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... and I had a pretty good time.
I wasn't a stranger to shared world style campaigns, and when a friend said he started playing Pathfinder I began to come up with a few build ideas. I checked Warhorn and saw that my FLGS was running 2-SP, and said to myself "all right, a special. Sounds like a perfect place to start a new character." I ended up at a table with a couple people I knew and we sat down.
I was playing Barth, a Cleric of Shelyn, and went with the Scroll Scholar archtype, because why not? Anyway, i started the adventure by rocking the Knowledge check i'd chosen, leading to the table calling me the Bard for a bit, so that was cool.
During the next encounter, I did a not so cool thing and held up the game a bit by arguing a ruling. I didn't intend to stall the encounter by having the GM look up a rule, but it turned out that everyone had PDFs on their tablets and it can take some time to do that. So yeah, mea culpa on that one. At least I learned from my mistake, and looked up my next rules question on my own and talked to the GM after the encounter was over. Let this be a lesson to you: don't sweat the small stuff. Unless it's a character life or death thing, do your own detective work and discuss it during downtime.
Speaking of encounters; our party was unprepared for one of the hazards that we faced, and we got hosed pretty badly by it. It's been a while since I'd played at first level; it's pretty rough. By the last encounter I was pretty much running on empty...
Anyway, on the whole I had a good time. Our GM did a pretty awesome job presenting the adventure, and I thought our party worked together quite well.
As for Barth, I'll look to get a couple more adventures under my belt, and then figure out in which direction I want to go. Given the 'Bard' moniker, I might be tempted to take the Evangelist archetype... though not being able to channel during 2nd level would be pretty painful, let alone loss of spontaneous cures...
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Hello First World Bard,
First of all welcome to Pathfinder Society and I"m glad you enjoyed your first game.
Rules can be a tough issue. There are a lot of them and sometimes it is easy to mix them up. Even the best GMs do so occasionally. What I have found is usually the best is to go with the GM's ruling (unless it really screws you over) and look up the the relevant section you think they have gotten wrong. In my experience most GM's do not mind admitting they were wrong and back tracking a little but to correct the mistake, but in a PFS time slot where time is of the essence we really don't have time to look up a rule, especially if it seems pretty minor. But stuff happens, I know I have done what you did before and have been quite a sore sport about it too. I really don't want to spend more then 30 seconds on a given rules issue if I can as GM. There just is not time.
Being unprepared for a encounter or hazard can really suck. Some more experienced Pathfinders I play with, and myself will often go through a checklist to see if the party is prepared to deal with it. Some of the bigger ones you will run into as you level up are,
Deeper Darkness
High DR
Flying Enemies
Grapple Checks Across the Party (Can you say black tentacles)
Dominate Person
Baleful Polymorph
Invisibility
Swarms
Very high ACs
As for your character, Evangelist is a very strong archetype for Cleric. I know a guy who plays a cleric named Leer who is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, cleric I have ever played with. Given how few Bards there are in my area his aoe buffs really make a huge difference across the party.
Whatever decision you make you will want to decide before you play at level 2. Until your first game at level 2 you can make any adjustments to your character as you want
P.S. I was your GM today. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I am also not one of the best GM's you will encounter at our lodge. Mark (the guy running high tier) Linda (the overseer GM), and David (Our venture lieutenant) are all incredible.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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My advice to anyone who doesn't have a good time during their first game is to give it another chance. My two buddies and I tried it together, and our GM was horrible, and they've never been back. I tried it again, different day, different GM, and six months later I still love it.
Agreed. While I enjoyed my first few games, they were *extremely* difficult, and it really skewed my view of PFS. This caused some unfortunate early forum posts that I kind of regret and wish I could take back.
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Generally, when a rules issue comes up and the GM makes an on-the-spot ruling which turns out later to be incorrect, it is best just to move on with the correct rule in place from that point forward. Unless the GM ruling resulted in a character death or scenario mission failure.
Taking the time to back track and replay the game from an earlier point or make adjustments to "fix" the error takes time and usually results in a break in the flow of the game and/or some unwelcome meta-gaming.
In my games, I limit backtracking to the current player's turn - as in letting them do something else if it turns out what they had planned wouldn't work under the rules anyhow. Once they are done and I've called the next combatant, I won't go back to adjust hit points or roll a forgotten saving throw unless it seriously affects the game.
Of course every game is different and it is up to each GM to decide what is best to provide a fair and fun experience to everyone at the table.
