PFS new player advice

[Beowulfe]

I played LG so I know the look and feel of that campaign. I see some posts about healing being abundant. So my question is what is PFS like?
What is a good starter character?
Are the modules combat heavy/optimized?
Any skills/feats that are more useful/less useful than others?
Any gotchas to watch out for?

I like to play interesting characters but I want to be useful and effective to the group.

Any help is appreciated.

[james maissen]

Beowulfe wrote:

I like to play interesting characters but I want to be useful and effective to the group.

Any help is appreciated.

Are you going to be mainly playing in a given local area? If so, talk with them.. perhaps they have a glut of characters that are all close together and desperately need something else, etc.

-James

[hello, my name is ninja]

Beowulfe wrote:

I played LG so I know the look and feel of that campaign. I see some posts about healing being abundant. So my question is what is PFS like?

What is a good starter character?
Are the modules combat heavy/optimized?
Any skills/feats that are more useful/less useful than others?
Any gotchas to watch out for?

I like to play interesting characters but I want to be useful and effective to the group.

Any help is appreciated.

I'm going to go out on a limb here(looks pretty sturdy) and say "LG" is Living Greyhawk.

My first question is are you asking more about the campaign or the system? if your asking more about starter build help then that's quite a big order, but if your asking about society then it's alot like LG with less power gaming needed(at least that's what we needed to do in my area. Bandit kingdoms FTW.) That means divines and arcanes are always welcome, general meleers a pretty much dime-a-dozen, and rogues and bards fairly non-existent. Well, at least that's how it is here. You really should look at your local group. The fist time you play with them just bring a few different characters you want to play and what ever they need at the time play for awile until the others get their charters and yours up to mid tier. At that point pretty much everyone,including you, will have other character ideas and the need for a new low level character for the new low level mods. rinse-repeat.

[Jiggy]

Maximum combat optimization is not needed. Depending on your skill as a player, I'd say you only need somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-75% combat optimization.

My 8th level fighter has 17 INT (with no class features dependent on that stat) and hasn't died yet.

Versatility is a plus. So far I've had/seen characters dragged to the bottom of a river by a crocodile, attacked by harpies while clinging to a cliff face 150ft up, dragged through the ocean in a storm while tied to the mast by a too-long rope (d'oh!), swallowed whole by a gibbering mouther, made peace with a rising leader of a kobold clan, performed an investigation into the criminal underworld to expose a corrupt official, and plenty else.

Be able to fight.

Be able to move.

Be able to investigate.

And do something interesting and memorable! :)

[Fromper]

This thread should probably be moved to the PFS section of the boards.

As for answering the original questions, you don't have to have a combat optimized character to succeed, but you should make sure you have something to contribute. There's a fair amount of role playing between fights, so diplomacy is generically useful, though bluff might be a decent backup plan. They do a pretty good job of coming up with challenges that involve just about every skill, so you pretty much just have to decide what you want your character to be good at. But perception is still the most important skill in the game, just because it determines who gets to go in a surprise round.

As for character types, as James said, check with your local group to see if they have too many or too few of something right now. My own local group is lacking in rogues, but we went to a convention last month, and roughly half the PCs at any table were rogues. It was just odd. The point is that it varies quite a bit from group to group. If you want to make a generically useful character that nobody will hate you for, go with some sort of healer. Even a secondary healer like a bard with a wand of Cure Light Wounds is good to have along in just about any group.

[Val'Ross the explorer]

I played 3 PFS games at the last local game con. 2of 3 games we had a cleric and a rouge. The clerics did a lot of Knowledge and Deplomacy rolls that came in handy. Rouges are always handy. At lower levels I see a lot of Fighters.
There is a lot more than just combat in the game.
For my next Character I am building a fighter who is an Archer. He has Precise shot, to shoot into melee combat without lots of neg to the "to hit". I am trying to choose skills that will help with the investigating.
Play what ever class you want to. I agree with Mr. Maissen.
I hope this helps some.

[Axebeard]

Beowulfe wrote:

So my question is what is PFS like?

It's a lot like Living Greyhawk was. You're given a job, you have three fights, and then the job is magically completed. Within the module, you're given a minor quest by your other faction boss (find desired object, kill certain NPC, rescue slaves) and you have to keep your head up for the keyword that tells you your macguffin is there.

Beowulfe wrote:

What is a good starter character?

Anything, really. You've played LG, you can probably handle the PF classes. I would avoid classes that summon a ton of dudes so that you don't slow combat down. If you regularly play with groups of 3 or 4 players, then a class with a pet won't be too bad, but in my experience the players who play with animal companions that aren't mounts tend to slow the combat down.

Beowulfe wrote:

Are the modules combat heavy/optimized?

With few exceptions, everything important that happens in a module will be decided by combat. This is because every party can be expected to have combat effectiveness, but not every party can be expected to have a diplomacy check.

Beowulfe wrote:

Any skills/feats that are more useful/less useful than others?

