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I'll chime in once more about this "unfairness" issue.
Indianapolis is over 4500 miles away from me. It'd cost me maybe around $2000 to make a trip there. So no chance of seeing me there.
Then again I'm content with the current situation; these boons will never reach Finland.
Depends on if the English newlyweds I met at Gen Con on their honeymoon make it to a Finish game day or not.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Apparently it only costs me my sanity.I thought it was a PR campaign, not a joke ;)That's the way I saw it. How much does that cost?
Honestly, I thought it was like my "owner" label when I first saw it. Then I saw the Shadow Lodge symbol. He's like your Good Twin Brother.
Not sure why he'd want your sanity, though...
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So if I would really like to start a new character of one of the variant races, I can either stop playing until the ARG is released or I am dooming the variant race character to a painfully low level.
<SARCASM>What? You mean you'd actually having to *play* a character through the 1st level and onwards? Oh, the horror!</SARCASM>
Seriously, "scheduled to play the latter up to twelfth level"??? Stop planning so much and let the game world affect your characters... ;-p
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I really liked the boon idea. It is a great way to encourage people to go to conventions. I have seen similar things in other organized campaigns. So I volunteered at the con I think it took something like 22 keys till I hit one that actually unlocked. So while it may sound like everyone is getting some good cookies at gencon, it was pretty rare. I think it is great that paizo has so many people attending gencon, hopefully they have the sagamore ball room next year. Btw paizo did great at the enies.
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The chronicles handed out at the convention were actually signed by someone at Paizo (Hyrum? Josh? Can't be sure...)
Actually, several people did the signing on those, myself included. Other VCs, authors, and a few other volunteer GMs worked their way through the stack before they were used as prizes.
Side note: Sweet! It actually says our region next to our title, now.
If people feel that too much new races will cause issues. I think limiting the new races to boons is a decent way of making sure you don't get an overload of tables with only these new races.
You could limited it to conventions where you can get access to random ones like Paizo has already done. And then to make them avaiable to the general public...allow DM's one race boon of their choosing for each DM star they have earned.
The systeem already checks to see how many sessions are reported with you as DM and assigns stars to you, it shouldn't be a huge leap to link something to that which would allow you to download a race boon once.
1. How about as a reward for retiring a 12th level character?
2. Will this reward/treasure system be run at Dragoncon?
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You never know. A guy I know just sold his Aasimar race boon for $50 on ebay so some might make their way over the pond.
Then again I'm content with the current situation; these boons will never reach Finland.
Wow!!!
My opinion on the whole thing is that the boons are a great way to promote the upcoming new releases, as well as, give con-goers a bit of a "good thing" a tad early. For someone to cheapen the gesture from the company and to make money for something given to them for free truly saddens me.
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You never know. A guy I know just sold his Aasimar race boon for $50 on ebay so some might make their way over the pond.It's funny that searching for Aasimar on eBay doesn't turn anything up, even in completed listings...
Search for "pathfinder boon" under completed listings.
Edit: Or click here.
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Search for "pathfinder boon" under completed listings.
Well I guess if a player shows up at my table playing a unique race prior to the release and adoption of the ARG, I'll be looking to make sure the signature on their first chronicle is not a photocopy.
(not trying to imply that your friend would send a photocopy, simply realizing the possiblities)
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Regarding the special boons, I feel that special rewards should only be at events like Gencon, Origins, or Paizocon. This rewards are extremely rare, that's what makes them *special* and it promotes attendence to these events.
Having said that, I'd like to mention that these boons weren't common at all. I played 8 slots (out of 10) and I got only 1 boon. So it's not like everyone who played can now play some funky race, I got a crappy boon so I'm in the same boat as everyone that didn't attend Gencon. Wann wann wann. Maybe I should complain as well (since I almost played every slot and got nothing)??
I guess if I was elitist, it would bother me if people got something I couldn't have. But I was genuinely happy for the RARE person that had these minor boons.
The Special Interactive on Friday night, which SHOULD have had an excellent boon if your group excelled, had a very crappy one time use boon, so you definitely didn't miss anything there.
And I think it is actually good marketing practice to have prizes at the large conventions, as it creates incentive to get people to said conventions.
Exactly. It wasn't much, but the minor boons that were at Gencon were much appreciated.
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On a related note, I really hate it when powerful boons are available in scenarios (I'm thinking of Shades of Ice 3). I felt that boon was too powerful.
In general, I feel there are too many minor boons being given in scenarios. I played 8 regular scenarios this Gencon and I got 6 minor boons from them. I know other players love minor boons, however imo it's just too much. (Even to track it now!). I'd like to see them be a little more rare than the current trend.
