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A couple of questions on this boon, as I haven't played PFS since about Season 1 and don't know how these boons work in PFS. I played Into the Unknown and 1-01 this weekend. Will I be able to get the boon somehow? I also accidentally deleted my 701 character as I couldn't make the character registration system work so my first/only SFS character is 702. Can that character get the boon? Thanks!
If a Starfinder Inventory Tracking Sheet is still being designed, perhaps a much larger space for batteries than the consumables part of the Pathfinder one would be a good idea. I haven't played PFS recently and hadn't seen the ITS but got one to use for the SFS character I created this weekend, and the bottom section seemed to be the best place to track battery charges, but some characters would tun through sheets very quickly!
Now with the way they've structured this level 1 replay, lvl 1 Bob can have his new character, and lvl 7 Joe can always create a new lvl 1 character to join in a party of lvl 1 characters and everyone will be able to claim credit. Level 7 Joe can take the 3 XP from the mod and apply it to his main character and now be level 8. Bob can apply it to his new level 1 character and blamo he's level 2. I'm not sure this is the situation. The conversion document says "If a player uses a legal Pathfinder Society character for the adventure (existing, or newly created), he must apply the Chronicle to this PC. A player who plays a pregenerated character may apply the credit to any existing Pathfinder Society character." So if you create a PFS character, you must apply the credit to that new character. If you have a 7th level character, the only way you can apply credit to the 7th level character is to play a pregenerated PFS character (which I expect means 'one of the official pregens, rather than one created by you, your GM, local organiser, or whatnot). So while Joe can play Godsmouth and apply the credit to his level 7 character, he can only do this by playing a pregen. It also seems that you only ever get one GM credit for Godsmouth, regardless of how many times you GM it, as the exception at the end of the Getting Credit section only applies to "replay[ing] for credit".
The WotC 'D&D Campaigns' campaigns Mark of Heroes and Xen'Drik Expeditions and now LFR had/have scope for GMs to create adventures which they can then run as part of the campaign, with players getting credit/rewards for playing them as if they were 'official' campaign adventures. Given that one of the concerns about replay is a lack of low-level adventures making it difficult for players to create third and fourth characters (and to find adventures which they can play with new players) I wonder if this is something the campaign would like to consider. As a rough proposal, I'd suggest something like this: GMs can create adventures which can award 1XP, up to 1PA, and a specified level of gp. It may be that the adventure should only run at tier 1-2, and a particular character could only play through a specific adventure run by a GM once - but that character could play a different adventure run by the same GM, at least until it reached 3rd level. Guidelines would be issued reiterating the adventure creation rules that form part of the Pathfinder RPG - and players would probably have to trust the GM to provide an appropriate challenge. The scheme would be enhanced by the publication of some adventure outlines or plot points which GMs could be encouraged (or required) to include in their adventures, but this isn't necessary. GMs could be told of 'off-limits' plot points to avoid conflict with ongoing plot-lines, or an area of the world 'set aside' for these adventures. These may not be as 'good' as official, published, PFS adventures, but could allow willing GMs to facilitate play in their local groups. If more control was wanted, this could be limited to GMs with a particular star rating (showing that they've GMd plenty of PFS and presumably have an idea of how the campaign works and what is appropriate) and/or the permission of a Venture Captain could be required before a GM could create and run these adventures. I don't have a personal interest in this - I'm not a PFS organiser and play about once a month if that - but after skimming over hundreds of posts about replay, this seemed to be a possible partial solution.
Your animal companion starts with the bonus trick it gets for being an animal companion, but no other tricks per the previous ruling on this. I don't think you can take 10 on the rolls. Hope this helps! Nothing in the 'Taking 10' section nor the 'Handle Animal' skill description excludes taking 10 to train an an animal a trick - taking 10 is only (generically) excluded when "in immediate danger or distracted" and Handle Animal doesn't mention it, so the taking 10 option should be available. Since "you know ... that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail" and "a particularly high roll wouldn't help" it seems to fit within the fluff of taking 10 as well. I've not checked the Guide, so it might be explicitly excluded there, but I doubt it. A similar thing is true of the checks wizards make to add spells to their spell-book - a wizard who is investing in Spellcraft is investing resources to remove the risk of failure.
