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I really love the direction that is being taken with organizations in Pathfinder products. I had never really checked out the Faction Guide until after looking over the Magic Schools in Inner Sea Magic.
The organizations are really cool on a fictional level, but often that's not enough to really engage players in a world. Embedding crunchy rulesbits for PCs into the descriptions of organizations is very shrewd, and guarantees a certain level of inspection from the players.
It seems to me that this approach actually does what Prestige Classes were originally intended to do — only instead of a class-style reward, it's more like a wealth-style reward (roleplaying investment, not tied to CR, still mechanical benefits).
It also solves a recurring problem I've had as a GM, where players come to rely on organizations they've roleplayed into good standing with. Problem is, they rely just a little too much, and it is tough for me to fairly draw the line. With this template so codified, it's a lot easier to manage these relationships.
In other words, more please! It's a really smashing piece of game design. Please write up as many existing organizations and schools as possible.
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In other words, more please! It's a really smashing piece of game design. Please write up as many existing organizations and schools as possible.
I agree. I like faction rewards aspect for the Serpent Skull AP. It helps the PCs feel they are actually accomplishing something with these groups. The rewards are much better than standard treasure.
<3
Adding,
The change from TPA and CPA to "Fame" and "Prestige Points" is most welcome.
Reading the rules page in the Faction Guide hurt my head.
Reading the same type of rules in ISM and The PFS Field Guide had a much more even flow to it. I like the statblock format for organizations too.
More please!
You should see the spreadsheet I have set up for my campaign now... It has each of the PCs tracked with their Fame/PP for:
Arcanist's Circle
Ardoc Family
Aspis Consortium
Black Arrows
Duskwardens
Freemen of Ilsur
Hellknights
Magnimar House of Lords
Magnimar Golemworks
Mendevian Crusade
Pathfinder Society
Red Mantis
Sczarni
Shoanti Tribes
Temple to Iomedae
Therassic Order
Varisian Wanderers
You've gotta love any RPG rule that makes the party wizard go digging in the treasury under Ft. Rannick to find that Jeggare shield he recovered from Galenmir... just to pay 1PP to have a black arrow messenger deliver the thing to Varian Jaggare in the hopes of racking up Fame with the Pathfinders.
That's what I call a deep RP rule.
Paizo, you are doing so well on the "real" rule design in the Pathfinder line. UC looks nice, but I can't help but feel you're "burying the lead" with some of these new mechanics.
Can Vendor statblocks and a functional treasure/shopping system be far off? Given the way Factions have been handled, I am very, very excited for that treatment.
Creative Director
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The change from TPA and CPA to "Fame" and "Prestige Points" is most welcome.
Thanks! That change is something I've been pushing to happen for MANY many months. I wanted to make the change in the Faction Guide, in fact, but got overruled for various lame reasons. I'm glad that, now, these categories use real words that mean what they mean and not almost identical acronyms. Not all of us speak acronym, after all.
Paizo, you are doing so well on the "real" rule design in the Pathfinder line. UC looks nice, but I can't help but feel you're "burying the lead" with some of these new mechanics.
That's certainly something we're struggling to deal with internally. The rule mechanics you see showing up in the Pathfinder Adventure Path, Campaign Settting, Module, and Player Companion lines are, as a general rule, created and developed not by the same team that works on the hardcover rulebooks. There's some "cross-pollenation" between those who work on the rulebook lines and those who work on the Golarion lines, and we're working to increase that cross-pollenation to get the design philosophies even more synced up... but it's a long and often tough thing to pull off while at the same time trying to keep all of the book lines on schedule.
Can Vendor statblocks and a functional treasure/shopping system be far off? Given the way Factions have been handled, I am very, very excited for that treatment.
They actually can be pretty far off. There's not really much on our schedule this year or next that really lends itself well to a restructuring of a treasure/shopping system, especially since, unlike the faction system, the core rules already HAVE a treasure/shopping system. Since Faction rules were never in a hardcover book, rebuilding and redefining them with the more recent books to make them more logical and easier to comprehend wasn't as big a deal as it would have been if we'd had them between hard covers, and thus, in the minds of a LOT more people.
They actually can be pretty far off. There's not really much on our schedule this year or next that really lends itself well to a restructuring of a treasure/shopping system, especially since, unlike the faction system, the core rules already HAVE a treasure/shopping system.
Que sera. I'm certain everything on the schedule is there for a reason. Won't stop me calling for a Treasure/Equipment overhaul, though. I see it as the least fun part of the game with the most potential for retooling.
Since Faction rules were never in a hardcover book, rebuilding and redefining them with the more recent books to make them more logical and easier to comprehend wasn't as big a deal as it would have been if we'd had them between hard covers, and thus, in the minds of a LOT more people.
