umopapisdnupsidedown's page

I played a 3-6 that in the final fight it could turn very ugly very quick. The gm said it was his third time running it. He said first time was a tpk, second time 2 characters died and the time i played, we had one character go down twice and two players go down once (5 players in max low tier)

Yeah I have an inkling of which scenario you are referencing here. If it's the one I'm thinking of, we only very narrowly avoided a TPK when I played it, and I know at least one GM for whom that scenario is the only time they've killed a PFS PC (might even have been a TPK). It's a great scenario, but very nasty.

I just finished another that was a near-TPK. Had the dice gone poorly it would have ended in TPK. I'm very reluctant to ever run that one.

And this reminds me of a series 1 quest that almost ended with 2-3 dead PCs (at least one escaped so not technically a TPK). My character stuck around and on literally the last roll before he died managed to kill the thing. Otherwise it would have been 3 dead PCs. Series 1 quests are pretty hardcore.

Quick little question...

Would it be within the realm of possibility to update non-remastered ancestries' ancestral lore feats to be in line with the remastered versions (granting the Lore skill as a feat rather than the skill itself)?

Sprites, fetchlings, androids, etc are all running around with Lore skills instead of feats and it's slightly sad.

No, "consistent experience" is about the adventure, not the PCs. We're going off into silly-land now.

GMs are required to run Paizo Organized Play adventures as written, but are empowered to make adjustments to suit the table and ensure all players have the best possible experience.

GMs must not... Add new encounters or NPCs with mechanical weight or influence

In earnest, just use the printed stat blocks.

Regarding the harpy question, in that scenario the encounter is trivially skippable so the point is almost academic anyway. And the scenario is long enough and complex enough that I would recommend encouraging that resolution.

Regarding tactics, I suspect you'll find that very few scenarios actually have any tactical guidance.

As an aside, I don't mean any disrespect, but I recommend starting with easier scenarios to learn to GM, rather than skipping straight to complicated tier 7-10s.

While I agree with Rob (use the printed stat block, though with Run Prudently one is absolutely within bounds to run a +171 save as a +17, or whatever), I doubt the black helicopters will come for you if you use the remastered version of a critter of the same name.

Personally I consider that using a wholly different creature (for example, a vordine rather than a barbazu) would run afoul of the spirit and the letter of Run Prudently. (For example, "GMs must not...Add new encounters or NPCs with mechanical weight or influence.")

But the best solution, I would think, is to Just Use the Provided Statblocks. There's absolutely no question that doing so is 100% okay. And with Run Prudently, GMs are empowered to fix obvious issues.

How did you avoid the fight? My group didn't learn until we reached the the peace skill challenge that Diplomacy was literally the only option that would work against the genie, or that the boons only granted +1 circ. to Diplomacy. My group wasn't able to do anything since we only had one Diplomacy expert and one Diplomacy hireling.

For low tier, it's a total of four successful Diplomacy checks (DC 22 at low tier) in two rounds. Critical successes count as two, critical failures subtract one, the usual. So if you only have two in the party who are any good at Diplomacy, it would require a bit of luck.

That was basically what happened to the players I ran for, they tried the diplomatic route but only had a couple of diplomats and the dice were not favorable.

I found the choice of the "upgrades" for the 16-18 CP scaling to be interesting. There's no water on the map so they are permanently slowed 1. So the difficulty might not be so bad as it would seem. I'd actually probably consider the level 4 creatures prior to scaling to be potentially more difficult.

Nonetheless, for my tastes, the scenario was too long. When I played it I think we avoided the final fight, and when I ran it the fight was interesting. Both were high tier, so I didn't see this scaling. The level 9 BBEG at low tier is not an easy fight, definitely, and I think a savvy GM should pick up on that.

If there really is no written set of tactics to follow, then I can't fault the GM to using tactics that make sense for the monster.

Well, to an extent I get that, but I get frustrated when people fault the scenario for what is ultimately a GM's choice.

I probably could have TPKed my players in that scenario, too, by doing what your GM chose to do. And I had another situation I recall in which I likely could have TPKed my players (high AC monster with a massive breath weapon).

Those were the "optimal" tactics. But there's no rule which states a GM must use optimal tactics.

I chose not to, because it wouldn't have been fun for my players, or for me.