We get to a BBG encounter. We wade through the mooks as we're having various non-harmful but annoying effects. My PC breaks through and I'm about to finally get my glaive into the guy. My PC then fails to save vs. sleep and fall at his feet with the rest of the party 20-60 feet away. BBG draws weapon, 5-ft steps up and begins the full round action to CdG my PC. The rest of the party then acts in heroic fashion to get at him. The BBG is killed before he can finish. My PC doesn't die. All is good in the universe. I haven't used CdG in Pathfinder (not sure I ever used it in 3.5 either) but I feel I ought to check - isn't CdG a full-round action akin to full attacking, not a one-round 'action' akin to casting sleep or a summon spell? In other words, it goes: 1) Bad guy's initiative comes up; 2) Bad guy says 'I coup de grace the sleeping person at my feet'; 3) Bad guy's turn ends; 4) Next person's initiative comes up. So no ally of the poor sleeping person gets to act before the CdG is completed. Am I missing something? (CdG as a one-round 'action' would be a good rule, creating some great tension in a game, but I didn't think that was how it worked).
If you install Adobe PDF reader on your mac it works with out the Missing A problem.Awesome, thanks! I'm new to the mac and still moving in :) You may want to get Adobe Reader 8, not Adobe Reader 9. Reader 9 won't let you copy images out of Paizo pdfs the way Reader 8 can. (And Preview doesn't do it either, for some reason; I'm pretty sure Reader 8's the best way to do it, particularly if you want the images of maps without the labels for VTTs.)
My advice: keep your faction a secret. :-)I've actually seen more faction missions spoiled accidentally than on purpose. In which case it's probably more to your advantage to get the other party members to agree to help you with your faction mission up front. The only time the group I play with has had real trouble was when one faction kept their mission secret and my character prevented them from completing it without realising it. (I think they had to keep someone alive, I rather mis-judged how squishy that someone was and hit it twice with a big weapon before they even got into the room, killing it dead). I was rather unhappy when I realised I'd messed up their mission as in the end it hurts an entire party if some members don't get PA and (particularly in an environment where you tend to be adventuring with the same characters) that actually hurts every character. Since then we've been sort of surreptitiously open with each other about our missions and agree not to get in each others' way, which has worked out ok.
True, though the spell would only be able to target the user of the wand, as the target of a personal spell is the caster, and the caster of a spell from a wand is the user of the wand. So you can get a consumable of Shield for your Wizard, or for any other character with Shield on their spell list, or a character with good Use Magic Device, but you can't get a consumable which allows the Barbarian to have easy access to True Strike.
http://humon.deviantart.com/art/Nordics-like-Fish-148433789?offset=40
That's exactly what I meant, thanks! It looked as if the number of sessions was just to produce the right number of tracking sheets, but I just wanted to make entirely sure that this wasn't going to carry over so that you'd only have four session slots to report if you'd told the ordering system that there were going to be four sessions.
I thought so too, but then Josh said this: They can get GM credit for a scenario once. So if they already played it and then run it, they can apply their GM credit to a different character with a different faction from the character/faction with which they originally played the scenario. Having played a scenario doesn't mean you can no longer get credit for GMing it.
Replay and GM Credit Clarifications I've tried to combine my understanding of the replay and GM credit rules into a set of rules/propositions as there seem to be lots of questions about them, and it would be very useful to know if I've got this right! Are the following correct? * If you have played an adventure:
* If you have GM'd an adventure:
All of the above are subject to this absolute rule: no player may receive credit from a single scenario for the same character more than once, and no player may play a scenario with more than one character from each faction. Applying GM credit to a character counts as 'playing' it with that character, and from that faction, for all purposes. If you cannot comply with the absolute rule and this threatens the viability of a game, you may play a pre-generated character appropriate to the tier in order to permit the game to go ahead but receive no credit for doing so. Anyone with actual knowledge of the content of the adventure must be careful to comply with the rule that "If you spoil the plot for the table, the GM has the right to ask you to leave the table and is under no obligation to reward you a chronicle sheet."
