I have a fighter that just completed his 3 scenario to level up to 2nd level. I was wondering if I could incorporate one of the fighter archtypes into my character now after character creation since I haven't actually used bravery, weapon training or armor training class features yet? If not that is fine, just curious.
The only thing that Josh has said is officially allowed is if you were playing one of the new classes from the APG and your character needed to be adjusted from the play test to the final version. No other rebuilding is allowed.
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The only thing that Josh has said is officially allowed is if you were playing one of the new classes from the APG and your character needed to be adjusted from the play test to the final version. No other rebuilding is allowed.
But is it "rebuilding" if absolutely nothing is changed except for the name of the class?
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The only thing that Josh has said is officially allowed is if you were playing one of the new classes from the APG and your character needed to be adjusted from the play test to the final version. No other rebuilding is allowed.But is it "rebuilding" if absolutely nothing is changed except for the name of the class?
I wouldn't think so.
But, as Kortz said, don't be too worried if Josh doesn't answer this before next week.
If it matters my fighter at level 1 already uses a tower shield and a flail. I was hoping to use the phalanx fighter archtype and since my weapon focus flail was a fighter bonus feat I could switch that out normally at level 4 for a polearm weapon focus. Everything else of my character would stay the same. I f it doesn't work than I am only out 3 scenarios and I can remake my character then.
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If it matters my fighter at level 1 already uses a tower shield and a flail. I was hoping to use the phalanx fighter archtype and since my weapon focus flail was a fighter bonus feat I could switch that out normally at level 4 for a polearm weapon focus. Everything else of my character would stay the same. I f it doesn't work than I am only out 3 scenarios and I can remake my character then.
The way I see it, there is no mechanical difference between declaring your character a "Phalanx Fighter" at first level or declaring it at second. No previously made decisions have to be altered, so I don't see a problem.
But bump this thread up next week to get an official answer.
Thanks for the quick responses everyone. Much Appreciated
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Pros: More players bring the Advanced Players Guide with them to Pathfinder Society events. This can't be a bad thing!
Undoubtedly some players will use a rebuild as an opportunity to min/max their current character. So I could understand applying Advanced Players Guide rules to new characters, or to existing characters only as level advancement permits.
However, there are a lot of character concept ideas in this book that may just fit the image the player already has of his character and has been doing the hard way with Core Rules choices and roleplay, whereas an archetype would be a much more natural fit.
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Here is another one.
Can a GM update his character if he has never played it? It has made levels because of GM rewards.
It is a slightly different situation to where a character has actually seen the light of day.
You absolutely could if I were GM. I think you'd have to be pretty snarky to disallow this specific situation.
I think the rebuild concern is with breaking versimiltude, or the perception of "cheating" (changing previous choices mid-career for personal gain), neither of which wouldn't be an issue if you'd not yet played that character at the table with other players.
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I'm pretty sure there's not going to be any "retroactive adaptation" allowed.
But in the case above (first-level Fighter) there's absolutely no difference in the character except the label, a label that was the only one available at the time of character creation.
So if you have a 2nd-level Fighter and upon reaching third level he decides he is a Crossbowman, I don't see a problem with that. There is no mechanical difference and it is organic character development.
But I don't think you will be allowed to, say, take a 4th-level Druid and retroactively turn him into a Wolf Shaman, since you are changing mechanics that have already been in play.
This is just speculation on my part, though.
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I'm pretty sure there's not going to be any "retroactive adaptation" allowed.
I suspect you're probably right.
However, for the sake of argument: applying my example of character concepts to your example of wolf shaman, let's say you've been playing a druid as a character with a family history of lycanthropy who, when realising he'd begun exhibiting these traits himself, fled to the wilderness as he feared harming those close to him. In keeping with your character concept, your druid has only ever summoned canines/wolves, and only ever wildshaped into canine/wolf form. Maybe you've even drawn a bearded woodsman with wolf companion portrait as a cover page to your character folder, and everyone you've ever shared a table with recognises you as "that wolf guy".
Now you read Wolf Shaman in the Advanced Players Guide, and think, WOW! This is the character I've already been playing! But I'm not allowed to rebuild my current character, I have to apply it to a new character? No way :-(
I'm using that as a specific example, but many players have roleplayed aspects of their character in various ways at the expense of rules optimisation, and it would be a shame not to reward those choices with appropriate archetypes if that's how they've been playing their character all along.
I know, where do you draw the line though? You either allow rebuild to everyone or none at all.
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I'm pretty sure there's not going to be any "retroactive adaptation" allowed.I suspect you're probably right.
However, for the sake of argument: applying my example of character concepts to your example of wolf shaman
That's a good example of something that should probably be allowed to happen in a home game, but I just don't see them letting it happen in PFS.
But I wouldn't like to see them, in ruling out cases like the Wolf Shaman example, rule out alternate class features for characters who have yet to hit the level where those features kick in.
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I think Josh's watchword is verisimilitude.
For the continuity of the campaign, he will likely make the decision that causes the smallest disruption. This means for the sake of other players, your character should not magically be able to do something it couldn't do during the last adventure (excepting of course abilities you pick up when you level).
As for a character concept that exactly syncs with a new archetype, this unfortunately is a global campaign, not a personal one. Even if we all agreed that your character would be much better as a wolf shaman, that is an adjudication that can only be made a GM in a home game, not a Global Admin. I have had my own fight where I argued that a non-mechanical feature was impeding my character concept. I wouldn't hold out hope that you will get a personal judgment allowing a rebuild.