Did the opponent still feel powerful? Yes. Did they still have to work for the win? Yes, absolutely. But to bring it back on topic, close calls feel much more rewarding, to me, and make better stories and better memories.

I once did try to kill a PFS PC, because it made sense for story reasons. And she nearly died, and we all enjoyed it. But instead the PC survived three death-effect spells and we got an epic tale out of it.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

SuperParkourio wrote:

I've come close to a TPK in an awful scenario.

** spoiler omitted **

...As an aside, this is a good example of "the GM could have made different choices to make the game more fun."

Just because one can kite the players indefinitely, doesn't mean one should. From my perspective, a GM can make that fight feel difficult without making it effectively impossible (and a potential TPK). But that's the GM's choice (or responsibility).

Actually, the GM told us after the session that he did deviate from the written tactics for a better experience.

** spoiler omitted **

I'll link the full story here. This scenario is awful.

The tactics you described are not written anywhere in the scenario, so that would have been entirely the GM's choice. The only tactical guidance written into the scenario is for the end of the fight.

I guess this is a good example of why I get frustrated. I can only imagine how the writers and devs feel about it.

I've come close to a TPK in an awful scenario.

** spoiler omitted **

...As an aside, this is a good example of "the GM could have made different choices to make the game more fun."

Just because one can kite the players indefinitely, doesn't mean one should. From my perspective, a GM can make that fight feel difficult without making it effectively impossible (and a potential TPK). But that's the GM's choice (or responsibility).

This is still a problem I've run into with GMs in other scenarios though. "You all made it to the end in record time, but the author made a typo when copying the chase rules, so everyone takes damage, and you miss a Treasure Bundle."

I don't want to risk derailing the thread, but my view on this type of incident is that it's a GM issue, not a PFS campaign issue.

I get frustrated with reviews that read like, "this scenario SUCKS! It's terrible that X Y Z happened, it wasn't fun at all!" when clearly the issue was how the GM ran things.

Sadly that's potentially bound to happen, too, in a global campaign with hundreds or thousands of GMs. But those are opportunities for GM education, as well—good examples of how PFS can help people to improve as GMs.

Have not yet seen a PC die in PFS2, and have not killed one as a GM. And that makes me happy, because from my perspective PC death is not very fun.

(In some ways it's worse when a character dies in an AP, ironically. It creates an issue for the player, but a bigger issue for the GM. And yet GMs don't necessarily realize this...)

Had a couple of close calls, on both sides of the table, and those are far more fun than actual PC deaths.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

3) The ability to travel the world. PFS can be weird sometimes because it sends your character everywhere. Your character gets to experience all the different cultures and craziness of what Golarian (and other planes and planets) has to offer.

I'm late to this thread but I'll add the ability to travel the actual world. I used to travel a lot for work and I've had the chance to drop into PFS games across the US, and even a few in Europe. The folks in the Netherlands were incredibly nice. There's something special about being able to play with completely different people in LA, and Indiana, and Utrecht and still have it feel like it's one massive campaign.

...I wrote above that PFS is like jazz, and this is part of it: you can rock up to a jazz or blues jam anywhere in the world and play, without even sharing a spoken language.

Same idea for PFS, though it would be difficult without sharing a spoken (or written) language! But there's a reasonable chance even that has been done at some stage...

I find that aspect so cool.

Oooof that sounds rough, I'm sorry you had that experience.

More than anything, to me the PFS2 campaign strives to be positive, fun, inclusive, and welcoming.

...And if there's someone who is causing issues and working against those goals, from my perspective we want to know. ("We" in this case being the volunteer corps who care about such things deeply, and also the campaign leadership would probably want to know as well).

So yeah, definitely, come play, either locally in your area or online. And if someone is causing issues... We want to know, so we can address it.

I loved reading the different perspectives on "the point of PFS" for people, thanks for that. Just a couple of things to add:

First, the community: I've had a couple of tough years, and can say without hyperbole that 2024 was probably the worst year of my life. The community really helped me to get through. I love having shared experiences with people all over the world. I liken it to playing jazz, in that there is a shared repertoire (jazz standards, PFS scenarios), and if you follow a few simple guidelines you can engage in a fun, cooperative, improvisational endeavor (making music, playing PFS) with like-minded people anywhere in the world.

But also, let's talk about some of the more mechanical benefits of PFS, in terms of the structure and how it's set up...

