New to PFS and have a few questions

[Tim Felts]

Hi all,
My son and I are interested in playing in PFS games in the near future and I just want to be prepared for our first game. We have been playing mainly 4E and LFR for the last couple years.

1) Is it OK to create our characters with PCGen and print them out? We will be following the creation rules from the guide but I am not sure how strict the rules are concerning the sheet being used.
2) My son is creating a Druid and will have an animal companion. I am assuming the animal will already know the 'tricks' and not need to be trained one trick per scenario?
3) Is there anything else we need to be concerned with going in to our first PFS game?

Any advise or first game watchouts would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Tim

[Harkaelian]

Hello and welcome to the boards and PFS. I welcome a chance to sit at a table with a new player.

1) PCGen is perfectly fine. No worries about what or how the character is generated as long as the PFS rules are applied for generating stats and such
2) The companion is fully trained no worries there
3) Download the PFS rules under the Society section. Has all the allowed/forbidden feats/traits used in PFS play and rules for starting wealth and allowed animal companions. Also has other caveats and race and class specifics. It is not that bad but is mandatory reading for PFS play.
4) Consumables - potions of cure light, alchemist fire, acid, scroll of cure light, scroll of obscuring mist et cetra. Never hurts to have 6 or 12 in your backpack

[teribithia9]

Actually, the animal companion is not fully trained. Josh clarified this in another thread (sorry, I don't have a link, here.) Unless this has changed, the animal companion automatically knows the 1 bonus trick you get at first level, but anything else has to be taught after (or during) your first scenario. What I did with my druid to make things easier was to make the roll for the combat training package after the first scenario. If you can make that roll, the animal then has all you need for a combat animal and you can make their bonus trick "attack unnatural".

[ithuriel]

Attack Unnatural counts as two tricks though so you need more than just the bonus trick slot.

[teribithia9]

ithuriel wrote:

Attack Unnatural counts as two tricks though so you need more than just the bonus trick slot.

It's true that training an animal to attack anything requires two tricks--attack and attack unnatural, essentially. However, the "attack" part of that is already included in the combat training package. So if you make the roll for that you have these tricks:

attack(natural creatures), come,defend, down, guard, and heel

You then use your bonus trick to make the attack the "two trick" attack unnatural (already having the normal one slot attack used).

For the first scenario until you can make that handle animal roll, though, I just used the normal attack as my one trick and rolled to push the animal if I needed anything else.

[ithuriel]

I see your point and I like it. I had always read that as 1 trick for attack, two more tricks for attacking unnatural creatures. It had never really occurred to me that it might be intended the other way, but it makes more sense now that you point it out- and is less restrictive. Luckily it has never came up in a game.

[AZhobbit]

Harkaelian wrote:

Hello and welcome to the boards and PFS. I welcome a chance to sit at a table with a new player.

1) PCGen is perfectly fine. No worries about what or how the character is generated as long as the PFS rules are applied for generating stats and such
2) The companion is fully trained no worries there
3) Download the PFS rules under the Society section. Has all the allowed/forbidden feats/traits used in PFS play and rules for starting wealth and allowed animal companions. Also has other caveats and race and class specifics. It is not that bad but is mandatory reading for PFS play.
4) Consumables - potions of cure light, alchemist fire, acid, scroll of cure light, scroll of obscuring mist et cetra. Never hurts to have 6 or 12 in your backpack

No magic items or magical consumable can be purchased before your first chronicle.

[ithuriel]

But they can often be purchased before you head out for adventure once the scenario begins. Not always though.

[Harkaelian]

AZhobbit wrote:

Harkaelian wrote:

Hello and welcome to the boards and PFS. I welcome a chance to sit at a table with a new player.

1) PCGen is perfectly fine. No worries about what or how the character is generated as long as the PFS rules are applied for generating stats and such
2) The companion is fully trained no worries there
3) Download the PFS rules under the Society section. Has all the allowed/forbidden feats/traits used in PFS play and rules for starting wealth and allowed animal companions. Also has other caveats and race and class specifics. It is not that bad but is mandatory reading for PFS play.
4) Consumables - potions of cure light, alchemist fire, acid, scroll of cure light, scroll of obscuring mist et cetra. Never hurts to have 6 or 12 in your backpack

No magic items or magical consumable can be purchased before your first chronicle.

This was a general new to PFS answer not a "before your first round do X" answer. Also you can purchase stuff after the scenario begins most times easily. Heck every other adventure starts in Absalom proper.