Does this imply that only Assimar's have access to these items or is it a situation in which they are not meant to be legal for play?

If there is an another statement on these items, please link them in this thread because I haven't been able to find one on the subject.

When you find a discrepancy between books on something that is legal in the additional resources, what's the best way to bring it to PFS management's attention? Should it be posted in the forums or should it be sent in a direct message to Mike Brock/John Compton?

While the Faction missions have been done away with, there were some plot points doled out in Season 4 that seemed wholly inconsistent with the faction and I'm curious as if these inconsistencies will ever be explained.

They involve Coulson Maldris and as Andoran players know, his faction missions are weird in Season 4. Spoilers abound below:

At least where I play, these faction missions and oddities were a source of a lot of discussion. Does anyone know if these missions will be explained, or will this just be Maldris's emo phase? :)

Petition: Allow the armor enchantment Mind Buttressing to be legal for play in PFS.

Reasoning: While at first glance the enchant seems overpowered, for a +2 armor enchant it isn't as powerful as it seems.

1.) There are plenty of ways to get similar protection for a lower cost. Protection from evil/chaos/law can all be purchased for 50g each, low enough for even a new character to have one if they desired. Shining Wayfinders are available that allow even non-casters to cast Protection from evil for only 2,000 gp.

2.) A clear Spindle Ioun stone not only gives a similar effect, but also allows someone to sustain themselves without food or water for only 4,000 gp. (4,250 if you include a standard wayfinder in the price)

3.) As a +2 enchantment, the cheapest cost that a PC could acquire it at would be 9,000 gp. In addition, it requires it be placed on medium or heavy armor. So many classes wouldn't be available to take advantage of the enchant without incurring severe penalties.

In conclusion, Mind Buttressing is a powerful enchant, but not one that is over powered. As an armor enchant, it allows classes that use medium and heavy armor to gain permanent protection from evil while still giving a variety of options with wayfinders and Ioun stones.

I welcome thoughts and conversation about this petition!

Does anyone know if there's a way we can get some PFS specific cards into Pathfinder Munchkin? I'm thinking something like "Because Mike Brock Said So,"" John Compton's Were-platypus Companion," or "Mark Moreland's favorite boss monster." :)

Any other PFS related cards you think should be added? And how can we make this a thing? :)

I had a question about some boons in PFS at the moment and was wondering if it was possible to get some guidance on them

Thanks!

I've done some researching and haven't been able to find anything on this that has been asked before. Some wall of force questions came up in a recent game and led to a few questions.

1.) What kind of cancelling effect does Wall of Force have? Does it count as a dispelling effect or something else?

2.) Does Wall of Force cancel sonic effects? There's nothing innately in the spell description that says it would.

3.) Would Wall of Force prevent effects from the spell blasphemy?

4.) Would wall of Force prevent effects from a blasphemy SLA? SLA's aren't stopped by the same means that spells are, so then would a wall of force stop a SLA?

Thanks!

While I know that this could be a part of the general system as well, I'm posting it in PFS because in a home game a GM can control the characters more.

The initiatives I'm starting to see in PFS games are starting to get really out of a control. Last night in a game I ran there were two characters that had 15+ initiative modifiers and totals that were pushing 27-38.

Not only is this not fun for the GM, but its not fun for the players either. One of the players at my table didn't get to act in three combats for the scenario because everyone else's numbers completely blew them out of the water. If they had rolled a 20, they still would have gone after those characters.

While future scenarios could possibly introduce creatures with higher initiatives, there's no way that PFS staff could try to fix this problem for all of the previous scenarios. A hard cap of initiative would help control this problem a little bit, while also helping players explore other parts of their characters.

Example: If the hard cap on initiative modifiers were set to 10, players who wanted to have a character go first would still have a higher chance of going first, but turn order would be a little more random giving slower initiative characters more of a chance to participate in the game.

While this is a little long of a post, I've already witnessed one game that potentially last two players due to incredibly high initiative characters. Both players eventually returned, but it was a month after that game, leaving our venue to wonder if we had inadvertently chased away two players.

I do welcome any thoughts on the subject, as this isn't the first time the issue of high initiatives has come up, but this is one of the first potential solutions that I'm aware of.