GMs get to play too: This is absolutely crucial for me. A major barrier for me previously is that I enjoy GMing, but I also want to play and develop my own characters. Basically, I enjoy the game partially for that sense of building and progressing a character. In PFS, time spent GMing can also advance your own characters for when you DO get those valuable opportunities to play them.

There are as many ways to play as there are players: PFS is truly a "big tent." Roleplaying enthusiast? There's room for you. Just want to roll dice? There's room for you too. Want to build weird and wacky meme characters? Why not. Want to build serious, deep, complex characters? Absolutely possible. (I should say that I even had a PFS experience in which revelations about a character during a scenario moved me to tears.) Minmaxer? Can do. Care more about narrative than stats? PFS can accommodate that. After I got into PFS, especially online, I really gained an appreciation of the true diversity of players and ways to play the game.

And if you want a more consistent experience with a stable cast, PFS can accomplish that as well—that's basically what happens in my local group. It's not an AP-style campaign, I think of it more like episodes of Star Trek or a pulp fiction-style nonlinear storytelling experience.

But also...You're not stuck with one character or one group: as of this writing, I have twelve PFS characters (and most of my AP characters are variations of my PFS characters...) I routinely play different characters, and to be honest I sometimes get bored of playing just one character in an AP game.

And let's face it, some players or GMs might not be your style for a game that will last years, but you can perhaps make it through a scenario with them.

Oh and regarding GMing, it's a great way to hone your GMing skills, because of the variety of adventures, characters, and players. Also for those of us who don't have time to make a whole campaign ourselves, we still get to GM with the great adventures Paizo puts out.

Speaking of which, at heart the point of PFS is to sell stuff and keep Paizo in business. It's marketing. But it's by far the most interesting and fun marketing program I've ever seen or participated in.

Oh yesss. Time to finally dust off my sadly disused Lastwall book! Still looking forward to a Gravelands Adventure Path, but in the meantime perhaps the anthology will do...

GMs are granted replays each year based on their number of glyphs:

Lorespire wrote:

Each January 1st, GMs are granted 1 additional Replay for each Glyph they have earned up to that point.

It doesn't look like that happened this year. I'm definitely feeling the replay pressure, so it'd be great if those replays could be granted!

If there's not time in the schedule to update the database, can GMs simply act as if the replays were added? For example, can a GM who started the year with two glyphs replay two scenarios without checking the replay box, but still take a chronicle?

I suspect this new functionality is coming (might be good to add that note for now in the Guide). But since without the replays in the system it's difficult to track, I would advise patience rather than simply acting as if it were true.

Prior to the replay point system glyphs gave single-use lifetime replays, so annual is a significant upgrade. We'll get there, but also I suspect the Paizo tech team is quite busy :)

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

...Also you can view the current Guide as a single page if you want, and presumably make it into a PDF from there (if you really want a PDF specifically).

I am aware, but the "single page" format does not appear to be literal - at the very least, it does not appear to include the Remaster page. And where there is one extra page, there could be more.

I'll pass that feedback along, thanks.

We might have to wait until August to find out if Our Overlord The Chime is really dead, or just resting.

Tomppa wrote:

Aren't they the exact same weapon? Both are 1d6 bludgeoning martial clubs with L bulk, 1 hand, shove, thrown 30ft, and the grippli/tripkee trait? Why change it anyway?

I think that the cruuk is intended to replace the rungu in order to avoid the issues of cultural insensitivity/appropriation raised in this thread.

...

Since the two items are mechanically identical, I suspect that Outl wants to switch to the cruuk so as not to engage in such cultural insensitivity/appropriation.

It seems to me that that's a choice that PFS might want to encourage by making the switch from a rungu to a cruuk be a free option for all players.

Even for me, this degree of hand-holding is a bit much. You don't need an official PFS ruling for this, IMHO. Just switch it, nobody will notice or care.

...Also you can view the current Guide as a single page if you want, and presumably make it into a PDF from there (if you really want a PDF specifically).

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

I've seen hirelings tastefully RPed and implemented, but for me a gaggle of actual hirelings following the party to the Depths of Hell breaks immersion.

"But.... I don't wanna go into the death dungeon!" wails Research Rat. "Sometimes, I really hate my hireling contract."

I love it when Research Rat gets to whine about hazard pay!