Interesting point. I can see how changing the rules in smaller books could be less of a hassle. As a customer/player, I'm glad for the changes.
So, merging the two topics: maybe we'll one day see a Inner Sea Magic Emporia? :)
Evil Lincoln, I'd love to see that sheet, and, perhaps with your permission, use it as a template for my campaign. ^_^
Factions are on the second tab in the GoogleDoc. The first tab is individual standing with NPCs (for diplomacy).
I wanted to make the change in the Faction Guide, in fact, but got overruled for various lame reasons.
LOL true. :)
I wanted to make the change in the Faction Guide, in fact, but got overruled for various lame reasons.LOL true. :)
Well the next time it comes up, I think there should be a moratorium on TLAs*. They're really unsightly and bland. I'll take "Fame" over TPA any day, and I'm still in the camp that thought CMB should have been "Maneuver" and CMD could have beem "Maneuver Class"... to this day people have to accent the last letter to prevent confusion.
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Bump.
Just bought my hardcopy of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide at Millennium Games in Rochester, NY.
Mostly, this is a good book for:
And the sizable field guide chapter, although an amusing read, is suitable for:
Since none of the above bullet points describe me, you might think I was disappointed with the purchase. Oh, my, no.
The equipment chapter is good, offering kits which I regard quite highly. A "Campsite Kit" and a "Deluxe Campsite kit" are unfortunate omissions, however, we might yet see them in Ultimate Equipment *nudge nudge*
But oh! The Vanities section. That's why I chose to post in this thread. The vanities section shows me that some really competent, campaign-focused design is continuing, bit by bit, in the various campaign setting products.
These vanities expand on the role of prestige points with organizations, but now they also let own businesses, and acquire followers. I would love to see these kind of rules brought into the core in the next edition. The ability to acquire followers outside the framework of the Leadership feat does much to assuage my (bitter, long-held) issues with that feat as a GM.
The rest of the Vanities are awesome too. I would like to request that the Campaign setting products continue to expand in this direction. Give us rules for acquiring prestige with multiple organizations (already possible I think), continue to "fix" rules like Leadership (PP followers), the craft, perform and profession skills (day jobs), and the complexity of gear management and purchasing.
These things should make their way to the core design, eventually. I could see a general (non-organizational) prestige system replacing a number of problematic aspects of the core rules.
Campaign Setting Line, you are the dark horse of Pathfinder game design, and you don't get nearly the attention you deserve.
EDIT: I reposted this as a review of the PFSFG, but I still think it is relevant here to the discussion of how awesome these new rules are. I am shocked that I don't see more discussion of these rules on the boards, and I can only imagine it is because the of the way the campaign setting and the rules fanbases break down. Anyway, if you're a rules-design-loving GM who has passed over the campaign setting line, go back and have another look.
The equipment chapter is good, offering kits which I regard quite highly. A "Campsite Kit" and a "Deluxe Campsite kit" are unfortunate omissions, however, we might yet see them in Ultimate Equipment *nudge nudge*...
Noted!
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Creative Director
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Question: I see the prestige rewards for the arcane schools as much stronger and cheaper than the rewards in the faction guide. Do the developers believe that the Faction Guide rewards were underpowered?
Factions and magic schools are different things, and thus don't necessarily need to be equally powerful, first of all. One could certainly belong to a faction AND to a magic school, for example. Also, while both factions and schools use similar mechanics, the methods by which you gain fame and such in a school are different—they take longer in-game to accumulate, whereas there's not as much of an in-game throttle on PP gained from factions.
Question: I see the prestige rewards for the arcane schools as much stronger and cheaper than the rewards in the faction guide. Do the developers believe that the Faction Guide rewards were underpowered?Factions and magic schools are different things, and thus don't necessarily need to be equally powerful, first of all. One could certainly belong to a faction AND to a magic school, for example. Also, while both factions and schools use similar mechanics, the methods by which you gain fame and such in a school are different—they take longer in-game to accumulate, whereas there's not as much of an in-game throttle on PP gained from factions.
Are you intended to be able to obtain membership in multiple factions, or multiple schools? I ask because we're been using the book that way (see the spreadsheet link upthread) and it works really well to inspire players to interact with game organizations.
Prestige/Fame is one of the best mechanics I've seen in any game system, I really hope the concept gets expanded considerably.
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Creative Director
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Factions and magic schools are different things, and thus don't necessarily need to be equally powerful, first of all. One could certainly belong to a faction AND to a magic school, for example. Also, while both factions and schools use similar mechanics, the methods by which you gain fame and such in a school are different—they take longer in-game to accumulate, whereas there's not as much of an in-game throttle on PP gained from factions.That actually raises an interesting question. How long does it take to make an education check (in game of course)? Although you can only make 1 per semester at a given school, doing so does clearly doesn't take all of characters time during that semester - rather, extra-currricular activities such as adventuring research and travelling (ISM, p19). In theory, a mage with teleportation magic could attend several schools at once (even a 1st level mage could say attend the acadamae in Korvosa and spend some more of his time at the local monastery of Nethys say...).