Do you have to buy silver arrows in batches of 20? Is it +2gp for each batch of 20 silver arrows (30gp for 20 silver arrows) or +2gp for each silver arrow (401gp for 20 silver arrows)? (This may be a silly question which has an obvious answer I've missed, but it was the first one which sprang to mind - 400gp is a lot to invest in ammo!)
If you are unconvinced by the upgrade rule, can you address the point I make here: "If you can buy a +1 longsword, you can buy a +1 cold-iron longsword as the same rule which gives access to a longsword gives access to a cold-iron longsword. If you did not have access to the cold-iron longsword you would not have access to the longsword." The rules say that all basic armor (etc) from chapter 6 is available. 'Basic' here includes "the other special materials such as alchemical silver and cold iron". So a chain shirt made from mithral is a basic item.* It is no different from a chain shirt made of steel. Or a longsword. Or a cold-iron longsword. "You may always purchase ... basic [items] from Chapter 6 ... This ... does include the other special materials...". 'This' can only refer to 'basic [items] as there is no other noun it can be pointing to. So if you can buy a +1 longsword (combining point 2 with point 1) then you can buy a +1 cold-iron longsword (also combining point 2 with point 1) and you can buy a +1 chain shirt made of mithral (combining point 3 with point 1). I'm afraid my position is that the wording does clearly (if not explicitly) allow 'stacking'; no other interpretation makes sense of the words written on page 22. *I agree that the presence of the mithral chain shirt on page 466 is confusing. Is there a price or properties difference between the two? If not then where you have a rule which says 'if you qualify in this fashion you can buy item x' and a rule which says (without qualifications) 'you can buy item x' then you can buy item x as the rules are entirely about telling you what you can buy, and so the wider/more permissive rule functions. There's a possibility that those are listed in the 'magic items' section for historical reasons and so that they can easily be referenced in random treasure allocation tables.
Looking at page 22 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, the same entry which gives you access to a longsword or a suit of full-plate gives access to a cold iron longsword or mithral full-plate. If we look at the wording it says: "All [items] from Chapter 6 ... This ... does include the other special materials." It then says: +1 armor. If you can buy a +1 longsword, you can buy a +1 cold-iron longsword as the same rule which gives access to a longsword gives access to a cold-iron longsword. If you did not have access to the cold-iron longsword you would not have access to the longsword. Finally, at the bottom of the first column on page 22, it says "a masterwork weapon can always be upgraded to a +1 weapon..." So as far as I can tell, PA only applies to items which are not on the list on page 22 of the Guide.
Josh's post above would be called per incuriam if it were an English legal judgment. This is a way to show that an apparently binding ruling should not stand as precedent for future cases because the judge made a decision without having relevant binding law cited to him. In other words, the judge said something, without having been made aware of the existence of law which would suggest otherwise. Josh is relying on the text of the activating scrolls section of the rules and extrapolating from there to wands (as an aside), without the benefit of the text on activating wands, which is then cited later in the thread. (With my lawyer hat on, the wands comment is also obiter dicta, words which are not required to answer the question asked, as the question was about scrolls). That Josh said "(or wands for that matter)" is not very strong evidence that he has considered the text on activating wands and ruled that it is in error, and there is no support for that conclusion in the rest of his post. So I, for one, am happy to continue to rule that Paladins and Rangers can activate wands (but not scrolls) at 1st-3rd level.