Research Rat might hang out with Badger, my ysoki's hireling. He has a little rat familiar, and Badger is her friend. Badger is very worldly and wise, and has traveled all over Golarion adventuring and learning things. Now he just rides around in my character's pocket, providing advice where necessary.

I've seen hirelings tastefully RPed and implemented, but for me a gaggle of actual hirelings following the party to the Depths of Hell breaks immersion. So I've thought very hard about how to implement hirelings for each of my PFS characters.

My Fetchling's' shadows are their hirelings, for example. If they need help with Athletics the shadow gets very strong and helps. If they need help with a knowledge skill the hireling whispers in their ear. Downtime checks with that hireling might be lounging at the docks while the hireling loads cargo (Sailing Lore to Earn Income).

My cleric of Nethys has an unseen servant hireling, who can follow him to the Depths of Hell and not drastically break immersion. I've seen hirelings RPed as planar beings who appear when called upon, too, which seems pretty good.

My witch is easy—the hireling is just a temporary gift bestowed on the familiar, or on the character, by their patron.

My elf fighter has a thing about remembering friends who died, so his hirelings are all about recalling memories from friends long gone.

There are a lot of ways to make it work that aren't actually a gaggle of hired hands tailing the party like squires or minstrels from Monty Python.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

The times I haven't had fun with the influence system have been the times I've played with people who, sadly, weren't very good at it.

For me, this sentence shows a clear issue.

Being "good" at a roleplaying game should not be about system knowledge, it should be about the way you play your character, you roleplay and take in game decisions.

Combat is quite central to PF2 and as such to be "good" at PF2 you need to know combat rules. That's a specificity of this system, one that has to be accepted (so even if I understand why you can ask for less combat, I think combat is a legitimate expectation due to the game we play).

For me, the central point is, "Unless people have at least some minimum level of of competency and system knowledge with the combat rules, playing with them isn't very fun for others at the table, so we expect some level of system knowledge." That seems reasonable. But for whatever reason, that expectation is lower or nonexistent for other subsystems, which frustrates me.

Every subsystem in the game, including combat, is intended to facilitate roleplay with some level of structure. And people spend inordinate amounts of effort on combat optimization. (And a lot less effort on combat roleplay, but that's a topic for another rant...)

Despite the fact that most of the other subsystems, including Influence, are much simpler (it's really not rocket science), a lot of people don't seem to put much effort into learning or even thinking about it. And then they blame the subsystem(s).

Well, just as combat kinda isn't great if you've got a player who is spending their turns on triple guidance for partymates who aren't even going to make use of the bonus (or if this doesn't do it for you, just think of the most useless three actions you can possibly imagine), other subsystems aren't great when you've got players just derping around, either. And derping around seems to be the standard with non-combat subsystems, including Influence.

Those systems often devolve into a lot of dice-rolling, especially discovery checks.

You probably know this is a hobby horse of mine, and I pretty rarely post on the forums, but I'm gonna jump on my hobby horse here and say "people make way too many discovery checks."

The times I haven't had fun with the influence system have been the times I've played with people who, sadly, weren't very good at it. The classic example was the one in which the players had half a dozen known options to roll for Influence, but they...Rolled to Discover influence skills. At one point it was the second or third round, and my character was the only one who had put any influence points on the board...Because I was almost the only person doing something other than rolling to Discover influence skills.

It was maddening, frankly.

In contrast, when I ran the same scenario, my players rolled to Discover influence skills zero times, because they actually thought about it and quickly realized they didn't need to. And they had plenty of roleplaying opportunities, to boot.

At a certain point it's hard to blame the subsystem.

The same is not necessarily true for chases. There is a recent scenario in which a full party of 6 requires 48 successes to complete a chase. At an 80% success rate, that's a whopping 60 rolls (10 rounds). I do have beef with long chases that scale as the number of PCs, and would greatly prefer both fewer obstacles and scaling as half the number of PCs to make a chase more dynamic and more strategic. Otherwise it's just rolling and praying for it to end (at least for me).

Broadly speaking though I'm with Hmm, I get bored of combat and would be perfectly happy with more non-combat challenges. Ran my first infiltration for PaizoCon, really liked it. Would love to see more of those, for example—in place of combat, not in addition to it.

