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More factions could be at risk if the results of the scenarios points towards it. No faction is safe. Timely reporting is important for faction health.
Side Note: John Compton will be lead developer for PFS after Gen Con.
Faction missions will be relevant to bigger picture next season. They are heading away from faction mission hand outs.
Some scenarios will offer bonus to characters of specific factions if the accomplish their mission and the blurbs will mention which factions are prominent in a scenario.
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Id also love to see perhaps an Aspis/Shadow Lodge hookup, or just the Shadow Lodge going bad boy again. Well better bad boy. Its often hard to see the difference between the Aspis and Pathfinder Society :)
That's because there really isn't one out of character. :) Well, the AC tend to have a much better reputation among the common man.
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Agree. On the other hand, my main character would basically triple their wealth had this always been the way it worked as I almost always play at or down. So I'll wait and see, I guess.You still get the low wealth when you play down.
Maybe, I'm not clear on the specifics yet, but I was talking about how it might have changed other players choice in playing up or not.
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Gah the new idea for wealth is silly. I think it will create an equal amount of consternation.
One issue I see is that less tables will be made. people wanting to play in their character in a tier can not convince a lower level to play up so they are both better off.
I have to agree with this. Since there is no benefit to playing up and a penalty to playing down, it is going to be harder to form tables out of mixed level groups. There is just going to be more pressure from each side to play in whatever subtier their character currently fits. If they were going to go this route it would have been better to just remove the penalty for playing down altogether so groups can decide which challenge they really want without being biased due to the drive to maximize their characters wealth. With no reason to play up and a very strong reason not to play down this decision is just going to ramp up the tension in mixed level groups and make it harder to put a table together.
I am given to understand that one of the reasons for this decision was people being bullied to play up in scenarios. This does nothing to address that. In fact, it makes it worse. Previously, there was at least some reward to playing up in a scenario. Now there's no reward for playing up, but anyone playing down is getting screwed so you're just going to end up with two sides entrenched against each other with absolutely no reason for either side to compromise. It'd be nice to think that everyone at a given table could come to a reasonable agreement each time this comes up without anyone's temper flaring up or hurt feelings on on one side or another, but I don't see that happening. In any situation where players at a table have characters on either of the sub-tiers, there is always going to be a winner and a loser (or people who just end up not playing, which is even worse).
Either remove the penalty for playing down to match the subtraction of the bonus for playing up, or keep it under its current structure.
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faction mission success is silly. The writers determine the success fo a mission. If you write missions that require radically changing skills sets to accomplish then that will effect the success rate.
Plus some DMs are so boneheaded they do not accept creative ideas
Seems like they want to go towards more creative ideas then hardwired faction mission skill requirements.
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Whelp, looks like none of my raving came true. I'm relieved, though I do hate to be wrong. I also must say, I did like having the Pathfinder Teamsters. But seeing the two factions tied to the stories of past seasons go seems appropriate to me.
Its off to create my samurai character and hammer him to 12th before Way of the Kirin hits... good thing that my game store is open 24 hours a day so I can run an entire adventure path between now and... May 30th? Egads, I better get movin'. Say, is that podcast still going for those of us just getting home?
faction mission success is silly. The writers determine the success fo a mission. If you write missions that require radically changing skills sets to accomplish then that will effect the success rate.
Plus some DMs are so boneheaded they do not accept creative ideas
Reminds me of the several times I've suggested just stealing a whole statue/wall/piece of architecture/sentient creature in place of actually rolling a skill check. Some GMs say yes, others give me a bad face and tell me "the scenario says...". Creative solutions aren't always viable and vary from GM to GM. I've seen some that let you do arguably too much and some who probably don't let you do enough.
"No need to roll any skill checks, I'll just take the whole thing and let the society sort it out!"
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So far I have not heard any good news. Losing factions is meh news. I was not a fan of those two as I felt they were poorly done. Until we find out what happens with those two factions I am indifferent.
The wealth decision I disagree with.
By the way thank you for posting updates Jeffrey Fox. I really appreicate it.
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Reminds me of the several times I've suggested just stealing a whole statue/wall/piece of architecture/sentient creature in place of actually rolling a skill check. Some GMs say yes, others give me a bad face and tell me "the scenario says...". Creative solutions aren't always viable and vary from GM to GM. I've seen some that let you do arguably too much and some who probably don't let you do enough."No need to roll any skill checks, I'll just take the whole thing and let the society sort it out!"
Exactly, I have had DMs stop people in their diplomacy speech after the first sentance and demand them just to roll.
I will limit myself. So if I feel it is given to me I will fight the DM. But I guess not everyone is like me.