EDIT: There has been some confusion as to my original intention for the cap. The intention was to cap initiative modifiers at 10, meaning that the max initiative would be 30. Max initiative of 30 would still be enough for anyone who wanted to go first to go first, while still giving people who didn't optimize the stat a chance to still participate in battles.

I just picked up Chronicle of the Righteous and I'm curious if the Rituals of Mortification were intentionally left off of the additional resources. They look like they could be fun both mechanically and role play wise.

There are a lot instances in the ACG playtest document and in the blog that says that the playtest will run until Decemeber 17th. Will our characters still be playable after the 17th?

The reason I ask is I have a race boon that can't be easily replaced that I would like to use for the playtest. I'm concerned that if I use the boon for a playtest class, I won't be able to use them until the book comes out.

So, this came up quite a bit yesterday and I was wondering what the general consensus was on this. If there is a demon encounter in a scenario and it doesn't say if they are summoned or not, what is the default for them?

This actually has some implications on their effectiveness in combat.

Does anyone know what happened to the possibility of having a lottery for racial boons after playing certain scenarios? This was announced in a blog post a while back and I don't think that there's been anything announced about it since.

With this thread becoming popular it reminded me of this idea.

It seems like there haven't been any PFS blog posts in quite some time, it looks like this is the third week in a row without any blogs. Are there not going to be any more blog posts in the future?

Even if there's nothing to really talk about in PFS, that topic alone makes for a good blog post. :)

After reading the scenario, I've noticed a discrepancy between tiered stat blocks. Does anyone know what is supposed to be correct in the issue mentioned below?

Trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but it seems like there's something missing in this scenario.

This isn't the only boon that works this way in Skulls and Shackles, but it is definitely the first.

What happens if you grapple the mount of a cavalier? If you don't have improved grapple, who makes the attack of opportunity against you? And is the mount's movement impeded then?

This was something I was thinking about for a little while: The Armiger Vanity gives you bonuses when dealing with Hellknights. My question is, do Hellknights ever appear in Society? I've played many scenarios, low and high tier, and I don't think I've ever seen one.

I was wondering if experience and prestige is multiplied for characters who have completed a module, why aren't dayjob rolls?

This came up in my group, and it seemed to stump everyone so I'm throwing it to you guys.

When Faction leaders appear in a scenario and they are outside of the society, do regular people know what they do? Is it common knowledge that the Paracountess or Coulson Madris is responsible for for every Cheliax/Andoran pathfinder? Or does everyone just know they're influential, but they're not sure how?

In terms of movement and attacking, how exactly do Cavalers and mounts use their actions? Is it one standard and movement action for each, or do they share the actions between the two?

So, is it possible for a mount to take a double move action and then the cavalier still attack?

So, when an animal companion gets a certain Int score they have access to all skills, not just the animal ones. If you give your animal a profession, does that mean that the animal can also make a day job roll after a scenario?

Can you make skill checks while unconscious? The rules don't say one way or the other. While it seems like it might not come up a lot, there is one critical situation I came across with it. If your cavalier is unconscious but still on his mount, can you still use mounted combat to make ride checks to avoid damage on the mount? Neither the feat or the skill check section says one way or the other.

Hey everyone, I've got some questions about the Cavalier class. I apologize if some of these have been asked already, but I haven't been able to find the answer to these on the forums.

1.) Does combat training for the mount give it attack for all creatures? The description doesn't say one way or the other. It doesn't make sense why a combat trained mount wouldn't attack undead creatures, cause you know...they're trained for combat :P

2.) Can Mounted combat let you use ride checks to get out of criticals?

So, 7 player tables are pretty unpopular lately, but no seems certain as to whether or not they should be removed from PFS. Instead of out right removing them, why not have a negative gold modifier for them instead?

So if a 4 player table would get 1800 gold, the 7 player table would get say 1400 gold per player. This would simulate how there's less gold to be split among everyone in the party, since there's more people in the party.

This would leave the 7 player option for those who need it, and discourage it for everyone else.

It seems that magical weapon costs are far too expensive in the society to be anywhere near useful. The cost for a +1 enchantment is 2,000 gold plus 300 for the masterwork cost PLUS the cost of the weapon. Let's compare this to armor costs which are exactly half the cost of magical weapons. Shields are the same.