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

There is a creature in a scenario with +132 to its attack. (Pretty clearly it was changed from +13 to +12 or vice versa and someone forgot to hit delete / backspace. I guess it is lucky it wasn't on the damage line...)

While I’ll agree that’s a very obvious error, that really doesn’t address the question.

I honestly don't think it matters whether a GM calls it +13 or +12. I don't think guidance around fixing obvious typos is a huge deal.

However, one of the reasons I like Org Play is the relative consistency of the experience across tables and time. I can play scenarios from year one (long before I ever started PFS) and have the common experience of "whew, that was tough!"

On some level I hope to preserve that.

I'm glad to see this happening. The only "mechanical" change I would recommend is changing "may" to "can" since that's what "may" means in this context.

I would also like to see a provision explicitly allowing GM discretion for enemies to retreat or surrender when it makes sense for them to do so. It's written into some scenarios but not others.

It just occurred to me that Hireling Translators cannot get regional languages, because they are uncommon and apparently Hireling Translator only allows common languages. Since Pathfinders have access to regional languages anyway, I'd like to request a boon update to include "common or regional" languages. Seems a bit weird (and perhaps not intended?) that I can hire a translator for Dwarven but not for Varisian or Hallit.

Yes, guidance on secondary missions or "just grant 4 reputation" would be appreciated :)

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

With a few exceptions, premaster focus spells were not great, so...Yup, hardly ever.

This seems a combination of encountering not the strongest of bloodlines and underestimation of sorcs' focus spells. Because sorcerers' focus spells aren't the weakest.

Steal Shadow is kind of decent. And Rejuvenating Flames is focus point AoE healing which could double as light AoE damage, doesn't look that bad either.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Back to the original question. The full sentence

As written above, seems it's better to look at the whole section.

Just revisiting this, I ran a game today and a player triggered blood magic not once, not twice, but thrice. Which was hands down a personal record, for running or playing.

I agree with you that some premaster sorcerer focus spells were okay. I tried steal shadow in an AP game a couple of times but never stole a shadow, sadly. One of my characters recently got it, hopefully it works better at lower levels though I'm tempted to redo him as ann imperial or draconic bloodline or something... And I do use rejuvenating flames, it's kinda usable. Just remastered my nymph sorcerer, gave up crossblooded evolution despite wanting to take it for a new blood magic effect, after realizing I'll rarely ever trigger it...Then ironically got a potentially functional focus spell with advanced bloodline instead. But ask me how many times I've used nymph's token (zero) or dim the light (spoiler alert, also zero, though there's a cute combo one can do with it). I used ancestral memories with Seoni once, that's actually a nice spell. And I used gluttonous jaws once as a joke, not because it was a good idea.

Back to the question at hand though, I've been thinking on this and if it ever did come up, I suspect it would depend on the order and duration of different effects, for me (as mentioned early on).

Triggering blood magic is really trivial. Have you never seen sorcerers using their focus spells? Because each time they do, they trigger blood magic. Also each granted slot spell triggers it. While not all granted spells are great, still surely some are used sometimes or even frequently.

If you mean actually declaring and using blood magic, that's another thing. Because yes, a lot of effects are rather weak and more importantly very short being 1 round in duration. So they are very forgettable. Ratio of player's mental load to usefulness of effects is rather high.

With a few exceptions, premaster focus spells were not great, so...Yup, hardly ever. It would not surprise me if the median number of uses of most premaster sorcerer focus spells for many players is zero. I used the demonic teeth one once as a joke, and I used rejuvenating flames pretty much just because I could. Tried steal shadow a few times but I guess I forgot about blood magic. Used ancestral memories on a Seoni pregen, but not in combat...

Some of the focus spells did get changes in the remaster, though, and some are actually very useful for triggering blood magic. And clearly in the remaster they really leaned into the feature, for whatever reason. But yes, agree, with perhaps one or two exceptions, kinda forgettable still.

Back to the original question. The full sentence is, "You can typically only benefit from one blood magic effect at a time, though some feats and abilities may change this." Seems clear to me that you need a feat (Blood Sovereignty, for one) to benefit from more than one effect at a time. I don't read "typically" as flavor text, personally, because the atypical situation is subsequently explained later in the sentence.

If someone went for it I might be so shocked I'd just let it happen, though.

The way I'd personally rule it is probably "you can't benefit from two duration-based blood magic effects at the same time without a feat."