Perception is very nice, Use Magic Device is good for using your effectively infinite supply of wands of CLW. Occasionally a weird knowledge skill, like History, can help you get a valuable clue. Monster knowledge skills are always valuable for obvious reasons. Diplomacy and Bluff are good skills to have at a table. I don't remember ever seeing anyone use stealth because that involves leaving the rest of the party behind. On odd occasions I'll see a linguistics check pop up, but almost every situation where a weird language is called for, it's Ancient Osiriani. Knowing languages is useless because everyone can spend 2 PA and get a wand of Comprehend Languages. I know that you may have to speak to an indiginous tribe or something, but usually it's reading writing on the wall of an ancient tomb that says "don't step on the red blocks, they explode" or something similar. The weird pocket skills, like Heal, generally are used to complete the odd faction mission. You only need to consider combat when choosing feats.

Beowulfe wrote:

Any gotchas to watch out for?

Not really. When you complete your Faction Missions (think sidequest), you're awarded PA which determines two things: Your item access, and more importantly, what stuff you can get for free.

You can spend 2 PA to acquire, for free, ANY item of 750gp or less. Good items to get are:

1st level wands. Cure Light Wounds and Infernal healing is why you hear that healing is abundant. Comprehend Languages defeats every ancient language in the game, and Bless or Protection from Evil are great spells to have on wands to either give the party a combat-long buff without consuming spell slots or snap the fighter out of mind control.
3rd level potions. Potions of fly for free are amazing for melee-oriented characters. Other good 3rd level potions: Remove Blindness/Deafness, Water Breathing, Water Walk, Protection from Energy, Heroism, Oil of Keen Edge, Magic Circle Against Evil.
4th level scrolls. Want to drop Summon Monster IV as a level 1 wizard? Make a DC 8 caster level check and you're good to go! Alternately, pack scrolls of Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, etc. for if you ever come to a situation where you need one.

Oh, and you can spend something like 16PA to get a free Raise Dead cast. I like using my PA to get a couple of wands at level 1, then build up 16 PA, then use them to prepare for corner cases: Potions of Fly, Scrolls of Death Ward, etc.

Another really useful combo: Clear Spindle Ioun Stone embedded in a Wayfinder gets you permanent Protection from Evil-grade immunity to compulsion, charm, and possession. That's a BARGAIN if you're a BDF.

[Jiggy]

Axebeard wrote:

I don't remember ever seeing anyone use stealth because that involves leaving the rest of the party behind.

Just for the record, I've seen stealth used multiple times.

• The party is following a suspicious person down the street. I sneak ahead to corner him, using stealth.

• The party has arrived about a round's movement outside the BBEG's door. The monk stealths in and ambushes her. The BBEG then spends a round or two trying to be a caster against a monk (guess how that went) while the rest of the party joins the fight.

• Multiple faction missions.

• Spiral staircases are great for stealth.

[M P 433]

The society adventures are designed to be resolved by some form of diplomacy/intimidate/bluff for at least 1/2 the encounters that might otherwise be a fight. Keep at least one of those skills with some ranks, though some old-school DMs will allow creative use of other skills to make up for lack of these. However, don't expect this from all DMs. As noted, Perception is the key skill.

Sessions often do not have down-time to rest, so you'll want to watch blowing all your abilities in one encounter. This makes healing characters popular as a group may go through all its potions, but I've seen groups with no dedicated healers do fine.

As suggested prior, bring a few characters along if you'd like, though I see fewer APG classes than I do core classes, if you're looking for something different.

[Fromper]

Axebeard wrote:

Beowulfe wrote:

So my question is what is PFS like?

It's a lot like Living Greyhawk was. You're given a job, you have three fights, and then the job is magically completed.

???

What the heck game are you playing???

I never played LG, as I just got back into RPGs about 6 months ago after a 20+ year hiatus. But I did play a session of Living Forgotten Realms in 4e when I first started playing again, so I know what you're talking about. At the time, it was jarring to me just how lame the "plot" was, and the fact that everyone knew in advance that we'd be having exactly 3 fights, so there was no point saving your best spells once you hit the last encounter.

Pathfinder Society is nothing like that.

Granted, the wrap up at the end of the sessions tends to be just a quick summary by the GM, but that's about the only similarity. There's a lot of actual role playing between fights. And there's certainly not exactly 3 fights per adventure. I've had games with anywhere from 3-7 fights. In fact, the first scenario I GMed could have had up to 7 fights if the party was bloodthirsty, or as few as just 1 if they talked their way out of most of them.

[nosig]

Best advice I can give?

Play the first game with a Pre-gen, for a class you liked to play in LG.

That gives you a chance to "get your feet wet" see what it's like (both the campaign and your local crowd) and not waste a lot of time building things you find later just sit in a binder somewhere ( not that that is all that bad. It can be fun building a few extra PCs...).

It gives you a AR (read Cert) and lets you still "take 'er for a test drive".

And welcome to the campaign!

[Andrew Christian]

Stealth: Quest for Perfection Part III: Defenders of Nesting Swallow:

My cavalier (who also is an alchemist) used his Tactician ability to give everyone Stealth Synergy, and we hid from the first wave of defenders and obliterated them with an ambush.

[Beowulfe]

Thanks for the comments. You have answered my concerns. Yes LG is short for Living Greyhawk which (in my experience) devolved into the arms race to see who could make the most min/max combat optimized, PC or author.