I might be derailing a bit but I'd find it awesome to have the chronicle sheets look a little more 'flashy and nifty'. At the moment it's a bit bland with the large white space that often doesn't even hold any access items (at least not a whole lot). Personally I'd very much like to see the nation's flag/symbol where the scenario took place. I know this would be very much like in Living Greyhawk ARs (Adventure Record), but having a visually impressive chronicle sheet might lure some people into thinking them more as diplomas, something you like to carry around. That's certainly something which the people I play with would like to see. One of my friends was a dedicated collector of the different shields printed on LG ARs. I seem to recall him even getting excited as the new year approached because each year's ARs had a different rune forming the background. One of the real advantage of an AR/SC system is the 'artifact', the physical memento of the game. It's probably not a lot of extra work to make that look and feel just a little more impressive, and that sort of attention to detail can really improve the overall experience of play.
Sure, sign me up. You can bunk on my sofa during your stay in Finland.I get a very distinct feeling I'd never leave Finland alive. I think someone needs to invite Josh to be a guest of honour at Ropecon (see Ken Hite's comments here: http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com/tag/ropecon and Jonathan Tweet's here: http://www.jonathantweet.com/jotconropecon03.html paying particular attention to the afterparty...)
I play quite a lot of LFR and haven't seen any serious problems with replaying. Allowing replay encourages players to play low-level games, and this has proved to be a major benefit in organising a group of ten to fifteen playing LFR. Without it, we would have found it harder to introduce new players. And while that may be partly a function of the limited number of level 1 adventures in the early days of LFR, it'd be true no matter how many there are - after a period of time you will always reach the point where a significant number of players in the group have played all of the available low-level adventures, making it impossible to form a table for a newcomer. The issue of missions and prestige awards does complicate this. I would not suggest permitting replay but banning the earning of prestige as this could leave characters which replay a lot quite a long way behind. Perhaps replaying characters could be limited to the 'easy' mission, giving them a maximum of 1 prestige point, which would put them on the same level as people who GM quite a lot and eat modules.
Assuming I've not read your question incorrectly (and I retain the right to correct this later) adding keen to a Luck Blade would cost 10,000 gp (the difference between a +2 and +3 weapon) or 5,000 gp for a wizard 5 adding this ability to his bonded Luck Blade. It may be that this was a Living Greyhawk specific rule, but I seem to recall that in that campaign you could only upgrade weapons which had a clear enhancement-bonus equivalence. So there (where there was item creation) you could upgrade a + 1 flaming longsword (+2 equivalence) with the keen ability (adding another +1) costing one-half of (18,000-8,000) or 5000gp and 400XP. You could not ever make any change to a sun blade or luck blade or any other 'specific weapon'. With a quick look, I couldn't see a clear rule in the PFRPG rules to explain how much it costs to add special abilities to specific weapons. Perhaps that helps (and perhaps it doesn't!)
It caused some significant unease before the campaign began, but the ability of players to play adventures they have already GMd or played in LFR (so long as the same character doesn't play the same adventure more than once) has, I think, been a major success. It means that people who GM have a full opportunity to actually have the fun of playing the adventure, and get the rewards they deserve for their character(s) rather than some arbitrarily determined reward. PFS needn't be as liberal as LFR, of course: you could make the rule that each player may play each scenario only once; whether a player has GMd the adventure being irrelevant. This isn't a perfect solution - the concept of players always being entirely unaware of the content of an adventure is a good one - but I think that there is a real need for there to be some way for GMs to keep up with people who only play, as otherwise it is possible for those who are contributing most to PFS in their area to become less and less able to actually play! Regarding other suggestions above; unless PFRPG radically changes the importance of equipment to character effectiveness, 'rewarding' a GM with an experience point but no gold is actually going to be a disadvantage to the character, not an advantage! Even limiting access/prestige points could cause these problems.
I don't have the details here, and I am conscious of the fact that comparisons with LG aren't always apt, but I believe that towards the end of LG the admins modified the charity of friends rule, saying something along the lines of: "if your total wealth is less than [some fraction, perhaps 3/4, of] the appropriate entry on the PC wealth by level table in the DMG, you can invoke charity of friends. This created a floor below which very unlucky PCs could not drop (at higher levels, dying was far less feared than having all your stuff stolen from you) - but put the onus on the player to do the calculations, and only if and when it was necessary to see if the rule would apply. Something similar could allow for real penalties but prevent them from completely destroying the character's ability to continue playing.
