I need to give you a little background first before I get to my questions. Sorry in advance if this becomes lengthy.
Let me first say, I've been playing tabletop games with my small group of friends in Champions Hero System and D&D for about the last 15 years. For the most part we're still stuck in D&D 3.0 because the campaigns we have are home-brew that the GM(s) don't want to attempt to retro-fit the game world to the changes presented in 3.5 as well as Pathfinder system. We can't manage to finish a campaign either because we're all adults with busy schedules, where sometimes we can go anywhere from 2-4 months between a game session when we all get super busy. Sometimes we do get to play twice in the same month, but not often. Compounding this we have 3 GM's in the group (myself one of them) that we rotate to reduce burnout of GM-dome and each of us has about 2 separate campaigns to boot. Summary about 6 campaigns on rotation with the potential for long gaps between sessions.
I am an advocate for the Pathfinder system (and so is my wife who is one of the other GM's of the group) because we really like the changes that have been presented. I've tons of the Pathfinder books and adventure paths sitting on the shelf ready to go once we complete something - but alas we have yet to. So... I have YET to honestly play the Pathfinder system. I'm a friken Adventure Path charter subscriber who's never played this wonderful game!
One of my campaigns, is actually a pickup game "system" where I came up with a set of rules in an effort to bring players to the table more often, if one or two people couldn't make the game. I won't run a pick-up game unless I have a minimum of 4 players or in special circumstances 2 players who play two characters a piece (yea I know what you're thinking).
One night I decided to read the PFS rules, and I really like how it handles characters and keeping them honest, how buying items works, ect, that I want to convert my pickup world to something close to PFS. It is well structured for dealing with not needing story line continuity between sessions or to the same exact characters / number of characters between sessions. The added bonus is I actually get to play Pathfinder. In addition, my wife and I are already registered to come to PaizoCon this year and we're both in the process of creating our first characters in preparation.
Finally getting to my questions:
1) I notice there is no mention of gold in regards to carrying capacity for saving up to buy something expensive or even exchange rate of coin conversion to reduce weight. Are we to assume we have "floating bank accounts" / "ATM cards" where our wealth is accessible anywhere we go? Would I be right in thinking that my gold (wealth) would never put me at a medium or heavy load if I were saving up to buy something worth 4000 GP?
2) Lets pretend that I'm the GM of a game, and we're playing my pickup game world described above and rebranded to closer align to the PFS system. What we're using for the scenario happens to also be a PFS scenario (because I feel like being lazy and it is already formatted to fit the needs of the day).
a) As a registered PFS member and a GM, I'm entitled to apply the chronicle sheet to any of my own characters. I'm clear on that. What I'm not clear on is when a chronicle sheet has two subtiers. If the scenario was played at 1-2 the chronicle sheet is applied to my character at the same 1-2? What about the subtier 4-5 equipment when the character reaches 4th level. Is that equipment now available to me the GM, or no because the scenario was played at 1-2? Is that the same for a regular player as well?
b) Again as a registered PFS member and being the GM... my wife is also a registered PFS member. Let us suppose that no one else at the table is a PFS member though. There are 4 players at the table, but only 1 registered PFS member. Can this be classified as a legal table and legal event, and therefore eligible for giving the chronicle sheet to the one player?
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1) Overall, many PFS GMs don't worry about the weight of money. There are several reasons, that shake out to ways to reduce the weight, sometimes significantly, without affecting the value.
10 gp can be exchanged into 1 pp, and vice versa.
You can also buy gems, and, since they are commodities, they can be sold for full value.
Many of us just consider that kind of thing a behind the scenes thing, and don't worry too much about weight of money except in odd cases.
2) a) As a GM you apply the Chronicle Sheet at the tier most appropriate to the PC it is being applied to.
GM Credit Assignment Breakdown
If that link works, it pulls up a spreadsheet showing what credit options you have for your GM PC to get credit from each scenario.
So, the Chronicle, along with gold, boons, full PP, and items available, are credited to your GM PC at the tier appropriate for that PC.
Doesn't matter what sub-tier it was run at, just what level your PC is.