But let's be honest, if anyone ever manages to trigger even one blood magic effect it would be a minor miracle. Never done it except on my Phoenix sorcerer (and I guess in another situation but the effect wouldn't have done anything), never seen it done, and I have a sorcerer fetish. I suppose there's a possibility that I triggered blood magic at some point and forgot about it.

Triggering two simultaneously seems nearly impossible in practice. I guess it has some "build around me" potential but the benefits are relatively minor so...Why?

This becomes a problem when the boundary between rules and setting IP gets blurry. For example, the Red Mantis Assassin archetype clearly references the organisation from Golarion, right alongside the mechanical rules that the ORC grants.

This is where I'm most unclear. Do I need to throw out every Lost Omens sourcebook from my product, because every background and ancestry in them is potentially tainted by setting IP?

It seems a bit difficult to have a functional thing, from a game perspective, if every background, ancestry, archetype, etc that was printed under OGL but hasn't been reprinted under ORC becomes off-limits.

...I'm not a lawyer but I feel your pain.

Thankfully Pathbuilder is not affected given it has already had to abide by being purely ORC-based and not using Golarion content. That's why it just has "Faction prerequisites" and such, as opposed to saying for ex. "Firebrand member."

...Is this true, though? Because it definitely uses "game rules" like classes and feats and leveling structure and such. The verbiage has all been sanitized but the underlying structure still relies on game rules that are a mixture of OGL and ORC content (at least for a complete product, as Jared noted above).

It's an example of an extraordinarily popular tool that I could easily see just...No longer existing after the licensing change.

By that description, I'm certain that my character sheets, and many other tools like them, require ORC/OGL + Compatibility License. Only the most basic of tools would have no rules reference in them at all. Something as simple as "Select your ancestry from this list" would be enough to cross that very low threshold.

...The FCP doesn't apply to any character sheet, builder, tool, wiki or app that uses game rules...

I'm not a lawyer so I can't speak to the legal perspective, but until basically all of the OGL content for PF2e is remastered, it doesn't even seem tenable from a game perspective to have a third-party PF2e-related tool. Of which there are many, and they are popular and presumably help Paizo sell more product.

Seems, to me, to be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The Compatibility License would allow more or less 2/3rds of these things. But if it had any options you could select, it wouldn't be able to include stuff that involved Golarion IP. It would have to be edited or removed.

Tldr; Pathbuilder.

Yeah, it seems as though some clarification would be extremely useful (especially after the OGL kerfuffle), in terms of who can use what and who can do what with which assets.

I'm not a content creator or database maintainer at the moment but I feel very bad for them having to keep up with changes of this sort.

...And, for example, where does it leave virtual tabletop support for legacy/OGL options in addition to ORC options?

Quote:

With published adventures, a GM can not only save a lot of time in preparing for a game or a campaign, but also find inspiration in them or learn how adventures are written, both of which help a GM get better at their craft

I completely agree! And with Foundry modules the time saved is even greater, thanks Paizo!

Yes, I unfortunately do not have the capacity right now to create a home brew campaign or adventures. I tell people, "I run pre-written content for a reason!"

And I am so grateful for it, as well as the premium online content (because otherwise creating tables to my satisfaction becomes the limiting factor in the online games I can run). I can say with certainty, without published adventures I would not be able to GM, and...I do love GMing!

And just a note on the business of it, though it's not my area of expertise: I would imagine that more people actually playing the games means more players buying stuff...So yeah, seems smart to me...

Kringress, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told my VAs. Don't worry about getting everything perfect on day one of the Remaster. We've had a whole bunch of pages of errata that dropped on Day 1. No one is going to get it all perfect. If you make a mistake, fix it the next time.

Don't feel you have to audit all the characters. Take this in baby steps. The old characters do not have to retrain. Start with the simple stuff: the recall knowledge, the changes to cantrips, focus points, etc. The good news is that there is now errata that you can print out and bring to the table if you need it.

We're all going to make mistakes during this transition, and it is okay. We all can learn the new rules together as we go.

Hmm

I'd like to underscore the above. There's no point to let the remaster changes get in the way of playing or enjoying the game. I just got my PDFs the other day, haven't really had a chance to read them or even look at them very much. Haven't really worked them into my characters, or into games I'm GMing.