I don't know anything about it apart from the fact that it exists, but Creighton Broadhurst has written a book on disease for Expeditious Retreat Press. It's called 'Plague', and appears to be available in print and pdf, so it could provide some tips.
I've just moved to Oxford, which is an hour from Paddington, and i'm up for a game. Just to re-plug the Tassek group (www.tassek.anang.com) - a lot of Oxford players are still finishing off Living Greyhawk and/or playing Living Forgotten Realms, but I think there's some interest in exploring Pathfinder Society too.
PFS, like many organised play campaigns, creates an abstract way of tracking what treasure characters acquire. The way I understand it, everything that characters find/steal/are given/etc during an adventure disappears at the end. It is replaced by an amount of gold equivalent to its value - though subject to a cap on the maximum amount of gold a character can take from each scenario. Often, if some of the things found are ones which characters do not usually have the ability to purchase (i.e. items from sources which are not freely available for purchase) then the items will be listed on the SC to indicate that the character can now purchase the item (see the Guide to the PFS for more detail). So the answer to your question is, I think: no, they don't have to buy things, but if they want to keep things they have to buy them. This means there isn't any tracking that you need to initial: you decide how much treasure they get, expressed as an amount of gp (following the instructions in the scenario). The players decide whether they're going to buy anything with it. If any of that's inaccurate, hopefully someone else will come along and correct me!
the issues with this are that the 1) Chronicle of the adventure needs to have your PFS number on it.... and your pathfinder number card doesn't have a email address on it, so future DMs can't Identify that 'this is the player that this chronicle is for' You're right. My suggestion would be to replace the whole concept of a PFS number with the use of email addresses. It would mean altering the design of SCs, and re-issuing PFS cards - but that's the sort of thing which is possible at the end of a playtest period. I'm not saying my idea is perfect, and it would certainly require work at the systems end, but it would resolve the problem of new members.
I'd start by talking to the convention organisers. Explain that for your events to work properly you need players to have access to the Paizo website to register their characters. If that's not possible - if there isn't an internet connection available at the venue at all - you could print out some 'you need to register: do this once you get home' sheets. They could include full instructions on how to get a PFS number, and then instructions to email you with the number as soon as they've registered. You could also take their email addresses etc to chase them up! Then you just delay emailing Josh (or using the reporting link if it's up by that point) until you've received all the information. It's a chunk of extra work, admittedly, but it ought to work. A wider point, given that this is a playtest season: would a better solution all round be to dispense with PFS numbers and replace them with email addresses? That way a new player, who knows what email address they will use to register on the Paizo site, even if they haven't yet, can use that to identify themselves, and the system can accept it even if no-one has yet signed up. Once the person does sign up, the system associates the events played with the new account. Possible?
Don't give up! You're doing people (particularly your FLGS) a great service by organising things. There is something of a learning curve, but it shouldn't take you that long to 'get' everything. One starting point which might help - and might explain some of the answers - is this: Organised play (RPGA, Pathfinder Society, etc) is primarily designed to allow changing groups of people to play together with their own characters. It is a 'middle ground' between the home campaign where a set group of players play regularly in a single campaign, and the 'classic' convention arrangement where a group of people who don't know each other play a single scenario with pre-generated characters and (apart from series or sequels) never play that character again. OP allows you to build a character, and have that character play a role within a large campaign, while also allowing groups of people who don't know each other to play together. The primary role of OP is not to provide material for a fixed or reasonably fixed 'home-style' group, and while that kind of group can play in these kinds of campaigns, some of the issues you throw up are particularly relevant in that context, particularly where character death and new players are concerned. It can work - and it can work well - but it requires a certain level of flexibility from all involved. Various specific answers, and I could be wrong on some/all of this!: I believe that getting free copies of the modules to game stores is on the 'to do' list. For now, you (or the store) will probably have to buy the module. I think your life would be a lot simpler if you have everyone come with a PFS number, or ensure that there's an internet connection at the store so players can create a Paizo profile and get a number before you finish. There seem to be some pre-gens floating around. It's important to note that once someone has played a PFS scenario with a pregen, they need to