|
The long term players will need to continue to make new characters. Once you hit 3rd, create a new 1st level. Try to keep them 2 but no more than 3 level's apart. This will allow them to enjoy a variety of different tier scenario's and play with different players.
Maybe not as easy as just making a 7th level PC, but I think it is your best option. Good luck and have fun!
|
Are you running them as PFS legal play? It sounds like to me you would be better off just using the scenarios but not make it an actual PFS legal game, then you can have them just make PCs at the level needed.
But be aware if you do that the PCs will not be PFS legal and they can't be used at other PFS events, but if your players never plan on doing that anyway it does not matter.
If you want to keep it PFS legal, what will need to happen once all player reach a level that level 1s can't play with, all the other players will need to make level 1 PCs and play those until they once again get to a level that they can play with their original PCs all together again.
And you are correct a PC can't play out of their Tier.
|
|
I'm looking at running PFS adventures as my regular home campaign.
Reading the Guide, it looks like there is no way to create new characters higher than 1st level.
So if a new player joins the group in progress and the group is level 5, said new player needs to come in at 1st level? If a new player wants to join the group and the party is 7th level, he can't join our group (because you can't play up outside your tier)?
Also if a character dies in the home game (and is not able to be raised), I'm guessing he will have to create a 1st level character no matter where the rest of the party is?
Am I right on these assumptions?
If these are correct, how does one keep a PFS campaign fair for players whose characters may die and open for new players to join?
Or am I thinking about this wrong? Should I not run PFS as a part of an ongoing home campaign and instead run them as occassional games at cons or gaming stores (and stick mostly to Tier 1 games)?
Not trying to sound critical or snarky. Just want some answers.
Out of curiosity, is the intent to utilize the PFS scenarios/modules as content alone, or is the intent to create legal-for Society-play characters. If the former, you're GMing a home campaign, so do as thou wilt. If the latter, then you have a bit of a sticky wicket. The only way I know of to create a PFS legal character is to create at level 1/ 0 XP/ 0/0 Fame and prestige.
It is legal for a GM to assign their GM chronicle to a character of appropriate tier (which has not received a player chronicle for the same scenario), but that leaves you with the same situation: running a series of low level tiers instead of the upper level ones the rest of the players are involved with.
Again, if your merely using the Society scenarios for content, with no intention of using the same characters outside of your own home game, merely figure the standard experience per encounter and knock yourself (better yet, someone else: unconsciousness is unpleasant) out.
|
|
We want to use the adventures, factions, and general character creation. At least one of the players and I go to Cons and would like to get credit with the society for playing.
So I guess we want to do both.
Primarily, we want a relatively strict character creation process, a somewhat unified party (even if just under the aegis of working for the Society), and short, not really connected adventures. (This is mostly due to the play style of our group to forget what happens between sessions, not caring about storyline, etc.)
In that case you really have no choice, you will have to do what I and others suggest.
|
We want to use the adventures, factions, and general character creation. At least one of the players and I go to Cons and would like to get credit with the society for playing.
So I guess we want to do both.
You might want to consider separate characters for home play and conventions, then. You can use the PFS character creation rules, scenarios, etc. for home play and just not make them sanctioned PFS games.
Then you can play your PFS-legal characters when you go to conventions.
You have to understand that the primary purpose of PFS is to provide a nationwide campaign with a constantly-changing GM and groups of players, but all playing under the same campaign rules. If you're looking to play primarily with the same GM and group of players you're going to run into issues that the campaign rules aren't written to handle. In this case, the rules assume that if your character dies you can play in low-level events with other players or with your friends' low-level characters. If and when your new character catches up with the original group of characters you can jump in with them at that point. They can help you out by (as Kelly suggested) choosing slow advancement on those higher-level characters until you catch up.
|
|
Thanks for the prompt and frank answers to my post. Unfortunately it seems that this rule is just too punishing for a regular ongoing campaign in a home environment. I think I will look for another solution to my group's quandry.
Lots of good stuff thrown around here. Bottom line is that if you are looking for the ability to have PFS legal characters to play at conventions you will have to follow the PFS rules in order to maintain compatibility with the campaign.
If, however, you decide maintaining PFS legality is less important for you, the PFS scenarios do offer an interesting way to play a home campaign where you would be free to run your game however you please (but with a lot less needed on the GM prep side of things) in an episodic format that makes things pretty cool. You just won't be able to roll up to a con those characters.
So depending on the number of players who care about that vs. those that don't might shift that choice on way or another.
If I were you, I'd create PFS legal level 1 characters and play the 3 free First Steps scenarios. You'll have legal level 2 characters at the end, have a good introduction to PFS mechanically and thematically, and you could always 'break legality' at that point if you guys decided you don't care about that aspect and just play. However if you find the format really does work just fine for you then you, you've got legal characters already on their way. Besides you have PFS legal options for raising killed characters. :)
|
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
|
Thanks for the prompt and frank answers to my post. Unfortunately it seems that this rule is just too punishing for a regular ongoing campaign in a home environment. I think I will look for another solution to my group's quandry.
We've been running our home game as PFS, and its worked out pretty well. So far I'm the only one that's taken their char to a convention, but its nice to know we have the option available to us to do so.
I like our home games, as I'm used to playing with my group, but con games are fun to meet new people and play with others who have different play styles than you're used to. I'd suggest you take another look. The rules look pretty restrictive, but after a while, you see there's just there to keep things fair, and they're not that bad.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Harles,
I've been in that situation a few years ago, when I joined an organized-play-compatable home campaign. I liked the other players and I liked the campaign setting a lot. I hated being 7 levels behind the rest of the party. (And in that system, Living Arcanis, your PC got punished -- half experience, half gold, and twice the time units -- for being "out of tier".) I played that Ranger up till 7th level, and only once laid a blow in combat (nat 20).
So, yeah, there should be some recourse.
The best option I might suggest, that keeps characters PFS OP legal, would be to play through PFS-approved modules, like "Academy of Secrets" or "The Harrowing". Surviving each module gives you 3 xp, that you can apply to any character you please. The new guy could apply it to his PFS character, and everybody else could apply it to some reserve character. At my best count, there are currently 5 approved modules.