Am I going to give it a good go and do my best? Yes, absolutely. But probably 95%+ of the game has not changed. Is there a risk of missing a few details? Yes. But that happened routinely pre-remaster anyway, in games I've played and in games I've run. There's no expectation of perfection, nor would such a thing even be possible.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

If I'm making minor updates to the character for the remastered chassis, does that count as a "remaster rebuild"? That is, do I have to sell all my gear (or buy new gear based on the table values), or can I just tweak a few skills and spells and be done without the whole rigmarole? I'm pretty happy with my characters as they are, though I'm excited for the remaster.

...And if minor tweaks don't trigger a rebuild, what's the threshold between minor tweaks and a full rebuild?

Gimme an example of what you mean by "minor updates" and I'll try and thread that needle.

With the caveat that most of my characters won't have any changes until PC2, and the additional caveat that I of course know only what has been announced for PC1, if I'm happy with Ancestry, Background, Class, Attributes, and Skills (and other things I haven't thought about, but with the assumption that the basic skill and feat progression didn't change much)...

Maybe I just need to tweak a couple of spells on a bard to bring them in-line with the remaster, which would otherwise require retraining or rebuilding. Or maybe need to change a feat on a Rogue that has been rendered obsolete or undesirable to me by some of the quality-of-life changes in the remaster.

The big one I could see at the moment is someone who is pretty happy with their Rogue or Wizard but there might be a couple of things (feats or other bits that can't just be altered at will) that they either want or need to update to bring into alignment with the remaster. But since I haven't made a Wizard I don't really have a concrete example for that.

I wonder if "Remaster Retraining" could be an option for those who don't need a full rebuild? Or maybe it's just not a concern.

If I'm making minor updates to the character for the remastered chassis, does that count as a "remaster rebuild"? That is, do I have to sell all my gear (or buy new gear based on the table values), or can I just tweak a few skills and spells and be done without the whole rigmarole? I'm pretty happy with my characters as they are, though I'm excited for the remaster.

...And if minor tweaks don't trigger a rebuild, what's the threshold between minor tweaks and a full rebuild?

Here's a boon idea that might have legs:

Say I want to make an elf fighter from Kyonin that uses an elven curve blade. Unfortunately, to get access to that weapon in PFS, I have to take a feat. There's no reason for my fighter to take the feat, other than PFS access to a couple of elf weapons. A bit silly.

So how about an AcP boon for access to a single uncommon ancestral weapon of the character's ancestry? For the same AcP cost as say, an Avid Collector boon.

The two that I would personally like to see are access to Revenant background, and access to the knapsack of Halfling kind (not the Greater version that allows teleportation, for Reasons).

The former is just another way to get negative healing and interesting character concepts (I have one in particular I'm keen to try), and the latter just because I think it's cool. I think the knapsack in particular is a good candidate for a specific boon because the boon could grant access to only the lower-level version rather than the Greater version as Avid Collector would.

Maybe if you get a group going you can do a GM exchange or something. As a forever GM, I feel the pain of not being able to play my characters as much as I would like. But it makes me all the more grateful when I do get to play.

And being involved in the community got me invited to a home campaign for an AP that I want to play, so...Hooray, now I get to play one of my characters. And the GM said "Core Rulebook plus AP only," so I'm glad I had a character that fit who I wanted to play that AP with. His house, his rules, after all.

Alright, maybe

But I still feel forced to play PFS instead of coming to PFS with genuine interest

Forced to deal with ACP instead of being allowed to play an uncommon ancestry in a non-PFS game or even allowed to use that battlezoo dragons book that is supposedly popular yet I can’t find a place to use it, since a lot of people only recruit for non-PFS games in PFS as others have said

How can we fix this?

You can GM your own games and do whatever you want in them. That's what it comes down to. If you're looking to play in others' games that they are offering, well, their house, their rules.

I don't recommend going to someone else's house and dictating to them what they will cook for you to eat.

I should also say that in my VTT games (and so far in my PbD games) I tend to limit my table size. This is because I like the additional time this gives us to RP. Six-person tables are a bit of a zoo for me, so I prefer smaller tables to give more time for RP.

For PbP/PbD, language skill is sometimes another factor to consider when RPing. People are playing asynchronously in the same game from all over the world, and sometimes you're just not going to get a dissertation or a novel out of some players because it's not super easy for them to write that much in English.