keep the pre-gen - they can't tweak it, once it's been played. Living Arcanis had a rule that (I think) allowed you to change your character however you wanted until you reached 2nd level, at which point it was 'locked in' - I've always thought this to be a good compromise for OP, but it's not the rule in PFS at the moment - create or find a character before you start, keep that character thereafter. All characters start at level 1. If there are four people who play twice a week, someone who plays once a month will fall behind, unless they attend a convention or whatever and play the modules they missed. I haven't read the rules in enough detail to know whether there are eligibility to play restrictions. It's worth noting that while in Living Greyhawk no one character could play every module released in a year due to campaign limitations ("time units" which a character 'spent' playing a module, and were finite for each calendar year), PFS seems to be based on the idea that it's possible for one character to play all modules released each season. Common practice in LG was for players to have a range of characters, so if you had a new player you'd run your lower level characters through some modules when the new player was available, rather than choosing to play higher-level characters. This is where having a small player-base is a problem - I helped organise an LG group which had about 20 or 30 players who had a range of characters and who played in different player (and character) combinations each time. If you only have five players, it is far more problematic. Character death becomes a big problem here, too. Seasons start at GenCon Indy, apparently. I don't think they're set in stone, though - and you can play any modules as far as I can tell. I think the point of a Season is simply to mark when the end of the overall Prestige Award tallies is, and determine which faction has the upper hand in the overall campaign. Incidentally, being months behind the release schedule isn't a terrible problem, I don't think. I think the idea is that you play what you want to play, when you have a group which wants to play. If four modules are released, but you only meet once then you will be behind 'schedule', but I doubt that will cause you any problems. Play the other modules when you get round to them. The player keeps the SC. The reporting system, as you've noted, isn't up yet, but is currently manual reporting to Josh. I hope that helps. I think there might be some minor structural weaknesses in the campaign when applied to regular games played by small groups, but they shouldn't be insurmountable. If the worst happens, and a couple of characters die, have the whole group create new characters at level 1, and keep your higher level characters on the back burner for either when the new characters catch up, or for if you attend a convention or larger event where there are other higher-level characters. However, if you are planning on having a fixed or almost entirely fixed group of players, I wouldn't advise the official Society - you'd be better off buying the modules and running them as non-Society events. While the players wouldn't then have official/legal PFS characters, so couldn't play their characters at conventions, etc, you might well have more fun not having to navigate these issues. If 'who's going to be playing this week?' is an unknown variable until the day before, and you have a larger number of 'potential' players, PFS could work very well for you.
I just replied to a message on the OnlineGameDay Yahoo! Group which is used to co-ordinate Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms (etc) play online. There's been quite a bit of interest there, though understandably much of it has been focused on the PFRPG. In writing my reply one other thing struck me: the campaign administrators might be concerned about unverifiable characters. By which I mean - if I turn up to a face-to-face game and say "I've got this special thing on an SC, which allows me to do x, y, and z", you can read it. You can see that I do in fact have it, rather than having had it crossed out because I didn't complete that bit of the adventure, or it's a one-shot thing which I've used. This is one example of a range of things where a face-to-face GM might want to have a look at a character - and it's not fixed by emailing a character sheet to the GM in some fashion so he can check that you are doing the maths right in various places and do in fact have the prereqs for this or that feat. Now online LG (and to an even greater extent, online LFR) simply ignore this and decide it's not a problem. I've not played online as much as some, but in the ten or fifteen games I've played, I've never had a GM query whether I am entitled to whatever thing I'm claiming. GMs even allow the use of RPGA reward cards in online games, and there's no way to verify that the player actually owns the card he's intending to use. I think this is the way to go, to be honest - there's no real benefit to cheating, and trying to devise systems which make it hard or impossible just add restrictions which inconvenience the vast majority who do not cheat. This is the LFR approach - LFR paperwork is not signed by GMs any more, so it wouldn't be hard for players to cheat, even face-to-face, but the RPGA attitude is that it's not worth putting significant restrictions in place as so very few people would do such a thing. The RPGA tried the alternative, incidentally - I don't know when current Paizo staff moved on from LG