I think that a judge character who has never played his character, or someone who just leveled and has never played their leveled up character since before the book was released, should be allowed to use the new options.
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Here is another one.
Can a GM update his character if he has never played it? It has made levels because of GM rewards.
It is a slightly different situation to where a character has actually seen the light of day.
Josh told me in person, that GM characters have to be stated up from the start and are to be kept up to date as they gain credits.
In other words, if your GM credit character got 12 XP 4 moths ago you would be bound to make that 4th lvl character with the material available at that time; i.e. no APG material unless Josh allows all other characters to as well.
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I think Josh's watchword is verisimilitude.
For the continuity of the campaign, he will likely make the decision that causes the smallest disruption. This means for the sake of other players, your character should not magically be able to do something it couldn't do during the last adventure (excepting of course abilities you pick up when you level).
+1.
I personally don't see how anyone with a character whose archetype alterations haven't been reached yet in natural progression myself (since nothing actually changes save the name). But I think Max is spot on with the idea that we're probably going to see minimal changes. It's probably best to assume 'no' here until told 'yes' specifically by Josh.
Having seen some 'rebuild' opportunities in other big global campaigns/large player base games (even with ~200 characters total) it's always an ordeal which is more disruptive than helpful.
Thanks for all the discussion going on. I appreciate all the feedback. I just hope I didn't open a can of worms here. I agree that "retroactive adaptation" should not apply. It makes too much work for everyone involved to find/create a mechanism that allows retraining while preventing someone from abusing it. It is hard enough in a home campaign let alone a global campaign like the society.
This wouldn't have a been a problem if the APG wasn't so awesome. ;)
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If a character rebuild of some sort isn't allowed, I will probably allow my group to rebuild, but we'll no longer run the adventures as part of PFS. That way we can play what we want without having to worry about the campaign rules.
Edit: Didn't mean for this to sound so "well, we're taking our ball and going home". We just don't have a lot of time to game, and we want to be sure that we are getting to play what we want to play, not settling with something we feel less excited about.
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If a character rebuild of some sort isn't allowed, I will probably allow my group to rebuild, but we'll no longer run the adventures as part of PFS. That way we can play what we want without having to worry about the campaign rules.
Edit: Didn't mean for this to sound so "well, we're taking our ball and going home". We just don't have a lot of time to game, and we want to be sure that we are getting to play what we want to play, not settling with something we feel less excited about.
Nothing wrong with that, and if you start new 1st lvl characters you can run those on OP rules. That said I cannot see how not making retroactive conversions diminishes the fun of the game. Nothing has been taken away by the APG, quite on the contrary - even for existing characters.
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Nothing wrong with that, and if you start new 1st lvl characters you can run those on OP rules. That said I cannot see how not making retroactive conversions diminishes the fun of the game. Nothing has been taken away by the APG, quite on the contrary - even for existing characters.
Took me a minute to parse that... you have a double negative in there :)
Its not so much that it takes something away, but for example, if you are already playing a fighter built as a two-weapon fighter, you probably aren't going to want to roll a new character to try out the two-weapon fighter archtype. I generally don't want to or try to play the same type of character over again. However, if I'm interested in trying out the archtype, that is my only option.
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If a character rebuild of some sort isn't allowed, I will probably allow my group to rebuild, but we'll no longer run the adventures as part of PFS. That way we can play what we want without having to worry about the campaign rules.
Edit: Didn't mean for this to sound so "well, we're taking our ball and going home". We just don't have a lot of time to game, and we want to be sure that we are getting to play what we want to play, not settling with something we feel less excited about.
No, I think that's perfectly reasonable. Not to mention, if you do play regularly, sooner or later your characters will reach the level 12 cap (if you stick to that) anyways and you can start over. I personally modeled a lot of the home games I ran off OP rules (point buy, limitations on races/PrCs, limits on what you could flat out buy with gold) because they gave the game some structure and equal footing amongst the PCs. But only to a point, because a home game gives you the joy of flexibility since you only have to account for five characters.
I'm sure we'll have a ruling in 3.1 on the extent of rebuilds, if any, allowed beyond people who were playing APG classes. Personally, I'm hesitant to use a whole lot among the archetypes until errata is published as there are some areas we'll probably see it. A
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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After some discussion with other fellow PFS GMs and much thought, I would hope that Mr. Frost will reconsider his idea on "rebuilding."
My biggest fear is the abandoning of long running character concepts in favor of the new "toy box" opened up by the APG. I run games for a FLGS and EVERYONE has bought a copy of the APG. We schedule mostly 1-7 tier adventures because of a lack of higher tier PCs (see The Culling), but have recently began to offer the occasional 5-9 and 7-11 now that we have built up enough PCs to play them. Some of those players are seeing the advantages that an archetype could offer to their character concept, with options that weren't available previously and are already thinking of rebuilding that character under a new name to take advantage of the APG options.
This would be okay if there was enough tier 1-7 scenarios to allow those players to rebuild, but (with the exception of Play, Play Play) that is not the case... and Season 2 is already loaded with higher tier scenarios. To date, only two of posted scenarios are 1-7 tier. So a player cannot remake an APG advantaged Andoran character and advance through scenarios his Andoran PC already has been through. Even if he uses another faction, he still has to be a deciding factor on whether that table will make to qualify for "Play, Play, Play" and so will probably be unable to go through those scenarios a second time. And as scenarios become retired from Season 0, this becomes even harder for a character to find scenarios to advance through. Meanwhile, I have files of tier 5-9 and tier 7-11 scenarios STILL waiting to be run.
Please, Mr. Frost, reconsider the idea of rebuilding.