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I guess I was one of the lucky ones: for the 9 slots I ran, I won 2 racial boons and a Pathfinder Society shotglass!
Drogon: I understand your concern, but I think that you are approaching it from the wrong angle.
Gen Con, PaizoCon, PaizoCon UK, et al should have something special available for PFS players who come out to play (and to be clear, the tokens were also given to the players who came out for the FREE delve).
IMO the question should be: what different special thing can we do for store play?
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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For someone to cheapen the gesture from the company and to make money for something given to them for free truly saddens me.
If Paizo continues this trend you had better get used to it. When you create a commodity by handing out something in limited supply to an exclusive group of people, it acquires value. Things with value sell well. I see it all the time in other games (Magic's player and judge rewards, D&D's DM rewards, even things like Killer Bunnies' and Fluxx's promo cards).
IMO the question should be: what different special thing can we do for store play?
Please ask. I'd love to discover the answer.
If you're asking me, on the other hand, feel free to contact me at my store email address - jeff(at)enchantedgrounds(dot)com. I'm known to be very free with my opinions.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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My question is this: I got that boon immediately after my first game of my first character at my first Society event of any kind (and first Pathfinder game, too). I would assume that it would be unsportsmanlike to apply that boon to that character right away, but I thought I might throw that out to the boards and see what folks thought. One of the Venture Captains hinted wink wink that no one would say anything about it if I did, but some other players thought I would be a dirty rotten rule breaker.
I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what you mean, Jennesseeted. You designed a character (XXXX-1) and played it at an event, received a chronicle sheet, and received a wooden "Year of the Ruby Phoenix" token for your participation, yes?
The Aasimar boon allows you to create a character (XXXX-2) with the Aasimar race, as if it were an additional resource. It doesn't allow you to change the race of a character you've already been playing. (Let's say you were playing an elf rogue. You wouldn't be able to trade in the elf's +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, –2 Constitution for the Aasimar's +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma; trade in low-light vision for darkvision, and so on.
Even a human has things like additional skill ranks and feats which it would lose in trade for spell-like abilities and energy resistances.
If that's what the Venture-Captain was suggesting, he was wrong. If you tried to bring that character to my table, and were honest about what you were doing, I'd ask you to revert it back to its original race before we begin play.
But it's likely I've misunderstood. Perhaps you were playing a pre-gen through a short delve experience, and won the Aasimar boon, to apply to your first character.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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My two C-bills. (speaking as a Battletech player, not a PFS player)
There are two different kind of boons you can get from Cons. Some make more sense than others.
With Battletech, at Origins past, there were Historical scenarios. The results of the scenarios would affect the storyline in upcoming books. Nothing earth shattering like "You kill the Master." But small events. A town might get spared because you successfully defended it, a named ship might get killed. In one extreme case, a desperate pilot tried a Death From Above (DFA) when his weapons were destroyed. If he'd pulled it off, the Catalyst people said they'd put the DFA and his name in the source book*. These make sense in the controlled chaos of the historical events, they run the full day (or multiple days) and the results of GenCon and Origins can be merged.**
The other kind of boons are 'Con exclusives' IWM does this yearly with a unique mini, or sometimes Catalyst did an early print run. These are the more 'grumble worthy' IMNSHO, since there's no reason to *not* have the mini or book made available to the general public afterwards (glares at the Catapult K mini).
From what I'm reading, the racial boons people have been discussing are more of the later. If Advanced Race opens up the Tengu/Aasimar/Tiefling/etc. races to the general Society players, then it's all cool, since the people there a) got a benefit for being at the con and b) there's not a 'ha hah, you'll never be as cool as I am' vibe.
*shrug* Those I don't mind. If the 'MVP' at GenCon Society events gets his character statted up in a future book, (to give an example that compares to the historical above) that's cool, but not game breaking. (And the non-convention goers can have 'revenge' by killing the NPC in creative ways ;-))
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So, I got a couple of the boons at GenCon, including one of the races (Aasimar), which I thought was pretty neat. In fact, though I understand some of the negative feelings some of you posted about the boons, I have to say that the treasure box and prizes were definately a factor in my having an excellent time and wanting to play Pathfinder again.
My question is this: I got that boon immediately after my first game of my first character at my first Society event of any kind (and first Pathfinder game, too). I would assume that it would be unsportsmanlike to apply that boon to that character right away, but I thought I might throw that out to the boards and see what folks thought. One of the Venture Captains hinted wink wink that no one would say anything about it if I did, but some other players thought I would be a dirty rotten rule breaker.
Thanks
Anyone who got a racial boon will start that as a new character of their own design.
Anyone who got the other boons (cash money, perception bonus, etc) could apply them to an existing character, or start a new one and apply them there if they wanted.