administration, but the approach of Chris Tulach's predecessor as head of RPGA campaigns was to push an online tracking system, leading to Legacy of the Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, and Xen'drik Expeditions, where the definitive character record was online, and you could only know what rewards your PC had received by waiting for the event to be reported and going online. The system was horrid (WotC aren't very good at in-house database design and management, particularly in an area which always seemed under-staffed and under-funded) and errors, unreportable scenarios, etc were rife. It could have worked with a more robust system, but was something of a disaster. LFR is going to use the back-end of that system as a secondary/backup to paper-records, but has determined that the paper is the definitive version. Online PFS would be a great thing (and there's a large online LG community which is obviously looking for a new campaign at the moment!) and the issues are not insurmountable. But I can understand the reluctance to move away from the 'let's stop anyone from cheating' model, and online play is difficult to reconcile with that (LGR and MoH were not allowed to be played online, and online restrictions in other campaigns only began to be relaxed after SRM resigned).
I know there are a number of people in the London area who play/played a lot of Living Greyhawk, often at the monthly Gameforce events in central London (http://community.livejournal.com/gameforce/ - I think it has a Yahoo! Group as well). Those games - and other LG - was organised through a Yahoo! Group: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/livinggreyhawklondon/ They're currently discussing what to do as LG winds up - and Pathfinder is second in the poll (to 'Play unofficial LG'). I can't remember if the group is open or closed, but I'm sure if you mentioned Pathfinder in a 'Why I want to join' message, they'd let you in - they're always on the look out for new players. It's also worth pointing out the Oxford Living Greyhawk Group ('Tassek', website www.tassek.anang.com) which organises regular games - again there's discussion over the future, but some, certainly, are going to be more interested in Pathfinder than LFR, so those of you who can get to Oxford (or Reading where some games take place) might find people to play with. Hope some of that helps some people get games!
I'm pretty sure that internet is wired ethernet, so bring a cable with you. I've heard you can hire one from accommodation reception, but you probably have to pay a bit. I'm not sure if it's as simple as just plugging in or whether you need to register your computer at reception. I didn't bring a laptop last year - though I'll be finding out this year. and, Dragnmoon, unless I'm misreading/misinterpreting the consupport status page, we appear to be in the same corridor/flat/whatever so if I find out what's going on before you do I'll track you down and let you know!
What Kithran did was to reduce the number of player spaces to match the number of confirmed GMs. As pre-registration apparently ends tomorrow, this is sensible as he won't want convention HQ selling tickets when there aren't GMs ready to turn up to run the games. That is why the player numbers dropped - because the player numbers show the total number of players who are able to play - in other words in most slots there are three or four tables of PFS happening, rather than the eight tables which was the original plan, because there haven't been eight GMs signing up for each slot. According to this thread on consupport.com http://www.consupport.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1112 (14 August 16:37 post) "there are enough dms for any Pathfinder slot that has tickets available and anyone who has already booked a ticket will get a game (with the obvious provisio that if a dm doesn't turn up I've got a problem)." Should more people volunteer to GM, I'd be surprised if Kithran doesn't do his best to find space and provide more tickets, but for now, essentially, there are very very few spaces available to play PFS at GenCon UK.
What if it's not a print error but a delivery error? I just picked mine up from the post office and it looked like they had Ace Ventura Pet Detective deliver it (somewhat obscure reference I know, but it seriously does look like someone was drop kicking it all the way cross country to get it to me). What kind of options do I have for a busted binding on delivery? Can I return it and get a new one? I have big hopes of throwing this book at my players for many years to come, but I don't think it'll last even a couple tosses around the gaming table with the shape it was delivered in.Yeah, I had the same problem, the box was in bad shape and all the corners are bent horribly, as well as the binding being loose near the end of the book. Over here (UK), this would be an issue between the shipper (Paizo) and the carrier, as Paizo is the 'customer' of the shipping service. If Paizo insured the shipment, they can claim on the insurance. The contract between Paizo and shipper might cover liability for damage due to negligent handling, even without insurance. The bottom line is that you bought something from Paizo and received it in poor condition. Even though that's someone other than Paizo's fault, their customer services should probably be the first port-of-call for you to try to get a product in what we'd call 'saleable condition'. What then happens between them and the shipping company is for them to sort out.