Why is the cost of magical weapons exactly 2 to 1 against the armor? The benefit of a +1 magical weapon is not that significant in society games. The gold acquired in early levels is something else to be considered too. A low level player can get on average 500 gold a session. 2 sessions in, they can purchase magical armor, and will likely do so because not falling in combat is more critical than doing one extra damage. (A smart player will also realize that this is a better option because nothing in the PFS has a decent attack bonus. And before anyone argues this point, I just played a tier 5 scenario that gave monsters a +3 :P ) Low level players can also get the armor in 2 scenarios, compared to saving up gold for four scenarios to get a +1 on their weapon.

If that's still not enough proof for you that's something is wrong with the costing, I'll give you this case: At the venue where I play PFS, the rouges have started using shields even though they're not proficient in them. The player realized that he was a little too squishy and wanted to boost his survivability. He looked at getting a magical shield or a magical weapon. He decided to go with a magical Darkwood heavy shield because it gave him a +3 to his AC with no attack penalty at a cost of 1300 gold. The shield was still 700 gold less than the +1 weapon. There's something wrong here.

Does the +2 given to allies from saving shield benefit from a magical enhancement bonus to the feat holder's shield?

Along the lines of the planar ally discussion that's going on: Is it me, or is this vanity over priced compared to what it can do and other vanities of similar cost? There's really not a lot that the Imp can do that you can't get accomplished with either a familiar or summon monster.

Also, if planar ally gets banned from the society,do you think they'll keep this vanity or replace it with something else?

Pretty much what the title says. How does someone nominate a region to get a venture captain/lieutenant/officer for an area?

My region has a pretty healthy amount of pathfinder society players, but the closest venture officers are rather far away. It seems unfair to them to make them drive 2-3+ hours to run stuff at our events. Not that we don't enjoy antagonizing the hell out of them when they do show up :P

I'm confused by the wording on beacon of good. It says that any pathfinder caught selling their wayfinder is kicked out of the faction and needs to pick another one. But how can they sell their wayfinder? Since they used prestige points to pay for it, it has no selling price.

Is there any way you could get a flying mount in the society? Not just as a paladin/Cavalier, but as a druid or summoner or other class combo?

If something gives a boost to AC, and doesn't say otherwise does it boost Flat-Footed and Touch? There's quite a few bonuses that don't say either way

Do feats like Mounted Combat and Crane Wing ignore critical hits?

Does making small armor with special materials half the cost of those materials? So if you were making a small mithral chain shirt, would the mithral cost be 500 gold instead of 1000?

What exactly is the point of the mid-tier loot selection on many scenario sheets? I've recently started playing on 3-5 level missions, and most of the loot available is within 1200-2000 gold. But for most players playing the scenario, they have the fame to purchase the items normally anyway. Especially items priced 1200, it doesn't take that much Fame to be able to earn those.

Now, you may not have enough fame by 5 to purchase a 2000+ gold item, but you should definitely have enough for 1200 gold by that point in time. Playing up may be a reason, but I can't imagine that the majority of people playing these scenarios are level 1. In fact, they can't be in order to play up ^^

After I play a scenario, the events aren't being reported to my characters. I've talked to the person who reports them for my group, and everything is good on our side. Who do I contact about this issue?

So, as the rules stand now, for Season 1-2 scenarios you only need to do both Faction missions to count as a success for the entire scenario. Is that correct?

Most of my tables are are only one or two factions, so if we finish up our faction missions we're done? That'd really cut on the playing time if that were the case :)

Over the weekend I was playing in a PFS scenario which involved combat with someone on a mount. They were really the major threat in the battle, and needed to be taken out. However, we weren't doing enough damage to kill him in one round and killing the mount would have taken even longer.

Is there any combat action that can be taken to force someone to dismount from their mount? I know there's a feat that allows it, but that's only if you're also mounted.

Can you use Prestige points and gold to purchase an item in the society? For example, you wanted to buy +1 armor so you use the 2pp for 750 gold then use gold on hand to pay the rest off?

I want to say no, but honestly I can't find anywhere that says that you can't.