So, I got a couple of the boons at GenCon, including one of the races (Aasimar), which I thought was pretty neat. My question is this: I got that boon immediately after my first game of my first character at my first Society event of any kind (and first Pathfinder game, too).
Man, Aasimars are lucky for new players. I convinced a friend to try PF with a delve, and he got one too. I couldn't believe it when he showed it to me later. Almost makes me believe in conspiracies.
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My opinion on the whole thing is that the boons are a great way to promote the upcoming new releases, as well as, give con-goers a bit of a "good thing" a tad early. For someone to cheapen the gesture from the company and to make money for something given to them for free truly saddens me.To be honest, my intention (had I gotten one of the racial boons early enough in the con) was to take it right down to the auction hall and offer it up for the charity auction. I wasn't going to use it, and I figured that that was a better use for it than giving it away.
My biggest issue (and maybe I'm the only one that has this issue *shrug*) is making money from something that is supposed to be a bonus for you. Why not find a pfs player to give the boon to if you're not going to use it, or give your tokens to someone else if you really don't want the boons. If it was simply not one that you wanted, ask around players were willing to trade if it was something they truly wanted.
If Paizo makes the gesture towards us as players to give us a boon or bonus item I don't feel that we should be making money from their gesture. All that is going to do in the end is make Paizo not want to give us the boons as there are people that will only be there to make money from it and not take it in the spirit in which it was offered.
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While I have no issue with the charity angle, I'll admit that selling these things off for personal gain sorta rankles me.
I managed to get the chest open exactly four times during the Con, and all but one of those times I got a racial boon. Tiefling, Aasimar, and Sylph. The fourth time I wound up with Devilslayer. Now, all but the Tiefling I wound up giving away, mainly since I didn't see myself using any of the other racial boons, and I wanted to spread the awesome. The Sylph went to a GM who had lost his token for the day, and the Aasimar went to a friend at the Con who I knew hadn't gotten anything yet. Heck, I even gave away Devilslayer to one of my players just for being awesome.
My point is, yes, these boons are cool, but...really? Selling them? To me that's just a step too far if you're just doing it to be selfish. Sadly, there's not much we can do to stop it, but...seriously, people.
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Where are the rules for PCs of these races? The ARG won't be out for eight months and I haven't hseen anything about a playtest.We're insructed to use the rules for those races from the Bestiary or Bestiary II.
So far, I've seen: Aasimar, Tiefling, Tengu, Ifrit, Oread, (I presume the other two elemental races) and Dhampyr. I'm curious what other races were available.
(I admit, I was taken aback on Friday when a fellow -- a great player, who knows what he's doing -- sat down at my table with an aasimar PC.)
I got an Oread!
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It's going to be a challenge for HeroLab - not only do they have new factions to add, but they need to make exceptions for variant races and other one-off changes.
I talked to the Hero Lab folks about these boons on Saturday and they were unaware of it (seemed to be anyway). I showed him the boon and they said they would need to have contact from Paizo to get any of these changes into their system. Otherwise, i would have to create my character with a bunch of red ink on the screen.
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I talked to the Hero Lab folks about these boons on Saturday and they were unaware of it (seemed to be anyway). I showed him the boon and they said they would need to have contact from Paizo to get any of these changes into their system. Otherwise, i would have to create my character with a bunch of red ink on the screen.
Or, you know, do it by hand ;-)
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I plan to hold on to the ones I care not to play for about two weeks before making a final decision. Currently I hope to trade one or several or my non desired ones: oread, sylf, infrit, tengue for either a: aasimar, dhamphir or another eastern weapon cert. I highly doubt I can trade these for what I want so after a while, I will give them away to local judges as a thank you for all their volunteering.
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I plan to hold on to the ones I care not to play for about two weeks before making a final decision. Currently I hope to trade one or several or my non desired ones: oread, sylf, infrit, tengue for either a: aasimar, dhamphir or another eastern weapon cert. I highly doubt I can trade these for what I want so after a while, I will give them away to local judges as a thank you for all their volunteering.
Trade you an Aasimar for the ifrit!
...Currently I hope to trade one or several or my non desired ones: oread, sylf, infrit, tengue for either a: aasimar, dhamphir or another eastern weapon cert.
Raymond, I would gladly trade my Eastern Weapon Cert for your Tengu. Interested?
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Well I did get a couple boons and I have no desire to sell them or even trade them. Since they are quite rare, I can see why some people do sell them. This is the nature of the beast. If they weren't rare they wouldn't have value. What is awesome is the fact a boon does have some value that means society players desire them. So if someone goes to gencon and spends a large sum of money. I see no reason what is wrong with selling them. If paizo wanted to discourage the act they would have the sheet signed and chronicled when the person received the boon.