The consupport site only lists the total number of volunteers, rather than the number still needed, unless you go to the Sign-up By Slot screen and look at the drop-down lists. Those have up-to-date numbers. Similarly for available tickets vs total tickets. So your numbers are not correct (because that's not how consupport.com works). I can't see the correct figures, though as I've been confirmed to GM in various slots and can no-longer use the drop-down boxes in those slots. I know that there are actually only three tickets for The Silent Tide at 9am on Saturday at the moment. Kithran has been through the list and removed tables where not enough GMs signed up. The numbers went down from the initial 48 because whole tables were removed, rather than because tickets had been sold. There's physical room for more tables, but there's no point in GenCon allowing players to sign up when GMs haven't volunteered. If more people offer to GM, I'm sure more tables will open up - if you want to GM but the option isn't listed on the site, it's still probably worth contacting Kithran as he might be able to add more tables.
Nothing 4e was nominated (http://www.ennieawards.com/08/08noms.pdf). I don't know what the deadline was, but publishers have to submit products for consideration, and I am guessing that 4e didn't come out in time. I think it will figure heavily next year, at least in the nominations. WotC's awards were for Star Wars: Saga Edition, Elder Evils, the Drizt/White Dragon mini pack, Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress, and EttRoG.
Indeed. I believe that Kithran has looked at how many GMs have volunteered and reduced the number of available tickets accordingly so that there are enough GMs to cover all the tickets issued. (see http://www.consupport.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1112ኖ) I'm sure there's the physical space for more tables - it's just a matter of confirmed GMs to run them!
(Raises hand) Another Sheffielder here, though a comer-in who hasn't yet investigated NoDDSoc. Old Queen's Head/ROTTOK and Patriot, plus Furnace last year, have been my gaming haunts thus far. Be good to talk to other locals and previously-locals at the Con!
Again, we're not at all worried about fudging dice rolls. We're concerned about record-keeping. Standard practice in LG appears to be that GMs fill in the AR with the gp/xp gain, cross out any unavailable favours/items, and sign and date, then scan the AR and send it by email for the player to print out. The player then does the calculations. Perhaps it isn't quite as robust as the face-to-face system, but in my experience it's no less 'checking' than is done face-to-face -- the number of GMs who actually check my adding up, or that I've crossed out all the right things on ARs before signing them is quite small! It is worth noting that the RPGA appears to be moving away from the 'paperwork can stop cheating' paradigm that led to ARs. The LFR adventure logs don't even have room for a GM's signature, and while there is online tracking, that's stated to be a back-up to the paper records, so people who want to cheat can do so pretty easily, but are likely to be shunned if they are found out!
Wetherspoons has an extremely high turnover of beer. It is a huge national chain, and often buys large batches of beer nearing the end of its shelf-life knowing that it'll be able to sell it all before it goes off. That's how it can offer John Smith's at £1.20 a pint or whatever it is now. This works well, and the beer is perfectly good to drink while they're selling it. Of course it does often lead to many city/town centre Weatherspoons pubs being absolutely jam packed at the weekends, in a 'standing-room only', pre-club kind of fashion. However alongside the almost-loss-leader beer, most Weatherspoons usually have a good selection of four or five different real ales/real ciders - and those are at good prices too. So you're sorted whether you want mass produced lager, or nice, tasty ale :) Of course, the suggestion of a microbrewery/restaurant is also a good one, and the prices listed on their website weren't bad!
Well, I could make that :) I'm watching this thread with interest!
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