Competitor baffled by Round 4 sample template

[James Olchak]

I've never played a single Pathfinder Society game, so one section of the sample template is confusing to me:

Round 4 sample template wrote:

Tier XX (CR YY): {For example, "Tier 1-2 (CR 3)"}

{list/stat your monsters for this tier's encounter here}
Tier WW (CR ZZ): {For example, "Tier 1-2 (CR 3)"}
{list/stat your monsters for this tier's encounter here}

For the purposes of this contest, what constitutes a "Tier?" I was working from the assumption that Tier 1 would simply be the lower CR encounter, and Tier 2 would be the higher, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that. What would be appropriate Tiers for each of the encounter CRs allowed by the round 4 rules (CR1-CR9)?

[RonarsCorruption]

I'm no expert on PFS scenarios, but I do know that the tiers represent the levels of the characters in the adventure. Thus, tier 1-2 means the party will be made of level 1 and 2 characters.

I can also say that all PFS adventures are targeted for two tiers (which are always two levels, typically with one tier of space between them, such as tiers 1-2, and 4-5)

Thus, to write an encounter that spans two level groups, you could say:

Tier 1-2 (CR 2) - bat swarm
- the bat swarm goes after the densest group of people

Tier 4-5 (CR 5) - bat swarm (3)
- the bat swarms each choose one character and follow them

Take a look at last year's encounter round, they had the same challenge!

[Mike Welham]

The CR typically stays close to the tier up to the point of the final encounter.

I'd recommend downloading a PFS scenario (they're very inexpensive!) to get a feel for the flow of encounters.

[Andrew Christian]

Tiers for PFS scenarios are:

1-5
3-7
5-9
7-11
12

each tier has sub-tiers

1-5 (1-2, 4-5)
3-7 (3-4, 6-7)
5-9 (5-6, 8-9)
7-11 (7-8, 10-11)

The number ranges are the levels the characters must be to play that Tier. Then once you know you can play the tier, you determine average party level to determine which sub-tier you would play at.

And as Mike suggested, take a look at a couple PFS scenarios. I'd suggest season 3, as they are using the current rules that if you are top 4 you'll be expected to write a scenario with.

[Sean K Reynolds]

Aha!

Let me check something, and I'll edit my response to this.

Edit: Expect an email shortly from Paizo.com about this. Short answer: don't worry about assigning sub-tier values, just identify your two tiers as "Low Tier (CR whatever)" and "High Tier (CR whatever + 3)."

Chris is fixing the Location Encounter Format document to reflect this, and you'll get an overly-wordy Sean email explaining the change and that you shouldn't stress over it.

Thanks for catching that!

[James Olchak]

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Aha!

Let me check something, and I'll edit my response to this.

Edit: Expect an email shortly from Paizo.com about this. Short answer: don't worry about assigning sub-tier values, just identify your two tiers as "Low Tier (CR whatever)" and "High Tier (CR whatever + 3)."

Chris is fixing the Location Encounter Format document to reflect this, and you'll get an overly-wordy Sean email explaining the change and that you shouldn't stress over it.

Thanks for catching that!

Cool. One less knob to tweak.