Reminds me of the several times I've suggested just stealing a whole statue/wall/piece of architecture/sentient creature in place of actually rolling a skill check. Some GMs say yes, others give me a bad face and tell me "the scenario says...". Creative solutions aren't always viable and vary from GM to GM. I've seen some that let you do arguably too much and some who probably don't let you do enough."No need to roll any skill checks, I'll just take the whole thing and let the society sort it out!"
Exactly, I have had DMs stop people in their diplomacy speech after the first sentance and demand them just to roll.
I will limit myself. So if I feel it is given to me I will fight the DM. But I guess not everyone is like me.
I can understand doing that in the case of a time restraint and that sort of worries, but I'm rather against telling players no or being any sort of killjoy. I do usually give an odd face if someone tells me I can't take a live captive I don't want to kill(or harvest organs or whatever from), and I do usually prefer to just to offer alternative options to the first roll if people in the groups just can't do that with their current skills.
To be honest, unless they just kill off the Decemvirate, Im not really caring about the storylineThere are multiple members of the Decemvirate killed as part of the Shadowlodge Plotline.
They must be really good because I've never seen them do it...
As a side note, I think I'll miss the shadow lodge. You feel like you need a faction who's idea is keeping the world from being corrupt when half the factions are out for themselves and many of my faction missions involved finding someone's corpse.
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Surely the Shadow Lodge choice was made because it was the MOST popular faction, rather than the least. What is going on here.
I really hope they post the numbers, or at least percentages. Shadow Lodge may be popular in your area, but not everywhere. We have a huge local group around here, so I'm constantly playing with different players, some of whom have multiple PCs, and I think I've only ever seen maybe 5 or 6 Shadow Lodge PCs, including my own. That's not a lot out of the probably 200+ PCs I've been at tables with over the years.
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The change should be based on what the faction can add to the PFS game. If they are out of stories for latern lodge, or that people and writers do nto came about them, then they should move on. The people developing PFS is letting us play an interactive story THEY are writing.
I trust them to pick based on what they plan to entertain us with in the future.
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So let me ask a practical question as someone who really doesn't have a feel for how this all works yet...
I'm finishing up First Steps this weekend with my first PFS character who was all gung ho to join the Shadow Lodge.
Would that now be a stupid thing do? Would I be disadvantaging myself overmuch by joining a soon-to-be dead faction? Or will it be overall neutral?
(Or I could just go with my second choice, the Lantern Lodge. Oh wait...)
Venture-Lieutenant, West Virginia—Charleston
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So let me ask a practical question as someone who really doesn't have a feel for how this all works yet...
I'm finishing up First Steps this weekend with my first PFS character who was all gung ho to join the Shadow Lodge.
Would that now be a stupid thing do? Would I be disadvantaging myself overmuch by joining a soon-to-be dead faction? Or will it be overall neutral?
(Or I could just go with my second choice, the Lantern Lodge. Oh wait...)
It should be fine, especially if you can get him up to level 3 before Rival's End - that'd be a great start for a character.
So let me ask a practical question as someone who really doesn't have a feel for how this all works yet...
I'm finishing up First Steps this weekend with my first PFS character who was all gung ho to join the Shadow Lodge.
Would that now be a stupid thing do? Would I be disadvantaging myself overmuch by joining a soon-to-be dead faction? Or will it be overall neutral?
(Or I could just go with my second choice, the Lantern Lodge. Oh wait...)
Factions aren't officially out yet. You have quite some time before they disappear. You can still have fun playing them and later change to another faction that interest you. If I understand correctly anyway. They don't even have the retirement scenarios out where those factions actually disappear.
Do what's fun for you.
That's what I care about most anyway. Very sad to see the shadow lodge leave. I'm sure we'll see plenty of threads pop up to talk about that however. I hope the whole controlling where the faction goes thing doesn't lead anywhere bad...
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Venture-Lieutenant, West Virginia—Charleston
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The scoop on major changes to the campaign broken: 1. Somewhere other than paizo.com, and 2. As part of a podcast.
Mind boggling.
Well, the benefit of it was to allow live questions and answers, and to allow for a more informal discussion of the reasons behind these actions. To me, it makes perfect sense - outlining these revelations in a lengthy blog post would be dissected and misread by many, possibly to the disservice of the campaign.
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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It was a way to field questions immediately and talk "face-to-face" instead of a unemotional blog. Sorry you are disappointed in the method of delivery but we received an overwhelmingly positive response. You are the first to advise it is a complete lack of consideration and shockingly bad judgement. We will try to do better next time with just a plain old blog post and less questions answered with the immediacy we were able to provide.
Also, it was recorded and will be placed HERE if you would Ike to watch it for yourself and not rely on second and interpretations.