You make an education check once per semester. That varies according to school; it could be once per 6 months, once per 4 months, once per 3 months, or whatever. How long doesn't matter; if you're in the school for the semester, you make the check at the end of that semester, assuming you paid your tuition. How much time a character actually has to spend in class is mostly irrelevant—we assume that you're going to classes, doing "homework" or field research, and everything else all as part of your regular daily routine of adventuring and all that. That said, a GM could certainly require that a PC in a school spend a minimum amount of time IN school each semester... but that kind of goes against the design philosophy that magic schools are things you do in addition to adventuring rather than instead of them.
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Creative Director
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Question: I see the prestige rewards for the arcane schools as much stronger and cheaper than the rewards in the faction guide. Do the developers believe that the Faction Guide rewards were underpowered?Factions and magic schools are different things, and thus don't necessarily need to be equally powerful, first of all. One could certainly belong to a faction AND to a magic school, for example. Also, while both factions and schools use similar mechanics, the methods by which you gain fame and such in a school are different—they take longer in-game to accumulate, whereas there's not as much of an in-game throttle on PP gained from factions.Are you intended to be able to obtain membership in multiple factions, or multiple schools? I ask because we're been using the book that way (see the spreadsheet link upthread) and it works really well to inspire players to interact with game organizations.
Prestige/Fame is one of the best mechanics I've seen in any game system, I really hope the concept gets expanded considerably.
That's up to the GM. Some might not want PCs to belong to more than one faction/school/whatever at a time, but others might be okay with it. We intentionally don't but a hard limit to it for that reason.
I just read through the school stuff in ISM last night, and I thought it was fantastic, as well! Very easily incorporated into a campaign, and it definitely adds nicely to the roleplay potential for characters. Like Evil Lincoln, I think the Prestige Points and Fame systems are wonderful.
Admittedly, reading through this actually gave me an itch to run an academy campaign . . . I'm already running three other campaigns and effectively working two jobs. I need you people to STOP!
Okay, not really! Splendid work, lads and lasses! =)
As much as I love the Golarion factions, these rules could be useful to GMs in a generic capacity as well. Town guard, wizard school, thieves' guild, temple... These are all organizations that have traditionally featured heavily in classic campaigns, and yet they've always lacked a more structured means of interacting with the PCs. (Party a good thing, because it gives GMs leeway... but the genius of prestige is that it makes players get involved because of the codified rewards)
What happens exactly when the PCs call the town guard in for help with an obvious threat? What kind of spell benefits does the wizard get from school membership? How does the thieves' guild help rogues pawn their loot? Just how much free healing is the temple willing to bankroll for the heroes before they tithe a little of that loot?
The system you've devised is perfect for answering these questions. Yet, with the exception of magic schools, we don't have good generic rules for using these in a Sandpoint-scale campaign.
I hope we might see a very general system for Prestige and Fame in the rulebook line. Maybe after it has been thoroughly vetted in the campaign setting.
I think an interesting addition for the prestige system would be different tribal groups/vagabond groups. Not every organization has to be formal; perhaps even more then in small groups, big personalities and extravagant deeds make a huge impact.
Also, perhaps something could be done mechanically to link NPC favors from the Gamemastery Guide to faction prestige. You're famous enough, thus you can find someone in the group to help you out with X task.
I think an interesting addition for the prestige system would be different tribal groups/vagabond groups. Not every organization has to be formal; perhaps even more then in small groups, big personalities and extravagant deeds make a huge impact.
Also, perhaps something could be done mechanically to link NPC favors from the Gamemastery Guide to faction prestige. You're famous enough, thus you can find someone in the group to help you out with X task.
Hm. Could have been an interesting feature in A History of Ashes. If I ever run CotCT I will be sure to treat the Shoanti as a prestige-awarding organization.
As much as I love the Golarion factions, these rules could be useful to GMs in a generic capacity as well. Town guard, wizard school, thieves' guild, temple... These are all organizations that have traditionally featured heavily in classic campaigns, and yet they've always lacked a more structured means of interacting with the PCs. (Party a good thing, because it gives GMs leeway... but the genius of prestige is that it makes players get involved because of the codified rewards)
-- snip --
I hope we might see a very general system for Prestige and Fame in the rulebook line. Maybe after it has been thoroughly vetted in the campaign setting.