But that's fine, too. Takes all kinds.

How much do you allow RP in your games? Would you allow us to have detailed character introductions or other things?

Like there’s this GM in RFC called Sebastian (who made me feel a little better about doing PFS, even though I still feel forced into PFS and not feeling completely sure about it yet) and according to their words they are a “ huge proponent of spending some more time introductions, after players have started, I tend to ask deeper probing questions, to encourage them to go a bit deeper and explore their characters, things like:
- "The Grand Lodge has files on your character, please give me 2 positives and 1 negative entry Old Muttonchops was written in your file"
- "What's your ideal mission, the one you never seem to get, yet always want. Do you want to be sent to a fancy dress party, into the unclaimed wilderness or to other mysterious places?"
- "Your character has been in the Society for quite a bit, how have their experiences shaped them, are they happy with their recent missions? What accomplishment are they most proud of?"
...there are others, but my main approach is to motivate players to think about aspects of their character that they have not been considering.“

While I’m sure you don’t do anything like Sebastian, I’m wondering if for games I play in with you, you could have room for detailed introductions or general role play outside of combat and things?

As long as everyone is having fun and the pace isn't bothering anyone, I just let it take its course. The game I recently started has been going for around 3 days maybe, and while we did get off to a slow start for RL reasons, we are only just starting to get out of the introductory RP. I've been enjoying their conversations.

So the answer is, yes. I'm relatively new to it but I find that PbP/PbD is very conducive to RP. I recently played a PFS scenario with a central influence encounter via PbD, and it was awesome. Others who played in that game also said that influence encounters are really enjoyable via PbD. We had a great time.

I "allow" as much RP as the players want in my games, but it's a bit of a delicate balance because I'm new to it so I'm still trying to figure out pacing. I also don't yet know most of the players so I don't yet know their styles or what they enjoy.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

If you're interested in playing, I've started running PbD games on Cayden's Keg Discord and was thinking of giving Bounty #8 another go. It's not my favorite bounty but it's probably my second favorite. And Bounties are a low-stakes introduction.

You're welcome to join if you want. I just started running another one but I'm happy to run one just for you, if you want to give it a try.

I have a question about your Cayden games

Ask away.

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

You're welcome to join if you want. I just started running another one but I'm happy to run one just for you, if you want to give it a try.

I’m temporarily banned from Cayden and other discord PFS places due to what I’ve said in these forums about PFS

Oh. Well in that case I guess I can't offer a PbD game for you then, until you get un-banned. You're welcome to join a game though, once that gets cleared up. I wouldn't want to force you to play PFS if you don't want to, but if you do, great.

For my part, I like both playing and GMing PFS, so that's what I do. I don't get paid to GM, it's a volunteer gig, so I offer what I want to offer. And of course I want players to enjoy the game I offer, just as I want to enjoy the experience (the GM is a player too).

So I'll just be over here enjoying the game if anyone needs me.

Lesrek wrote:

You keep saying this and venture officers keep telling you that you are mistaken with how inflexible you perceive society play to be. At some point you need to realize that it isn't society that is the problem, but how you view it. And again, you keep making these grand assumptions without ever having played a society game. Please, I am asking you to stop commenting on society play and what it is like until you actually have some experience with it.

Edit: Also, are you actually interested in society play? Just today another beginner game was posted on RfC and yet again, you did not sign up for it. The vibe I am getting is that you don't actually want to play society, you just want to use it as an excuse to complain about something. That has been your most consistent interaction with society as a program.

I was actually wanting to join that game but I didn’t have a character ready

If you're interested in playing, I've started running PbD games on Cayden's Keg Discord and was thinking of giving Bounty #8 another go. It's not my favorite bounty but it's probably my second favorite. And Bounties are a low-stakes introduction.

You're welcome to join if you want. I just started running another one but I'm happy to run one just for you, if you want to give it a try.

For those like myself who are hopeful for a premium module on Foundry, it looks like the teams are working on Gatewalkers and Kingmaker at the moment. I found this by searching the Foundry discord's Pf2e channel.

Yes, absolutely. There are a number of us here absolutely keen to play Ruby Phoenix, but it seems unlikely to happen unless a Foundry module occurs. "Dear Paizo, please consider a Ruby Phoenix premium Foundry module..."