For the player's PC, they only gain gold, boons, and item access as approriate for the sub-tier played at, along with the items listed for lower sub-tiers. This won't change for a previous Chronicle when the PC levels up. Once a Chronicle is earned, it becomes static for that PC.
b) It can be classified as legal IF the other players' PCs are built and handled in all ways as PFS PCs. 20 point buy, 150 gp start, 2 legal traits, feats only from legal sources, etc.
For the other players, offer them the option, and, once you setup your event in the sytem, you can download a batch of PFS cards, and assign them to your other players, simply for tracking purposes. If they decide to activate the card, they will have PFS legal PCs with whatever they have earned for them.
There are several discussions over on the GM Discussion board side, about this kind of thing.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Welcome to PFS!
1) Presumably your PC lives somewhere. You can always leave your extra crap at home. And generally, you don't find yourself shopping in the middle of an adventure. All in all, it's a moot point and the rare case that cash-on-hand might matter is probably going to get hand-waved.
2) First, be aware that for your session to be part of PFS organized play, you have to not only run the scenario, but all the PCs must be either legal PFS characters or official pregens. So if you're running (for instance) a 7th-level homebrew game, then insert a PFS scenario, no one gets PFS credit if anyone plays their homebrew-game characters. Everyone would have to be playing either 7th-level pregens or their own PFS characters that they advanced from 1st level by playing PFS games.
2)a) Your GM credit is applied at whichever subtier is appropriate for the PC you apply it to at that time. If your PC's level is between subtiers, you apply the lower one. This is completely independent of which subtier was played.
2)b) Yes, but again only if the entire session is run by PFS rules. Thus, even the players who weren't interested in PFS at all would have to be playing either PFS characters of their own, or official pregens. No bringing in custom PCs from a home campaign. For example, I ran First Steps Part 1 for my wife, a friend, and the friend's wife. My wife already had a PFS PC at the appropriate level, so she played it. Same for my friend. My friend's wife, however, had no such character and no intention of joining organized play. It was a legal PFS table, but only on the condition that she played an official pregen. Had she brought in a homemade PC, no one would get PFS credit for the session.
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2)b) Yes, but again only if the entire session is run by PFS rules. Thus, even the players who weren't interested in PFS at all would have to be playing either PFS characters of their own, or official pregens. No bringing in custom PCs from a home campaign. For example, I ran First Steps Part 1 for my wife, a friend, and the friend's wife. My wife already had a PFS PC at the appropriate level, so she played it. Same for my friend. My friend's wife, however, had no such character and no intention of joining organized play. It was a legal PFS table, but only on the condition that she played an official pregen. Had she brought in a homemade PC, no one would get PFS credit for the session.
For clarification, if your friend's homemade PC complied with all PFS rules but didn't have a PFS character number, would that quality for making the table PFS legal?
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1) A lot og GMs ignore it. As a player though there are a variety of ways to minimize weight. Convert gold into platinum will cut weight down by 10 fold. Also, UE gives us the ability to buy gems at face value and sell them at face value. A player could have 30,000+ GP in gems and wouldn't even break 1 pound of weight.
2) (A) has been well answered but (B) is tricky. Your players must all follow the PFS rules. This means that your campaign for all purposes is a PFS event. Your players will have to keep their chronicle sheets, gain gold according to them, buy items in accordance with PFS rules, etc. You will also need to start everyone at lvl 1 if they want their own characters. It's going to be tricky to convince your players to take on all those restrictions and restart their campaign with fresh characters if they are not interested in PFS. Edit: The only stipulation for mixing PFS and non PFS players is in Adventure Paths that are legal for PFS play. You can then play through the adventure path and those players with PFS numbers get chronicles to apply to a character.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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For clarification, if your friend's homemade PC complied with all PFS rules but didn't have a PFS character number, would that quality for making the table PFS legal?
Remember that for a non-PFS PC to "comply with all PFS rules", they'd have to be 1st-level with exactly 150gp worth of items and cash. The only way to be anything other than that and still be complying with PFS rules is through PFS chronicle sheets.