Idea: Delve Teams

[Adam J Wells]

So i've noticed over the long while that i've played PFS that there are certain groups that stick together over many tables, and get to be somewhat formalized teams. I know several other living style campaigns have rules for these, including some benefits for the members.

I was wondering if there's been talk or plans for this sort of thing being developed for Pathfinder Society. I had played with the idea a bit, and included my rough (extremely rough) draft of the rules in the spoiler below, but wanted to see if anyone else had thought of this before.

Rough Draft of Delve Team Rules:

Common to outlying lodges in the Pathfinder Society, some groups of pathfinders form strong working relationships with their fellows through experience, mutual respect, and sometimes a bit of coercion or trickery. These rules offer benefits for these delve teams through bonuses in game.

Requirements:

1) A delve team consists of precisely three characters. Never any more, or any less. A character may only be a member of one delve team.

2) A delve team must have participated in six consecutive missions together without interruption. Any single character participating in a scenario without his delve team resets this count for all potential team members. GMs must confirm and record this count in the Conditions Gained/Items bought section of all team member's chronicle sheets with "Delve Team Mission X". It is not the GM's responsibility to ask for this information from players. Failure to request a GM's signature for the Delve Mission will also interrupt and reset the delve team count.

3) After satisfying the mission requirement, the Delve Team receives the following benefits:

• One free re-roll for a Delve Team member, as if that member were wearing a Faction T-Shirt. Rules for shirt re-rolls apply to this roll, and that player may not have used a shirt re-roll during that session.

• An automatic +2 circumstance bonus to Aid Another checks when aiding another member of the Delve Team.

4) Delve teams are encouraged, though not required, to develop a background and team or unit symbol for use in role play.

If you read it, let me know what you think. I think its a cool idea for long-standing groups of players, and prevents a team from 'locking up' a table by being able to have more than three characters. Plus, i think the idea of forcing two rival Delve teams to work on the same mission would be pretty cool, at least from a role-play standpoint.

[Chris Mortika]

Sounds good. I like your thoughts about threesomes.

Here are some concerns:

PCs who work together repeatedly don't particularly need extra bonuses. They have a great advantage over teams of strangers in PFS. And teams that know ahead of time that they'll be on a series of missions together, and can build their characters accordingly, have an even greater advantage.

It's probably not as much fun to be the one player at a 4-player table that isn't on "the team".

It's probably not much fun when you have a character who can play in a scenario and make a legal table, but you don't want to do it because you'd be breaking the delve team. I'd cut them some slack there.

Do modules count as one mission, or three? Does slow exp progression influence the count?

My boon recommendation would be a re-roll that must be given to another team member.

[Alexander_Damocles]

Personally, every group i've been in just roleplays that they are a team that usually works together. No need to make GM's do more paperwork and provide a mechanical benefit to things players should be doing already.