I have been toying with the idea of "smaller scale" Factions in my homebrew since the Faction Guide came out. The Faction Guide presents a generic "Religious Faction" that you can adjust to suit your needs to make a Faction for each religion. The issue is that some factions, like the Town government, or a series of rival street gangs, are not on the same scale as each other, or of the Factions as presented.
The easiest solution is to reduce the benefits you can gain.. small-scale factions cannot provide magic items more than 1 step above the purchase limit in that town/city, as one example. Another might be that while you can obtain services in 1-week increments from the main Factions, perhaps smaller ones deliver 3-day or even 1-day increments for the same Prestige cost.
Small Factions may be limited to only their one city/town, but should not suffer the +5 cost for being in a small settlement.
Very cool spreadsheet, EL!
Are you using some sort of template, if so, which one? I'd fancy doing something similar.
Thanks!
Very cool spreadsheet, EL!
Are you using some sort of template, if so, which one? I'd fancy doing something similar.
Thanks!
Um, nope, I just make them by hand. I can't be troubled to write formulae for them if it would be faster to update by hand... maybe some day.
Um, nope, I just make them by hand. I can't be troubled to write formulae for them if it would be faster to update by hand... maybe some day.Very cool spreadsheet, EL!
Are you using some sort of template, if so, which one? I'd fancy doing something similar.
Thanks!
Cool deal. I was thinking of the cosmetics (e.g. the bars of color, different size rows, etc. I am new to Google docs =)
Cool deal. I was thinking of the cosmetics (e.g. the bars of color, different size rows, etc. I am new to Google docs =)
Oh, for the most part that is all achieved with the Merge-across-columns button, the background and text color buttons, setting the proper alignment (CE), and dragging the column/row width to my liking. It's all there in the toolbar, just mess around and ask me if you want to duplicate something specifically.
GDoc spreadsheets are the single greatest campaign tool I have known.
Cool deal. I was thinking of the cosmetics (e.g. the bars of color, different size rows, etc. I am new to Google docs =)Oh, for the most part that is all achieved with the Merge-across-columns button, the background and text color buttons, setting the proper alignment (CE), and dragging the column/row width to my liking. It's all there in the toolbar, just mess around and ask me if you want to duplicate something specifically.
GDoc spreadsheets are the single greatest campaign tool I have known.
Thank you for the tips!
I have had some more time lately to check out the ISM and the Faction Guide, and I think what EL mentioned above really does need to be stressed. There is some REALLY great and useable stuff in these products. In fact, I would love to see a Faction Guide II that offered write-ups for the groups that show up in the Companion/Campaign products that haven't had Faction write-ups. It could also include further information on creating your own factions.
Really good stuff!
But oh! The Vanities section. That's why I chose to post in this thread. The vanities section shows me that some really competent, campaign-focused design is continuing, bit by bit, in the various campaign setting products.These vanities expand on the role of prestige points with organizations, but now they also let own businesses, and acquire followers. I would love to see these kind of rules brought into the core in the next edition. The ability to acquire followers outside the framework of the Leadership feat does much to assuage my (bitter, long-held) issues with that feat as a GM.
The rest of the Vanities are awesome too. I would like to request that the Campaign setting products continue to expand in this direction. Give us rules for acquiring prestige with multiple organizations (already possible I think), continue to "fix" rules like Leadership (PP followers), the craft, perform and profession skills (day jobs), and the complexity of gear management and purchasing.
These things should make their way to the core design, eventually. I could see a general (non-organizational) prestige system replacing a number of problematic aspects of the core rules.
Campaign Setting Line, you are the dark horse of Pathfinder game design, and you don't get nearly the attention you deserve.
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I concur. I would love to see more of this, and a general prestige system. Good stuff!
Are the rules OGL? Could a third party make more?
Are the rules OGL? Could a third party make more?
Any ideas?
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Creative Director
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Are the rules OGL? Could a third party make more?
The way to find out what parts of any Pathfinder book are OGL is to check the front page, down near the bottom, in the legal text, in the paragraph that begins with the bold face "Product Identity"
For the vast majority of our books, it basically says that the only parts of a book that are Product Identity are trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names, dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress.
So in the case of the rules for the magic schools... All the rules are open content. You just can't use any of the names of specific magic schools or put them in Golarion or dedicate them to specific Pathfinder deities, etc.
Bumped because of the runelords hardcover discussion.
Linking on mobile devices is a pain.
They actually can be pretty far off. There's not really much on our schedule this year or next that really lends itself well to a restructuring of a treasure/shopping system, especially since, unlike the faction system, the core rules already HAVE a treasure/shopping system.Que sera. I'm certain everything on the schedule is there for a reason. Won't stop me calling for a Treasure/Equipment overhaul, though. I see it as the least fun part of the game with the most potential for retooling.
Ultimate equipment?